◇

"Yes? Pests extermination expert is it?"

I stopped my hands which were constructing a living doll, and parroted the word of the elder elf-san who had visited the workshop.

Here is the workshop of the living dolls crafter, Sotorineysan. The living dolls that are on the attraction the other day, and most of the ones in the town are his works.

Before he started teaching me, he warned that even if I learned it, I wouldn"t be able to reproduce it outside since the raw material doesn"t exist there. As I understand, they use philosopher"s stone, like the one from before, as the core which acts as the power reactor, and that can"t be produced outside of Boruenan forest.

Nevertheless, the other structures beside that one look usable so this endeavor won"t be useless. I want to know it so bad, particularly the structure of the information IO, and the AI logic control.

Putting that aside, it"s about the elder-san.

"I"ve heard from s.h.a.gnig-san. You seems to have wonderfully exterminated the five and seven poisonous insects that had bred at the training site. We"re expecting much from that skill, please lend us your wisdom."

Ah, that huh.
There were some cave-in incidents at the training ground where Arisa and the others were playing yesterday, it was probably about the investigation that I did together with s.h.a.gnig-san at the remnant of the site. Looks like the elders have known about how I exterminated the poisonous insects that had bred to become so many at that time.

By equipping Insect Slayer t.i.tle, and using [Bug Wiper] magic at full power, it was a simple work. I tried unequipping the t.i.tle at my second try, but it wasn"t any different. I can"t decide if the t.i.tle doesn"t have any additional effect, or if it"s because it was too overkill in the first place.

"If you"re fine with me, I will gladly give some counseling."

Or rather, I"ll even go and exterminate the pests.

I"ve been taught many things like the way to conceal the spirit light by Aialize-san, and many knowledges and recipes from the other elves after all.

The elder calms me who has stood up enthusiastically.
Since they don"t seem to be in a hurry, they will send someone to pick me at the place where I"m staying tomorrow morning.

That day, the living doll that I had finished constructing couldn"t even stand up.
Looks like it"s a long road ahead.

◇

"Now, Satou of s.h.i.+ga kingdom! I"ve come to pick you."

The one who has come here is Aialize-san.
What are you doing high elf-sama.

"Please call me Satou. Then, shall we go."
"Yes."

Aialize-san whose face has reddened holds out her hands slanting from below.
Does this mean that we should join our hands?

We might be going with s.p.a.ce magic.
I grasp her hand while thinking such thing.

Arisa leans her body from the balcony and shouts, "Guilty!" Pochi and Tama have also joined saying, "Guilty", but I wonder if they know the meaning~?

Although it might be called s.p.a.ce magic, we entered to a block of the world tree with the Dryad"s [Relocate] like before.

It might be boorish of me, but there wasn"t any need to join hands right?

◇

The sky is filled with stars.
Rather, this is the first time I see stars that aren"t twinkling with naked eyes.

The place where the Dryad has taken us is the observatory room at the center of the city part on the zenith block of the wold tree.
If the AR and the map are right, then we"re about 300 kilometers high above the ground. We haven"t reached the orbit of geostationary satellites, but this should have exceeded the stratosphere quite a bit. I guess it"s in the slightly lower part of the low earth orbit?

Even though we"re this high, the gravity is still at 1G, I wonder if it"s due to magic?
No, before that, such long tree shouldn"t have been able to hold its own weight. I timidly try to ask that matter to elder-san but--

"How is the tree not broken apart and destroyed."
"It"s the G.o.ds protection."

Don"t think that you can deceive me by using G.o.ds, protections and such.
Apologize to physic teachers!

I wanted to shout, "Ugaa" like Arisa, but I forcefully held it down with my will. Since Poker Face-san is doing its best, the elder should not know it.

"I"m sorry, the elder is ignorant in the technical sort of things."

A researcher-like woman elf, Jisan who"s waiting beside us explains it to me.
I"m told that the countless branches of the world tree drive themselves into the adjacent sub-s.p.a.ce (Isa Plane) like anchors which help distribute the world tree"s weight and support it. I"ve abstained from understanding what the [Adjacent Sub-s.p.a.ce] is, but it seems the weight of each branches isn"t much by itself, so they"re not disintegrating.

There"s still something that bugs me, but I"ll just regard it as some mysterious tree (Fantasy).

Let"s cut to the chase.

"Please look at the branch ahead."

I look at the gigantic branch that extends on the empty air that Jisan has pointed. The branch diverges innumerably in the middle of the way, and the last bunch look as thin as threads. It extends through as far as eyes can see, but Jisan points out even further than that.
Aialize-san who looks bored beside me is looking through a telescope on her hands, is that some kind of magic?　I can"t help but feel that"s not it. I"m interested in what kind of thing that Daisaku-s.h.i.+ has influenced it with, but let"s not touch it now.

I can"t see anything with normal sight, so I use [Distant View], [Looking Afar], [Night-Vision], [Light-Intensity Adjustment], and [Mana Perception] together to look.

Jellyfish?

"Is it about the jellyfish things that wrap their legs on the branch that looks like a thread?"

Jisan who"s presenting a telescope to me stiffens, but she answers by just nodding her head.

However, why is it jellyfish in s.p.a.ce. It should have been whales--no, Tuna. Yep, tuna fit the s.p.a.ce well.

I expel the stupid thought in my head.
I"ve forgotten since I was drunk with the s.p.a.ce-station like spectacles. It"s a bit late, but I execute [All Map Exploration].
The branch only looks like a s.h.i.+ning branch that extends up to one kilometer long from where I am, but I know from the map that it extends like a superfine thread for about 100 kilometers long.

This thread-like branch is probably scooping up the mana from the ether.

From what I"ve gathered with the map, these jellyfish are called [Evil Fish], they are around level 20-40 averaging at 30, they"re just small fry monsters. However, there are 10.000 of them. They seem to have special racial ability called [Absorb]. When I look closer, their category is not monster but [Mysterious Creature]. The heck is that?

◇

"Those jellyfish are eating the mana that the world tree has gathered along the way. That"s already troubling by itself, but they even plant their eggs in the world tree and breed."

I see, the pests extermination is about that jellyfish after all.
It"s easy if I can just destroy every jellyfish around the tree.

"T, that is--"

Unfortunately, it doesn"t seem to be that easy.

"--There are multiple reasons why we can"t exterminate them."

The first one, the world tree defence mechanisms will burn you into a charred remain if you exterminate the jellyfish.

Hah?　What the heck?　I think so, and I ask again.
Apparently, the jellyfish have infected the world tree with their poison and make the world tree thinks that they"re parts of it. The elves seemed to have tried to detoxify the world tree with magic, and made it sleep while they exterminated the jellyfish, but the scale of the world tree was too big, it was a failure.

The second reason, when the number of jellyfish have decreased below a certain point, they will multiply themselves explosively.

Nice for aquaculture!　So I think, but it"s not that easy.
When the jellyfish explosively multiply, they seem to consume the neighboring world tree"s branches in large quant.i.ty. Furthermore, it will trigger the chain reaction from the nearby jellyfish and they will also proliferate, so if we can"t exterminate them all at once, they will increase instead.

The third reason, there is a ma.n.a.less zone around the jellyfish.

I don"t understand the meaning so I inquire more, it seems that you can"t use magic near the jellyfish.
Looks like this is why the jellyfish investigation doesn"t progress. The elves call it the void, but it"s practically the outer s.p.a.ce, so they shouldn"t be able to enter it without magic.
They also can"t use the magic-made artificial life (living dolls) to attack the jellyfish since the defence mechanisms of the world tree turned the dolls into charred remains.

"It"s quite terrible isn"t it."
"It"s really terrible you know~"

Jisan wails like it"s from the bottom of her heart to my "it"s other people"s problem"-like thought. The dark circles under her eyes are deep.

Now then, I"ve thought of several ways to deal with them, but let"s confirm them with Jisan.