Chapter 250 – The Saintess of the Divine Tree

In truth, my digging into the ground with sword energy was more for show.

One spell from Zahina would be faster than me swinging my sword energy ten or a hundred times.

Still, my sword energy wasn’t completely unnecessary.

For the underground vault of the Federal Reserve Bank, surrounded on all sides by thick steel walls, my sword energy was perfectly suited.

And so, we once again entered the Federal Reserve Bank vault.

Gold bullion filling the interior.

This time, there was no need to be concerned about anyone watching us.

“But people here will check eventually. Won’t they say something when they find an empty vault?”

Yerim asked me as she looked at the gold bullion gleaming brightly in the light coming through the hole we had made.

It was a reasonable question, but I answered confidently.

“If anyone asks, we can blame it on the dimensional fusion. We can just say it flew off to another world, and that’s that.”

Hearing my words, Yerim gaped at me.

“Lying? A hero shouldn’t do that.”

“I’m not a hero anymore, right?”

At Yerim’s admonishment, I shrugged and sought agreement from Irene.

Unlike the others, Irene would actively agree with me.

“My lord deserves to have all this gold bullion. You saved all worlds, and you’re still saving people now. It’s much better for you to use it than to leave it abandoned underground.”

“Ah… Yes. That’s right.”

But Irene’s response was stronger than I had anticipated.

Even I, who had asked, had to scratch my head.

“Let’s move it quickly. Please prepare the gate.”

Feeling awkward, I urged Yelena.

And so Yelena created another temporary gate.

The destination was the gate in the basement of my domain.

I had no intention whatsoever of struggling with a limited space-expanded pouch like before.

Creating the gate would take time, but I planned to move all the gold bullion here to my domain’s basement through the gate.

The basement storage of my domain, which used to hold wine, would now become a gold bullion storage.

Whether it was because we connected it to the existing fixed gate, or because Yelena’s skills had improved, the temporary gate was created in just half a day.

Through that gate, we moved all the remaining gold bullion from the vault.

Nearly 6,000 tons of gold bullion.

It was 30 times the amount of the 200 tons of gold bullion that had been stored in Yelena’s subspace.

As a result, the basement storage was filled with gold bullion.

To continue using the gate installed in the basement storage, it seemed we would need to expand the basement.

“I’ll have to use the prison as a vault too.”

With such thoughts, after moving all the gold bullion, we buried the Federal Reserve Bank vault under soil once more.

“Please grow quickly.”

And as the Saintess of the Divine Tree poured divine power onto the soil-covered area, trees and plants began to grow there again.

The trees of the Divine Tree already grew quickly naturally, but with the Saintess infusing divine power, their growth was visible to the naked eye.

At this rate, it would become a small forest again in just a few days.

Leaving the regrowing trees behind, we continued on our way.

And before dark, we were able to reach Harlem.

The gate floating in the center of the crater, which had transformed into a basin full of trees.

We passed through the crater, which had half turned into a jungle, and arrived beneath the gate.

“It’s not broken. It seems we just need to activate it.”

As Yelena said, it didn’t appear to be damaged since it was still floating in the air.

However, another world wasn’t visible in the center of the gate.

As she said, the gate was stopped.

As Yelena and Irene were creating magic circles to reactivate the gate, Zahina spoke up.

“Would it be possible to change the destination?”

Yelena asked in response to Zahina’s question.

“Is the new destination still in the land of the Divine Tree?”

“Yes.”

“And is it a place in your memory?”

“Yes. Not just a place in my memory, but the place where I lived the longest.”

“Then it’s possible.”

At the affirmative answer, Zahina looked at me.

I smiled and nodded.

“We’re going to the land of the Divine Tree to finish Zahina’s business anyway. You can choose the destination freely.”

“Thank you.”

Zahina bowed her head at my words.

“Where would you like to change it to?”

Yelena asked again after erasing the magic circles she had created in the air.

“To my hometown, the city where my Mother Tree was.”

Zahina took out a branch from her space-expanded pouch.

We immediately recognized what that branch was.

It was a branch from the Divine Tree that had died in Pyongyang.

The gate with the changed destination was activated the next morning.

That morning, we arrived in the land of the Divine Tree through the gate.

This time, not just Zahina and I, but all of our party members arrived in the land of the Divine Tree.

The land of the Divine Tree, Zahina’s hometown city, had been transformed into ruins.

Unlike the city where the Divine Tree had been contaminated that we had seen before, this city had walls, buildings, and the castle all withered and collapsing.

Moreover, a massive fallen tree covered one side of the city where the Divine Tree had been.

The dead Divine Tree that had destroyed about a quarter of the city.

And elves wandering among the ruins in a dazed state.

This was a more terrible sight than I had expected.

Of course, I had anticipated that the city would be in disarray since the Divine Tree that maintained it had died in another world.

But I hadn’t thought that the tree severed by dimensional travel would destroy the city like this, nor that the citizens would be in such a dazed state.

“It’s only natural. With the Mother Tree dead, the racial network of the citizens would have collapsed too. For those who had lived their entire lives within that network, the sense of loss would have been unbearable.”

Zahina explained what had happened as she walked at the front through the destroyed city.

“Additionally, they suddenly became outcasts like me, which would have made it even harder to endure.”

Though her words sounded self-deprecating, her expression was only bright.

The same experience with completely different results. It was clear how different she was from them.

‘She didn’t become a Saintess for nothing.’

We continued our conversation as we crossed the city.

And passing through the withered and collapsing city walls, walking between dead and crumbling buildings, we reached the center of the city, a hollow space where the Divine Tree had disappeared.

Behind us, numerous elves were following.

“It’s, it’s Zahina.”

“The first, first daughter of Mother.”

Those who recognized Zahina spoke with stutters.

“Why is the outcast here?”

“Ah, we’re outcasts too now.”

“But it’s not our fault that we became outcasts!”

“That’s, damn, it’s not easy to explain in words. Anyway, it was the same for the first daughter.”

“How did she endure this hell?”

“Let’s follow her.”

They had questions and followed behind us, or rather, behind Zahina.

As we entered the open space, elves came running from the opposite side.

Unlike the outcasts following us, they were normal elves.

Moreover, surprisingly, they were elves I knew.

“Was it Rashid?”

The man leading the elves from the front was the man I had seen when I came to the land of the Divine Tree with Zahina.

A typical elf with a high nose who looked down on others.

Still, we had successfully revived the city using him and those who came with him as bait.

I waved my hand with a welcoming feeling, but he ignored my greeting as before.

He glared at Zahina as if he hadn’t seen me and my party members, and shouted.

“Outcast Zahina! Why, no, how did you come here? The gate was definitely stopped.”

It was a reasonable question.

After all, when returning to Earth, I had left the management of the Divine Tree’s gate to him.

‘Then, does he not know that the Demon King is dead?’

As I tilted my head in confusion, Zahina answered Rashid’s words.

However, her answer wasn’t what Rashid wanted to hear.

“It’s good to see you, Rashid, first son of the High Sky. But this isn’t a place I can’t come to.”

“What are you saying? An outcast who voluntarily gave up the chance to reconnect with the Mother Tree!”

Rashid exploded in anger at Zahina’s somewhat irrelevant answer.

An emotional outburst uncharacteristic of an elf.

It seemed he had been under a lot of stress in various ways.

“But everyone here except for you all are outcasts.”

Despite Rashid’s anger, Zahina remained calm.

It was like the roles of outcast and elf had been reversed.

“No, that’s…”

At Zahina’s words, Rashid stopped speaking and quickly exchanged glances with those who had come with him.

Looking at the situation, it was clear that they were now communicating through that network thing.

“Coming here means you’ve reopened the gate? Do you know what the land of the Divine Tree is like now? How many cities have been destroyed, how many Mother Trees have died, did you know all that when you opened the gate?”

Perhaps because he had communicated through the network, Rashid’s voice had calmed down.

But the emotion contained within it seemed significant.

The hardship he had endured was palpable.

Of course, the Divine Trees that died during the dimensional integration wouldn’t have been just the one here.

It was difficult to gauge how many cities had been destroyed, how many elves had become outcasts or died.

Moreover, they would have been certain that the Demon King was behind all this.

It was understandable why Rashid was angry at us.

However, that anger was based on a misplaced fear and rage from the beginning.

“It’s okay. The Demon King is dead.”

At Zahina’s calm words, all the elves’ jaws dropped.

“What?”

“The Hero here defeated the Demon King. There won’t be any more Divine Trees dying or becoming contaminated.”

“Such nonsense…”

The outcast elves who had followed us just looked surprised, but Rashid and the elves who had come with him clutched their heads after hearing Zahina’s words.

As I looked at them with a puzzled face, Zahina explained what was happening.

“The entire network is seething with intense emotions, that’s why they’re like that. Probably all the non-outcast children of the Divine Tree on this planet are feeling headaches from the flood of emotions.”

Mentioning that this was a weakness of the Divine Tree race, Zahina walked to the center of the open space.

And she took out the branch and planted it in the hole at the center of the hollow.

Seeing this, Rashid shouted through his pain.

“Ugh, what are you doing? This is a sacred place. It’s where we need to find and plant a new Divine Tree. How dare you plant a branch so carelessly in such a place! Are you disrespecting the Divine Tree because you’re an outcast!”

Rashid looked like he would have rushed over if not for the pain.

And he wasn’t the only one looking at her with an angry face.

Those who had come with him, and even the outcast elves who had followed us, were looking at Zahina with the same expression.

“This branch is from the dead Mother Tree, from the Land of Verdure.”

“So what! What can you do with such a branch that isn’t even a seed? It can’t grow back into a Divine Tree, and you’re saying it can come back to life?”

Certainly, considering the struggle we had gone through to revive the tree in the previous city, Rashid’s words didn’t seem wrong.

But Rashid was mistaken.

Zahina placed her hand over the planted branch.

“Yes. It will grow again.”

Zahina, the Saintess of the Divine Tree, began to sprinkle divine power on the Divine Tree branch.

Tremendous divine power spread out from her.

Roots grew from the branch, leaves appeared, and the stem began to grow.

The dead Divine Tree came back to life.