Volume 3 Chapter 4

Volume 3: Chapter 4

We entered the City of God Tree and were walking along the central street.

With stalls arranged on both sides of the road, it should be easy to gather information here, and above all, it was the best route to reach George and Cecile’s house located close to the center of the city.

Thus I would like to ask some questions while checking the stores, but—

「Most people answer that they don’t understand the change in the God Tree.」

That was the same for me, Cecile, George, Saki, and Berzelia, who also asked the people of the city some questions.

「It was the same for me. There are also people who believe that it’s a natural change since in case of unusual phenomenon happening to the God Tree, the magic science guild is supposed to make an announcement, but they are yet to make any.」

「Like the siblings, we asked around with Dragon Monarch Hydra, but found nothing.」

In other words, we now know that the reason is not known.

「Hmmm. I see, should we get closer to the tree and actually take a good look at it?」

It was when I voiced this proposal to everyone.

「Hey, carrier lad over there, are you going to the God Tree?」

Seems like we were close to a stall, a man with a huge abacus hanging on his hips called out to us from there.

「Mm? Well, such that was our intention?」

Striking up a conversation out of the blue, he seems like a pretty candid fellow.

Judging by his equipment he should be a merchant, I reply to the man.

「I see. But you better give up on that idea.」

「Give up, you mean going to the God Tree?」

「Yeah. Since you are a carrier, you probably thought of going to the magic science guild to get some work?」

「No, nothing of the sort. ……Well, it’s my first time in this city, a guild on top of the God Tree sounds pretty unusual, so I thought about checking it later.」

Hearing such words the man’s expression turned to that of disappointment.

「Hm…… So it’s your first time to the City of God Tree after all. I suspected as much from how restlessly you were looking around…… But if you came for sightseeing, then it’s even more reason to give up on that idea. It’s dangerous. Some kind of strange metal monster is prowling around the God Tree.」

「Metal monster? Inside of the city?」

「Aye. It seems that they called some oddball of a hero to investigate the change in color of the leaves, and right after that that metal monster started to appear. ……It didn’t wound any of the townsfolk, but when someone tries to get close to the God Tree, the beast scares them away, pretty weird thing.」

「That’s surely weird. ……Did no one try to subjugate it?」

Usually, when a monster enters a city, the adventurers guild would try to kill or chase it away. When asked, the man shook his head.

「All contact with the adventurers guild or the knight order resulted in only one reply, we are working on it. And here I wanted to see the new product developed by the magical science guild on top of the God Tree. Normally, there is a spiral stairway inside with which you can go all the way up there. But since you can’t even get in the vicinity of the tree there is no way to go there.」

「Oooh…… Is there no other way to get up there?」

「Yeah. The outer layer of the tree emits magic power, preventing stable activation of magic, so you can’t use it to climb the tree from the outside. Explaining the situation to the knights of god tree, it didn’t seem like they were in any particular rush, so I guess they are doing something in secret there. Probably, you won’t be able to get close for a while.」

「Hmm…… Got it. Thank you for the information.」

Being thanked, the man with the abacus laughed bitterly and shook his head.

「It’s no big deal. Even this outer layer here is pretty fun, no matter how many times you return you probably won’t get tired of it. I just didn’t want a person that came to the city for the first time to go through a bad experience. Then, take care, lad.」

I looked at his back as he walked away with those words when Berzelia called out to me.

「Thanks to that friendly merchant-san we now know that the situation is not normal.」

「Yup. ……Cecile, usually, monsters wouldn’t appear inside of the City of the God Tree, right?」

「Of course. And even if they did, the order would get rid of them right away. ……I wonder, just what is going on here.」

「That we don’t know. ……But my request is to deliver you to your home. Since they are saying that there is a monster in the neighborhood, we will have to proceed like this. What do you think?」

When asked, Cecile and George exchanged glances and then nod to each other.

「Well…… We also want to know what happened to our dojo. It might be a bit dangerous, but can we ask you to continue with the original plan, Axel-san?」

「Yeah, sure.」