Chapter 231 – Soaring (One)

The light faded, and the elves who saw the landscape unfolding before their eyes buzzed with excitement.

“The World Tree!”

“There’s a World Tree here too!”

The colossal World Tree, standing tall in the middle of the wilderness, occupied most of their field of view.

“What’s that next to the trunk? A mountain? A tree? It’s not as big as the World Tree, but it’s incredibly tall. I’ve never seen a tree with such a bizarre shape before.”

“The bark color is strange. It looks extremely hard.”

Rael Row was easily over a hundred meters tall, but it looked relatively dwarfed because of the World Tree.

The elves who had just arrived via Spatial Magic were all young, with no experience outside the forest.

Grine, the only one with outside experience, spoke in a confident voice.

“That’s not a tree, it’s a castle. A mobile fortress built on a massive rocky mountain. Its main material is a substance called metal, processed from minerals underground.”

“What’s ‘construction’?”

“Metal?”

“They’re concepts we elves don’t have, but to explain…”

Ray left the noisy elves behind and surveyed his surroundings.

The vast shade of the World Tree and the sunlight.

Scattered across the wilderness beneath it were young shrubs and trees growing.

‘Grine sowed the seeds before we left.’

It seemed the dwarves had managed them with their technology, even though he hadn’t asked.

The soil’s fertility, having just begun to recover, couldn’t have produced such growth on its own.

───.

He stirred the Mana in the air with his hand.

It was thick and sluggish, and the quality of the elements was low.

…He could feel all the hardships and trials the Mana must have endured while drifting through the world.

It was burnt out.

Like scrap metal, powerless, drifting down the Elton River and piling up in Sector 50.

But if a forest were to grow here someday in the future.

‘Wouldn’t all the Mana that flowed into this place become clean again?’

Lost in such thoughts, the space before him suddenly rippled, and Ray reflexively swung his palm.

“Kid, you’re back─.”

Thud!

Curiosa, making her entrance, got hit in the head and fell flat on her face.

A brief silence flowed.

Curiosa, dusting herself off and getting up, looked bewildered before comprehending the situation and expressing her boiling anger.

“You damn brat! Do you want to die? This humiliation and contempt…! Deceit and assault…! Fraud and theft…! I can’t take it anymore! Today, on this spot, unless one of us dies─!”

“I’ll tell you what my second favorite color is.”

“─nothing will happen. You must have had a hard time on your trip. Hmm, yes. Are you hurt anywhere?”

Curiosa, now a docile lamb, explained the situation in a proud voice.

“I sensed the Mana currents were unusual. If I hadn’t noticed and made the dwarves retreat in advance, a spatial overlap accident could have happened.”

“I didn’t think about that part. That’s fortunate. Thank you.”

Instantly, Curiosa created distance with Spatial Magic.

“Thank you? Who are you? The kid I know would never say thank you to me.”

“I’m Ray.”

“You’re a Homunculus sent by the Doctor, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a Homunculus, I’m Ray.”

After being wary for a while, Curiosa finally let go of her suspicion and approached.

Then she was told about what had happened in the Last Forest.

“Homunculi attacked the forest?”

“An executive named Obsess was inside the forest. Here, a notebook she dropped.”

Flap─ Flap─

With each turn of the white paper filled with diary entries, Curiosa’s emotions surged.

Sadness, longing, regret, remorse….

It was a different reaction from when she heard about Walter or Vicious.

“Were you friends?”

“…We were friends. Philia, you too fell under an Emotional Curse and became the Doctor’s slave. Kid, let’s talk about the rest later. I think I need a little time to collect my emotions.”

Curiosa, her voice subdued, took the notebook and disappeared beyond a Spatial Rift into her cabin.

“…….”

Lost in thought, Ray suddenly heard sounds and looked around.

Gurgle. Gurgle.

Moo. Mooo.

Hundreds of young animals were advancing among the young plants.

Carefully placing their feet,

sniffing scents, brushing past.

They seemed to know this was the place where they would live from now on.

The elves and dwarves were interlocked like two separate seas that didn’t mix.

“They look like big lumps of stone. If you pushed them, they’d probably roll.”

“They’re incredibly short. Is that their full-grown size?”

This was the elves’ murmuring.

“Look at those slender bodies. They look like they’d break like dry twigs if you tapped them.”

“I heard they were lords confined to the forest. I don’t like their condescending eyes.”

This was the dwarves’ buzzing.

Whether the aversion to the other race was inherent in their instincts, their attitudes weren’t exactly friendly.

Well, future harmony was a problem the two races would have to solve by joining forces.

“Veronica, I’ll be back.”

“Okay. Are you going right away?”

Ray nodded.

Ever since the moment he realized his sense of belonging and could further amplify the power of the green gem, there was something he had longed for.

Tap tap tap tap!

While running toward the World Tree, he could see dwarves working around holes scattered about.

From ropes and drills to objects of shapes hard to guess their purpose.

All sorts of equipment and tools were strewn about chaotically.

“Oh, you’re back.”

“From afar, it looks like you brought quite a number of elves.”

He quickly told the Elders he met along the way about the elves who chose to migrate.

He immediately resumed running, arriving before the World Tree, and without hesitation, leaped up and began climbing.

Tap! Tap! Tap tap! Tap!

The sound of stepping on protruding bark and branches as he climbed echoed busily.

And when he reached a height similar to the top of Rael Row.

He ran along a long piece of bark extending outward and leaped with all his might from its end.

────!

His body, with hot blood flowing, drew a long parabola in the air, and the generated wind slowed his falling speed.

And.

Thump!

The boy landed on the watchtower of Rael Row like a comet.

Turning his head to the side, he saw another boy who had hastily rolled over and was lying face down.

“Whoa, damn. Are you trying to kill me? I never imagined you’d jump across that distance.”

Is, dusting himself off and getting up, cleared his throat and spoke.

“I measured my height yesterday, and I grew 0.01mm compared to when you left. The medicine seems to be working. How about it? Aren’t you scared? How far will I actually grow? Catching up to your height will be quick. Be nervous.”

He looked extremely satisfied to finally say this.

“That’s terrifying. I’m scared. More importantly, Is, is the flying device finished?”

“Ah, that. Well, it’s finished, but…”

Is disappeared into the watchtower entrance and soon returned carrying something.

It was a metal box designed to be worn on the back like a backpack.

Below, several cylinders hung like a vehicle’s exhaust pipes, and on both sides, large wings made of thin metal wires and membranes were attached.

“Press this switch, and Is No. 2 will suck in Atmospheric Mana to use as power. Since you’re a Wizard, if you use your own Mana directly, the output will be higher.”

“Is No. 2?”

“That’s the name of this flying device. Anyway, once the injected Mana is converted to power─.”

“So these wings move.”

“─Huh? The wings are decorative?”

“I understand. Unnecessary parts.”

Is had to exert all his strength for a moment to stop Ray from tearing off the wings.

“Huff… huff… You have to listen to a dwarf until the end. Why are you in such a hurry today? The wings don’t move much. They don’t flap like a bird’s. But! They play a very important role by reducing air resistance when gliding.”

“I shouldn’t tear them off?”

“Of course not. Unless you want to experience plummeting down mid-flight due to reduced propulsion.”

Ray nodded, strapped the flying device to his back, and prepared to leap back toward the World Tree.

Is, who had been blankly watching, snapped out of it.

“Wait, wait a minute! What are you doing? That’s a prototype! It hasn’t been verified yet whether it’s safe or─.”

“It’s fine. Whether it’s safe or not.”

Is got up to stop him, but Ray was already running along the long ledge of the watchtower.

Tap-thud!

“I’ll test it myself.”

Ray, drawing a parabola in the air, landed on the edge of the World Tree’s bark.

Looking back, he could see Is shouting something.

─Hey! Give it back! That still needs more testing! You thief!

‘He must be happy his invention is being used right away.’

Ray nodded, waved to Is, and began climbing the World Tree again.

Perhaps because of the flying device’s weight, sweat poured from his entire body like rain even though he used Enhancement Magic to its maximum.

Just as his breathing began to falter slightly, Lacria conveyed its intention.

It would help.

Lacria, summoned outside the gem, was small at first.

However, when it appeared from the opposite side after circling the World Tree’s branch once, it had changed to a length of tens of meters.

Ray entered the giant snake’s mouth and settled on a fang.

“I leave it to you.”

Instantly, his bodily sensations were shaken.

Lacria had set off.

Kugugugu─!

As the altitude increased, Ray felt the Contract Seal engraved near his heart grow hot.

It was the transmission of Lacria’s highly excited emotions.

‘You’re excited too? Because we’re getting closer to the Sky Island?’

Feeling his pounding chest, Ray recalled Gwendel’s teaching.

「When rapport and trust accumulate, a Spirit can assimilate with its master’s emotions. The opposite is also possible. According to records, in very special cases, they can even share all senses. It’s said a phenomenon occurs where the Spirit becomes me, or conversely, I become the Spirit.」

Emotional assimilation.

In this case, it seemed they were assimilating to each other’s emotions.

How long did they run like that?

At some point, the vibrations stopped.

Stepping out of Lacria’s mouth, he was at the top of the World Tree.

“…….”

The infinitely stretched yellow wilderness.

Gray roads stretching out like palm lines.

Ruins in all directions, and abandoned vehicles.

…And the anomalous phenomena caused by Mana occurring all along the horizon—fire, lightning, and such.

Even though it was clearly a landscape he had seen before, he couldn’t help but be mesmerized for a moment.

Remembering what he had to do, the boy snapped out of it and turned around.

“Is it that good? Enough to dance?”

Lacria, now only palm-sized, was raising its body toward the sky and wriggling.

Following its gaze upward, he saw the Black Cloud covering the sky.

Its density was noticeably lower than elsewhere… but it still served as an obstacle, blocking the view of the sky beyond.

‘The Sky Island is above that.’

Ray summoned the green gem.

Holding onto a branch of the World Tree, he drew up the two emotions associated with Green Mana.

‘Who exactly is Rainbow?’

Curiosity.

‘The individual is the whole.’

And a sense of belonging.

Oooong───!

The gem’s Mana emitted a Resonance of an unprecedented magnitude.

A pulsating wave of life raced along the boy’s arm and was injected into the World Tree’s branch.

And then, soon.

Kugugu──!

The World Tree, which he thought had surely reached its growth limit.

Kugugugu───!

Once again, began to stretch its body powerfully and rise.

A fierce vibration occurred.

His field of view gradually ascended.

The snake’s dance intensified, and the boy’s hand stretched toward the sky drew closer to the clouds.

And at some moment.

───.

The vibration stopped.

The clouds seemed within grasp but weren’t. A slight distance was lacking.

Ray activated the flying device’s switch and, as Is had explained, combined elements and injected them into the shoulder straps.

Swoosh──!

The folded wings spread out.

A chemical reaction of elements occurred in the nozzles attached below the device, and high-density clumps of wind began to condense.

Ray, having reverse-summoned Lacria, looked down at the distant ground.

If he failed, he would fall and suffer serious injuries.

‘Veronica will heal me.’

Having recently risen to the 2nd Circle, the amount and quality of White Mana contained in his Ring had greatly increased.

Wouldn’t that even make resurrecting a person possible?

Of course it would be possible.

Having finished his judgment, the boy ran along the World Tree’s branch and leaped with all his might.

Tap!

And, he soared.