Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, I have seen quite a few variations of where people become small and adventure inside a human body. My favourites would be Magic School Bus, or Phineas and Ferb. Anyway, I never thought that something like that would be possible to actually occur.”

 

It’s dangerous if I don’t control my speed when I’m moving through the Void using Sky Drive. Even though there is gravity--it is massively lower than on the surface, at around 0.01g, barely noticeable, but still has an effect.

 

I’d like to have the Advanced-Grade Magic: Control Inertia or the slightly more common Cancel Inertia.

 

When my movement speed using Sky Drive breaches the speed of sound, I obtained a Skill and two Titles.

 

>>Skill: Flash Drive Acquired.

>>Title: Fast One Acquired.

>>Title: Conqueror of the Heavens Acquired.

 

Flash Drive seems to be a combination of Sky Drive and Ground Shrink, I quickly maximize its skill-level and activate it--I feel like I am flowing when I use it…it’s a lot less awkward than using the two Skills together.

 

With Sky Drive and Ground Shrink, I can only move in a linear motion. Against an opponent at the same ability of the Golden Boar-Head Demon Lord, there’s a danger of them reading my movements.

 

While considering this new Skill, I use Flash Drive to collect the falling World Tree branches.

 

The removal of the jellyfish seems to be proceeding smoothly, it’d be nice if nothing would happen--oops--if Arisa was here, she’d say: ‘That’s a flag, you know?’.

 

At the same time that I hear an imagining of Arisa’s scolding tone, my Danger Sense gives me some slight warnings. There are two places that cause the reaction--without thinking, I accelerate towards the nearest place.

 

‘All hands, abandon your posts! Everyone, evacuate back to the Observatory!’ Aialize uses Mass Telephone to send the emergency broadcast.

 

The Elves abandon all the cages that they’re handling, rapidly moving back towards the Observatory. One of the Lightships diverts its course, moving over to the much slower tank-like golem, and picks up the crew.

 

The Jellyfish that up until now have had the ‘Sleeping’ condition are starting to change to the ‘Frenzy’ condition. There are two places where this is occurring, which are the two places that cause reactions in my Danger Sense.

 

‘I repeat, all hands, abandon your post! Everyone, evacuate to the Observatory.’ Aialize’s thoughts tremble a little--probably because the place I’m aiming towards, the Elves aren’t evacuating.

 

‘Te, no, sir Felspar! You have to escape too. Don’t overestimate your own strength! Even Dragons will be burned by the attack of the World Tree!’ A precise order from Aialize came.

 

There are spheres of lightning surrounding the area of several hundred meters around the golem, which the Elves still haven’t abandoned.

 

I wonder if this will work.

 

‘You big ginseng tree! Is it a branch, or is it a root? Make it clear!’ I send the thought towards the nearest branch using Telephone.

 

It seems that Nana’s strange Provocations that she’s been working on, have influenced me.

 

It appears that my plan worked and purple Lightning extends out of the Lightning balls, arcing and twisting towards me like a living thing--it’s not only because of the provocation, but since Aialize explained that the World Tree used Lightning to attack…I used the Spell Lightning Rod.

 

Lightning Rod is quite high-performance, even though it’s only an Intermediate-Grade Magic. The giant dark-gray pillar of light that Lightning Rod produces, stops the extra-large lightning. The Lightning ‘snake’ is so large, and looks like it could power a certain time-traveling car many times over.

 

I check the exterior of the stranded golem. It seems like three of its legs are disable. I quickly arrive next to it, removing the broken parts of the World Tree that obstructs it, and the Power Tubes, putting them into my storage.

 

Just as I finish the repair, which takes around two minutes, the World Tree prepares its second attack. There are seven Lightning ‘snakes’ this time.

 

When I evade the strikes, the fairly large branch behind me is carbonized, and breaks. Which is bad, because I’m trying to save the World Tree--not make it destroy itself.

 

***

Now, I can understand why the jellyfish are Frenzied.

 

Inside the branch that broke behind me, I can see around 30 jellyfish larvae. They look like oval balloons, as big as a human torso, and emitting a brilliant pale-green light.

 

The jellyfish inside the cages flicker to match the waves of light that emit from the larvae. Come to think of it, the Elves mentioned that, ‘they plant eggs in the World Tree’.

 

I take a net from my storage and capture the jellyfish larvae with it. I use the net, because my Magic Hands are busy picking up broken pieces of the World Tree--I throw the larvae, which I have captured, into the Void.

 

The self-defense Lightning generated by the World Tree mercilessly turns the jellyfish larvae into cinders. Of course, the World Tree was aiming for me, but the course of the netted larvae intercepts the Lightning.

 

The jellyfish have changed from Frenzy, to Rage.

 

‘The other two have escaped, please come back quickly! If you don’t, I’ll go there!’ Aialize sounds panicked.

 

I’m sorry, but please let me do what I have to here.

 

‘I beg you, please come backk.’

 

I invoke the Kaleidoscope and Survey Laser Magic, that I’ve obtained from the Duchy Capital Scroll workshop, together. Arisa named the Kaleidoscope Magic, which generates several mirrors that I can use to reflect light--I can control their number and positioning.

 

Survey Laser is the results of my experiments to create laser pointers--they have no damage, but they can be used to help me align my aim for when I launch my Pulse Laser attack.

 

‘Jeez, stupid Tek--I’ll tell Mia and Arisa.’ Aialize sounds like she has started crying…it makes a pain shoot through my chest, but I have to do this.

 

Alright, I’ve finally made sure that the laser will hit all my targets. I’m not going to be converging 120 lasers like I did when fighting the Great Monstrous Fish, because it would be way too overpowered and would probably break the mirrors. I just fire 100 in a row, their power isn’t combined, and they become 10,000 as they pass through Kaleidoscope.

 

Countless beams of light pass through the Void, shooting only through the jellyfish, and passing between the World Tree’s branches.

 

In the first place, if the request was for me to do the extermination, it would have been much simpler. But the request was for ‘A way for the Elves to exterminate them’, so the scale became much larger. Based on this failure, we should add the removal of eggs in the Extermination Manual.

 

The Telephone from Aialize has stopped for some reason, so I decided to prioritize cleaning up.

 

While continuing to use the Lightning Rods to ward off the Lightning attacks, I capture the remaining jellyfish larvae that I could find.

 

***

Using the map to search, I have completely destroyed about 70 locations where colony of eggs are laid within the branches. Even though there wasn’t even one of these when I last visited the Void 10 days ago.

 

Since some of the eggs have somehow slipped inside the World Tree itself, I use Magic Hand to retrieve them. The Larvae could go into and out of the World Tree, while the eggs usually clung to the branches, between cracks in the bark.

 

Since there were eggs that were deep inside, I decided to break the branches and went inside. When I slipped inside the branches themselves, the World Tree ceased its Lightning.

 

The insides of the World Tree’s branches are filled with pipe-like tunnels that look like they are made from dirt. The closer I get to the main trunk, the thicker the Magic that surrounds me becomes. I cut my way through the almost solid Magic, while avoiding battle against the self-defense antibodies, that act similar to Human white blood-cells, devoting myself to destroying the jellyfish eggs.

 

***

“Tek’s reaction has disappeared.” Aialize has sunk down to the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

 

“That’s terrible, huh.” I greet her.

 

“Jeez, what are you so carefree about! He saved the World Tree, you know!? Why are you speaking like that?”

 

Her angry face is surprisingly cute.

 

“I’m home.” These are my next words--copying the response of animes when a Hero unexpectedly returns while his companions mourn his supposed ‘death’.

 

Her angry expression changes to a completely blank one.

 

Since I had gone very deep into the Trunk, it would be much too troublesome to go back normally--so, I came back with the Return Magic that I had specifically requested at the Duchy Capital, one of the two spells that cost the Dragon Powder.

 

It looks like that was the reason that her Tracking Magic lost me. Since I had felt like I was being watched, so it was probably a Magic similar to Clairvoyance.

 

“Welcome home.” Aialize mutters, overcome with surprised, “Welcome home.”

 

She leaps to her feet and clings to me, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face in the curve of my neck, “Welcome home, Tek.”

 

She is trembling, sobbing, I can feel her tears dampening my clothing--I gently hug her back, reassuringly stroking her silky golden hair.