Ventmin’s pupils shrank as she saw the blade that had burst through her chest.
What was this? A blade? From nowhere?
Her head barely turned to the side—
And she saw it.
The figure of a monstrous man shrouded in black shadows.
A man who had stabbed her in the back with all his strength, as if emerging from her very own shadow.
At last, the plague doctor mask covering his face vanished, revealing the features beneath.
“John... Doe?”
Ventmin’s lips trembled in disbelief.
“H-how...?”
She had certainly killed him.
It wasn’t a simple mistake.
Even though the strike had been delivered from a distance, she had distinctly felt the sensation of crushing John Doe with the roots empowered by the World Tree.
The panic of the surrounding elves upon witnessing his fall confirmed it.
But this development, which defied all common sense, left Ventmin’s head spinning.
“No way, from the very beginning....”
“You think I didn’t know you’d be watching me?”
Ludger spoke in a low voice.
“I knew you’d be waiting for the critical moment to strike me down. That’s why I took out my own insurance—by setting up a substitute.”
“L-lies. There’s no way I could have mistaken a fake....”
“What if it was a fake almost indistinguishable from the real thing?”
“What?”
Ventmin’s eyes widened.
“Look.”
As she watched the battlefield, she noticed something strange.
Indeed, it had been John Doe that she crushed with her roots.
She had felt the sensation clearly, and the reactions of those around proved she hadn’t been deluded.
Yet now, before her eyes, unfolded a completely different scene.
The wooden roots that had encased John Doe like a cocoon—
On top of them, someone was sitting casually, legs crossed, waving toward her.
Hair split into black and white, an adventurer’s revealing attire—
And a parasol in one hand.
“Hi!”
That lively voice. Ventmin had heard it before.
“Hel... lia....”
After First Order Esmeralda’s death, the one newly recruited to fill the gap—
The one who had clashed with Ventmin from their very first meeting.
Helia was the one interfering now.
Ventmin’s thoughts raced.
So the John Doe she thought was real had in fact been a fake crafted by Helia.
And given the sensation it gave off, it was likely a counterfeit that imitated the real thing almost perfectly.
She had underestimated the potential of the ability Helia possessed, one of the new recruits taken in by Zero Order.
She had dismissed her as a frivolous lunatic, but in truth she had the power to back up such behavior.
“B-but still, the Cradle—how...?”
“Didn’t you guide us straight to it yourself?”
At that, Ventmin finally recalled the unwelcome guests she had dragged here.
Her eyes rolled toward the corner of the Cradle, where Hans, Alex, and Bellaruna lay collapsed.
Of the three, Alex had regained consciousness, and he grinned wickedly at her.
In his hand, plainly visible, was an artifact resembling a communicator.
‘So from the very beginning, they allowed themselves to be captured just to track our position?’
What if she had killed those intruders on the spot?
That speculation was meaningless.
She herself had chosen to bring hostages here in order to flaunt her advantage and mock their struggles.
“High elves are all the same. The moment they feel confident, they grow complacent.”
Ludger had laid bare the arrogance in their way of thinking.
Ventmin had paraded her captives into the Cradle, and when Ludger received the signal from their artifact, he pinpointed the coordinates and struck her.
Everything Alex, Hans, and Bellaruna had done was merely groundwork to create this chance.
‘Still... without Helia’s help, such a plan would have been impossible.’
Who would have thought the external aid brought by Ambella would be Helia herself?
Ludger recalled ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ the night he had faced Helia.
At the utterly unexpected encounter, his first reaction had been caution.
But Helia raised both hands to show she meant no hostility.
—Don’t look at me like that. That burning stare of yours is too heavy, you know?
—......
—Not even a joke works, huh.
—What are you doing here.
—What do you mean? An elf I know asked me for help, so here I am. Aren’t you being a little harsh?
—As if you really came intending to help.
At Ludger’s cold remark, Helia twirled her parasol playfully.
—Right. To be honest, I came less to help, and more for my own selfish reasons.
—Selfish reasons?
—I just don’t like Ventmin Lifret.
Though she smiled as she said it, her eyes gleamed with chilling malice.
At the Order Synod, she had acted cheerful, but in truth she’d been harboring bitter resentment against Ventmin.
—I’ve been secretly investigating what Ventmin Lifret was up to. Her plan? It goes against everything I believe life should be.
—So you claim you’ll help me? Why should I trust you?
—Strange. We’re not so hostile that we’d fight each other, are we?
She asked as if genuinely puzzled.
But Ludger could not trust the words of a demon.
Eventually Helia gave up on persuading him.
—Just think simple. The enemy of my enemy is my ally. You want to stop her, and I despise her too. For this moment, isn’t it fine to join hands? With my ability, I’ll be of help to you.
There was no room to refuse on emotion alone.
Ludger warned her with a cold glare.
—If you hold me back, I won’t forgive you.
—Oh, scary~. I’ll take that as your way of encouraging me.
Thus Ludger formed a temporary alliance with Helia.
And now, he succeeded in striking Ventmin with a lethal blow the moment she let her guard down.
“S-so easily...?”
Her head slumped forward.
Ludger pulled the swordstick’s blade from her body.
Ventmin collapsed lifelessly.
No breath. No pulse. She was dead.
“Sedina.”
“P-professor.”
The moment she saw Ludger, Sedina’s emotions burst forth.
Tears streamed down her face.
Though she tried to act composed, she was still a student.
Ludger walked slowly toward her.
“Sedina. Let’s go back.”
“On whose authority?”
A sudden voice.
It was Ventmin’s.
She should have been dead.
“Leader! Watch out—!”
Alex shouted a warning from behind, but before his words even finished, a massive shockwave surged toward Ludger from behind.
[Ater Nocturnus]
Ludger shielded Sedina in his arms while commanding Ater Nocturnus.
The shadows cloaking his body expanded into a barrier.
By the narrowest margin, the massive blast of energy stormed past.
Canceling the barrier, Ludger turned toward Ventmin with incredulity.
“How?”
He had struck her vital spot. He had confirmed her death.
But Ventmin Lifret had not died.
Wounded, she rose slowly to her feet, her eyes filled with grim menace.
“Did you think I’d fall to something like that?”
No blood flowed from her wound.
The place where Ludger had pierced her was already healed, transformed into bark.
The mark upon her once-pure white skin stood out like a scar.
“You’ve abandoned being an elf altogether.”
At Ludger’s remark, Ventmin did not reply.
With a faintly bitter expression, she gently touched the wound with her fingertips.
The sensation was hard, rough, lifeless—cold, as if some piece of her soul had been cut away.
Ventmin Lifret had indeed died.
Her biological life had ended.
But through that death, she transcended the limits of mortal life.
By the authority of the World Tree—its endless vitality.
It was one of the contingencies she had prepared.
“Yes. I had long anticipated this would happen someday.”
She gazed at her palm.
Its smooth surface began cracking like tree bark.
“When you use the World Tree’s power beyond your station, you must pay the price.”
“......”
“Did you know? These roots of the Cradle—they aren’t ordinary.”
At her words, Ludger finally looked properly at the roots composing the Cradle.
Faint impressions of human faces were embedded in them.
Faces twisted in agony, as if crying out in eternal torment.
“No...”
“This is the fate of those who dared wield the World Tree’s authority without its permission. Ever since the fall of the Plante family, this has been the end for Lifret retainers.”
When the Plante family vanished and the Lifret seized the World Tree, they faced a crisis.
No matter how they tried, they could not commune with the World Tree as the Plante had.
The harder they dug in, the more violently the World Tree repelled them.
Many went mad from the backlash.
Still, the Lifret family refused to give up.
They sacrificed their own kin again and again, continuing experiments to harness the power.
In the end, Ventmin Lifret managed to wield a mere 1% of the World Tree’s power.
Most of the roots that now formed this Cradle were elves who had fused with the tree during those experiments.
All those sacrifices—for just 1%.
It was only natural that Ventmin longed for the final key held by the Plante family.
“To abandon being an elf just to grasp greater power... was that truly such greed?”
She muttered hollowly.
She was no longer an elf. Having died and risen again, she was now fused with part of the World Tree.
She was, in essence, a living tree.
Once she had barely commanded less than 1%. Now, she felt sure she could wield over 5%.
But even in that omnipotence, she felt no joy—only bottomless rage and hatred.
And that hatred aimed directly at Ludger, her killer, and at Sedina beside him.
“It’s all the Plante family’s fault.”
Her murderous aura spread through the Cradle.
In answer, the roots writhed, and soon figures began crawling out.
The elves of the Lifret family who had once sought the World Tree.
Now fused with the tree, they were neither living nor dead.
Wood Zombies.
There was no other name for them.
“Now that we’ve come this far, we can only see it through to the end.”
Ventmin thought it rather fitting.
No, she had not abandoned being an elf. She had transcended it.
Now one with the World Tree, she would remake the world according to her desire—
To forge a paradise for elves alone.
“John Doe. By drinking your blood and that Plante child’s, I will return this world to its primordial age.”
“You’re utterly insane. Do you grant every wish people demand of you?”
At that, Ventmin shook her shoulders in laughter.
“Such is the right of the strong.”
At her gesture, the entire Cradle shook.
The Wood Zombies rose as an army, while the branches and leaves of the World Tree trembled as though in a gale.
“And here, I am the absolute ruler.”
* * *
The Tri-Noble forces that had seized the outer wall were already on the verge of breaching the inner wall.
The resistance there was fiercer than at the outer wall, but not enough to overturn the disparity in numbers.
Of course, once the gates fell, street-to-street battles in the narrow passages would consume men heavily. It was too early to declare victory.
Still, with this much force pressing in, even a protracted defense would eventually crumble.
Darish, head of the Radix family, looked at the cracked gates and summoned his men.
“Stand back!”
“The Lord himself steps forward!”
The soldiers withdrew from the gate, and Darish lifted a bow as large as his own body.
A bowstring that several strong men would struggle to pull, Darish drew with ease.
What he set upon it was more a spear than an arrow.
Darish the Strongbow.
His title resounded once more.
The missile flew, striking the solid gates and detonating.
Its force exceeded that of dozens of elves hammering in unison.
The gates collapsed in tatters.
“Waaaaaah!”
The soldiers roared in triumph.
Darish swelled with pride at the sight and prepared to give orders—
“...What?”
From beyond the shattered gates, countless roots surged forth like a tidal wave.