At dawn just before sunrise, when outlines were faintly distinguishable, I was mercilessly shaken awake by Daisy and opened my eyes. Just waking up, I asked in a mumbling tone what was going on, and she told me that Iris’s party had arrived.

“At… dawn? No, how did they find this place?”

As I rolled out of bed and opened the door, I saw them looking very haggard. It must have been a tough forced march for Loop, who had been sitting and researching in the alchemy tower for a long time; she was barely standing by the wall with trembling legs.

“Th-they said you urgently needed me…”

Loop shot an eager glance at the sofa visible over my shoulder, her whole body screaming that she wanted to sit. Helping her into the room alongside Iris, we guided her inside.

The spacious room filled with the cold night air the outsiders had brought in. My shoulders shivered, and any lingering drowsiness vanished. I picked up the water pitcher on the bedside table and poured water into a cup for Loop’s share.

Whether from relief or exhaustion, Loop looked like she might die at any moment, like someone just crossing a desert.

“Oh… sorry for putting you through this at dawn. Thanks for coming. And thank you all for completing the request so quickly!”

“We did our best since it was an emergency request from the Guild Master! It was lucky that the Golden Amber Trading Company arranged the fastest carriage to help us. They asked me to put in a good word with Master Jae.”

Iris spoke with a smile, but her voice was thick with fatigue. They each settled into the living room sofas, looking around at the place.

“How did you find where I was staying? I didn’t expect you to come at dawn, so I forgot to tell you.”

“We looked for the biggest and most expensive inn in Terrarium. Took a guess, and luckily it was right.”

I got more cups from the cupboard and poured water for Iris’s party as well. They drank it down greedily as if it were the elixir of life. A pang of guilt hit me for putting them through so much trouble.

“There’s a lecture by a famous alchemist here in Terrarium today, and I need to meet that alchemist. The conditions to attend the lecture are strict, so I absolutely needed Loop.”

I handed Loop the brochure for Earning’s lecture. The moment she saw it, she gasped sharply, utterly astonished.

“No way! Earning is here? That’s insane… I thought she was dead! Wow, but she looks younger than I imagined. As expected, druids have long lifespans… I also didn’t know Earning was a woman. Wow… it’s really Earning.”

Loop was glued to the brochure like a fangirl. Her voice rose with excitement as she showered Earning with praises, looking like she might burst like a sparked firecracker if anyone showed the slightest agreement.

“Earning is a godlike figure to us insect alchemy majors! Her achievements are incredible. She not only laid the foundation for insect alchemy but also proved its commercial viability, letting countless majors earn a living. There’s not a single researcher majoring in insect alchemy who doesn’t know Earning’s name! When I first joined the Alchemy Tower, I studied from books written by Earning.”

Oh, so he really was an extraordinary person. Hearing from Loop that someone so remarkable had previously served as an advisor to the 28th Terrarium made the dissonance feel even greater.

“Not only had he been missing for nearly ten years, but he never left the alchemy tower of the 1st Terrarium, making him a very mysterious figure. To think he’d actually give a lecture in person… So, Jae, what should I do?”

“Are you eligible to attend that lecture?”

I’d gone to the trouble of bringing Loop, but it wouldn’t all be for nothing, right?

“Yes! Though it was a few years ago, I was listed as a co-researcher in an academic journal from the 3rd Terrarium. It was based on the theory underlying my developed Loop Parasite No. 5. With the paper deadline approaching, I hastily wrote something like a novel, speculating that if a parasite could overcome the World Tree’s blessing and use part of it as food, it might gain special effects. At the time, it was criticized and dismissed, but later, when another official alchemist published supporting papers, it was reevaluated, and I was acknowledged as a co-researcher and listed in the journal. Recently, someone actually succeeded in inventing something based on the theory, so I scraped together research funds and made it too, but…”

As for what happened after that, you know, sir… Loop trailed off. No, when will you stop calling me sir like Pila? It’s embarrassing…

I remembered hearing when I bought Loop’s parasite that it needed to be fed part of the World Tree. Back then, I found it bizarre that both the parasite and its creator, Loop, were so strange. To think that Loop was the first to come up with the idea of feeding parasites parts of the World Tree…

“How on earth did you come up with that idea…”

To my muttering, Loop replied matter-of-factly.

“With countless alchemy towers across numerous terrariums, and alchemists and researchers numbering in the hundreds, to survive, you always have to think of what others won’t.”

As Loop spoke, she pulled over a large cushion at the end of the sofa. Made of soft velvet, simply pressing lightly left deep-colored marks. When she spread her palm and pressed down on most of the cushion, the pink cushion turned patchy purple, as if soaked in water.

Pointing to a small, pink, thumb-sized area without any fingerprints, Loop said.

“The later you’re born, the more you have to dig into the land of knowledge that earlier researchers have already thoroughly excavated, finding even a palm-sized intact patch to work on—and even then, not all digging yields treasure.”

She held up the cushion. Then she pointed to the pink edges and borders that didn’t have any fingerprints on them.

“While some people dig in one spot their entire lives without finding a water vein, there are those who just lightly scrape away at a place others haven’t dug and strike a gold vein. When you think about it, alchemists are no different from miners wandering in search of gold veins.”

I don’t think I could ever do something like alchemy. A sub-job, my ass. I’ll just focus on doing my best with the druid I’m currently playing.

“This is just a side note, but I’ve heard that some alchemists deliberately frequent taverns and gambling dens. They wander around looking for places where all sorts of unconventional stories come out, trying to pick up ideas any way they can. In that sense, I’m quite talented because I can come up with good ideas without even visiting such places. But I didn’t want to stay in a place where you can be left behind so easily just by trying to take things a little easier. Even if my talent wouldn’t leave me alone. As I told you before, I left the Alchemy Tower because I wanted to learn a skill I could use for life, whether by inheriting the family business or learning a trade.”

Lufe seemed to have a very strong sense of self-esteem, just like Pila. She acted conceited, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

“You mean you have to go to the lecture here? Then why are we just standing around like this! We might already be too late!”

Lufe tossed aside the cushion she was holding and jumped up from her seat.

“Old man, give me the ticket money!”

She cupped her hands together and held them out to me, looking anxious. Her sudden actions startled me, but I obediently took out my phone and spent some diamonds.

“It’s none other than Earning’s lecture! People must already be lining up overnight to buy tickets! They might have been in line since three days ago.”

“So you want to go line up at this hour of the morning?”

Just as Lufe was about to dash out as soon as she received the diamonds, I quickly grabbed her arm.

“Earning, who doesn’t even come out of 1st-tier, visiting a double-digit Terrarium is such a rare occurrence! By now, people who failed to get tickets from earlier Terrariums and those who came up from later ones might have already filled the first-come, first-served slots.”

“Don’t go alone…”

Just in case, I paired her up with Zephyr and Herma. The two of them had lost at the rock-paper-scissors game Iris hosted.

Zephyr made a pouty face and followed her out sluggishly. Herma pointed at her cheek with her finger, muttering, “My dark circles are going to drop down to my chin…” as she weakly protested to Iris and followed behind.

“Contact me as usual if anything happens! Make sure you complete the mission to secure Jae’s ticket!”

Iris shouted quietly as she closed the door.

“Well then, Jae. Do you have more to tell me about this urgent request? Why did you say you can’t send the Wolfsbane? Are you in a dangerous situation? Is it related to the organization chasing you?”

She asked sharply with a quite serious expression.

Thinking about it, having Iris’s party, which was entirely on my side, enter the 16th Terrarium seemed like it would be a great help to me. I told Iris and Notos as much information as I had opened up to Siedling.

Upon hearing about the tragedy that occurred in the 28th Terrarium, Iris could only gape like a goldfish, unable to say a word. However, when she learned the secret about Wolfsbane, she accepted it surprisingly calmly.

“You’re not that surprised? Our Dryads were in an uproar.”

“It’s best if the story about the artificially improved species… stays only among us Druids for now. It’s just that I’ve met so many bizarre alchemists during my travels that the shock is lessened. But this is limited to people like us. We and the Dryads have different thought processes. If the Dryads inside the artifact had come out and heard this together, they would have probably reacted the same as Jae’s Dryads.”

I recalled how Mesquite and Elder were extremely furious in the Swamp of Death.

“Especially, it would be better if Herma’s Laurel Dryad doesn’t know about this. That Dryad is a tree that guards glory and honor… for the honor of the World Tree, it would strongly insist that Jae’s Wolfsbane must be killed. In severe cases, if Wolfsbane were on the field, the Laurel might refuse to participate.”

Hearing that, I frowned, and Iris sighed.

“Notos’s Pines are also quite rigid. Because of their ability to see the past of old pine trees, they are Dryads who blindly follow the memories and values of the old times. While there are Dryads who become more flexible in their thinking to suit the Druids as generations change, there are also Dryads like Notos’s Pines who think maintaining the old ways steadfastly is upholding firm integrity. Pines are traditionally very loyal to their Druids, and equally loyal to the World Tree… so they will never look favorably upon Wolfsbane.”

I felt anew grateful to my Dryads for changing their minds when I decided to recruit Wolfsbane. If things had gone wrong, an incident could have occurred among the Dryads, causing the team to fall apart.

“So you must go to the Alchemy Tower of this Terrarium to obtain information about Wolfsbane… This requires the guild’s help, Jae. Although our numbers are small, I think we need to move together.”

I nodded at Iris’s words. Compared to cutting off Siedling’s interference harshly, it was much easier to extend a helping hand to Iris’s party.