#123
The truth I suddenly heard was horrible beyond chilling.
The Sacred Tree… had lured me here as a sacrifice?
The voice of the Sacred Tree that had conversed with my younger self floated up in my mind. I couldn’t exactly call it a voice, but that pure, clear, warm presence that felt like early summer sunlight had been the voice coaxing me to become a sacrifice—I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned.
“I was in a state of memory loss. As the Sacred Tree’s guardian, I lured you in following the priest’s instructions, but I’d been feeling uncomfortable as my memories gradually returned recently. While investigating this and that, I thought things would become clearer once I found the fourth fragment, so I was going to wait and see a little longer, but this situation suddenly erupted.”
“Wait, wait a minute.”
I was struggling to follow the story and stopped his words. My head was completely jumbled.
So the priest and Carlisle had lured me here, but Carlisle had just been used after having his memory manipulated? But for me not to become a sacrifice, I needed to escape from here and return to my world… But there were too many questionable points to believe this at face value.
“That vision of you killing me, what was that about? So that was false?”
Carlisle slowly shook his head and sighed.
“To explain this, the story gets a bit long. Want to hear it while we walk?”
Come to think of it, we were on our way to the captain’s cabin looking for Fragment of the Sacred Tree. Learning the truth was important, but getting the fourth Fragment of the Sacred Tree was also important. Whatever happened, Fragment of the Sacred Tree would definitely be the key to something.
“The Sacred Tree’s contamination transferring to you was an accident.”
As we walked, Carlisle began his story and I focused on him.
“The priest originally found it strange how you, a human from another world, had even crossed over to our world. He just thought the Sacred Tree must have some intention, or perhaps you had been chosen as the next generation’s Sacred Tree administrator, so whenever you came here, he taught you various things and raised you like a disciple.”
I recalled the priest from the memory fragment, who had looked at my younger self. I remembered his eyes that were affectionate yet somehow chillingly cold.
“But you, though no one knows how you did it, somehow you touched the Sacred Tree’s roots that no one could approach—the Sacred Tree’s essence, you could say—and as a result, the world’s contamination that the Sacred Tree had been bearing alone transferred to you. Though it’s something we only speculated about later, I think that was actually what the Sacred Tree had intended from the beginning.”
The unfolding story was unexpected.
“Considering the world’s contamination that the Sacred Tree had been bearing alone, it seems the Sacred Tree had also reached its limit and needed an existence to pass it on to. Actually, the priest had known over the years that contamination was accumulating in the Sacred Tree’s roots, but he didn’t know it was that serious. He only realized the severity of the contamination when it reached a point where nothing more could be done.”
Carlisle continued the shocking story calmly with a thoughtful expression.
“I loved you, and though you might not believe it, the priest also cherished you. We wanted to protect you somehow. The only way to free you from contamination was to pierce your heart, and doing so would remove the contamination and bounce you out of this world back to your world. We were concerned about various side effects, but you were dying and we had no time and no other choice. Neither the priest nor I wanted to lose you.”
Carlisle made a pained expression as if recalling that time.
“You seemed to return safely to your world, but… a big problem occurred. Instead of the contamination returning to the Sacred Tree’s roots, it spread throughout this entire world. Part of it… splashed onto me, so I also became contaminated. The priest attached items to me and fed me drugs to prevent the contamination from worsening and erased those memories.”
Carlisle let out a long sigh and I was at a loss for words.
“Well, in the end, this world became contaminated and was in a situation where it could only be destroyed. For some reason, on the day you returned, the Sacred Tree shattered into several fragments and disappeared. The Sacred Tree had probably also reached its limit. The scattered fragments hid in places like the desert, ocean, and snowy mountains, but we only knew their approximate locations and couldn’t find the fragments again. So we…”
Carlisle paused briefly, then composed his breathing and continued.
“The priest thought of bringing you back again. We needed to find you but the connection was severed and there was no being who knew how to reconnect. So we thought of creating a game that contained our world as it was and making you find us yourself. You said you liked games, especially healing games and farming games.”
“A game…”
At my murmur, Carlisle nodded.
“Right. When you first saw the game, you probably felt unconsciously familiar with it. We deliberately aimed for that and made it based on this world as a motif. And through that game as a medium, we lured you into this world.”
“Then all the quests and such I’ve seen so far…”
“As I said, it’s the priest’s design. He created it all with his abilities.”
“Ha…”
I let out a hollow laugh because it was so absurd and ridiculous. But I couldn’t tell what reaction I should show right now. Should I rage and jump around, laugh like a madman, or wail loudly?
I stood there with my mouth open for a moment, unable to say anything, then decided to ask everything I was curious about since the topic came up.
“The nine tutorial rounds of suffering?”
It was an experience that was unfair and irritating… no, terrifying. I even developed trauma I didn’t have before.
“The changed reality was too harsh, so you might not be able to adapt. It was a kind of virtual adaptation training. But you had forgotten not only your memories but also all the abilities you received and things you learned, so you were struggling too much. We had no choice but to give you Tranquility Potion, but that might have become more of an obstacle to you awakening and recovering your abilities.”
“I… married everyone including Eira, divorced, and also… married you?”
“That was unavoidable because of the game you played… We had to make you think you had entered a game, so we manipulated people’s memories. It’s the priest’s ability.”
Manipulating the memories of all the village people? Is the priest’s ability that great?
“Is that possible?”
I asked suspiciously, but Carlisle nodded as if it were natural.
“The priest’s power is surprisingly great. He’s practically the Sacred Tree’s proxy, so he can borrow the Sacred Tree’s power. Mental abilities are especially his main weapon. Of course, that doesn’t make it an easy task. He’s also become very weak due to contamination, but designing the game to bring you here, manipulating the villagers’ memories… doing all that, the priest lost almost all his power. He lost his sight and is trapped on the island in the lake, barely able to come out. Originally he used to live mixed in with the village like a villager… but now he’s in a state where he might come out at most once or twice a year.”
Carlisle’s voice calmly settled. It even felt somewhat forlorn, which seemed out of character. Was that pity for the priest he’d known for a long time, or…
I wasn’t unsympathetic to the priest’s situation. But I couldn’t help being dumbfounded. No, beyond being dumbfounded, anger surged up.
I was treated like trash by the village people, and even this bastard Carlisle drove me into a corner calling me an incorrigible playboy, didn’t he? If that was really manipulated, it was truly infuriating and unfair. Then this bastard knew full well and treated me like a dog in heat? Why on earth?
Even in my confusion, I was boiling with anger and glared at him. I wanted to question him thoroughly from one to ten about why he tormented me like a jealous madman, but… this wasn’t the bastard to question right now. This was for after all the serious problems were resolved and the situation became clearer…
“Then if the wish is also fake, how are you going to send me back?”
But I couldn’t help the grumpy tone that came out as I asked.
“It’s true that gathering all the Fragments of the Sacred Tree will give us the power to send you back. It’s just that now the priest has no intention of sending you back—that’s the problem.”
“So the priest wants to…”
“Use you as a sacrifice.”
Sacrifice. An unpleasant word. I frowned.
“What specifically does sacrifice mean?”
“…I don’t know the reason, but your blood has purifying abilities. Now when the Fragments of the Sacred Tree gather and the Sacred Tree’s power spreads widely, he thinks that by combining with your blood, contamination can be completely eradicated.”
“……”
My blood combining with the Sacred Tree’s power to purify this world. Was it just my imagination that the picture being drawn felt ominous?
“Then even if we gather all the Fragments of the Sacred Tree, contamination won’t disappear without my blood?”
“No one knows for certain, but probably… the Sacred Tree would perish? The priest who receives life from the Sacred Tree would probably… go with it.”
“…How much of my blood is needed for purification?”
“……”
“Enough that I’d have to die?”
“……”
I knew the answer from Carlisle’s silence. Amid the chilling goosebumps, a hollow laugh escaped me.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
