Chapter 34

Chapter 34 : Treasure Hunting Is Made of Dreams and Hope (4)

The large tree, the sort one might expect to find in a schoolyard, stood absurdly close to the spot where I had been doing the copying.

I had been glancing past it the entire time I copied.

Some days I’d think, The leaves are green today. On other days, The sunlight filtering through the leaves is glittering. Or, It’s swaying even though there’s no wind. Or again, It looks as though it’s getting bigger and bigger and might break apart the entire Record Archive.

It was a tree I had thought about many times over many days.

Its presence and location were certainly enough to make it worth considering, but the problem was that I couldn’t see any red aura at all near the tree.

Rather, it looked as though, to defend itself from the surging red force around it, it had thrown up a barrier of its own and refused to let anything inside. The boundary was so distinct that I had never even counted it among the candidates.

That was why I let my guard down.

“The treeee?”

“It’s just that there’s a tree inside another tree, which is rather fascinating.”

“Hmmm. That tree is the main body of the Record Archive.”

“The main body?”

“It has existed ever since the forest’s domain was first formed and the Record Archive first came into being. As though it had made a place here and was kindly telling everyone to make use of it…… perhaps?”

The roots of the Record Archive were that tree.

It was the beginning of everything.

So the figure of fifty million volumes had not been an empty boast.

Find the fragment?

What it really meant was that the beginning of all those countless volumes was that tree.

That’s right. It was wordplay.

‘You damned system.’

I ran a hand through my hair in disgust and considered what I was supposed to do about this. The tree itself couldn’t be the fragment, could it?

“At first they used to call it the young tree, though of course not anymoreee. It’s too large for that now, isn’t it?”

“Compared to the tree holding up the ruler’s castle, it’s still a sapling.”

Compared with the forest trees, which were so enormous that calling them the pillars of a building would not have been an exaggeration, it was only the size of an ordinary tree.

“Does it keep growing? What if it keeps growing and becomes like the trees outside?”

“According to the records, it was this size from the very beginning. It hasn’t grown at all up to nowww.”

That meant it had remained in exactly that state through all those years—years so long that even these long-lived people had not experienced them firsthand and only knew them through records.

And yet it still kept its fresh green vitality as though life were forever pouring out of it, despite never growing at all.

It felt like some small heart of the larger tree itself.

“Ah! Though they say that during the war, it turned red.”

“Like autumn leaves?”

“Nooo. They mean it literally. They say red liquid dripped from it, as though it had been drenched in blood.”

What the hell was that? Grotesque.

“There’s even a rumor that it reacts whenever something bad is about to happen. Come to think of it, when Riwin first entered the domain too…….”

“What?”

“It’s nothing!”

Then why start to say it?

Apparently it had reacted when I arrived. I let out a dry laugh and turned back toward the tree.

Ru’s words had given me a hint.

The tree had once turned red, Sek had liked red, and even now dense red threads still clung all around it.

Even if it was a forced connection, I knew perfectly well that I had no choice but to grasp at that straw.

“Ru, may I go closer and take a look?”

“At meee?”

“At the tree.”

“Ahaha, as long as you don’t touch it, that’s fine.”

Now that I had permission, I pushed through the surging red waves of thread and approached the tree.

The tree grew massively atop a low hill made of piled-up desks.

Its roots thickened the farther down they went, wrapping around the shelves and tangling together, so that the shelves themselves seemed to grow from the trunk.

Whether it was because it drew nourishment from the mother tree without separate care or for some other reason, the roots clung to the shelves or dangled in midair, making approach difficult.

I climbed a ladder, avoiding the layered shelves and thick roots.

Viewed up close, the tree was even more mysterious.

I pushed through the surging red threads and crossed the boundary.

A broad open space spread around the tree, but I had to grit my teeth against the oppressive heaviness in the air.

‘……?’

The force pressing down over my whole body felt almost identical to the barrier I had crossed at the boundary of the domain.

Only, instead of pain, it was more a strange, unpleasant scratching sensation rising from the tips of my toes.

‘So that’s why I couldn’t see any red aura around the tree.’

What I had thought was empty transparency was actually the opposite: the power of phantasm had overlapped and piled up until it surpassed the limit of what I could perceive. Perhaps my skill rank was still too low.

That much became obvious the moment I turned around with the tree at my back. Beyond the boundary, the scenery outside looked like a world soaked in red paint.

The wave of crimson was so intense it made my mind reel, enough that I had to squeeze my eyes shut.

Cheep—

At that moment, an out-of-place sound came from somewhere high among the branches.

‘A bird?’

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I heard the cry again.

Narrowing my eyes, I tilted my head back and searched among the lush green leaves high above.

At the end of one branch sat a tiny bird, huddled up and chirping.

It looked like a small, round white sparrow, or perhaps a snowball packed together from white snow, or even a little tuft of fluffy cotton.

Whatever it was, I couldn’t help being startled that another living creature was here in the Record Archive.

All this time I had come and gone through this place, and the only moving beings I had ever seen were Ru and myself.

And yet there had been a bird here?

Fweee—

For some reason, I let out a short whistle, almost as though entranced.

Not that I expected a bird to come just because I called, and the sudden whistle even made Ru react.

“Riwin?”

“Ah, it was just admiration.”

“Don’t look too long and come back downnn. If my lord finds out you climbed up there, he’ll be angry.”

Reeeally?

Ru voiced the question, but fortunately went back to her work. After checking once more that Ru had sunk back into writing something densely across the page with half-lidded eyes, I turned back toward the tree in relief.

Apparently my whistle had somehow stirred it, because the bird fluttered its wings several times and then took off from the branch.

It flew two or three circles around the great tree in noisy agitation, then quite unexpectedly settled down neatly on my shoulder.

I merely turned my head and looked down at the bird in disbelief as it rubbed its beak against the back of my neck and my collar.

Seen up close, the bird looked even more like a little bundle of white fluff, and it was openly displaying its familiarity toward me.

I had experienced this sort of thing before.

In recent terms, there had been the Phantasmal Species baring their claws and teeth as they rushed at me, and in more distant terms, there had been Woldeer, who had helped keep me alive.

This bird belonged to the latter category.

A bird that noticed me from a single whistle, came over first, and scratched under my chin with its beak.

‘Was it a Phantasmal Species?’

That blind affection it felt for me.

This Fragment of the Original Work was a Phantasmal Species.

That was why it had been called a trace left behind by the Master of Phantasms.

At this point, I almost couldn’t tell whether the quest wanted me to destroy the Original Work or to collect the traces of Sek. I let out a hollow laugh and lightly pressed down on the bird tickling my ear.

The soft down rustled and puffed out between my fingers. But that was all.

The bird merely crouched quietly beneath my hand, making no struggle to escape.

It was unmistakably affection, almost obedience.

‘Do I really resemble Sek that much?’

Even a fool would begin to doubt when this many similarities kept appearing one after another.

Was this what it felt like to have amnesia?

To wonder whether what I remembered about myself was the truth, or whether some third being might actually be the real me instead.

I didn’t like those possibilities. They felt too much like being denied.

Chirp—!

Even though my hand tightened unconsciously, the little bird did no more than cry once.

‘Sorry. You don’t have to try so hard.’

When I slowly removed my hand and let out a breath, the bird hesitated for a moment, then began once more to show its affection with its beak.

All the way until I crossed back over the dense boundary around the tree, climbed down the ladder, and returned to Ru—

the bird refused to leave my shoulder, as though insisting that was where it belonged.

“Have you finished looking around?”

“Yes. It was fascinating, beautiful, and……”

I trailed off and watched Ru’s reaction.

When Ru had failed to see the strange doodles before, I had already formed a rough guess and brought the bird back with me anyway. Fortunately, Ru didn’t seem able to see the bird either.

Ding!

[You clear the 【Field】 Quest 〈Treasure Hunt—This One Won’t Be Easy〉.

You have found the fragment left behind by the Master of Phantasms.

Would this count as being chosen by the butler, perhaps?]

[The fragment 〈Small but Precious Seed of a Phantasmal Species〉 has detached itself to the Executor.]

[……Calculating fragment rank……]

[The Executor’s contribution to the Original Work increases significantly.]

[Current rank of the Executor: Minor Role B → Minor Role B]

Ding!

[Congratulations! You have fulfilled the conditions for main-episode progression.]

[The 【Epic】 Quest will now resume.]

【Epic】If You’re Underfolk, Surely You Have a Phantasmal Species or Two?

You’ve somehow managed to find the seed of a Phantasmal Species.

Acquire a fragment of the Phantasmal Species and its creation method, and restore the Phantasmal Species completely.

It will become your own small but precious darling, after all.

▶Seed of a Phantasmal Species (1/1)

▶Fragment of a Phantasmal Species (0/1)

▶Creation Method of a Phantasmal Species (0/1)

▶Skill—Phantasm Transformation

〈Tip〉 The creation method might not be in the form of paper.

---

I shoved open the door carved with the grand design of a tree.

Inside the office, I found Pan working for the first time in a long while, trapped behind a mountain of documents piled high like a tower on his desk, and strode over with the corners of my mouth raised.

“Busy?”

Pan signed some report about budget cuts somewhere with a thoroughly uninterested face, not even bothering to look at me as he waved one hand dismissively.

“Busy.”

“When a person comes in, shouldn’t you at least have the decency to look at him and—”

“What. Why. What is it.”

Pan set down his pen and finally lifted his head, but the moment he saw me, his face twisted into a deep frown and he leaned back slightly.

“What is that thing you brought in perched on you?”

Pan’s gaze had stopped on the bird sitting on my shoulder.

The fact that he recognized it so easily was almost deflating.

To be honest, on my way here I had deliberately walked through the ruler’s castle with the thing sitting openly on my shoulder. Ru couldn’t see it, but I didn’t know about everyone else.

Not a single Surface Folk I passed on the way had noticed it. I’d allowed myself the shallow hope that maybe Pan wouldn’t recognize it either, but no, that had been a very short dream.

“So you can see it?”

“It’s a Phantasmal Species. You came in reeking of that smell all over, and now you’ve gone and brought back a live one?”

Leaving Pan to openly display his displeasure, I glanced over the stacks of papers that had been piled up there and went on,

“You’re the only one who can recognize it…… ah, though perhaps Ochel might.”

Since Ochel didn’t see visually but rather read energy, there was a high chance that she’d recognize it too.

It would have been difficult to hide something like this from Ochel anyway, considering how much she helped with various small tasks, so I had already been intending to tell her.

Pan leaned all the way back in his chair, raked his hair into an even greater mess, and let out a deep sigh.

“Where did you pick it up?”

“The Record Archive.”

“Ah…….”

I hadn’t brought it openly only because I’d never intended to hide it from the start.

It had also been a ploy to see whether Pan knew about this or not.

Every Fragment of the Original Work I had obtained—put differently, every lingering trace Sek had left behind—Pan had known about.

First the travel record, then the treasured earring, and now this.

“……Fine. Well then, try raising it.”

The displeasure and curiosity visibly receded from Pan’s expression. He picked up his pen again and went back to mechanically skimming the stacked papers.

I raised a brow in open question.

“You knew there was a bird there?”

“If I did, are you going to say I should have given it to you?”

“It’ll be quite the rumor if word spreads that the Ruler of the Forest kept a Phantasmal Species—one of the same creatures he killed on sight—hidden away in the Record Archive, where no one can freely enter.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Roughly.”

Pan shook his head and slashed out another signature with unnecessary style.

“Say what you came here to say and get out. I’m busy with the problem of the nonaggression negotiations.”

“Nonaggression?”

“Your Underfolk lord is insisting on coming personally…… never mind that. What do you want?”

Pan’s expression grew steadily more vicious, then collapsed again into weary exasperation as he propped up his chin.

Since the matter of the nonaggression pact wasn’t immediately urgent for me, I asked the question I had come here to ask first.

“How has the Black Forest been lately?”