Volume 5 Chapter 29 When the World Turns Against You
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Time, let us step back for a moment.
At the Village of the Silver Moon, the instant Ryuichi awakened the World Tree, the world screamed.
This was no metaphor and no poetic exaggeration. Reality itself cried out as the thin skin of physical laws spread across the continent strained toward a single point in the northwest. Like a structure pushed beyond its limits, it bent, groaned, and threatened to tear apart.
—
[Holy Arcadian Empire, Imperial Capital Central Command]
The air was thick with the smell of oil and rust, so heavy that every breath felt coated in metal. The Magic Information Bureau, the Empire’s greatest center of knowledge, resembled the guts of a colossal steam engine more than an office.
Brass pipes crisscrossed the walls like veins while mana-medium fluid rushed through them with an eerie bubbling hiss. Even though the room stood at forty-eight degrees Celsius, Chief Technician Hildegard remained fixed to her instrument panel, her work clothes blackened by soot and oil.
”Idiots… what is this reading?” she snapped. “The magic element concentration in Northwest Sector Seven is approaching a theoretical vacuum state!”
Gripping a wrench nearly as large as her torso, she slammed it against a turbine that was close to stalling. The impact rang through the chamber, yet the steam output barely changed.
The mercury inside a nearby glass tube refused to rise.
This was not an overload. It was the exact opposite.
Something immense had latched onto the land itself and was draining away the magic elements that powered the Empire.
”It’s not a malfunction,” Hildegard muttered, staring at the readings. “The ley lines are being drained. Never in the Empire’s history has anything like this happened. Something in the far north is sucking away our lifeblood.”
Fear tightened her chest, yet excitement burned behind her eyes.
”Hmph. Typical mage nonsense.”
Commander Zeck von Balt stood nearby in a luxurious military uniform. Resting one gloved hand on the hilt of his saber, he glanced toward the dimmed lights overhead.
”It’s probably some barbarian trick,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Give me permission to move, and our forty-centimeter magic railguns will erase it.”
At the far end of the room sat the Empire’s Prime Minister, Wolfgang von Stein—the iron-blooded bureaucrat. Without lifting his eyes from the documents before him, he continued writing with mechanical precision.
”The target lies within Grimm territory,” Wolfgang said. “Current mana loss has reduced national engine output by an average of three and a half percent. Projected logistical losses are approaching 0.08 percent of the national budget.”
His voice remained as dry and flat as paper.
”Whatever is causing this, it is stealing resources from the Empire. Eliminate it. Zeck, dispatch the Third Legion. Railgun authorization is denied. Artillery permission remains at Level Two.”
Zeck clicked his heels together and saluted sharply.
”Understood! I will leave nothing but scorched earth behind.”
Wolfgang had already returned his attention to the paperwork.
To him, this was nothing more than efficient pest control.
—
[Holy Pontificate, Cathedral, Room of the Moon]
Moonlight spilled through the skylight and washed the chamber in pale silver. Cardinal Ignatius Vane trembled as he peered into the Holy Grail.
”Why…?” he whispered. “Why has the blessing withered?”
For generations, the Harvest Ritual had remained unchanged. Prayer drew down moonlight, and moonlight became sacred droplets within the Grail.
Tonight, the vessel was dry.
A powerful current swept from the northwest. It carried no air, yet it stole blessings, spirits, and mana alike as it rushed toward a distant destination.
”The blessing is being stolen,” Ignatius whispered in horror.
”Thirst.”
The single word echoed through the chamber.
Pope Benedictus sat unmoving upon his throne.
”In the far northwest stands the shadow of a great tree that defies providence,” he said. “A new predator feeds upon the world itself. Fell it.”
A figure wearing a smooth iron mask emerged from the darkness.
Inquisitor Varos bowed deeply.
”At once, Your Holiness. I shall bring the fire of purification.”
After he departed, Saint Lumina slowly lifted her head from where she knelt beside the altar. Her silver hair spilled over her shoulders while her amethyst eyes reflected the moonlight.
She could feel it.
The Holy Grail stood empty, yet what lingered was not absence. It felt like the fading trace of something powerful that had swept through and taken everything for itself.
*What an arrogant thirst,* she thought as a shiver ran through her body.
She did not know what waited in the northwest, but instinct told her that the great tree rising there had driven its roots deep into the world and claimed what belonged to everyone else.
Her gaze turned toward the distant horizon.
And her prayer followed.
—
[Hundred-Beast Federation, Iberis Forest Boundary]
”Gyaaa!?”
A dinosaur-type monster collapsed as its head was torn from its body.
Bathed in spraying blood, War-Fiend Gauz bit into the steaming flesh and chewed noisily before spitting the remains aside.
”Weak,” he grunted. “Ain’t got no taste.”
Beside him, the fox-woman Lara smiled as her nine tails swayed behind her.
”Oh my, King. The nourishment around here is gone. Everything good has run north.”
Before Gauz could answer, the earth trembled.
Mimi, the small rabbit-girl crouched nearby, suddenly clutched her ears and screamed.
”The sound! It’s being sucked away!”
”What are you babblin’ about?”
”I can hear it!” she cried. “The earth is screamin’! Somethin’ in the north is inhalin’ so hard it wants to swallow the whole world!”
Terrified, she clung to Gauz’s leg.
Only her extraordinary hearing could sense it.
Gauz stared northward and caught the faint scent of impossibly pure mana drifting through the jungle air.
His mouth filled with saliva.
”Lara. Change of plans.”
Hoisting his battle-axe onto his shoulder, he grinned.
”A proper feedin’ ground just showed up.”
—
[Independent City-State Orlea, Commercial Guild Headquarters]
Inside a luxurious office, Beatrix von Orlea closed her ledger and gazed down at the city below.
”The purity of magic stones is dropping everywhere,” she murmured.
A faint smile touched her lips.
”Even Balan is suddenly thriving. How interesting.”
Profit alone did not excite her.
What stirred her interest was the possibility that an unpredictable force had appeared—something capable of overturning wealth, power, and every calculation she had ever trusted.
”Perhaps,” she whispered, “a product worth wagering everything on has finally arrived.”
—
From the east came the march of military boots.
From the center came the fire of fanaticism.
From the south came hungry beasts.
And from within came the spread of a greedy web.
Across the continent, four great forces had begun moving toward a single destination: the depths of the Magic Forest and the Village of the Silver Moon.
Only one person remained unaware of the storm gathering around him.
Ryuichi.
And the storm was closing in.
—
Summary:
The awakening of the World Tree by Ryuichi at the Village of the Silver Moon triggers a cataclysmic drain on the world’s magical energy. Four distinct major factions across the continent detect the disruption, each interpreting it through their own lens of greed, fanaticism, or pragmatism. The Holy Empire, the Holy Pontificate, the Hundred-Beast Federation, and the commercial city of Orlea begin to mobilize their forces to converge on the source. The narrative tension escalates as the world’s order begins to buckle under the weight of this impending confrontation.
—
Trivia:
The Empire’s Magic Information Bureau functions like the internal organs of a massive steam engine.
The Holy Pontificate’s Harvest Ritual relies on moonlight condensing into liquid blessings in a Holy Grail.
Saint Lumina’s physical arousal is tied to her perception of the world being drained of its divine energy.
Gauz’s battle-axe is named Agito.
Beatrix von Orlea holds a masochistic desire for her own wealth and power to be destroyed by chaos.
The Empire’s artillery bombardment permission is currently set to level 2.
Notes:
• Ryuichi – The analytical, 40-year-old Spirit King of the Grimm mansion and elf village possesses a plain build, silver hair, and a beard. An antagonist with Japanese past-life memories, he rules with absolute authority, manipulating mana and space. Now absent, his strength once drew Helga to be his slave. His deep absence and lingering scent in the sheets act as a catalyst for intimacy between Nier and Helga.
• Ryu – A man with Interdimensional Magic who leads a growing household. He acts as a provider and protector for his slaves, while maintaining a pragmatic and blunt personality.
• Hildegard – A chief technician with oil-stained work clothes. She operates the massive steam engine systems of the Empire’s Magic Information Bureau and possesses a volatile temperament.
• Zeck – Commander of the Empire’s Eastern Expeditionary Force. He wears a luxurious military uniform and carries a saber, favoring heavy artillery bombardment as a solution to problems.
• Wolfgang – The iron-blooded Prime Minister of the Empire. He is a bureaucrat who processes all external stimuli as statistical noise, focusing only on national budget and engine efficiency.
• Grimm – Grimm, the Mansion’s master and protagonist, is a powerful sorcerer wielding divine magic who speaks all languages and braves the dangerous Forest of Magic. He shares his name with a nearby, large, walled city under his influence—a bustling, diverse settlement with a vibrant marketplace that also suffers from a legalized slave trade and severe lack of sanitation.
• Ignatius – An elderly cardinal of the Holy Pontificate. He is physically frail and suffers from a combination of incense, mold, and a sickly scent of death.
• Benedictus – The Pope of the Holy Pontificate. He acts as the definer of the world and treats existential threats as mere administrative issues.
• Ben – Struan’s son and Torben’s nephew, this young man served as a callous guide at their base, assisting in the family’s slave-trading enterprise. After confessing to his role in Mia’s death, he was bound by Stone Ball magic and drowned by Ryuichi. His corpse was later stored in the Interdimensional Space as a trophy of the protagonist’s retribution.
• Varos – An inquisitor who wears a smooth iron mask. He is described as having an inorganic body that feels no pain.
• Lumina – A Saint of the Holy Pontificate with silver hair and amethyst eyes. Beneath her benevolent facade, she harbors a dark, intense obsession and physical arousal for the unknown energy drain.
• Gauz – A giant war-fiend and leader of the Hundred-Beast Federation. He consumes raw monster meat and wields a battle-axe named Agito.
• Lara – A fox-woman of the Hundred-Beast Federation with nine tails. She is an enchantress and strategist who maneuvers Gauz to advance her own political goals.
• Mimi – A petite rabbit-girl from the Hundred-Beast Federation. She possesses super-hearing and is traumatized by the sound of the world’s life force being consumed.
• Beatrix – The Empress of Economics and leader of the commercial city Orlea. She carries an ivory fan and is motivated by a masochistic desire to see her wealth rendered meaningless by chaos.
• Balan – A burly, intimidating appraiser in a blood-stained apron works the Guild’s counter, expertly butchering and evaluating monsters. Despite his terrifying face and boisterous personality, he kindly advises novices and maintains a friendly rapport with regulars like Ryuichi. He later arrives with low-ranking workers to evaluate Ryuichi’s massive haul and introduces him to the Guild Master.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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