「Declaring Domain.」

「The World Tree’s Garden is deployed as a simple domain in the surrounding area.」

From the roots of the World Tree nestled within my body, an iridescent, brilliant halo of light spread out like a wave. The dry desert sand transformed into fertile soil, and lush greenery stretched vividly upon it. The World Tree’s Garden, a space from my memory, was recreated here. The subtle differences were likely thanks to Bell’s management.

“……This is!”

Cliff’s expression turned to one of dismay at the surrounding scenery, which was changing as if a new painting were being laid over it. His ultimate move, a total mobilization of all the artifacts he possessed, was rapidly collapsing due to my single action.

Kwa-deuk!

The stakes that had deployed the barrier were being eroded by vines, and the parchment that had held light flickered on its own before bursting into flames. The lightning failed to strike, discharging in mid-air, and Cliff’s mismatched eyes wavered, unable to find a focus.

The divinity of the World Tree, which repelled even the domains of others, was now affecting even the downgraded implements known as artifacts.

Cliff, seeming to realize the source of this outlandish phenomenon, shouted.

“Impossible…! A domain!”

“You should have saved your trump card until the very end.”

Unless one possesses overwhelming strength, it ultimately comes down to a battle of wits. And there was no way a madman willing to sacrifice even the expedition team he had built himself could gain the upper hand in a cool-headed battle of wits.

He must have thought he could overturn his disadvantage by mobilizing all his means.

Even that was not enough.

A decisive move should only be played when one is certain.

His vaunted intuition was not a prophecy.

As long as he failed to realize that difference, the outcome was as good as decided.

Drip!

The sun shone down.

A bead of sweat trickled down his jawline and fell to the ground. At the end of the fierce battle that had reached its climax, Cliff’s entire body was drenched in sweat.

In contrast, the scorching sun no longer had any effect on me.

The desert vegetation was parched, but it possessed a tenacious life force that endured the harsh climate. The form of the World Tree recreated within the domain was massive and held the wonder of having adapted to an extreme environment.

Chwarararak!

All the plants in the domain converged to a single point.

The branches of the World Tree grasped them in its hand and balled them up tightly.

The power of artifacts is strong.

Rare artifacts, the kind that only the upper echelons of Gellerg City would possess, sometimes held the formidable ability to turn the tide of a war with their mere existence.

But Cliff’s collection fell far short of that level.

They were tricky and got on one’s nerves, but that was all.

With my discerning eye, I could roughly guess the limits of the artifacts he possessed.

‘It’s at a level where it can wring a person out like a wet rag.’

It was also at a level where it could twist the legs of a house-sized bull and bring it down.

‘That’s the limit.’

If he could handle more than that, he wouldn’t have been flustered when the monster he himself had summoned charged at him.

Kwaaaak!

Finally, all the plants in the domain gathered into one point.

It was large enough to cast a shadow over the barrier Cliff had deployed.

His complexion turned deathly pale.

He had probably guessed the result.

He couldn’t block it.

The World Tree’s branch, holding the mass, bent back elastically like a bowstring.

Kiiwuuung!

And it was fired.

A weight like a falling meteor began to bear down on Cliff. The air, pushed back by the massive object, raged into a storm.

Amidst the deafening roar and the cutting wind that made it hard to even open one’s eyes.

“Kraaaaaaaah!”

Cliff let out a roar like a scream.

His two pupils, which had been wandering without focus, contracted to a size smaller than a fingernail.

Pzzt! Pzzt!

The atmosphere froze and twisted, emitting a distorted wave resembling lightning. It was a phenomenon caused by artificially twisting mana that had been compressed to its limit.

Tears of blood flowed from Cliff’s eyes.

His skin was drying up like a tree that had all its moisture sucked out, and any semblance of vitality was rapidly oxidizing from his face.

There was a reward for burning even his own life.

The mass of plants fired from the World Tree’s branch lost its momentum and was shrinking as if being compressed by a great force.

Cliff pulled up the corners of his parched lips.

“I! Will not die in a place like this, I will definitely…!!”

His spirit was commendable, but there was no reason for me to stand by and watch.

Kwajik!

Blood spurted from one of his eyes.

He turned his head towards me.

Reflected in that eye was the muzzle of a gun, smoke curling from it.

The facial muscles that had been contorted as if squeezing out every last ounce of strength held a sense of futility, and then collapsed.

Kugugugu!

To hold with telekinesis and twist with distortion.

The synergy was powerful, but it was a combination like a sandcastle, destined to collapse together if one side crumbled.

Cliff had no strength left to endure.

“Gaaah…!”

The end of the ambitious man who had challenged even the Mage Tower was no different from anyone else’s.

Kwaaaaaang!

Even that was soon buried in the roar.

***

Thudududuk!

The earth and sand that had soared beyond the clouds announced the end of the fight. The sand pouring down like rain was enough to sting the skin.

I walked through it.

Cliff’s body was nowhere to be seen.

Only the artifacts remained in place, indicating where his body should have been.

“Nothing useful left, huh.”

The two eyes were crushed, the shoulder piece was broken, and the parchment had burned up.

At least one sword remained.

“I don’t think I’ll have any use for this.”

As long as I had the World Tree, a gun was a sufficient weapon. If I needed cutting power, I could make do with synchronization, so a sword was a beautiful but useless thing to me.

Shwiiik!

“This is…”

Just then, the World Tree retrieved its stem, wrapped around something.

It was the stake that had deployed the lightning barrier.

Clack!

The stake seemed to be an assembly-type; when the pieces were fitted together, it returned to the shape of a staff. As the World Tree had only wrapped it with vines, there seemed to be no damaged parts. Since artifacts don’t choose their masters, I should be able to use it again.

“Hmm.”

As I pondered with an artifact in each hand, a way to use them seemed to come to mind.

It was just that the person who would use them wouldn’t be me.

“It wasn’t just the mage who was incredible.”

As I was organizing my thoughts, Batu approached and spoke.

“You’re no slouch either. It’s going to be hard to even pass through this way from now on.”

A large, sunken crater, the scattered debris of buildings, and the traces of a fierce battle.

It was a scene that one wouldn’t even dare to think of restoring by human hands. Of course, the desert sand would soon cover it, so it was a compliment laced with hyperbole.

“Have you cleaned up all the remnants?”

“Not a single rat left. They were all half-corpses already, so it wasn’t a difficult task.”

“Good, then you guys take care of the Thorson Expedition squads scattered in various places.”

“You’re stating the obvious. Now that we’ve finished off the leader who led the pack, we have to hunt the rest with our own hands.”

Batu bared his yellowed teeth and beat his chest.

He would probably be able to do it without much difficulty.

Communications were restricted and the main force was annihilated, so if they launched a surprise attack before the situation was grasped, they could probably wipe them out quickly.

“You said you were aiming for the ruins. I’ll make sure to move around carefully for a while so there are no additional troubles.”

“Alright.”

I didn’t say thank you.

Since I helped them out of a crisis that could have annihilated their tribe, they should at least provide that much service.

“Take this.”

Batu took a wooden plaque from his pocket and handed it to me.

It was an object with the wolf crest of the Ulfirin tribe embossed on it.

“The clan’s plaque?”

“So you do know. If you ever have a reason to go to Pulsar, find Bayor and give it to him. He’ll see to your convenience.”

“I thought the tribes that settled in the land of quicksand had their ties with Pulsar cut.”

“He was a fellow whose head worked too well to be a warrior. I thought the city might be better for him than here, so I sent him. He left ten years ago, so he should have settled in by now.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I doubted I would ever have a reason to leave Gellerg City, but one never knew the future. If I started lending a hand in the affairs of a megacorp or the city government, it might not be too far off.

“Oh, and one last thing.”

“What is it?”

“Have you ever heard of transcendence?”

“Trans, what?”

“Never mind.”

What could I expect from a barbarian?

I would find out when I entered the ruins myself anyway.

***

Returning and rejoining the party, I headed straight for the ruins.

Since it was a distance I had estimated would take half a day, it didn’t take that long.

The battle that had taken place at dawn ended, and by the time the sun was high in the sky, we had arrived at the ruins.

“This is… the ruins?”

「The World Tree is puzzled, saying it can’t see anything.」

The place we arrived at was an empty plain.

What was called a ruin in this world was different from the traces of a past civilization that one would normally think of.

There were no collapsed building sites, weathered furniture, or ancient tombs to be seen.

Sage turned her head this way and that, but it wasn’t as if something would appear just by doing so.

“Ruins are not conspicuous. It is because they are not so easily found that everyone is so desperate to find them.”

That was true.

The rarity of ruins and artifacts was largely due to the condition that they were simply hard to find.

Experienced explorers were said to identify them with their own know-how, but most other cases where ruins were discovered were by chance.

The reason the Thorson Expedition had ignored even the Mage Tower and prioritized clearing the surroundings was also to concentrate on the search.

“Is it like a barrier that blocks the approach and perception of others?”

“The principle itself can be seen as similar.”

A barrier was a type of magic or sorcery.

It was a technology that could be analyzed and implemented by human hands.

Ruins were different.

As Colin seemed to be pondering how to explain it easily, I opened my mouth.

“They say ruins are like a locked room with no windows.”

“A locked room?”

“You can’t see inside a locked room until you open the door, right? It’s the same.”

Ruins have a gate.

Only by opening that gate could one perceive the existence of the ruin.

If one did not enter or exit through the gate, its existence could not be perceived by sight or presence, so it could also be described as another dimension.

‘It’s a kind of dungeon.’

An instance dungeon, perhaps.

As such, no matter what happened inside, there was no way for the outside to know.

It was only natural that expedition teams waged war instead of cooperating.

“Then is the gate perhaps… this?”

Sage crouched down and reached her hand into the sand.

A small sand dune, looking like it was made by a child, scattered, revealing what was underneath.

There was a single blade of grass, as dry as if it hadn’t had a sip of water.

“You found it well.”

“For this tiny thing to be the gate, it must be hard to find.”

“This ruin is on the peculiar side. It’s a form of gate that even I, a school master of the Mage Tower, have never seen before.”

There are types of ruins.

And the gate is a clue that allows one to distinguish them.

A unique form for which it was hard to find a precedent was evidence that it was a ruin that held a professional achievement.

It also hinted at what kind of profession it was related to.

‘A blade of grass.’

As expected, it’s a druid’s ruin.

In this world where spirits have vanished and nature has declined, a blade of grass would naturally signify a druid.

‘Then what is transcendence?’

It was a concept I had never heard of, and a word that was on a different track to be associated with druids.

Could Cliff have been mistaken?

But to invest everything he had built up in a delusion was too foolish an act.

Even if it was a mistake, there must have been at least some basis for it.

“Do you happen to know anything about the word transcendence?”

“I don’t. Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing.”

Even a school master of the Mage Tower doesn’t know.

I shook my head, and Colin, perhaps thinking it was a passing question, cleared his throat to change the mood.

“Then I shall open the gate now.”

“Wow.”

「The World Tree jumps up and down in anticipation.」

With two curious children watching, Colin took out a water pouch from his backpack.

Then he tilted the spout towards the dry blade of grass.

Jjoreureuk!

As if under a spatial expansion spell, more water poured out of the pouch than its visible capacity.

After pouring out one whole pouch, Colin took out the next one and repeated the same action.

“My disciple, you do it from here on. I’ll set up camp in the meantime.”

“……What are you doing right now?”

“If you pour a moderate amount of water and wait for the blade of grass to regain its vitality, the gate will open.”

“Is that all it takes to open the gate?”

“‘All it takes,’ you say? It’s not something one can do normally.”

Pouring water in the desert and waiting.

It might seem trivial, but it was a considerably tricky condition.

“That’s why waiting for the gate to open usually takes longer than the travel. It will take two days.”

Having finished his explanation, Colin was about to start setting up camp in earnest, so I stopped him.

“I will open the gate.”

“It’s not just the water, I told you it takes time.”

“I can shorten it.”

I had the means to do so.

As if it had been prepared.

Indeed, this place was prepared for me.

(End of Chapter)