Ludger turned his head toward the direction where the voice had come from.
It was a voice he remembered. Quite some time had passed, but his meeting with her had been far too striking to forget.
Ella Plante.
Sedina’s mother, whose body was dead but whose soul lived on within the World Tree as the former head of the Plante family.
The one who spoke in her stead was a single flower that had bloomed atop the cradle.
“Uh, Mom! What are you suddenly saying!”
The flower bud resembled a trumpet, and its petals moved like lips as it spoke.
[My, did I say something I shouldn’t have? You were singing about how much you missed me all this time, so what is there to be embarrassed about?]
“W–When did I ever say that!”
Sedina protested tearfully at Ella’s teasing.
Ludger quietly listened to the two of them bicker before asking Ella:
“Does this mean you can now communicate with the outside world like this?”
Until now, communicating with Ella required Sedina’s help to connect into the World Tree network.
Her consciousness existed only within the World Tree.
For her to speak directly from outside like this was something Ludger had never imagined possible.
[It just ended up this way. All thanks to how hard our daughter worked.]
“Because... I can’t keep Father connected to the World Tree forever.”
Sedina had explained that in order to let her parents meet, she had to connect her father to the World Tree.
As someone born with Plante blood, connecting one person to the network wasn’t difficult for her, but the problem was how inefficient it was.
“No matter how strong Father’s mental fortitude is, he’s still human. Being continuously exposed to the World Tree network wouldn’t be good for him. He looked mentally drained, too.”
But she couldn’t exactly tell her father to stop seeing her mother.
He had finally been given a chance to meet his late wife again—telling him to stop would be like telling a man dying of thirst in the desert not to drink water.
So Sedina changed the method after much thought.
She made it so that Ella Plante, whose consciousness was housed within the World Tree, could instead come outside of it.
“It wasn’t easy. Mother’s consciousness can only be maintained if the World Tree exists.”
But the end result was a success—obvious simply by the fact that Ella Plante was now speaking directly to Ludger.
Soon after, the intertwined vines forming the cradle shifted with a cracking sound, rising and reshaping into the figure of a woman.
That appearance was identical to the Ella Plante he had once met inside the World Tree network.
Of course—it was a vessel modeled after her.
“Wood Zombie.”
Ludger recalled the battle against First Order Ventmin.
Ventmin had used Sedina to wield a portion of the World Tree’s authority, and the Wood Zombies were one of the prime examples of that power.
Artificial lifeforms created using the genes of elves stored within the vast life-network of the World Tree.
Wood Zombies reproduced various former family heads and heroes from elven history.
If anything, they were stronger than those figures had been in life.
Their bodies were made from parts of the World Tree.
Even though they were “wood,” their bark was harder than steel, and their durability was beyond imagination.
Heroes reborn with far stronger, sturdier bodies—
With no fear of death and no exhaustion.
Looking back, he wondered how he had even managed to fight such monsters.
‘If the Roschen family hadn’t supported us with artifacts, we would have lost.’
That battle had been nothing less than a war.
And afterward there had been the fight in Isla Machia, then the Dreamland incident, the Holy War—much of it had begun to blur in memory.
Anyway, returning to the present.
The body Ella Plante now possessed was the same as those Wood Zombies.
“Mhm. This really is easier to move around in.”
Not only her body—she even had clothing.
Given what “materials” such garments might be made from, it wasn’t all that strange, though...
She {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} looked very much like the Ella he remembered.
If the earlier Wood Zombies had been expressionless wooden statues carved out of logs, Ella Plante looked almost perfectly human.
Of course, looking closely, there were faint irregularities.
But such details were subtle enough that only someone like Ludger would notice.
A body made through the World Tree was incomparable to an ordinary wooden doll.
Even the “joints” were flexible and elastic, leaving nothing stiff or unnatural.
He suspected she could even replicate similar internal organs if she wished.
‘Truly a living zombie.’
Ella Plante was dead—yet alive.
Contradictory, but undeniably true.
Ella looked at Ludger and greeted him.
“This is our first time meeting in reality, isn’t it? It’s nice to finally see you.”
“I never thought I would meet you like this. Even being able to converse at all was astonishing enough.”
“Right? It’s all thanks to our daughter. Of course, the help of other elves was involved too. That one girl—Bellaruna, was it? Her help was crucial.”
That Bellaruna had helped was unexpected, yet made perfect sense.
Though not of Plante blood, she had once secretly broken into the World Tree network on her own and hacked its data—a once-in-history genius.
What was even scarier was that she’d succeeded without repeated trial and error.
Such talent had never existed in elven history.
Now that the World Tree was officially accessible, it was frightening to imagine how much more skilled Bellaruna had become.
‘She even succeeded in growing the pharmaceutical company... She might be the most successful of all Owens members.’
Thinking that, Ludger pointed out the limitation of Ella’s new form.
“Still, your range of activity must be limited. In this state, you can only move within the cradle here, centered around the World Tree.”
“You figured that out immediately? Correct. We’re slowly expanding the range, but it’s not easy.”
Still, compared to when she couldn’t do anything at all, this was already more than enough.
Sedina spoke in an embarrassed tone beside them.
“So Father visits regularly and stays the night in the cradle.”
“Oh dear. Sedina, what are you saying?”
Ella covered her cheeks as if embarrassed—though of course, they didn’t blush.
This body couldn’t display external signs of metabolism like heat or flushing.
Another limitation of a World Tree-grown body.
“Teacher, is it that fascinating to you?” Sedina asked, sensing Ludger’s curious gaze.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before. Of course I would be curious. It’s a natural reaction for a mage.”
“This isn’t magic, though.”
“Exploring the unknown is the mage’s destiny. Magic or not, all phenomena and miracles of the world fall under that pursuit.”
At Ludger’s answer, Ella reacted:
“Wow. You really do sound just like the teacher.”
“I was a teacher. And I was your assistant, too.”
Speaking face-to-face like this, Sedina and Ella looked very much alike—a true mother and daughter.
They had looked different in the past, but as Sedina grew, she had come to resemble Ella more.
Seen together like this, they could even pass for sisters.
Of course, telling who was who wasn’t difficult—their hair color still differed.
“You call yourself an assistant with such pride, but you can’t speak up about the important things?”
“T-That’s not the same issue!”
“You’ve been closer than anyone and still can’t seize the chance—it’s frustrating, you know.”
“I’ll handle my own affairs! Mom, stop interfering!”
“Oh my, did you hear that, son-in-law? Our daughter is already becoming rebellious.”
Hearing Ella cry toward Ludger, Sedina shouted loudly:
“That’s why I told you to stop saying weird things!”
If Ella kept teasing at this rate, Sedina might actually cry, so Ella decided to end the jokes there.
“Okay, okay. I understand.”
Watching them, Ludger couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh.
Sedina and Ella both stared at him.
“Teacher? Are you alright?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Things were unfolding amusingly for a moment, so I laughed without thinking.”
Once he calmed down, his tone grew noticeably gentler.
“It’s good to see you looking brighter than before, Sedina.”
“Eh? Ah, no, that’s not...”
“There is no need to be embarrassed. I know well how precious it is to live happily with family.”
Sedina could feel that Ludger wasn’t saying that out of politeness.
“Teacher... three years ago, that day... what were you trying to do?”
Sedina still didn’t know why Ludger had disappeared beyond the dimensional gate.
And the one who could have explained it to her had never returned—until now.
She had been too happy about seeing him again to think of it earlier.
“Yes. I should tell you.”
Ludger explained his purpose.
How he had sought to break the cage of the world, defeat Lumenis,
and travel to a completely different world to meet the mother he had so deeply longed for.
Hearing everything, Sedina trembled, unable to believe it.
Even Ella Plante, who had been teasing earlier, now wore a serious expression.
“To think something like that happened.”
Sedina could empathize with Ludger more deeply than anyone.
She too had lost beloved family and fallen into despair.
She had believed herself the most unfortunate person in the world.
She thought the world wanted her to crumble, so she hated and resented everything.
She wasn’t unaware she was doing terrible things.
But she thought she had no choice—that anyone in her position would have made the same decisions.
No, perhaps she had desperately believed that.
‘But teacher never did that. He must have suffered far more than I did, yet he never showed it.’
When she later learned the truth about Ludger,
she had been horrified by the weight of the fate he carried.
Born cursed, surviving countless brushes with death.
Unable to belong anywhere, forced to constantly change name and identity.
Completely unlike Sedina, who at least had a place in the Roschen household.
Yet Ludger never hated the world.
Even in hardship, he never hesitated to extend a hand to others.
He said it was just necessary, calculated behavior,
but Sedina had felt the warmth beneath his actions.
He had saved her.
To her, Ludger was a perfect person,
someone who stood unbowed against the storms of the world.
She had idolized him.
But hearing his true story made her realize painfully how wrong she had been.
‘Teacher is... just an ordinary person like me.’
His ultimate purpose wasn’t some great cause,
nor a noble mission to save humanity from an evil god.
He had simply—
wanted to see his family again.
That was who Ludger truly was.
Not an unbreakable superhuman—
but a common, ordinary person one could find anywhere.
“Then... are you alright now?”
“Yes. Because I finally accomplished it. I met her, and we spoke about so many things.”
“But it’s not enough, is it?”
Sedina knew well.
Even if you reunite with long-lost family, the emptiness does not fill easily.
Wounds may heal, but scars remain—and the greater the wound, the deeper the scar.
Even after three years, she herself still hadn’t completely freed herself from the past.
How much worse must it be for Ludger?
He hadn’t seen his family for over twenty years,
and even the reunion he achieved had been painfully short.
Far too little time for such deeply etched wounds to heal.
“Yes. It’s not enough for now. But going forward, things will be different.”
At Ludger’s faint smile, Sedina felt as though something had struck her heart.
“What is past is simply the past. And because that past existed, I was able to move forward even more.”
Ludger looked directly at Sedina and asked:
“Isn’t it the same for you?”