Chapter 53
Chapter 53: Spoils of the Hunt (2)
'Wh-what? Why did the escape monument turn red?'
Jang Du-sik had splendidly carried out Erik's mission.
He led the Possessors to recover the hidden piece on the Labyrinth's 2nd floor and obtained the tutorial hidden rewards hidden on the 3rd and 4th floors.
A complete success, truly.
Yet cold sweat dripped profusely between the strands of Jang Du-sik's half-bald head.
'More than a day has passed outside.'
What good was obtaining a bunch of Level Up Elixirs?
They couldn't exit the Labyrinth.
"Possessors, what the hell is going on?"
Jang Du-sik looked at the three Possessors while slapping his palm with a crude wooden club.
Then two of the three Possessors shifted their gazes toward the remaining one.
"......Vice-Director Jang Du-sik. Probably, it's the season."
As Park Chang-ho, eyes creased with wrinkles, answered Jang Du-sik's question.
Before he could even finish his words, the club came flying.
Whack!!
"Ugh!"
Jang Du-sik rested the club on his shoulder and said.
"I am the right hand of Brother Erik."
"Right-hand Brother Jang Du-sik, I apologize for troubling you with the title issue."
The quick-witted Park Chang-ho swiftly soothed Jang Du-sik's mood.
'That fucking bastard. Since Director Erik disappeared, he keeps beating us nonstop.'
Inside, he cursed Jang Du-sik fiercely.
But what good did that do?
There was no way to escape from that shining Consecrated Jang Du-sik.......
'Nishida Ryo already got caught trying to run.'
Park Chang-ho glanced at Nishida Ryo.
Nishida Ryo, with his swollen and burst face, looked at Park Chang-ho and mouthed.
'What are you looking at?'
Crazy bastard.
Park Chang-ho squeezed his eyes shut, recalling Nishida's recent escape attempt.
"You have to dig that ground yourself to obtain the Level Up Elixirs!"
While Jang Du-sik was recovering the hidden piece on the 2nd floor, Nishida Ryo chose to flee.
"Yellow Lackey, is that bastard running?"
As soon as Jang Du-sik, who was digging the ground, heard the running sounds, he asked Park Chang-ho, and Park Chang-ho gave an apologetic reply.
"Barrier."
Jang Du-sik used barrier magic toward the fleeing Nishida Ryo.
Flash!
A golden glowing magical sphere imprisoned Nishida Ryo, and Nishida Ryo couldn't escape the Divine Power-mixed magic.
"Why isn't this glowing mode ending?"
While the Consecration remained active, Jang Du-sik had various questions arise.
'Well, whatever. Brother must have done something,' he muttered, then gathered the three Possessors and beat them like dogs.
"They said you have to beat a Possessors for them to listen, and it was true."
Anyway, it was because of that bastard Nishida Ryo that Jang Du-sik's thrashing began.
As Park Chang-ho, head lowered, was absorbed in such thoughts.
Swoosh! Whack!
The club flew over his head again.
"Urgh!"
"So you're not answering?"
Park Chang-ho rubbed his crown while recalling Jang Du-sik's question.
'He asked what's going on.'
The escape monument had become unresponsive, and the Labyrinth's terrain was changing.
They were hiding in a safe zone waiting for the escape monument to activate.
Park Chang-ho quickly explained the situation.
"I-it's because the season patch has started!"
Whack!
He got hit by the club again.
"Season patch? If you speak in terms only Possessors know, how am I supposed to understand?"
Jang Du-sik pointed to a corner of the Labyrinth with his club.
"So what the hell is it that all the escape monuments are broken?"
"......Well."
Park Chang-ho tried to think of the shortest and most accurate answer.
His head was tingling—if he got hit a few more times, his skull would really crack.
'What do I explain to that blockhead thug?'
Usually, when games have major updates, they attach fancy names.
This place was reality, but for Possessors, game elements like status windows came along.
At the very top of the status window, along with a marking indicating the version, this season's theme was written.
[ver.666 Great Cataclysm]
Originally it was [ver.665 Preseason], but not long after entering the Labyrinth, the status window's marking changed.
This signified the start of a new season.
Season patch meant that the [Great Cataclysm] patch would be applied to this world.
'If I explain it that way, I'll get beaten.'
Park Chang-ho summarized everything into one sentence.
"......The world is going to be completely fucked."
At that short and simple explanation, with so many omissions it could only sound half-hearted.
"Oh, is that so?"
Jang Du-sik was convinced.
***
Bestowing blessings upon the earth to make the land fertile.
The World Tree, symbol of abundance and love.
The woman who introduced herself as the World Tree had an appearance befitting such descriptions.
Love and abundance to the world.
As if proving it with her body, the World Tree had a curvaceous and very voluptuous figure.
'Too stimulating.'
Befitting the title Earth Mother Goddess, a woman with light brown hair and eyes resembling fertile earth-colored soil was staring—intently at Erik.
At the World Tree's intense gaze, Erik narrowed his eyes.
"Let's untie this and talk."
Erik was bound all over by something like tree vines.
Being trapped and tied up inside a giant cylinder was very uncomfortable.
Was it possibly inside the World Tree's body?
The Name Tag symbolizing the item supply source was clear.
'It wasn't a material item supply source, but a sentient being?'
Clearly the World Tree was a being that spoke and possessed will.
Thinking such thoughts, Erik lightly applied force to his arm bound by the vines.
Snap.
"Ahh!"
The World Tree let out a dizzy scream.
Erik relaxed his body and looked at the World Tree.
He could tear free with force anytime, but the World Tree before his eyes was literally a tree-human.
'Her legs are connected to tree roots.......'
Plus her clothes are tree bark.
She was human elsewhere, but with tree characteristics covering only important areas—Erik regarded her as a tree-human.
"So you won't untie me?"
He tried to offer considerate words lest he hurt the World Tree.
To Erik's thoughtful question, the World Tree answered.
"Your World Tree."
She uttered the same words again.
'Because she's a tree-human, her intelligence—.'
Just as Erik was about to harbor impious thoughts toward the elves' god.
Swoosh!.
The tree roots wrapping his body slithered away like snakes, and the World Tree smiled softly and approached Erik.
"You saw the temple, didn't you?"
Erik recalled what he had just experienced.
'Your temple, your divinity, your world.'
As Erik was lost in thought, the World Tree approached right up to him.
Tap!
Their bodies touched.
The World Tree stood on tiptoe trying to whisper in Erik's ear, but even then the height didn't match, so she made tree roots rise like a platform.
"Your World Tree."
The World Tree tickled Erik's ear.
"Mine?"
"Yes."
Erik pondered for a moment.
'A slightly insane being, but.......'
The power he felt was profound.
Power literally enough to bestow abundance upon all things in the world and more.
'To have such power, you'd definitely need to be World Tree-level.'
In other words, the strange woman before his eyes had a high possibility of being the real World Tree.
An existence capable of thought as an intelligent life form at that.
But why was she classified as an item called [World Tree].......
As his thoughts reached this point, Erik grasped how he should treat her.
"If you become my World Tree, what happens to the elves?"
Erik naturally chose informal speech to handle the World Tree.
Also while speaking, he lightly pushed away the World Tree who was clinging close to him.
Thud!
She bumped into something like a wooden pillar.
"Ahh......"
What the woman before his eyes wanted from him was such treatment.
Thanks to seeing Park Ji-hun's end at the temple, his senses from Earth vividly surfaced.
With that subtlety, Erik discerned the woman's thoughts.
"My children will also become yours."
The World Tree blushed and lowered her head.
'Elves are supposed to be the World Tree's children.'
Erik found the important part in the insane World Tree's statement.
'The World Tree is mine.'
And the temple that he saw earlier is presumed to be his.
"Am I a god?"
Erik took one step toward the World Tree.
The World Tree bumped against the wall.
"......Yes."
Her voice trembled.
Like her trembling voice, Erik's heart also trembled.
'I'm becoming a god?'
Well, it made sense.
Becoming a god.......
What tremendous words these were?
The three gods of the earth left for the heavens to reside, leaving behind only doctrine and divinity.
Erik would become the only god to manifest there.
'To actually become that...... how much stronger would I need to become?'
Of course, it was just talk—there was a long way to go.
Even so, Erik felt extremely satisfied.
Why?
'I found the exact direction.'
The status window that tells nothing.
His own existence involves handling Divine Power without communicating with gods.
Also the ability to modify things so Divine Power affects Possessors.
Weren't his questions about his peculiar abilities resolved?
The doubt he'd carried for fifteen years.
'It was because I'm one who will become a god.'
Was completely resolved, leaving behind a tremendously large answer.
As Erik kept nodding with a relieved face.
"I told you, didn't I?"
The World Tree approached refreshingly.
From her as she approached came the scent of earth and grass—the pure fragrance of nature.
"I am your World Tree."
Erik became purely curious at the World Tree's words.
'Even if she says that.......'
How does one make the World Tree his own?
When he actually tried thinking about making the World Tree his own, no method came to mind at all.
So he asked.
"Do I just repot the World Tree into my temple?"
At his question, the World Tree let out an exclamation.
"Ahh!"
The World Tree was a tremendous being that embodied the providence of great nature, literally able to read the flow of the world.
'Repot.......'
At treating such a World Tree like a mere pet plant and expressing it as repotting, the World Tree trembled.
The World Tree found Erik's words hard to handle.
To me, whom everyone reveres and serves.
'Treating me like a potted plant.'
She was so embarrassed she didn't know what to do.
Swoosh!
The blushing woman disappeared as if seeping into the tree's wall.
And.
"You're moving too fast."
***
Erik achieved his intended purpose.
He confirmed the identity of the temple he saw and gained certainty that the World Tree of great nature's protection would follow.
'Saying it's too fast means.'
Probably.
It's not the right time yet.
Most of the world's powerhouses were the type with screws loose in their heads.
Erik understood the World Tree's garbled words perfectly clearly.
'The problem is.......'
Right after the World Tree disappeared, the wall imprisoning Erik opened.
The round cylindrical space was, as expected, inside the World Tree's body.
However, the problem began the moment Erik stepped outside.......
"Ahh!!! My god!"
Led by Erica, the Guard Knights were prostrating their entire bodies on the ground, offering prayers of fanaticism to him.
"Princess Erica."
Erik called Erica like long ago when he gave etiquette education.
Erica, body pressed to the floor, trembled but even so, she maintained her fanaticism and praised Erik.
"O God. Please speak down to me."
Erik's head throbbed.
After meeting the insane World Tree, wasn't the fanatical Erica greeting him?
Moreover, she wasn't alone.
"Ahh. He who drove away that terrible darkness......."
What about the other Guards?
These ones had gone even more insane.
'They're not even Lu-Solace church believers.......'
An appearance exactly copying the fanatical aspects of the Lu-Solace church led by the Solar Saint King, the state religion of the Solar Saint Kingdom.
'This won't do.'
Erik grabbed Erica's hair and lifted her up.
"Hieek!"
Erik lifted her up and stood her on the floor.
Erica bowed her head as if she had committed impiety.
"How did you become so broken?"
The authority of an apocalyptic-class Black Mage.
Perhaps that had broken these people's heads—such speculation arose.
Contrary to Erik's such concerns.
"It was a black dragon. A dragon that dyed the sky with darkness and stole the vitality of the earth. When the dragon scattered darkness upon the world, a ray of light descended from the heavens—."
Erica recited a scripture from the Astia Religious Order.
"The flash of light cut through the darkness filling the sky, the darkness disappeared and peace came to this land—."
Huh?
Erik was speechless.
Though he didn't memorize scriptures constantly, Erik remembered passages Ruelle liked—.
'This is just like.......'
Wasn't his battle in the Empire's southern great granary region exactly like this?
The calamity was a black dragon.
And he was the one who cut it away with Creation.
Erik looked at Erica with an absurd expression.
"You are......"
Tears flowed from Erica's eyes.
In childhood, he awakened and corrected her waywardness, and when grown, he eliminated evil that would disturb the world.
"No, I am......"
Just as Erica was about to continue speaking.
"Ahem."
An elf beside them cleared their throat.
Everyone's attention focused that way.
'Which bastard.'
One of the things Erik hated most was when people stopped speaking mid-sentence.
He detested situations where conversation flow was forcibly cut off.
Erik turned his head indignantly.
"Ah."
Green-tinted hair and eyes.
And a pencil-like slender and elongated figure.
A large bow slung on her back.
[Sacred Relic: Bow of Inevitable Hit]
[A bow made by compressing the World Tree's thickest root.]
Erik strode forward.
"It's been a while."
Seeing the giant Erik suddenly approach, Yuren took one step back.
At that fierce momentum, she almost unconsciously drew the bow slung on her back.
Seeing her action, Erik.
"Why don't you draw it."
Bared his teeth and threatened Yuren.
Erik wasn't simply angry because she cut him off.
'Breaking the oath.'
That indolence.
[Lingling – Grand Master Archer]
And the Possessor who broke the oath with her master.
"You did your 3rd Class Change, Lingling."
At Erik's heavy low voice, Yuren used Backstep to jump—backward.
The atmosphere was ominous.
Yuren, who widened the distance considerably, climbed onto a World Tree branch and aimed her bow at Erik, saying.
"I abandoned that name. I am Yuren."
Then, swoosh! The branch swayed and Yuren fell straight to the ground.
Thud!
"Mo-mother—."
Yuren looked up at the World Tree in dismay.
Erik approached such Yuren and said.
"Why is my World Tree your mother?"