Ventmin Lifret lay as though submerged in the pond, connecting with the World Tree.
Through its eyes, she now looked down on the battlefield at a glance.
The eastern wall was besieged by the Three Families.
The western wall by the neutral faction.
Just from the state of their armies, the enemy was already fully prepared.
They knew she was plotting something, and they had been ready for quite some time.
‘From here on, it’s purely a battle of time. The moment either side stumbles on the smallest mistake, everything will be over.’
For now, the circumstances favored Ventmin.
She already had everything she needed.
And with the main army pulled inside the inner wall, there was no need to fear even if the outer defenses fell.
In fact, the complex structure made the inner castle far easier to defend.
They didn’t need to block completely—only stall for time. Victory would be hers.
Once she claimed the World Tree’s power in full, there would be no need for seven families.
There would be one towering tree.
And an Elven King would be born.
‘I’ve waited so long to reach this point.’
With her eyes still closed, Ventmin swept her gaze across the battlefield.
Among all, the neutral faction stood out.
Ambella Burke.
At the head of her troops, she cut a commanding figure like a general.
The years had passed, but instead of growing withered, she seemed more vigorous, more imposing than ever.
She looked as if she could clasp shoulders with a feral beastman warrior and laugh as an equal.
Her covered eye was hidden by an eyepatch, but the other shone with fierce brilliance.
Not an opponent to be underestimated.
Even now, she smiled defiantly, provocative as if she knew Ventmin was watching.
‘Yes. You’ve always been a thorn in my eye.’
During the racial war, Ventmin had wished the Burkes would be swallowed by calamity and disappear.
But instead, they had hardened through strife, becoming even stronger.
Now they even engaged freely with the outside world.
A shame upon the elves.
No wonder they had conspired with the treacherous Plante.
‘But for Burke to move so suddenly now... is it because of Dentis?’
To check Dentis, she had deliberately leaked information about Plante to the Three Families.
She had hoped they would fight among themselves and exhaust each other.
But Dentis had responded far better than expected—and even pulled Burke into their fold.
As far as Ventmin knew, Dentis and Burke had never had any contact.
She connected to the World Tree regularly—such information could not have been overlooked.
And yet, Dentis’s countermeasures had been too swift, too precise.
‘Vierno Dentis. Was he truly such an exceptional head? No. I accept he’s formidable. But in this situation, to produce results of this level... impossible.’
It wasn’t just her judgment.
She had reviewed countless reports and analyses from the Shadewardens before reaching her conclusion.
Yet her predictions had gone awry.
Ventmin felt a crawling itch at her temples.
Like a tiny insect scuttling secretly across her skin.
‘How did the head of Dentis even enter the forest?’
Using the World Tree’s authority, she sought the answer.
But nowhere could she find any trace of Vierno Dentis entering through the forest’s gates.
As if he had dropped out of the sky.
‘Dropped out of the sky?’
Not long ago, the Shadewarden watchers patrolling Dentis’s borders had been slaughtered.
All their wounds had come from a blade.
She had assumed it was Dentis’s soldiers.
But now, that faint unease from the report linked with the present situation.
‘Vierno Dentis is a professor at Theon. And the Plante child is a subordinate of John Doe. She was certain John Doe would come to save her. And John Doe’s current public identity is a professor at Theon.’
The scattered pieces came together into one picture.
Why had she assumed this was purely an affair among elves?
The spotlight on the stage was too bright—so bright even Ventmin had been blinded.
Behind the curtains, in the shadows, there was always someone setting the stage.
And now—
The hand behind it was here in the forest.
‘John Doe.’
An unseen manipulator, nudging people and factions indirectly, fanning the flames.
It was his signature method—the First Order of the Black Dawn, John Doe.
‘So it’s you. You came here yourself.’
Had she grown too impatient at the brink of her great work?
She shouldn’t have overlooked even the smallest sign.
But she had.
The only saving grace was that she had realized it before the point of no return.
‘Where? Where are you hiding, John Doe?’
He would strike at a gap, without warning.
At the most delicate, silent moment—he would stab straight at the vital point.
Ventmin scoured every inch of the area through the World Tree.
And then she smiled inwardly.
‘So that’s where you are.’
John Doe.
He was among the ranks of soldiers led by Ambella and Vierno.
Beside him were the human men he had brought.
So, he planned to slip in once the battle began.
In the given circumstances, the best choice.
But sadly, it was not the right one.
‘Come if you can. This place is already my domain.’
And even before that thought ended, the armies outside the walls began to march.
The war was about to begin.
* * *
Sedina shivered at the ominous tension pressing in from outside.
She glanced toward the single window in her room.
Beyond the white stone walls, she could faintly see armies massing.
‘What’s happening? Is this war?’
It was obvious such a force hadn’t gathered for nothing.
The forest itself trembled in fear.
Sedina could feel its emotions directly.
It was a strange, mystical sensation.
She had felt it faintly when tending the little flowerbeds at the practice halls, but here in the elven forest it was magnified greatly.
The life force of plants—
And beyond that, their emotions reached her.
It was like when she used her origami magic.
Folding cut paper and asking it to move with her mana.
So too, when she asked the plants, there was an inexplicable certainty they would answer.
‘If I use this, maybe...’
Something was about to happen.
She considered seriously whether she should attempt escape on her own right now.
At that moment, the door burst open and soldiers marched in.
At their head was the stern gray-haired elf she had seen before.
His cold gaze fixed on Sedina.
“Come with us.”
“......”
Sedina hesitated.
Why summon her at this exact moment? Surely not for anything good.
Normally, she would have refused.
‘But could I, really?’
She had no combat power at all.
Theirs was a fully armed squad.
Even if she resisted, she would only be dragged by force.
She thought quickly.
And almost instinctively, her eyes flicked to the window.
She saw it.
A crow, flying in the air—watching her.
“...All right. I’ll come. So please, lead the way.”
“......”
The gray-haired elf looked surprised.
He hadn’t expected her to speak so firmly.
Was she hiding some scheme? Or did she simply not know better?
But the question didn’t matter.
Even if Sedina had plans, there was nothing she could do.
“Move.”
At his command, Sedina was escorted from the spire under guard.
* * *
“We found her.”
At Hans’s words, Alex and Bellaruna both nodded.
At last they had tracked Sedina’s location inside Serendel Castle.
“She’s currently being escorted by Lifret elves deeper inside the castle.”
“Do you know where exactly?”
“The crows can’t follow further, so I’m using smaller creatures and birds within. From their direction, it seems they’re heading for the depths of the castle.”
“Putting all we’ve heard together... it must be toward the World Tree.”
Bellaruna spoke cautiously.
“The World Tree, huh. But aren’t we under the World Tree too?”
Alex snorted, glancing around.
They were in the underground, where no sunlight reached.
Black stone, wet earth, and a foul, stagnant stench filled the space.
A vast cavern beneath the World Tree’s roots.
They climbed its enormous roots as if they were staircases, making their way upward.
“This really is like a three-dimensional labyrinth. Is this what they called a labyrinth of old?”
A single misstep and they would plummet below.
Though underground, the cavern’s scale was immeasurable.
Looking down showed nothing but endless blackness.
Then, Bellaruna, leading at the front, suddenly stopped.
The others froze with her, holding their breath.
Skrrrk.
Something scuttled. A huge shadow slid past in the dim darkness.
Six legs. Black, chitinous scales. A sharp underjaw.
A ground-worm that parasitized the World Tree’s roots.
For such a massive tree, creatures leeching off it was natural.
But when the insect was the size of a bear, it was another matter.
Feeding on the Tree’s sap, these were no ordinary vermin.
They were no different from beasts evolved in the mana-saturated Casarr Basin, or cryptids spawned of corruption.
This was why the World Tree’s root caverns were so dangerous.
Dark, damp, a single misstep plunging one into a bottomless abyss—
And in that nightmare, bear-sized insects crawling everywhere.
It was not a place one could endure with ordinary nerves.
And worse, they didn’t feed only on sap.
They devoured anything—elves, humans, indiscriminately.
They were the greatest danger to avoid.
“By the gods, my skin crawls. Without our guide, we’d have died long ago.”
Hans shivered at the sight of the massive insect vanishing into the dark.
The only reason they could safely find their way through this labyrinth was Bellaruna.
“D-Don’t worry. I’ve been here a few times before.”
It was the same path she had used to escape the castle once before.
“What on earth possessed you to come here the first time?”
Now she was a seasoned guide, but she must have had a first time too.
No sane person would willingly crawl into such hell.
“W-Well, I just wanted to get close to the World Tree somehow... so I wandered around, hehe.”
“......”
Ah. So her head really had been broken from the start.
Hans shook his head.
Still, thanks to her madness, they could now move unseen.
But one thing still troubled him.
“Why did the boss send just us three separately?”
Ludger was not with them.
Only Hans, Alex, and Bellaruna moved here.
“It can’t be helped. The leader has °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° his own role. We just need to reach our destination.”
“Then let’s hurry. I want out of this cursed pit as soon as possible.”
“On that, I agree.”
Even Alex, with his iron will, felt his spirit fraying in this dark, infested place.
Only Bellaruna pressed on eagerly, undaunted.
“Still, don’t forget. Our mission is crucial.”
“I know.”
Hans murmured, glancing into his coat.
Inside was the Fang of the Spirit Beast Ludger had given him.