Chapter 154 – Federal Reserve Vault (1)

A heart that doesn’t beat, organs that don’t move.

The fact that the dead woman could think and speak was entirely thanks to the divine energy Yerim was channeling into her.

It was only because of the lingering aura of death that she could speak at all. If the aura were to completely dissipate, the divine energy would return her to her original state—a corpse.

For the brief moment that the divine energy was being channeled and the aura of death remained in her body, the daughter of the divine tree could maintain her rationality.

Putting aside the shock, now was the time to ask questions.

I quickly organized my thoughts and opened my mouth.

“Please tell me your affiliation, name, how you were affected by the aura of death, and how you ended up here.”

“Ah, right. That’s the most important thing. My name is… Suhad, daughter of the Divine Tree’s Wing, and I was recently embraced by the Divine Tree’s Sapling.”

“Sapling?”

At the mention of “sapling,” Zahina spoke in a stiff voice, and the woman, turning her gaze to Zahina, continued calmly.

“There’s a fellow kin here. As you know, the ‘sapling’ is the last seed given by the Mother Tree, and it recently took root as a new Divine Tree.”

“Don’t tell me, the place where that Divine Tree is…”

At the mention of the recently planted Divine Tree, a bad premonition suddenly crossed my mind.

“Yes. The sapling is in the city where the gate was. The place where the Demon King’s army invaded our world through the gate a few years ago.”

As expected, my bad premonition was correct.

I knew that the Divine Tree species had modified the gate created by the Demon King to create a gate connecting the human world and the land of the Divine Tree.

That place was the city “Sapling.” The place where this woman had been?

“We were probably deceived by the Demon King. We thought we had thoroughly investigated the Demon King’s gate, but it seems there were traps we didn’t know about.

Moreover, to manage the modified gate, we connected the ‘sapling’ Divine Tree to the gate, and when the gate was destroyed, the Divine Tree was also contaminated by the aura of death.”

Another trap, huh?

This Demon King isn’t the King of Death but the King of Traps, it seems.

“The new city we were building with the new Divine Tree was contaminated by the aura of death, and those of us in the city were killed by the Divine Tree that was supposed to protect us. But to think that we became undead and moved like this… And this is another world. How did I end up here?”

It seemed the woman didn’t know what happened after her death.

Still, we managed to gather a lot of information, including the deeds of the Demon King.

And it seemed this was the limit.

“Ah, my thoughts… they’re not connecting. I think I’ve said everything I needed to say…”

With those words, the woman fell silent and returned to being a corpse.

In this short time, we had managed to hear so much. I never thought the rationality of the elves, which I disliked so much, would be so helpful.

But, well, I still didn’t like it.

Sighing, I spoke to the party members.

“Our plans haven’t changed yet. Let’s gather more information at the rift and adjust our plans if necessary.”

Although the situation had become more complicated, our tasks remained the same.

“Understood.”

At my words, the party members all nodded.

While we were gathering information, the agents continued to clean up the island.

They collected the bodies, retrieved the looters’ weapons and equipment, gathered the people to confirm their numbers, checked the food supplies, and distributed them.

Having done this many times before, they worked quickly and efficiently.

While they were cleaning up, Tom frowned upon hearing the civilians’ stories.

Even though I was far away, I could hear what they were saying.

“There are more of them. Besides us, there are about ten more. This morning, those bastards went towards the island.”

When the agents seemed about to leave, the civilians grabbed their arms and spoke.

They wanted the agents to stay and protect them, but it didn’t seem like a lie.

Tom looked troubled.

We couldn’t afford to spend more time on this island.

But it was also difficult to divide our already limited number of agents to leave them here.

However, we couldn’t just leave the civilians here alone, especially since the looters might return.

Seeing the agents’ dilemma, one of the civilians raised his hand.

It was a short, dirty man.

A young man who still looked like a boy spoke up.

“I can track them.”

He was someone I had been keeping an eye on.

I had been watching him because it was strange for an awakened with mana to be living as a slave.

Now I understood why.

If his ability wasn’t physical or magical but something more utilitarian, it made sense for him to hide.

However, it didn’t seem to me that he only had a “tracking” ability.

If that were the case, he wouldn’t have been able to hide his identity as a “woman” and live as a male slave.

Looking around at the party members, it seemed Zahina and Yelena had immediately realized she was a woman.

Well, since she was using mana to disguise herself, it was impossible for us, who were trained in mana, not to notice.

“Still, it’s impressive. Without any training, her mana usage is almost like magic.”

Unlike the other party members who were amazed, Yelena’s eyes looked like a wolf eyeing its prey as she watched the boy(?).

Hoffman and Yerim looked at Yelena in confusion, and Yelena explained to them what we had noticed.

Hearing this, the two were startled.

Hoffman might not have noticed, but it seemed Yerim hadn’t either.

Well, if Yerim had noticed, other psychics would have too, so it was natural she didn’t.

Anyway, although a talented mage candidate had suddenly appeared, thanks to the awakened boy(?), the problem of the looters outside seemed to be resolved.

I hoped their path wouldn’t diverge too much from ours, but fortunately, it didn’t.

We later found out that the looters heading to Manhattan Island had the same destination as us.

* * *

We left the civilians and one agent on the island and headed back into the tunnel.

The people left on the island were afraid of being left with only one agent, but perhaps because of their time as slaves, they didn’t show it outwardly.

And so, we left the trembling people behind and, instead of the agent, took the awakened boy(?) who could track, and headed to Manhattan Island.

We descended the stairs we had come up and arrived at Manhattan Island through the Carey Underwater Tunnel.

The Manhattan exit of the Carey Tunnel was at the southern end of the island, north of Battery Park.

Although Wall Street, with its famous financial buildings and the Federal Reserve Bank vault, was right in front of us, we stood at the tunnel entrance, staring blankly at the Manhattan skyscrapers.

Even from the outside, Manhattan looked different from before, but seeing it from inside the island felt even more different.

The massive buildings wrapped in dark brown vines.

From a distance, the vines seemed like dead remnants, but up close, they were still moving.

Though the leaves were withered and the stems dried, the branches, or vines, still swayed and moved.

The massive vines entwined around the buildings looked as if they were sucking the life out of them.

“Are these undead too? What transformed into them?”

It was more of a mutter, but the answer came immediately.

“These are the roots of the Divine Tree, contaminated by the aura of death.”

Zahina, who had been staring blankly at the vines, answered.

The roots of a Divine Tree contaminated by the aura of death.

I had just heard about it.

The Divine Tree called “Sapling” was connected to the gate and became contaminated by the aura of death.

So, these vines are the roots of that Divine Tree?

The vines, no, the massive roots that filled all of Manhattan Island, left me speechless.

“Are Divine Trees supposed to be this big?”

“You said it was contaminated by the aura of death. Maybe that’s why it grew so large?”

It wasn’t just me who was surprised. Hoffman also looked around in shock, and Yerim made a reasonable guess.

However, Zahina immediately denied Yerim’s speculation.

“This is small. It’s only this big because it’s a young Divine Tree.”

This is small? We all looked at Zahina.

As always, Zahina wasn’t joking.

“You all misunderstood. A city of the Divine Tree is literally a city made from the Divine Tree. The entire city is built on and using the Divine Tree itself. An ancient Divine Tree’s city is larger than the major cities of this world.”

Zahina’s words were hard to comprehend, but looking at the vines, no, roots enveloping the city, I began to understand a little.

“Then let’s hurry.”

Unlike us, who were shocked, the agents seemed to be in a worse mood.

They began moving towards Wall Street, and we followed them.

Fortunately, the direction the looters were heading, as indicated by the boy(?) with tracking abilities, was towards Wall Street, where we were going.

I didn’t know if they were targeting the Federal Reserve Bank’s vault, but it was clear they were after the money on Wall Street.

In this world, coming to such a dangerous place as Manhattan Island for money was absurd, but when you think about it, the agents and I weren’t much different.

“Please try not to touch the roots, no, those thick vines or branches. They might move if a person touches them.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I have no intention of getting close to such horrifying things.”

Tom shuddered as he replied.

He was right.

From a distance, it just looked like dead branches or vines wrapped around the buildings, but up close, the vines looked like pulsating flesh.

There couldn’t be many people brave enough to approach that.

“And don’t stray too far. If you get too far, the divine energy won’t reach you. This place is filled with the aura of death, so it’s dangerous without divine energy.”

Yerim also warned the agents.

As Yerim said, Manhattan Island was filled with the aura of death, unlike other areas.

Probably the aura emanating from the roots of the Divine Tree.

I didn’t know how the roots of a Divine Tree from another world ended up here, but it was likely due to the rift, just like the daughter of the Divine Tree who had become a zombie.

If these roots were created because of the rift, then if we closed the rift, there was a good chance these roots would disappear.

“Or they might have already crossed over and started growing on their own.”

At Yelena’s words, we sighed.

“Let’s hope not.”

We were already overwhelmed fighting the undead and the Demon King. Now we had to fight a Divine Tree contaminated by the aura of death?

If what Yelena said was true, it would open an even worse hell for the expeditionary force and the heroes, and my retirement to my estate would be pushed back even further.

That couldn’t happen.

I was planning to take more gold bars from the vault here and enjoy a splendid estate life. To think that might be ruined.

I couldn’t let that happen.

“Let’s hurry.”

I followed Tom and the agents and began walking down the street.

We continued walking down the streets of Wall Street, where only massive roots crossed the road, and no zombies or undead were in sight.

Soon after, we saw some of the looters who hadn’t been on the island.

They had arrived at the Federal Reserve Bank, our destination.

They seemed to be after the gold bars in the bank as well.

However, they hadn’t been able to enter the building yet.

The entrance was blocked by the roots of the Divine Tree.

“Finally, we can cut it. I didn’t think it would take this long to find a chainsaw.”

“Is it safe to just cut it like this?”

“What else can we do? Should we just go back? The boss would love that.”

“That’s true.”

“Just cut it.”

When we arrived at the street just in front of the Federal Reserve Bank, they were using a gasoline-powered chainsaw to cut through the roots blocking the entrance.

Vroooom!

I thought the undead might not be cuttable, but with the sound of the engine, the massive root was gradually being cut.

Crrrrk.

And, as expected, the massive root began to move.

The massive root, spewing black aura of death, began to move.

“Ah, it’s moving!”

It wasn’t just the root wrapped around the Federal Reserve building that was moving.

All the roots entwined around the buildings on Wall Street began to move.

The Divine Tree, contaminated by the aura of death, had awakened once more.