The Final Jewel Orb (Toward The Finale, Part 4)

One day, while the Royal Capital was still in the middle of reconstruction.

Kou called me, so I came to the dungeon hall.

I asked the white sphere,

“What is it, Kou?”

“It’s about time you obtained Rāna-san’s jewel orb and made her into her ultimate complete form?”

“The last one was under the sea, right? Is it urgent?”

“Well, inheritance registration is okay as long as it’s done within three years, but I think sooner would be better.”

“I don’t really understand, but I get it. I’ll go now.”

“Thank you very much.”

And so, we ended up going to search for the final jewel orb.

An endless expanse of ocean.

There was nothing to block the blazing sunlight.

This place was far south of Fortis.

Riding a fishing boat over that sea, Liricia and I were pushing ahead.

Rāna was pushing the small boat from behind while shouting, “Keeeen!”

As if splitting the blue sea, the small boat sped forward at tremendous speed.

Liricia was sitting at the bow with one hand down, using her other hand to make a monocle and look around.

The headwind made her silver hair stream like a flag.

—Then.

Liricia turned around and shouted.

“There is something! Slow down, Rāna-chan!”

“Kyui!”

The magic power released from the wings on Rāna’s back weakened, and we gradually slowed down.

After we continued over the sea for a while, Liricia pointed slightly left of our direction of travel.

“Look! There it is!”

I also leaned forward and strained my eyes.

Sure enough, there was a small black dot sitting alone on the sea.

As we approached, it gradually grew larger, and its shape came into view.

It was a small boat.

It was smaller than the five-person fishing boat we were riding.

There was one person aboard the small boat. He was holding a long pole.

Apparently, he was fishing.

We approached even closer and brought the fishing boat alongside the small boat.

The fisherman was an old man of around seventy. Both his hair and beard were pure white, and both were so long they reached the floor of the small boat.

However, I wondered whether there were fish in a place like this.

“I want to ask one thing. Can you catch fish here?”

“Well now. It would be nice if I could. Fwah, fwah, fwah.”

He laughed with his mouth wide open. He was an inscrutable old man.

Then Liricia, while making a monocle, tugged lightly at my clothes with her free hand.

“This person is a sea elf.”

“Seriously? So elves who live in the sea really do exist.”

The old man narrowed his eyes and looked at Liricia.

“Oh? It seems you have quite good eyes.”

“Liricia is my beloved angel, after all. Oh, I’m Alec.”

“I am Budori, a sea elf. So, what business brings you people all the way to the ends of this sea?”

“We came to obtain the Sacred White Dragon’s jewel orb.”

Budori looked at me from head to toe, then looked at Liricia and Rāna.

Or rather, when he looked at Rāna, he gasped.

“I see. So another season has turned. Very well.”

Budori held his palm toward us and chanted a spell.

“O sea of mercy, contain the great wind within you—Aqua Breath.”

Our bodies glowed blue.

“Old man, what kind of spell is this?”

“It is magic that allows you to breathe even underwater. Now, dive down to the seafloor.”

Budori nodded and pointed at the sea.

Even if he said that, doing it suddenly was scary.

To check, I leaned my upper body over the side of the boat and tried to put my face into the water.

However, before I could, a pillar of water rose from the surface.

Rāna had casually jumped in.

Liricia screamed.

“Rāna-chan!”

“Ho, ho, ho. As expected of the Sacred White Dragon-sama. You have courage.”

“That’s just recklessness.”

Then Rāna emerged from the water. She spoke with a bursting smile.

“Amazing! I can breathe! But below is even more amazing!”

Rāna stretched her hand from the surface and pulled me and Liricia from the side of the boat.

“H-Hey!”

“Kyaa!”

Before we could panic, we were below the surface.

And we realized that we really could breathe.

Furthermore, when I saw the inside of the sea, I could only be astonished.

I unconsciously let out a large amount of breath with a bubbling sound.

The sea was so deep that the seafloor could not be seen.

And far below, from the seafloor thousands of meters down, a gigantic great tree was growing.

Liricia spoke in surprise while holding my hand.

“It is the World Tree!”

“So the World Tree was here!”

The root tree that was said to have created many forms of life.

Its leaves were also said to be ingredients for the legendary medicine elixir.

However, the common theory was that it did not exist in this world, or that it had existed long ago but withered away.

To think it had been growing in the sea.

Well, we could not just stay surprised.

We dove deeper to search for the jewel orb.

Liricia made a monocle and searched for the jewel orb.

With my open hand, I held Rāna’s hand.

Incidentally, when our bodies were separated, all I could hear were bubbling sounds.

However, because the surfaces of our bodies were covered in a film of air, it seemed that we could hear words when we held hands.

As we descended, the trunk gradually grew thicker.

We also began to occasionally see sea elves swimming along the World Tree.

Other than them, mermaids with fish lower bodies were swimming between the lush trunks and branches.

The leaves of the World Tree swayed like seaweed, and the golden sunlight reaching down from the surface shimmered fantastically.

“It’s a beautiful view…”

“Yes.”

“Kyai!”

“Does it look like the jewel orb is here?”

“It seems to be directly below us, on the seafloor—however…”

“What is it?”

Liricia furrowed her slender brows and spoke painfully.

“I am gradually beginning to feel as if I am being compressed…”

“True.”

There was a crushing sense of pressure.

This feeling was similar to the dimensional rift.

—In that case.

I compressed my Holy Wave into a radius of ten meters.

The moment I did, breathing became easier.

Liricia and Rāna both smiled.

“As expected of you, Alec-san!”

“Alec, you’re amazing!”

Praised by the two of them, I swam even farther down.

After several hours, we reached the seafloor.

The World Tree might have been around two thousand meters tall.

Countless houses stood in rows around the base of the World Tree.

They were probably the dwellings of the sea elves. It was more on the scale of a town than a village.

When we entered the town, a woman wearing red and white shrine maiden clothing appeared.

She stretched her arm toward us and held her palm out.

I wondered what she was doing, and then Liricia stretched out her hand in the same way and placed her palm against hers.

The woman’s voice became audible.

“Welcome, Hero-sama, Angel-sama, and Sacred White Dragon-sama. My name is Neneri, the Dragon Shrine Maiden.”

“You knew about us?”

“Yes. Word was passed to us by the elder on the surface, who possesses the Search Eye.”

“Then you know our purpose too?”

“Yes. The jewel orb is this way.”

Neneri walked off, swaying her red skirt. She headed toward the base of the World Tree.

We followed after her.

After walking for a while, we arrived at the World Tree.

There was a small shrine at its roots.

Neneri opened the shrine door and took out a small orb that could be hidden in her palm.

Rāna raised a delighted cheer with a smile.

“Orb, orb! Yay!”

“I am glad for you, Rāna-chan.”

“Finally.”

“Kyaai!”

While raising a voice of joy, she accepted the orb from Neneri.

Then, after wiping the orb with the hem of her one-piece dress, she put it in her mouth.

Her slender throat moved up and down with a gulp.

—However.

Unlike usual, her whole body did not shine.

Rāna looked around at her hands and body, then tilted her head.

“Something feels different.”

“So it was the final jewel orb… Please wait a moment, Sacred White Dragon-sama.”

After saying that, Neneri began walking in circles around Rāna.

While praying with single-minded focus, she waved the wand with a long, narrow white cloth attached to it in her hand.

Gradually, Rāna’s body shone as it grew larger.

And the next instant, she released an intense light that shifted from blue to white.

I closed my eyes against the glare.

After that, when I faintly opened my eyes, a pure-white dragon more than ten meters long stood where Rāna had been.

She bent back her long neck and cried out happily.

“Gabo gabo gobo.”

That was the sound of bubbles.

—She must have shouted, “Kyaai!”

I touched Neneri with my open hand and thanked her.

“It seems she was able to return to her complete form. Thank you.”

“No, it was my pleasure. I am happy to have been of help.”

Neneri answered with a relieved smile.

Liricia nodded.

“She truly looks dignified.”

“Yeah, she does. Though we won’t have her fly to other worlds anymore.”

As I watched Rāna, she spread her wings and lowered them to the seafloor.

She moved her front leg as if beckoning us.

“You want us to ride?”

“That appears to be the case.”

Liricia and I used her wing as a slope and climbed onto Rāna’s back.

Rāna raised her neck straight and looked up toward the far-off sea surface.

“Rāna, taking off!”

Rāna spoke fluently, then kicked off the seafloor and flew upward.

She released rainbow-colored magic power backward from her wings and rose at incredible speed.

When I looked down, Neneri was waving.

I waved back too, but she soon became as small as a speck and vanished from sight.

The dark sea grew brighter and brighter.

A few moments later, we burst out of the sea with a loud sound.

The dazzling sunlight entered my eyes, and I unconsciously narrowed them.

The sea surface surged, violently rocking the small boat Budori was riding.

“Ho, ho! What a magnificent dragon this is!”

Budori grinned broadly while clinging to the side of the boat.

I thanked Budori.

“Thanks for your help, Budori!”

“Come visit again when you have time.”

“We will.”

“Thank you very much, Budori-san.”

“See you again, elder!”

Rāna circled above Budori’s head.

Then she grabbed the fishing boat we had ridden in with her front legs and flew toward the Fortis Kingdom to the north.

---

In the blink of an eye, we returned to the mansion garden.

After letting us down, Rāna returned to human form.

She was a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl. She had long, slender limbs and a figure with feminine curves.

However, her clothes were no longer a white one-piece dress, but a white uniform like something a student would wear.

“Your clothes changed too?”

“You look very dignified.”

“I’m not a child anymore, after all. Or rather, my mind was always an adult. An adult!”

“You were cute when you were saying kyui-kyui too, though.”

I simply said what I thought.

Then Rāna blushed and looked at me with a sulky, charming glare.

“Geez, don’t say that anymore. It couldn’t be helped that my words became childish because I was pulled along by my body, you know.”

“That’s true. Sorry.”

“No, as long as you understand, it’s fine.”

Rāna showed her neatly aligned teeth and grinned. Her white teeth shone in the sunlight.

After that, we entered the mansion.

We went to the hall where Kou was waiting.

Kou was delighted, sending blue light across her round sphere.

“Yay, the leader of the dragon-type dungeon has been born. I’ll register you right away as God’s proxy.”

“Please do.”

“That is wonderful.”

Rāna jumped up in joy.

“With this, I can go to the Heaven Realm too. I’m looking forward to it!”

I see. Apparently, only certain people could go to the Heaven Realm.

Though there was nothing special there.

In any case, now that we had obtained the final jewel orb, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

—Hm? But isn’t that guy in the Heaven Realm right now?

Would it be all right for him to meet Rāna?

I asked Kou.

“Isn’t Magnaurus in the Heaven Realm? How is he doing?”

“Magnaurus-san has been going down to the surface every now and then whenever he thinks up some evil scheme, but no matter what he does, he ends up healing people and restoring the land, so right now he has shut himself away in a corner of the Heaven Realm and is crying himself to sleep.”

“Then it should be fine.”

“Well, he is eating the alcohol and meals I serve too, so I think he’ll cheer up eventually?”

Since the meals Kou served contained Holy Wave, wouldn’t he become even more of a benevolent god…?

Somehow, I felt sorry for him.

Well, I hoped he would quickly find some enjoyment other than tormenting the weak.

As I was thinking that, the elf Cheryl rushed into the hall in a panic.

With her blond hair in disarray, she spoke anxiously.

“If you had told me, I would have guided you!”

When we asked, it turned out Cheryl was a sea elf.

Apparently, all sea elves lived with the mission of concealing and protecting the existence of the World Tree.

That was because, long ago, they had been terribly mistreated by a nation that tried to monopolize the rights and benefits of the World Tree.

To ensure that such a thing would never happen again, they sent information agents to countries around the world and monitored whether the existence of the World Tree had been exposed, or whether any nations or people were trying to seize it.

Apparently, they also carried out information concealment.

Cheryl was in charge of Fortis.

The reason she had been working not as an adventurer, but as a short-term conditional slave, was apparently because that slave trader had connections with nobles, ministers, and great merchants, making it convenient for gathering information.

Certainly, it would be difficult for an ordinary adventurer to touch important state secrets.

Cheryl spoke with exhaustion showing on her beautiful face.

“The elder scolded me, asking why I did not guide the Sacred White Dragon-sama.”

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know, so it couldn’t be helped.”

“Yes. If you ever go to the sea elf village again, please let me guide you next time.”

“Understood.”

At my words, Cheryl stroked her chest in relief.

Well, Cheryl had helped me with many things, and she probably wanted to visit home too, so I thought it might be fine to take her there when I had free time.

The remaining matter was Liricia.

The Royal Capital was still being rebuilt, but things had begun to look much more settled.

I thought it might be about time to start moving for the sake of making Liricia happy.