Chapter 407: The Sacred Tree, and Distribution.
"Un. There's no problem. The 'Sacred Tree' is functioning perfectly. It's now guaranteed to purify any Godslaying Poison into harmless magic particles."
"We did it!"
When I heard the final verdict of Kousuke ojii, the Agriculture God, I unintentionally let out a cheer.
After absorbing the various sacred materials we collected, the small sapling had finally reached a stage where it can purify Godslaying Poison, a true "Sacred Tree".
"With this, we can finally start purifying the Godslaying Poison in Eisengard. After that…"
"Aah. It'll finally be time to face the evil god."
I nodded at Yumina's words and replied.
"Still, how is a small sapling like this going to remove all the poison that's seeped into the land throughout Eisengard-no? Wouldn't it take at least several years?"
Suu, who was squatting down and looking at the "Sacred Tree" together with Anubis pointed out something rather important.
Towards that, Kousuke ojii replied with the same gentle smile he always had on his face.
"That wouldn't be a problem. As this sapling absorbs Godslaying Poison and converts it to harmless magic particles, it also uses those magic particles as its nourishment at the same time. It should grow rapidly the moment it takes root in Eisengard. And with its growth, the speed at which it absorbs Godslaying Poison would also increase. However…"
"However… What?"
"Well, it might be obvious, but to purify the corrupted lands of Eisengard, it'd be most effective to plant the sapling somewhere near the center of it. However, as the land is filled with Godslaying Poison, there's no way we or you girls, the dependants, could go there, right? So our only option would be to let Anubis-kun and Bastet-kun go there again, but…"
Well, that's true. The capital of Eisengard, Industrial City Eisenbrook is in the country's south. However, we don't have to go that far; we just need to plant it in the central regions. If it's Anubis and Bastet, they should be able to carry that out without a cinch. I wonder what the problem is?
"Suppose Anubis-kin and Bastet-kun successfully planted the 'Sacred Tree' in Eisengard. The 'Sacred Tree' will absorb the Godslaying Poison and grow bigger and bigger. And together with that, the Godslaying Poison-contaminated lands of Eisengard will be gradually purified…"
"Is there a problem with that?"
"Do you think our opponents will leave an existence like that alone?"
"Ah…!"
Right. The other side aren't idiots. It'd be ridiculous to assume they would just ignore something that is basically a major obstacle to their plans. They would obviously try to strike it down as soon as possible.
"Both Anubis-kun and Bastet-kun are scout-type golems. They don't really have much fighting power. Them protecting the 'Sacred Tree' from the variants…"
"Well, that'd be impossible-ssu ne. If either anego or me got attacked by something like that, we'd be trashed in seconds-ssu yo."
When Kousuke ojii looked at him, Anubis answered while keeping his head flat on the ground. I thought as much.
"We'd have to somehow hold out until the purification reaches the Industrial City Eisenbrook… Or rather, can't we just plant it in Eisenbrook directly?"
"No no, King-sama. If you plant it in a place like that, that horde of sparkly golden skeletons would rush into the city all at once and cut it down where it stood, you know."
While poking the "Sacred Tree" with his nose, Anubis shot down my proposal. Mumu. To think Anubis of all people shot down something I said. It's true that there's the golden palace right next to Eisenbrook, with golden skeletons swarming the place. The sapling would get found immediately.
"It should be better to plant it in a place far away from our enemies, and protect it while the purification range grows. In that case, we'd need a team to defend it, huh."
"Wait a minute, Touya. We have to guard that all day long?"
Suu asked while frowning. No, well, I get it. Asking us to fight 24 hours nonstop to protect the "Sacred Tree", what kind of black corporation is that.
"For now, putting a rotation in place seems like a good idea, but how should we go about implementing it…"
"I don't think you need to worry about that, really. Once the Godslaying Poison in that area has been purified to a degree, we can just put Moroha-kun, Karina-kun and Takeru-kun there, and our defense would be solid."
Ah, right. Like Kousuke ojii said, once the purification has progressed somewhat, we can head over there ourselves. As long as we leave it to Moroha nee-san and the others, we'll definitely be fine. I can't ever imagine those three losing.
…Still, I wonder why is it that the figures of Moroha nee-san accidentally cutting the "Sacred Tree" in half, or Takeru ojii breaking it when he uses it to practice his punches are coming up in my head? If I were to leave it to them, I better ask Karina nee-san to look after the other two.
"Once the purification range reaches our enemies' main base, you guys should be able to head towards there too. And once you drag the evil god out and beat him down, everything would come to an end."
I don't know if it'll go that smoothly, but since we've already made all the preparations, we just have to do it.
"Can we plant the 'Sacred Tree' in Eisengard already?"
"It should be good to wait and observe the situation for a while longer. It's not guaranteed that side-effects may occur from absorbing the Godslaying Poison."
Right. If something happened after it's planted then it'd be bad; it won't be in a place where Kousuke ojii can just head over casually anymore, after all.
Once the preparations are finished, the "Sacred Tree" would be put inside Anubis' collar, enchanted with [Storage], and he would head to Eisengard together with Bastet once again.
"Should I have Albus head over as well?"
"Right. At the minimum, we have to let them hold out until I can open a [Gate] over on the other side."
I'll have Anubis carry something like a [Gate]-enchanted mirror, and when the purification has progressed to a certain degree, I'll head over there and call out the Frame Gears.
Since it'd be best for the sapling to not get found by the variants before then, it should be planted inside some forest or something like that, I guess. "To hide in plain sight" would be exactly what this is, eh.
Leaving Kousuke ojii to take care of the "Sacred Tree" until we can confirm that it can be planted in Eisengard, we left the vinyl house.
"We finally have a shot at attacking them ourselves, don't we."
"To do that, we'd have to protect the 'Sacred Tree' first, though."
I replied to Yumina, who folded her arms, with a wry smile. Protect in order to attack. Quite the irony, if I do say so myself.
"And after that would be our wedding ceremony-ja! Let's make it flashy!"
"No, well, making it too big is a bit…"
"What are you saying! It's a once-in-a-lifetime event-ja zo! It'll be a nationwide festival-ja! If we don't do it with a bang now, when are we ever going to-ja!?"
It's not like I don't get what Suu's saying, but… To be honest, I don't have any decision-making authority regarding this matter anyway, so let's just follow along.
Yumina, Luu, Hilda, and while she's illegitimate, Sakura; it'll be a wedding involving four princesses. There's no way it won't be big.
Well, my cousin's older brother also said the bridegroom is basically just decoration in a ceremony anyway.
On the way back to the castle, Yumina and Suu were both excitedly talking about planning for the wedding, but the two of them suddenly put their hands inside their pockets, and took out their smartphones simultaneously.
"What is it?"
"It's a 'distribution'. Seems like it's a few new apps."
"Ah. If I remember correctly, it's [Levitation], [Speaker], and Luu's [Cooking Recipes], right." (Note: this is a reminder that those are technically app names. There's no such thing as a magic named [Cooking Recipes]. No. Don't look at me like that, what's impossible is impossible.)
The mass-production model smartphones everyone has can receive new applications distributed by Babylon. These "magic applications" distributed via a combination of [Enchant] and [Program] can enable a person to use magic even if they don't have the aptitude for it. Of course, the magic power required still comes from the person themselves, though.
[Levitation] is useful when trying to lift up something heavy (although you won't be able to raise it above your own height), and [Speaker] is a convenient magic to have for the monarchs when doing something like giving a speech to their people.
The magic-related apps were received with joy by the Reverse World… The western continent's monarchs, in particular. Since they don't have a lot of people who can use magic. Of course, we didn't distribute dangerous magic to them.
The [Cooking Recipes] is an app where you can read a blog with various recipes, accompanied by Luu's explanations.
After quite a while, the project has finally kicked off. Right now, it has a few easy-to-make dishes and sweets in it.
Going forward, we plan to update it with a few new articles each week. Luu was eager to introduce cuisines from various countries, not just Brunhild, on the blog.
Eventually, instead of a cooking blog it'll become something like a food traveller's blog, won't it?
Information sharing like this has a lot of uses. Among the apps we distributed, surprisingly, the weather app is one of the most well-received.
It's an application that gives you things like that day's maximum and minimum temperature, the time of sunrise and sunset, and weather information across the country; to the monarchs, it's a hugely beneficial app, apparently.
With this, it's a lot easier to give out warnings regarding weather-related incidents or deal with sudden weather disasters, or so they said.
Well, some suspicious people who make a living trying to pray for rain have lost their jobs due to this, though.
The weather forecast in this world has a large part of it in predicting the spirits' movements, you know. And of course, as the Spirit King, I can manipulate the weather however I want; nothing wrong with that, right?
Well, it's quite troublesome so I don't do it usually. Since the spirits (mainly the smaller ones) are freedom-loving, it would feel like leading a group of kindergarten kids on an excursion or something. In any case, it's troublesome. Not to mention there are ones who don't listen to me from time to time too.
Parting ways with Yumina and the others at the castle, I headed towards Babylon's [Laboratory].
The professor had apparently come up with a new invention after getting inspiration from the mecha anime I showed her the last time. I wonder if it's a new flying unit or something.
"So I heard you finished something?"
"Fufufu. Exactly! The culture of 'Earth' is fantastic! It's giving me a never-ending stream of creative ideas! Have a look, this is my fruit of labor!"
The professor's assistant as well as the manager of the [Laboratory], Atlantica… Or rather, Tica, brought over a box-like thing. Oya?
I received the box. On the smooth cardboard surface, a Knight Baron was drawn standing in a cool pose with a defeated behemoth behind it. When I turned around to the underside, the cardboard was rough and nothing was drawn or written there.
I opened the box. Various black and grey parts with red lines drawn across them were placed inside, connected to frames. There's even an instruction book, how thoughtful.
I know this. I know, but I'll still ask just in case.
"... What is this?"
"Of course, a plastic model!"
"By finished, this is what you meant!?"
I roared back at the professor who's giving a thumbs-up to me. No, well, making a plamo just from seeing an anime in which they appeared is pretty amazing, but still!
Tica placed the finished model on top of the table with a *don*.
Eh, what is this, it's 1/144 and yet you can even open the cockpit hatch!? This is way too detailed!
"This is made with a special resin mixed with ether liquid, and it actually doesn't require glue but instead sticks to each other with magic power, you know. It's strong too, and even if a carriage rolled over it there wouldn't be a dent on this thing. It's the strongest plamo."
"Just what the hell did you make!?"
I have doubts as to whether this is even a plamo anymore.
"And not only that. Take a look."
The professor picked up the black knight, and placed it on top of a circular field made of mithril on a wide table.
She then placed her hand on a panel-like thing that extended out of the field device. The next moment, I felt magic power coursing through the entire field.
The black knight model that was standing on the field began to move. It raised its shield, and drew its sword out from the scabbard at its waist. And then, after showing off a splendid sword dance, the black knight stopped. Hoh…
"How's that! This is the result of combining a magic particle field with magic power synchronization—it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!"
"… So this was the thing you've been engrossed in making ever since then? Aa?"
I used my hands to grind the cheeks of the loli professor who turned towards me with a smug face.
"A young girl being bullied by a young man… Haa haa. The hint of sadism present there is flaming the immorality…!"
"Shut up, lolicon."
I glared at the excited Tica, whose face was already red. So she's thrown off her serious mask and shown her true colors, huh.
"Wayit waiyt! It's nyot like I devueloped this jyust to puray with it!"
While having her face sandwiched between my hands, the professor rebutted. When I released the professor for now, this time, Tica brought over a thin flying device-looking thing.
Don't come here with that rough breathing and stop rubbing your thighs together, please.
The professor then put that flying device below the black knight's feet. It's like a surfboard, kinda.
So this is the new flying unit, huh. Seems like she did think about it.
"I had considered a flying unit that attaches itself to the back, but then we'd have to use selected Frame Gears for it, so. First, I tried out this way of doing it. There are hooks to keep the two feet in place to prevent the frame from falling. I name this [Flight Gear]."
Inside the field, the black knight slowly floated upwards while on top of the [Flight Gear]. I see, so this is how it operates.
After the Flight Gear made one round around the field, the black knight jumped down from it. Then, the floating Flight Gear suddenly folded its wings inwards and transformed into a giant shield; the black knight then caught the transformed Flight Gear and held it up in a stance.
"So it's usable as a shield too?"
"The bottom is coated with strengthened crystal materials, after all. It can repel a decent amount of attacks. Of course, it won't be able to defend against something like an advanced- class particle cannon, though."
It's true that being in the air has the risk of getting sniped down from the ground. Raising the defensive properties of the bottom side should help with that.
"However, this Flight Gear uses magic power very quickly, and is also tough to handle. It's a problem that right now, it's still not something anyone can use. Also, since it'll be hard to aim on this, shooting-focused models like Yumina's or Leen's would probably not want to use this. And it can't reach that high an altitude, too."
Rather than flying, it's more accurate to call it floating, after all. It does have decent speed though. As for its uses, maybe commanders of a group can use it to get a better view of the battlefield, I guess.
"It was working well in the simulation system using this plamo, so I'm planning to make a test unit after this."
"So there actually was a reason you made the plamo…"
"The joy of making something! Has to be cultivated since young! Excellent engineers and artists are born from there! Want to do this, want to do that, want to make this, want to change that! That wish becomes a dream, and fuels further innovation! Yes, I have awakened the treasure of another world known as plamo for the sake of the children who will shoulder the future!"
The more the professor spoke with balled-up fists and a heated voice, the colder my gaze becomes. That just smells fishy as hell. It's obvious you made it just because you wanted to, okay.
Well, it is pretty well-made; I think I'll have Olba-san's shop sell this later.
Since it's plastic models of Frame Gears, is it Frampla? Or Geapla? Eh, I guess the way you call it doesn't really matter. If you have the molds and the ether liquid-mixed resins, you can make these even if you don't have Babylon's tech.
As expected, I couldn't predict the fact that later on, these became the staple souvenir to buy when in Brunhild. Is it okay for plastic models to be our local specialty…? I have a feeling that something's wrong, but whatever.