It was an extremely peculiar sight. Trees were special beings that could grow and shoot upwards towards the sky endlessly, but its beginnings would always start from the ground. Even if it sprouted towards the sky, its roots firmly grasped the ground. Of course, the Tree of Earth had a strange structure since its roots reached up to the sky and grew inwards into the earth, but it didn’t break the principle of growing while attached to the ground.
Yet, the tree in front of him was different. From its leaves to the ends of its roots, there was not a spot on the tree attached to the floor. If it wasn’t for the chains wrapped around the tree, it looked like it would float to the ceiling. The chain held the tree to the ground like a noose tying up a bird that was trying to fly away.
‘The bind doesn’t look that tough though.’ A considerable part of the chain that was tied to the tree was broken off and wavered in the air.
Pop! One more chain broke off. The chain couldn’t withstand the sudden increase in force and flew towards Zich. He arched his back.
Bam! Above him, it sounded like the air was getting whipped. The chains followed a disorganized trajectory and distanced themselves from Zich. ‘It would’ve been dangerous if I had taken a direct hit.’
The chains had been tightened to the limit, and the force it swirled with as its parts broke off couldn’t be underestimated. If an ordinary person were slapped by it, their bones wouldn’t be the only things to break. The upper and lower parts of their body would have been divided into two. Furthermore, the chains didn’t appear to be made up of normal metal and were soaked with mana. If Zich had gotten hit, even he would have suffered more than a simple injury.
‘That must be the object suppressing the tree.’ Zich thought the chain fulfilled the same role as the Lake’s Tear, the Flame’s Tear, and the green tree that had once surrounded the Tree of Earth. However, seeing how a large part of it was broken off, it didn’t seem like it was completely fulfilling its role.
‘I can also feel a great deal of the tree’s mana.’
Zich felt the difference in mana levels between a suppressed tree and a free one. The mana he felt right now was too high for a restricted tree. ‘But the mana is too little for me to believe that it’s completely unsuppressed.’
It seemed more accurate to think that this tree’s suppressor had lost half of its effectiveness. Perhaps, the suppressor had degraded over a great length of time. Yet, the other suppressors he saw before showed no signs of aging; they brilliantly performed their roles as if they were new. It was just a guess, but Zich thought that time had no effect on the suppressors.
‘Then, is it because I removed the other trees’ suppressors?’
Zich thought the trees were the key to solving the regression question. Thus, there was a high possibility that all the trees were connected; therefore, it was also possible that the other trees could influence one another after they were freed from their suppressors. Zich walked right below the tree.
Whiiiish!
As he neared the tree, the air whirled harder. His clothes flapped and his hair waved wildly in the air. There shouldn’t be any wind inside a basement like this, especially if the only area leading to the outside was a single staircase that stretched through a deep tunnel. The only explanation for this unbelievable situation was the tree.
‘This is the Tree of Wind.’
Then that explained everything: the wind tickling his body and the tree hovering in the air. After observing the tree for a bit, Zich approached the chain that tied the tree to the floor, hoping to remove the chains. Although Zich could slice through steel like it was mud, this was no ordinary chain. If he recalled the past suppressors, even if they had lost half of their abilities, he couldn’t underestimate them. Yet, he had something to rely on. He pulled out Windur from his back and clutched it. Soon, Windur shook.
Wiiiiing! At the same time, the tree of wind vibrated.
‘It’s here!’
The dormant mana inside Zich began to gradually wake up. It always pleased him to feel his body fill up with power. It felt like moving one’s limbs freely after recovering from an injury. Zich tried turning around the mana he had perfectly awakened, and the mana surged across his whole body. Zich smirked and poured mana into Windur.
Whooosh!
As rough mana flowed into it, Windur’s blade trembled. Zich lifted Windur high into the air and swung powerfully at the chain in front of him.
Crack!
Although he met great resistance, Zich succeeded in cutting the chain.
Whoosh!
The chain barely missed Zich and passed by him. With its taut body loosened, the chain turned into a fearsome weapon.
‘Nothing is easy,’ he thought.
If he only focused on cutting the chains, the wildly floundering chains would chop his body into pieces. Zich concentrated his attention and broke off each chain. The more chains he broke, the mana that flowed out of the tree increased.
Crunch!
The moment Zich cut off the last chain, mana exploded out of the tree. The winds blew madly inside the space.
Dddrrrrrr!
The chains attached to the tree flew away with the winds. Thrusting away the thing that had chained it down, the Tree of Wind flew up and displayed its astonishing figure in the air.
‘It’s done.’ With this, their reason for coming to Pialu was accomplished. ‘It was ridiculously easy.’ It was even more so considering what happened with the other trees.
Even though his energy dropped a bit, this was not a bad thing. Zich was not a sadist that believed all results had to be achieved after long and difficult trials. ‘If the simple path is an easy path, it’s better to go the easy way.’
Anyway, Zich achieved his goal, so he looked up at the tree of wind. ‘With this, there are a total of four trees that are now released from their suppressors. Would Glen Zenard’s regression ability be gone by now?’
Unfortunately, there was no way to check this.
‘Should I go back?’ Even though Zich achieved his goal of freeing the Tree of Wind, there were still many things to do in Pialu. He needed to guard against Glen Zenard and stop Til from becoming a Demon Lord, and he needed to spy on the monsters’ movements. Zich was about to turn away when—
Thud!
He heard a large vibration of mana. Zich looked up at the Tree of Wind while stopping in his steps. It was letting out a white light.
Ziiiing! Windur began shaking at the same time. Anyone could see that they were resonating together. Zich felt a complicated flow of mana from Windur. It began forming a pattern with support from the Tree of Wind.
‘As expected. There’s no way this would end so easily.’ Zich clicked his tongue. If he could end this matter by just breaking some chains, there was no need for Windur to directly guide him to this path.
‘I’m not even surprised anymore. What do you plan to do?’ Zich looked down at Windur and thought this. Windur’s mana reached its peak, and at that moment—
Bam! There was no sound or light anymore, but Zich could feel that something enormous had exploded in this space. Zich’s consciousness was swallowed up by this explosion.
* * *
After Zich climbed up Selockblum, Lyla focused on defending Pialu with Hans, Snoc, and Elena. They were startled to hear that early in the morning, Zich had gone up the mountain by himself. However, the three of them obediently followed Lyla’s instructions. People were still patching up the damage to the city walls. They needed to fix the crushed walls and clean up the huge monster corpses. Moreover, since there was no guarantee that there would no longer be monster ambushes, they also needed to continue patrolling. Lyla led the companions and walked around the area they were assigned to patrol. Since they had killed an enormous number of monsters in the last ambush, they didn’t see any monsters. However, it wasn’t as if there were no unpleasant and unwanted meetings.
“Hello, how do you do?” A man approached Lyla with a friendly smile—it was Glen Zenard.
While they were returning back, Lyla and her companions met Glen Zenard’s party coming from Pialu. It seemed as if Glen Zenard’s party had been assigned to patrol right after Zich’s group.
Lyla almost clicked her tongue, but this was too obvious to do in front of him, so Lyla calmly replied, “Hello.”
Glen scanned Lyla’s back for a bit. “I don’t see Mr. Zich. May I ask where he went?”
“He went up to Selockblum. He said he was going to see if he could find out the reason for the monsters’ unusual behaviors.”
“That’s amazing.” Glen showed a face full of admiration; his expression seemed as if he was deeply impressed by Zich’s ability to act. His exterior act was so great that if one did not know about his dubiousness, they would have never guessed any other emotions from him.
The two groups did not exchange very important conversations; they merely just passed by each other and exchanged greetings with people they were familiar with. Like this, the two groups separated. However, the people with ties with the other party were bothered by the people in the other group.
‘Ms. Browning… It seemed as if her mood was extremely down…’ One such person was Hans. He was concerned for Lara who he had met quite often.
‘She really was Pina.’ The other person was Elena who checked that the mage in Glen’s party was a mage from the same magical tower as her. However, the first person who came to meet another party member was not any of the aforementioned people. It was an unexpected but predictable person at the same time.
“Would I be able to talk with you for a bit, Ms. Lyla?” Glen approached Lyla as she was peacefully drinking tea by herself in a garden that Zich and Lyla had been recently using to rest comfortably.
* * *
“I was a bit surprised. I have no recollection of seeing any member in your group in this lodging,” Lyla said as she stared at Glen sitting in front of her.
Glen made the friendly smile that he always made. “We were also looking for a good place to stay, but after hearing that Mr. Zich’s companions were all residing here, we decided to move here too.”
“Were we that close? For you to immediately move after finding out our party’s lodging?”
“Of course, it depends on the situation. I think we need to at least collaborate right now in this situation. Aren’t we at least close enough to hold hands when we are facing the same enemy? It was also like that at Janmalpi as well.”
“In the end, we separated with extremely ill feelings though.”
“Well, I also understand that there’s a high possibility that something like that will happen again. However, I also don’t think it’s a good idea to completely ignore someone we’re fighting together with.”
“I understand your reasoning, but why did you ask to see me?”
“It’s not an important matter. No matter how distant, no, not good our relationship is, aren’t we fighting together? I don’t think it’s a bad idea to try to at least slightly build our friendship.”
“If it’s something like that, I think it’ll be better to do that with Zich, since he is the leader of our group. Moreover, the person you clashed the most with was Zich. When Zich returns, should I let you know?”
“Ahaha, I also need to talk with Mr. Zich. However, he’s not here right now, so I want to converse with you, Ms. Lyla.”
‘He picked me.’ Lyla became sure of this.
It seemed as if Glen wanted her to be his comrade. No, rather than a comrade, would it be more fitting to say that he wanted a pretty doll next to him? It was completely obvious that at Zich’s disappearance, Glen thought this was the perfect opportunity to make his move.