Chapter 181 - Great Chieftain

The staircase that had been gliding smoothly up the World Tree came to a stop.

It stopped at a point even higher than the altitude they had reached in the sky carriage.

Contrary to his expectation that harsh, cold winds would be blowing because they were higher than a mountain, it was quiet and warm.

Rize gestured toward the entrance.

At that, the grain of the World Tree moved and spread apart with elastic grace, as if it had become hundreds of strands of vine.

A long corridor leading inside welcomed them.

“If you follow this corridor, you will reach the place we call Mother’s Heart. The Great Chieftain is waiting there.”

Rize clenched both hands into fists and encouraged them cheerfully.

“I will wait here. I hope you have a pleasant conversation!”

Once the entrance outside closed, Ferda brought up something he could not have said before.

“Are high elves usually that cheerful?”

Erica shook her head.

“Of course not. If they resembled even half of half of that child named Rize, they would be far more likable.”

“I see.”

“It feels like a pretty two-eyed girl living in a village of cyclopes, perhaps?”

Erica both made Ferda understand and displayed her loathing for all high elves.

They walked down that long corridor and reached the inner chamber where the Great Chieftain was.

The inner chamber inside the World Tree, the Great Chieftain’s residence, was a place worthy of being called Mother’s Heart.

Within the World Tree was a luxury that even a magic tower with a long history would not dare imitate.

Pure mana, dense and bright enough to illuminate the interior, occupied the ceiling.

That was not the end of it.

Within that blue light, thin white threads were swimming as if through a lake.

Ferda knew what they were.

They were objects any mage would naturally have no choice but to know.

'Thread.'

If mana was compressed and compressed again, it took the form of thread, and it was something one could not obtain even with money.

With a single thread there, one could draw 5th-tier magic with ease, and if one gathered strands to spin a thicker thread, one could unleash magic up to the 7th-tier.

Hundreds and thousands of them were swimming through the ceiling as if it were a lake.

Beneath those thousands of strands sat an old man in formal posture.

A small old man whose eyebrows had settled down white.

And yet he possessed the control to manage those thousands of freewheeling threads.

“It has been some time. Great Chieftain.”

Erica greeted him first.

It was a tone often used in a battle of nerves.

The Great Chieftain gave a slight nod.

“Blessings of the earth. So there comes a day when a descendant of water enters Mother’s embrace.”

“There is no need to find it unexpected. Why would there be any need for even us to be on bad terms?”

“You requested a meeting starting last winter, but it seems you had urgent business?”

“It was not that I was busy, more like something annoying I wanted to deal with quickly.”

It was enough to make one’s breath catch on its own.

He could feel that Erica hated high elves immensely.

Fortunately, the Great Chieftain did not seem to mind Erica’s attitude.

Or perhaps there was a reason he could not.

At that moment, one thread passed in front of Ferda where he sat.

Without realizing it, Ferda’s eyes followed that thread.

“Is it not wondrous?”

The Great Chieftain asked while looking at Ferda.

“It is.”

Ferda answered reflexively.

If he were answering the question of whether it truly was wondrous, Ferda would shake his head.

The moment he saw those threads, Ferda felt his Shadow Circle rotate.

The reason he had killed the high elves and burned the World Tree was because he had coveted those hundreds of threads.

He had absorbed thousands of threads, killed many people with the power of those threads, and killed Valdrova.

Since it only dug up painful memories, Ferda looked away.

The Great Chieftain also tried to move to the main subject.

“Now, let us speak about the reason you came here.”

“Let’s.”

In contrast to the immensely spacious room and abundant mana, the interior was extremely plain.

There were only objects woven from pure tree branches, with no place adorned in gold like those of dragons or human nobles.

“Regent, if you would please present that item...”

Erica spoke while looking at Ferda, and Ferda took out the notebook he had placed in a box and held it out before him.

“Hmm...”

The Great Chieftain let out a murmur and flicked a finger toward the notebook.

At that, the threads floating in the air stopped moving.

Following the Great Chieftain’s will, the threads gathered together and were molded into the shape of a hand.

That hand stroked the cover of the notebook as if it were a Braille book.

“This is... Linne’s writing.”

The Great Chieftain recognized it from only the letters stamped on the cover.

The fingers turned the pages of the notebook and scanned the letters.

He murmured as if groping through faint memories.

“Linne... Yes, that child was alive, which is why you must have come to find me like this.”

“You did not know he was still alive?”

“When I traced the minds of the dark elves who set foot in the Land of Demons, I unmistakably watched all of them die. So I thought he had surely died.”

But the Great Chieftain had been wrong.

“But I overlooked far too much. That child had the ability to escape the restraints of high elves, so naturally he would have been able to escape even the minds of dark elves...”

The white hand continued turning the pages without stopping.

The Great Chieftain swallowed a painful breath, then exhaled it again.

“It seems Linne ultimately intends to step over the deaths of the kin who followed him and seize another opportunity.”

Ferda could not tell what emotion came from the way he ended those words.

Was it regret,

or anger he had hidden for a long time?

While he murmured and groped through the past, the white hand skimmed all the way to the final page and shut the book.

“I have confirmed all of the contents. I can clearly feel what Linne... is plotting as well.”

Life returned to Erica’s face.

The Great Chieftain toyed with his beard and nodded from his rocking chair.

“By any chance.”

“Please speak.”

“Did you bring the black liquid mentioned in this journal?”

“Yes. I brought it hoping you would examine it anyway.”

Erica rolled one ampoule she had brought across the floor.

The Great Chieftain pointed at that ampoule, and a thread became a hand and grasped it.

When the white hand inserted a finger into the ampoule, the Great Chieftain showed some sort of reaction.

“... I see.”

His face looked as though all the parts that had been bothering him had been resolved.

“Descendant of water, forgive my impertinence, but what do you intend to do with this information?”

“Naturally, we must respond.”

Erica answered.

“If they are creating a substance similar to Godwin’s blood and producing Demons, that means we can create a substance to counter it as well.”

“Of course, that would be so.”

The Great Chieftain reacted ambiguously with a long hmm...

Perhaps thinking she would get nothing out of him this way, Erica tried to persuade the Great Chieftain more actively.

“I do not know if it is recorded in the contents, but that dark elf named Linne is currently creating new Demons.”

“That is true.”

“Recently, he has deployed a clone called Doppler and is trying to throw the Serdes Continent into chaos.”

“That is also correct.”

“There is no doubt that he is attempting to mass-produce something similar to Godwin’s blood. If Demons begin pouring out, the tragedy of the Dragon-Demon War will happen again...”

Erica lowered her voice and warned him.

“At that time, even this World Tree will not be spared from burning.”

Just as dragons were everything to dragon spawns, the World Tree was everything to high elves.

It was the same as saying they would lose their lives.

The Great Chieftain heard those words and thought deeply.

“The Dragon-Demon War is a tragedy we must not repeat.”

They knew what kind of pain had come before the Dragon-Demon War.

“It is evident that I, too, wish to help.”

“Then—”

“But in order to help, I have one condition.”

The Great Chieftain turned his eyes as he said that.

His gaze stared clearly at Ferda, who was seated beside her.

“I would like to have this conversation with you alone, Regent Ferda. Would that be possible?”

Erica’s eyebrow twitched.

“Of course it would not.”

Erica could not allow it.

Of course, since these were items Ferda had brought, it was true that he had authority over them.

But the ones who had been researching the black liquid until now were Erica and the descendants of Iorga in her tower.

Being excluded like that was something that wounded her pride.

“I also have a duty to know. As one who protects this continent, and as a hero of the Dragon-Demon War.”

“I know this is a moment that carries weight for you as a descendant of water. But this matter is separate.”

The Great Chieftain did not back down an inch, without any point of compromise.

“Then let us do this. Since you said this matter is important to Regent Ferda...”

Therefore, Erica chose to draw in a third party.

“Let Regent Ferda decide. What do you think?”

“Of course, there is such a method as well.”

The Great Chieftain carefully raised his hand.

Erica sensed something in that movement.

“What is th—”

She immediately prepared to respond, but it was already too late.

One white thread positioned behind Erica tapped her lightly.

Erica disappeared from the spot in an instant.

“... Though I will not permit it.”

He murmured those words that Erica would not hear.

Only the two of them remained in that vast space.

Ferda, who had not said a word since sitting down, quietly looked at the Great Chieftain.

“You may rest assured. I did not harm Tower Master Erica.”

“I already know you teleported her outside the door.”

Ferda was always composed.

There was only one thing he was curious about.

“Are you certain there is a reason the master of the Blue Eye Tower would count as a third party?”

“Of course. It seems the conversation will take a rather personal turn.”

Ferda felt puzzled by those words.

What part of matters concerning Demons could take a personal turn?

“Let us first speak about this black solution.”

The Great Chieftain’s white hand lifted the ampoule containing the black solution, which he had set down.

“The master of the Blue Eye Tower must certainly have thought this object was similar to dragon blood.”

“That is correct.”

“But she must have thought it was only similar, not dragon blood, and an object she could not understand. So she must have thought it was related to the blood of high elves.”

“That is correct. Is that recorded in the journal?”

“No. I merely guessed that if the tower master came all the way here, it could only be something like that.”

He was as sharp as a pin.

Or was Erica unexpectedly simple?

“To give you the conclusion first, it is true that this black liquid was created through the ability of a high elf.”

“Do high elves have a special ability?”

“Elves, unlike humans, have the ability to commune with their own kind. Among them, high elves have their minds connected as one.”

“That is correct.”

“That mental network is not simply a matter of sharing thoughts. It is a matter of interpreting all the information they know through the language of elves and bringing it in. To explain it a little more simply... they can even bring in information about a person that the person themselves does not know.”

An ability to know everything about another person that the other person did not know.

Perhaps because he was a mage by nature, just hearing about it made him covet it.

As if he had read even that thought of Ferda’s, the Great Chieftain added,

“It is not purely good. Because everything is shared, we become sensitive to what cannot be shared.”

“So that is why that elder acted so harshly?”

“That is correct.”

Ferda recalled the face of the elder who had been thinking of turning them away at the door.

He could understand it, but that did not mean he wanted to forgive him easily.

“Linne used the ability of a high elf to bring in information on every race on the Serdes Continent.”

He could understand why there was such an experimental site in the north, and why so many races had been imprisoned there.

It was for the purpose of analyzing all the cells that made up their bodies and developing an optimized drug to fuse them with the information of existing Demons.

“Can all high elves use that ability?”

Ferda asked carefully.

The Great Chieftain shook his head.

“A united mind is simply like breathing from birth and like the heart beating. Cutting it off and connecting it back at will is something even I, the Great Chieftain, cannot do.”

“Was Linne capable of that?”

“Yes. That is why he was able to betray us and become a dark elf.”

If he had not been able to do that, Linne’s true intentions would have already been discovered, and they would have responded quickly.

The fact that only Linne could use it could be called a blessing amid misfortune.

“Wait.”

Ferda ended up thinking of something ominous.

“Then does that mean he was able to create this object similar to dragon blood... by connecting his mind to Godwin and bringing in that information?”

If one could create dragon blood used in the ascension rite, that meant one had obtained information on dragons.

Did Linne understand everything about dragons?

“Regrettably, he likely could not have done that.”

The Great Chieftain stated firmly.

“No matter how much we divide ourselves into superior and inferior, we are merely creations fashioned from the earth. But dragons are creations fashioned by a god. To understand them, one needs the language of gods, and no matter how excellent the language of high elves may be, it remains within the language of the earth and can never interpret those made in the language of gods.”

The Great Chieftain reached his conclusion.

“Therefore, this black liquid is also something belonging to a creature fashioned from the earth.”

“You mean an ascension rite is possible even if a dragon does not conduct it personally?”

“That is not the case for dragon spawns, but it is for the form known as Demons.”

A creature on this earth who was not Godwin, but had influence as great as Godwin’s.

When he thought about it, only one came to mind.

“This black solution here was created from the mana possessed by the man called the Demon King.”

The Demon King.

Because Godwin’s name was so enormous, he seemed small by comparison, but he too was an extremely infamous man.

After all, the fact that the far east had come to be called the Land of Demons was an achievement he had accomplished alone.

He simply could not be compared to dragons; he too possessed power and ability great enough to be called a disaster to the continent.

“I see.”

He did not know the fine details, but he had certainly grasped the context.

It was resolving all the parts Erica had been curious about.

As he listened to that story, Ferda could not suppress this question.

“Was there any need to tell me such things with only the two of us here?”

Putting all of the contents together, this black solution was a substance that mimicked the Demon King’s mana by using the mental network characteristics of high elves.

It did not seem as though there was any reason to keep secret something that merely provided information.

“What I am about to say now is what only you, Regent Ferda, must hear.”

The Great Chieftain pointed at Ferda with a thin, gnarled finger.

Precisely at the area below his dantian.

At Ferda’s Red Circle.

“The Demon King’s mana is inside your body as well.”