The Cursed Sacred Tree

The last emperor of Nitens, the only unified empire on the ancient continent.

He is an emperor whom later generations rendered nameless, deliberately ensuring no name would remain.

The atrocities of the so-called ‘Tyrant’ reached their peak in the eleventh year of his reign.

The culmination of the emperor’s many crimes, which severed the long history of the continent-spanning empire, was the desecration of the sacred tree that guarded the empire—a sapling gifted by the elves that had stood with the empire through its history.

He framed loyalists of the empire and their families as traitors and had their heads severed.

The emperor personally witnessed the execution where about 1,200 people—members of the dukely family who had been the founding contributors to the nation and had never once betrayed the royal house, those with any trace of their blood, and the servants of that mansion—had their throats cut.

While forcing the head of the family to watch his retainers’ severed necks roll, the emperor himself dallied with dancers.

He had the duke’s head—who spat blood and hurled curses at the emperor—hung on the sacred tree, and that blood stained the tree red.

―From the history of Nitens, the only unified empire of the ancient continent.

At a glance, the sacred tree was so massive in girth that it would take some twenty grown men to encircle it with their arms.

Following its enormous size, what drew the eye was its dark, gloomy color: a black tree tinged with an ominous crimson.

“C-captain?”

What had Merus seen? He looked to me with a startled expression. Shumix also let out a small, deep groan.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Yes?”

When I said it was nice, I was referring to the enormous sacred tree.

In truth, that sacred tree was cursed, and in its current state it could not be used for anything. Even now, the negative divine power it exuded had put our group’s faces out of sorts.

“You like that?”

“Heh heh. Then I’ll take Merus’ answer as meaning he won’t need a weapon made from the sacred tree later.”

“N-no! No! Huh? But the sacred tree? You mean that thing?”

Merus scanned the cursed sacred tree with an ever-more astonished face.

After a long while she shook her head and wore an expression of incomprehension.

From here it looked distant, but up close one could see how vast and impressive the tree truly was. Of course, we’d first have to deal with the things guarding it.

As if escorting the sacred tree, black waves began to rise around it.

Naturally, it wasn’t water. They were the ghostly-form beasts we’d seen countless times on the way here—lank, translucent black specters rising in countless numbers.

Moreover, unlike the malevolent spirits we’d seen earlier that avoided approaching due to Shumix’s talisman, these radiated a thick malice as they flew toward us.

Faced with a sight that made the hair on one’s arms stand up, most of the squad unconsciously began rubbing their forearms.

“Prepare for combat.”

Undead are beings that emit endless malice toward the living.

Among undead, those without bodies are the ghostly-form beasts. To these malevolent spirits, we provoke jealousy and resentment.

Additionally, lacking a body allows them to execute unexpected attacks in battle.

Against attacks from spirits floating freely in the air, the legion’s members were struggling. Even Proy was repeatedly throwing futile swings at empty space.

Except for Shumix and Naruan, who wielded a weapon with spirit, everyone else was in the same state.

“Attack not as points or lines, but as surfaces.”

At the words I stepped forward and, cutting through the space the spirits were coming through with a strange trajectory, struck it sharply—infused with a heavy dose of chaos.

Tuuung―

With the twang of a tightly drawn bowstring, the front space warped as if the water in an uncorked tub had been disturbed.

The spirits, which had been taunting living beings as they flew through space, were suddenly sucked into that flow and shredded into pieces by the awaiting blades of chaos.

After demonstrating the sequence and giving my squad a ‘see, wasn’t that easy?’ look, their faces remained grave.

“Tch. If I could do that I wouldn’t be standing here like this!”

The small muttered voice was, as always, Arun.

But contrary to his words, Arun seemed to have caught the rhythm and his spellcasting noticeably changed.

“…Wind Press, Light, Transmute. Spread!”

Arun fused the higher magic Wind Press with the basic Light spell via transmutation magic and spread it out.

Around the point where Arun manifested it, a swift gust of luminous wind spread.

Exposed to that magical radiance, the spirits coughed out black smoke and writhed in pain. Those close by ultimately collapsed into dust.

Perhaps seeing Arun’s method helped; the magician-type members quickly adapted.

The member who dealt with the spirits most diligently was Proy.

“Even I was stupid enough to—”

He kept muttering that and, as his fast punches slowed, he began roughly imitating what I’d done.

‘Now that’s really a monster.’

Shumix, unchanged, demonstrated overwhelming strength against the spirits: their mere approach to her caused the spirits to evaporate and vanish.

Naruan’s flames were likewise lethal to evil entities. The spirit-forms left not even ashes under the blaze of ‘True Flame’.

Surprisingly, the one who performed well was Hugo. He filled his vibrating shield with light and released it, in a manner similar to when he faced a Shade Knight during a Monster Wave.

Like moths diving into a flame, the spirits charged Hugo and turned to dust alongside the light.

As the battle shifted to a more manageable defense, we moved forward. The number of spirits was nearly infinite; lingering and fighting them endlessly would lead nowhere.

“Elastra, you’ll come with me; you others watch over the squad. Oh, and Ja-ryong, come too.”

―Very well.

―Leave this to us.

―And be careful.

“Gyaa!!”

As I moved while hearing the concerns of the three remaining supreme spirits, the Ja-ryong flapped and flew over to perch on my head.

To my right, Elastra, the supreme water spirit, fluttered like blue silk and followed.

―But friend, what will you do about that?

“Do about it?”

―I mean, people usually burn cursed sacred trees like that, so I was wondering.

“Ah… I’ll take it. Roots and all, without leaving anything behind.”

―…Have you perhaps taken up necromancy?

Perhaps because she was a supreme water spirit, Elastra asked with a worried face, and I snorted with amusement.

I have no intention of treating necromancy as taboo. That’s why I keep Jul close as well.

But I’m learning a far greater magic than that. I have neither reason nor leisure to be obsessed with necromancy.

“No. If you help, we can cleanly take care of it.”

―Really? As I thought, you wouldn’t do otherwise. Leave it to us.

“Alright.”

Elastra’s shoulders rose at the thought of lending her power; she hummed and even sang a little tune, looking as if we were going on a picnic.

A humming spirit, a mini dragon yawning atop my head, and me walking with my hands behind my back.

Huuuuuuuuu.

The closer we got to the sacred tree, the higher-grade spirits capable of making more than mute sounds appeared one by one, but each and every one vanished without a trace in the breaker wrapped around Pyosik.

The reason ghost-type beasts are troublesome is that ordinary divine power rarely harms them. In other words, divine power beyond the ordinary can deal damage.

And these beasts, which have that basic immunity, tend to be easily neutralized once they do take a hit.

―If I only looked at you, I’d be hard-pressed to tell who is a beast and who is a representative.

“Is that so?”

Before I knew it, we’d approached the sacred tree so closely that we had to tilt our heads back to even see its top.

I held back Elastra, who looked ready to act, and examined the white wildflowers that bloomed thickly around the sacred tree.

“Elastra, do you know what that flower is?”

―Huh? Oh? Isn’t that Ambages?

A white flower that looked like an ordinary wildflower: five petals, with the stem as pure white as the petals.

A pure white flower that seemed utterly out of place in this land of death, blooming profusely.

“Do you know the language of Ambages’ flowers?”

―The language of flowers? Ah! You mean the symbolic meanings humans assign to flowers?

“Yes. Tragic everlasting love.”

―Oh? Why?

“Why? It’s the language of flowers—what reason do you need? They just called it that. Of course, Ambages is different. Because of another flower meaning.”

―Another flower meaning?

Elastra looked at me with eyes shining like a child hearing an old tale, silently pressuring me to tell it.

“The other flower meaning is this: inescapable!”

As I told Elastra the flower’s meaning, I drove Pyosik—held in my right hand—into the ground and poured divine power into it as if detonating it.

Kooong―! Thud thud thud―!!

Sounds of divine power detonating sequentially from beneath the earth echoed, and the trembling ground was stained green.

Kkieeeek!!

Kyaaaargh!!

From the surrounding soil, not the spots where the divine power had passed, came scratching sounds and beings clawed their way out.

They were knee-high at best, with faces like rats, and peculiarly walked on two legs.

They looked like anthropomorphized rats, one hand clutching a leather pouch and the other holding a tube.

―Ugh! The worst beast, Ambages!

Yes. These were Ambages, named after the flowers blooming thickly on the ground.

Ambages dwell mainly underground where their flowers bloom; when a creature enters a field of pure white flowers, they spray a hallucinogenic powder from those pouches to stun the prey, then eat its brain while it’s still alive—such is their hunting method.

Moreover, despite their small size they are classified as beasts because, though they have gray flesh and dark green blood, they are undead.

They usually slumber underground, but the moment a compatible malevolent spirit seeps into their bodies, they awaken and roam about.

Of course, there is no known explanation for how they are created.

Combined with the undead’s inexhaustibility and the malevolent spirits’ capacity for thought, they are classified as cunning, vicious undead and among the worst of beasts.

“Are they mostly out? No, the leader hasn’t come out?”

―Huh? Could it be here? An Ambages Mom is rare.

“Yes, it’s here. With this amount of negative energy, there’s no way an Ambages Mom would be absent.”

As mentioned earlier, Ambages are undead but, when a spirit enters their bodies, their hearts beat and blood flows.

Perhaps because of that, Ambages—despite being undead—often show resilience even against holy spells.

However, the breaker is indiscriminate. Whether ghost, undead, or human, it does not discriminate.

White powder filled the air from all directions, and Ambages’ poisoned needles rained down like a storm.

But thanks to the gamer’s trait of mental attack resistance and the attribute of ‘Tushin [Ex]’, messages kept popping up indicating I was completely immune to Ambages’ primary attack—the hallucinogenic powder.

When an attack that usually succeeded against non-undead failed, the Ambages were flustered.

Massacre.

After slaughtering over a hundred Ambages, my black leather armor had turned white.

Even after cutting down so many Ambages, I transformed the still-glittering Pyosik into a long sword and drove it deep into the ground again.

“They should come out now, right? Stop peeking.”

There was no way a beast like Ambages could be among the worst if it were this easy.

I thrust the over-ten-meter long-sword form of Pyosik all the way in and poured abundant divine power into it. Then I heard sequential sounds of something collapsing.

After a moment, the ground between us and the sacred tree heaved and exploded like a volcanic eruption.

Through that rupture, an Ambages three times larger than normal—about the size of an adult man—emerged.