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Volume 9 Chapter 258

The Blessings of the World Tree and the Immutable Metal

「H-Haruto-sama…… What is this?」
Tina approached us, surrounded by red fruits, looking surprised.
I wonder what she’s surprised about.
Is it because a giant tree suddenly sprouted in the courtyard?
Or is it because there are so many red fruits scattered around?
Perhaps it’s because Silph, who had been absent for a while, is here now.
I don’t fully understand the situation myself, but I conveyed the facts to Tina for now.
This giant tree that sprouted in the courtyard of my mansion, it seems to be a World Tree.
Yesterday evening, Silph planted the seed, and Luna provided the leftover bathwater, resulting in this.
……Yeah.
I don’t quite understand.
I asked Silph why she planted a World Tree seed in my mansion.
She seemed lonely too.
If a World Tree grows here, Silph can stay here forever.
Well, that’s fine.
What I don’t understand is how the World Tree grew so much with just leftover bathwater.
Silph said the bathwater was probably the reason the World Tree grew.
Luna thought it was a waste to just throw away bathwater, according to her habits.
She said she used to give bathwater to vegetables and such in the orphanage before she enrolled in the magic academy.
Luna’s habit led to the situation in front of me.
Luna was planning to give leftover bathwater to the World Tree this morning too. She had a watering can in her hand.
I glanced at the liquid in the watering can with magic sight.
—No need for magic sight, I could tell there was a vast amount of magic infused in it.
Huh, is this really just leftover bathwater?
……Apparently, there’s no doubt about it.
It was quite an amazing liquid.
Even though it was leftover bathwater from yesterday, it was still warm.
Also, I felt a considerable amount of high-density energy.
Well, it’s no wonder things turned out like this if you pour such liquid.
However, it probably wouldn’t have happened without a subject capable of accepting vast amounts of energy.
The World Tree was just such a subject, capable of accepting the energy from this amazing water—I named it『 Amazing Hot Water』.
「Still, it shouldn’t have turned out like this just from the water Luna poured, right?」
—Yeah.
Luna only poured the amazing hot water into the watering can once last night.
Despite containing an immense amount of magic, the amount of magic swirling inside the World Tree seemed much larger than what would fit in just one watering can.
「Um…… I may have an idea」
「Huh?」
I muttered almost to myself, but Tina reacted to it.
「What do you mean by an idea?」
「Could you please come with me for a moment? I’ll take care of these for now」
Tina collected all the red fruits that had fallen in the courtyard with wind magic and carried them towards the kitchen in the mansion.
──＊＊＊──
Following Tina’s lead, Silph and I headed towards the basement of the mansion.
I was surprised to learn that there was a basement for food storage in my mansion, but I had no idea there was an even larger space beyond that.
By the way, Luna didn’t join us for the exploration of the basement of my mansion today, as she seemed to be on kitchen duty.
It was my first time in the basement, so I was quite excited.
Normally, Silph would be excited about something like this too, but today she seemed rather quiet.
For some reason, she seemed frightened by Tina’s behavior.
She constantly hid behind me, trying to stay out of Tina’s sight.
「Silph, what’s wrong?」
「I-I don’t know. But, um… …Tina seems scary for some reason」
When I discreetly asked her, that was the answer I got.
Silph herself didn’t understand why she was afraid of Tina.
「I’m sorry, Silph-sama. I never thought that was the World Tree……」
Tina seemed to know something.
「Tina, what do you mean?」
「W-Well……」
Just then, we reached the bottom of the stairs, arriving at the deepest part.
「This space has been invaded by the roots of the World Tree」
As Tina opened the door, a wide space spread out before us.
There were large cracks in the walls, and various sizes of stones were scattered about.
「Wow, it’s spacious here」
「This space was originally created by me so that Haruto-sama could train in magic」
Tina explained that she had been in this space before.
The bathwater flowed into this space, turning all the soil and stones into rare ores.
The roots of the World Tree extended here, sucking the magic out of the rare ores and turning them back into ordinary stones.
Only the Scarlet Gold metal remained intact.
And it became clear that the reason for the large number of red fruits falling on the surface was because Tina, who had developed a murderous intent towards the roots, had threatened the World Tree.
Silph is the embodiment of the World Tree.
That’s why she was afraid of Tina.
「Tina, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen」
「N-No! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare Silph-sama at all!」
Silph is the embodiment of the World Tree in Alfheim.
The World Tree planted in my mansion grew from a seed created by the World Tree in Alfheim.
In other words, it’s like Silph’s child.
She seems to feel responsible for what her child has done.
「I’m sorry too, Haruto. We could have gotten a lot of orichalcum……」
「Don’t worry about it. I don’t really need that much ore」
Besides……
「Orichalcum is brittle, you know」
「H-Haruto-sama…… What do you mean?」
Approaching the wall shining with the same color as the ring I gave Tina, I saw lumps of Scarlet Gold metal.
There’s so much of it!
It’s amazing.
「Tina, thanks for creating this space. Thanks to you, I can gather a lot of Scarlet Gold metal that I wanted」
Saying that, I enveloped my hand in flames.
Not the usual flames I use, though.
It’s a super-hot flame burning blue.
With the magic of a thousand Flame Knights, I created flames while adjusting the optimal amount and quality of air with wind magic.
Without these flames, Scarlet Gold metal cannot be processed. Conversely, if you can handle these flames, you can process even Scarlet Gold metal, like candy.
It’s a magic that requires a considerable amount of concentration and skill to handle.
With it, I twisted off a part of the Scarlet Gold metal protruding from the wall.
「Look. Just being able to gather this makes me really happy」
I kneaded the lump of Scarlet Gold metal into a sphere and showed it off to Tina and Silph.