Chapter 203: The Tree of Prayer

Chapter 203: The Tree of Prayer

Early Afternoon - Late Fall : Northern Market District (Valtivar)

"Will you all be returning after the prayer?" The receptionist, who seemed to be gathering her things to leave as well, caught us as we walked out of the inn.

"Yes, we should be back afterward. We locked our room already." Bjorn was quick to respond.

"Good. Also, please note that the inn will be locked until I return. Since you are all leaving already though, you shouldn't have to worry about that."

"Yeah, we are going all the way to the tree, so you will definitely be back first."

"Wow, how exciting! In that case, I'll quit holding you back. Be sure to enjoy the ceremony!" The kind receptionist waved to us as we finally walked outside.

-She seems awfully excited, huh...-

It was early in the afternoon when we left. We originally planned to leave a little later, but because of Amara's gut feeling, we left extra early.

But things ended up working out.

The next several hours were filled with a mix of walking and running as we passed through district after district until we eventually came to the innermost layer, the 'industrial district'.

The district, built on a branch over a kilometer off the ground, was like a totally different world, with buildings made entirely of stone and a smithy, alchemist, and guild building on every tiny stretch of road.

-Amara wasn't calling it a hunter's paradise for no reason, I guess...-

But the hunters weren't the only ones living in the area. Usually, wrapped around the center of the treants were stone residences meant for the wealthy and low nobility.

But even though the building was like an apartment building, the rooms were far from cheap.

"50 platinum for one room?! If low nobility can afford that, what are the homes of high nobles like?!"

Amara was wearing a gleeful smile as she explained. "Haha, high nobles have entire treants to themselves, they just aren't this close to the Tree of Prayer. The only larger estates in this direction are the homes of the Great Apostles."

"Damn..." -I wonder what their estates are like...- As I mindlessly thought about it, I glanced around at the surrounding crowd of people getting ready for the ceremony and noticed I couldn't find a single one that wasn't smiling.

"Do you think we will see them, Mother?!" A young kid standing outside of a high-end restaurant was literally bouncing up and down with excitement.

And his mother wasn't much different either. "I'm not sure, but even if we only receive a sign from them, it will be an event we can tell later generations with pride!"

For a moment, I thought she was just being a bit over the top for her child, but the more I looked around, the more I noticed that her excitement was far from out of place.

All around us were elves and demihumans alike, filled with childish excitement. -I mean, I would understand if it was just some or even most of them.. but all of them?- I found it quite odd.

But it wasn't till we started descending that I asked a question that came to mind. "How do the lifts get brought back up for the next group to use?" I could vividly remember seeing several lines outside of other lifts.

"For this lift, it'd be whoever happens to want to come back up. This is a two-way lift. The ones up top with lines were one way and just go down before coming straight back up." She pointed behind herself to an empty lift, that was being pulled back up with a pully of some kind.

-So the one-way lifts are the reliable ones. That's why people don't mind waiting on them...- "So does that mean we just get lucky to get an available two-way?"

She shrugged her shoulders with a playful smile on her face. "Who knows?"

I couldn't help but feel like she was a bit out of character at the time, but little did I know, it was just her excitement from earlier returning. -What is she so eager for anyways...- Seeing her look of expectation, I decided to just change the subject. "So where's the Tree of Prayer from here?" I casually leaned my back against the side of the bucket as I looked toward Amara.

But instead of giving directions, she just smiled and pointed behind me.

"Hm? What are you-" My voice was cut off, and I froze in place when I turned around. "Ho..ly.. sh*t..."

Amara and Yolanda's faces showed pure joy the instant I said anything, but I couldn't have cared less.

I was simply entranced to the point that I almost accidentally stopped strengthening the rope.

-This.. is a tree?!- Looking straight out towards where the horizon would normally be, my gaze was set on the center of a tree trunk well over five kilometers across. -What the f*ck?!-

Looking down towards the colossal roots of the oak-like tree, I saw it was surrounded by a circular, grassy clearing that extended another 20 kilometers before continuing under the treants all the way to the horizon.

But the most mind-boggling thing was that no matter where I looked, I could see people littering the ground like ants. -Just how many people are there...-

Amara already knew what I was thinking when she saw me looking all around the ground. "The population of Siratha around the last pilgrimage was a bit over 160 million. People will be lining the ground for another few hundred kilometers into the treant forest in all directions."

My jaw, which was already hanging slightly open, widened. "I'm sorry, what?" It took a solid minute for a single coherent thought to even come to mind. "How would people so far over the horizon even participate in the prayer?"

Amara gave me a surprised look before quickly answering. "If you look at the base of the treants around here, you'll see people standing about a hundred meters up the trunk. Those are priests and clerics that relay the voices of the apostles who stand on the Tree of Prayer out to those farther away. They also stand guard over the people on the ground."

-They just relay the voices?- Thinking back to the game telephone from Earth, I started to wonder how reasonable such a method really was.

But Amara was quick to pull me from my thoughts again. "In case you're wondering, even if the people hundreds of kilometers away dont hear the message of the apostles, they will still know when the prayer begins."

-Huh? How does that work?- As I went to give it some thought, I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to figure it out on my own anyways and just kept my mouth shut. -At any rate.. this is on a scale I really underestimated...-

As we were slowly lowered to the ground, I could do nothing but gawk at the horrific amount of aura and mana already in the air. -If this is the combined aura of this many people.. what will it be like when everyone is here?-

Looking up towards the base of the tree, where a huge crowd of people were already gathered, I could see a blue cloud of mana encompassing everything. -It really is as intimidating as it is beautiful...-