Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, there are many cases where the gathered experts can’t come up with a solution--yet a single word, spoken casually by an amateur, is the hint they all needed. Turning a problem into a catastrophe with a single word of the higher-ups…seems to be their speciality.”

 

“Yes? Pest extermination is it?”

 

I stop moving my hands. I was in the middle of constructing a Living Doll. For some reason, I parrot the words of the Elder Elf who had visited the workshop.

 

The workshop the two of us are in the workshop belonging to the Living Doll Crafter, Sotorineyea.

 

Before he started teaching, he warned me that even if I learned, I wouldn’t be able to reproduce it on the outside, since the raw material doesn’t exist there. As I understand, they use Philosopher’s Stone, like the one before, as the core that acts as the Power Reactor--which can’t be produced outside the Bornean Forest.

 

What I want to learn more than anything else is the structure of the IO, and the AI logic control.

 

Putting that aside, it’s about the Elder and his strange request, “I’ve heard from Shagnig. You seem to have exterminated the Metal Worms and Poisonous Insects that bred under the training site. We’re expecting much from that skill, please lend us your wisdom.”

 

Ah, that, huh?

 

So, it was about the investigation I did with Shagnig at the damaged training facility--they seem to know about how I exterminated the horde Poisonous Insects that had bred deep under the facility at some time.

 

By equipping the Insect Slayer title, and using Bug Wiper Magic at full power, it was simple work.

 

“If you’re sure, I will give some counseling.”

 

Or rather, I’ll even go and try to exterminate the pests.

 

The Elder has stood up enthusiastically.

 

Since they’re in a hurry, they will send someone to pick me up tomorrow morning.

 

***

“Now, Tek of the Shiga Kingdom! I’ve come to pick you up.”

 

The one who has come to pick me up is Aialize.

 

What are you doing, you strange High Elf?

 

“Please just call me Tek. Then, shall we go?”

 

“Yes.” Aialize’s face reddens as she holds out her hands.

 

Does this mean that we should hold hands?

 

We might be going with Space Magic.

 

I grasp her hands while thinking about such things.

 

Well, although you might call it Space Magic, we entered the building inside the World Tree, with the Dryad’s Teleportation, like before. It may not have been needed for us to join hands--of course I won’t say something like that.

 

***

The sky is filled with stars.

 

The place where the Dryad has taken us is the Observatory Room at the center of the City, high up in the World Tree.

 

If the Heads-Up-Display, and the map, are right…we are about 300km above the ground. We haven’t reached the height of geostationary satellites, but we should have long left the atmosphere.

 

Even though we’re this high, the gravity is still 1G--though if 1G here is the same as on the Earth I come from, I have no idea. I wonder if it’s due to Magic.

 

No, before that, such a huge tree shouldn’t be able to hold it’s own weight.

 

When I ask the Elder--

“How is the tree not breaking apart?”

 

“It’s the gods’ protection.”

 

 

Well, that may make sense, since this world has gods, but even the--physics, man, physics is crying…y’know.

 

“I’m sorry, the Elder is ignorant about technical things.” An Elven woman who is dressed like a researcher, Jia, who’s waiting besides us explains the real reason to me.

 

I’m told that the countless branches of the World Tree anchor themselves into the adjacent subspace, which helps to distribute the World Tree’s weight, supporting it. Apparently, this also allows the ‘special’ spacial rules of that subspace to flow back along the branches, twisting Real Space and also reducing the Mass of the World Tree, without removing Matter that it’s comprised of.

 

This is my interpretation--since, while the explanation is complex, they don’t really use such scientific terms.

 

“Please, look at the branch ahead.” Jia points at a branch visible to us.

 

I look into the gigantic branch that extends through empty air, which, when I look closer I can see a strange ripple like a heat distortion around it--flowing--this must be the ‘special’ space.

 

“Not that, further out.” Jia points again.

 

In the middle, the branch diverges innumerably, and then again, and again, the last cluster looks to be as thin as threads. It extends as far as normal eyes can see, but she points even further out than that.

 

Aialize, who seems slightly bored beside me, is rocking slightly, while looking out through a telescope.

 

I can’t see anything with my normal sight, so I use Distant View, Clairvoyance, Night-Vision, Light-Intensity Adjustment, and Magic Perception--all of my visual-type skills, to look again.

 

Jellyfish?

 

Space Jellyfish?

 

“Is it about those Jellyfish things that are wrapping their tentacles around the branch that looks like a thread?”

 

Jia, who’s presenting a telescope to me, stiffens. She takes a second, before answering by just nodding her head.

 

I’d forgotten, since I was distracted by the spectacle that made me think of the view from a space-station…if you ignore the branches, but I activated All Map Exploration.

 

The branch looks like it extends a kilometer from me, but I now know from the Map that it extends like a superfine thread for another 100km.

 

From what the map shows, the jellyfish are called Evil Fish, and are around level 20 - 40, averaging at 30. They’re just small fry…however, there are 10,000 of them. They seem to have a Racial Ability called Absorb. Looking closer, I see that they aren’t Monsters, but Mysterious Creatures.

 

What the heck is that?

 

***

“Those jellyfish are eating the Magic that the World Tree has gathered. That’s troubling by itself, but what’s worse is that they plant their eggs inside the World Tree and breed.”

 

I see, so the target of the pest extermination is that jellyfish after all.

 

It should be easy if I can just every jellyfish around the tree--but things are never that easy…

 

“T-That is--there are multiple reasons as to why we can’t just exterminate them.”

 

The first is that the World Tree defence mechanisms will burn you into char if you kill a jellyfish near the World Tree. Apparently, this is a result of their poison causing the World Tree to identify them as parts of it. The Elves tried to detoxify the World Tree with Magic, and made it sleep while they exterminated the jellyfish, but the scale of the World Tree was too big--it was a failure.

 

The second reason is that when the number of jellyfish have decreased below a certain point, they multiply explosively. When they do this, they consume a massive quality of the World Tree’s branches--and trigger a chain reaction in the nearby Jellyfish. So if they aren’t all exterminated at the same time, they will increase instead.

 

The third--there is a Magic-free zone around the Jellyfish…meaning that Magic can’t be used within a certain range of the jellyfish.

 

“That’s quite terrible, isn’t it?”

 

“It’s really terrible, you know!” Jia wails at my words--she has deep, dark circles under her eyes.