Woah…

That’s a large ass tree.

…

“That’s Cyconis.”

<That’s a variant.>

Huh-? What?

I turned toward Esther.

“You said that’s Cyconis right?”

“Yeah…?”

“Wait so Ode… why did you say that was a variant then?”

<That green core is a variant. It probably happened during the ‘Rupture’... they must have merged.>

One of the variants merged with the World tree’s core.

I can see that being a problem on so many levels.

“What happened?”

Esther tilted her head and looked at me, so I filled her in.

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“Wha-what?! The World tree is a variant now?!”

We all sat in this sort of awkward silence.

Risible started rowing us to the shore since Levin’s running would give us away way too quickly. Of course this was off of the presumption that me being wanted was spread between continents… 

We got off the boat, I reabsorbed it once we were all on land… Well, what could be defined as ‘land’, we couldn’t even see as much as a blade of grass. The continent was packed to the brim with cyberpunk skyscrapers. As we walked we saw elves… but um… how do I describe them?

They looked very robotic in a sense, some of them looked like cyborgs and had mechanical parts coming off of them.

“Esther… is this a good time for you to let us know what’s up with this place?”

…

I turned toward her since she didn’t respond.

She was looking down and her breathing had grown heavy.

“Esther?”

Abruptly we got interrupted by one of the cyborg elves.

“Hey! Want to get some decals done? We can have your eye replaced with a mechanical one that has a holographic display!”

“Um- I’ll pass-”

“We also have cybernetic arms and legs! We could replace your lungs, heart and your-”

“Hey. Fuck off.”

Esther glared at the cyborg elf. Her killing intent… or aura was higher than when she lost her toast back in Derecho.

The cyborg elf looked Esther up and down before making a clicking sound, her eyes now glaring back.

“Tch- what’s a failure doing back here.”

The elf quickly decided to move on to this other group of people to our left, she offered them the same things she offered us before she started dragging them off to some alleyway.

A few seconds later we heard screaming. I flinched a little as I saw the people walking out, they looked almost dead and their body parts were mechanical now.

“What the fuck…”

“That’s just how this continent is… it’s so shitty.”

I looked at Esther again.

“Where did you learn that from?”

“What?”

“The swearing, you didn’t do that before.”

I pointed at her lightly.

“Oh- I learned it from you guys.”

She pointed at me and Risible with a straight face.

“Plus Four… and maybe Six?”

She pointed up as she thought.

“I-... see…”

A giant airship flew in between the streets,  it blared past us. There were hundreds of papers falling from the sky right behind it, I quickly caught one and flipped it around.

It was a wanted poster.

My wanted poster.

The bounty was for thirteen platinum coins and anyone who brought me in dead or alive to the king of Dynanimus would get the reward.

“Oh! It’s a bounty from the humans!”

“We just got a shipment in from them as well, apparently there is some sort of guild master that’s stopping by!”

An elf turned around and looked me dead in the eyes, and then at his paper. Then he looked at me again before he slowly opened his mouth.

I rushed forward grabbing his entire jaw with my hand, quickly pulling him into a nearby alleyway.

Esther turned back around to see I was now missing.

“Cyn?”

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I looked out of the alleyway, and then back at the elf as I split my jaw open and started consuming him. I took him down in one go this time since I didn’t want to get caught by anyone else.

I licked my lips and wiped my hand against my mouth as it reattached. I turned to my left to see Esther holding the side of the wall staring at me blankly. Next to her was Risible and Levin. Risible was clapping his hands together and smiling while Levin stood there a little shocked.

I then started modifying my appearance, I now had pointy elf ears and I had a bandage wrapped around my eyes. My face has this metallic appearance on my left side to try fitting into the cyborg theme. My clothing changed into this mixture of black and gray military-like clothing and I had a white scarf that went up around my mouth and down my back. My hair grew out long and it was this silver-white color, I had these brown fingerless gloves and my sleeves were rolled up to my elbows. I had these black baggy pants and these almost light-gray shoes.

“There, how’s it look?”

I had used a bit of that elf’s body and a mixture of things I tried making from memory.

“I mean, you won’t stick out now.” Risible commented.

I looked at my arm and squeezed my hand into a tight fist.

“Alright let's go~”

I said cheerfully… though I didn’t expect my disguise to be my downfall.

As we walked down the street, all the elves kept their eyes on me and kept making comments. 

“He’s so cute~”

“I know right?”

“Wow… how have I not seen him before~?”

“Damn it man! I’m going to get more cybernetics!”

I noticed Esther getting increasingly paranoid and ticked off by all of the comments around us, her arms crossed over her chest as her cheeks puffed out. I put my hand behind her back and guided her up to me.

“Relax a bit, it’s the only way for us to avoid the wanted posters.”

“I know, but it’s still annoying.”

I looked behind me toward Risible and Levin, they were talking to each other. Levin had his right hand behind his neck as he looked toward the ground and Risible had his hands behind his head.

“Risible, take Levin and get us a ship.”

“A ship? Why?”

“It’ll be better for mobility, especially since this whole continent is a cityscape.”

“Yessir~ Levin this way.”

Risible grabbed Levin’s arm and started dragging him down one of the streets.

“So… um- this isn’t how I imagined elves to be like…”

“How did you imagine them?”

“Hmm… kind of all nature friendly and… down to earth I guess.”

She looked at me with a blank straight face before sighing.

“Elves haven’t been like that in a long time, there are a few here and there but this continent has been mostly a cyber city for a few hundred years.”

I blinked a few times before responding.

“Really?”

“Yeah… since elves have a long lifespan they thought it was a waste. So they advanced in technology, left most magic behind and dropped nature. Though the nature part is more recent haha…”

Esther and I walked around a little more before we decided to sit down at some cafe we found. I bought her a new piece of toast and she started nibbling on it.

Though she wasn’t really showing any emotions while she did, she kind of just stared at me blankly.

“So what happened…? What makes you hate this place?”

I took a sip of this coffee that I bought, it tasted alright since it was stuck being plain black coffee.

Esther finished her toast and then she started fidgeting her hands a little. 

“Well… when I was six a few things happened. The thing that started it all was the purging of regular elves… the royal family massacred anyone who wasn’t a high elf, which was roughly half of the population I think. I watched as my friends were murdered in front of me-... I still remember all the blood splattering onto me… all of their brutal public executions… beheading, dismemberment, acidification, burning at the stake, hanging, electrocution…”

I heard her voice breaking more with each word muttered. She took a few deep breaths, her hands trembling slightly.

“T-the next thing I saw was a pretty purple flower while this continent still had some form of nature on it… I liked it a lot. I kept it to remind myself of all the elves who were… u-um- The World tree wasn’t mechanical yet, they had only just started the transformation into what it is now. So a large majority of it was still natural. My parents came to me one day and asked what I was doing… I had been caring for that little flower. Y’know… watering it… and they… heartlessly ripped it out of the ground. Crushing it and ripping it to pieces. They used to be kind and loving, but then they completely changed, it was mainly after they got these cybernetic body parts from the Elven King for… for…”

I looked down as I thought about my old world. In a sense it almost gave off the same vibe as this continent. A desolate, unforgiving hellscape, the kind that constantly puts you down with a defiled hope.

“I don’t even remember… I-I know my parents didn’t act the same anymore though. It was like they were being controlled and had no will of their own. They lashed out at me and became violent…”

I saw her grip tighten, her hands stopped fidgeting.

“I remember an argument I had with them. I wanted to keep the World tree as natural as possible… so I asked why it was being changed… but they didn’t care. They wanted it to become this armored monstrosity… which ended up being the last conversation I ended up having with them.”

“Wha-”

“The next day I was dragged off by the government to these airships along with a handful of other elves. We were sent to the human continent as slaves for our beliefs. With slaves they usually tag and sell them once they are shipped to the capital, but shortly after I arrived my mana surged…. I don’t know why it did that. I heard something about my grandparents having absurd mana one time from my parents, and I knew only one spell at the time because I liked magic. I used [Icicle Drill] on the chains holding me and managed to escape during the last transport trip which started my eleven year long journey to here… It’s pretty pathetic right?”

Esther gave a weak smile before she looked down.

“No… that's not. If we’re going to talk about pathetic then that would be me… When I was eleven… My family was killed by an atomic catastrophe, though I don’t really expect you to know what that means haha… I was staying with relatives, who ended up turning their backs on me. I learned as much as I could about that incident just to find out it was a brutal massacre from the people that were supposed to protect us. I was bullied, abused, robbed… I couldn’t even stand up for myself. I had no friends to speak of and I even died in a pathetic way.”

I laughed a little as she stared at me with a bit of a shocked expression on her face.

“Then I was brought here… I-... I took that as my chance. I’m going to return to my world. I’m going to crush it, and I’m going to live the rest of my life freely-”

The glass on my right shattered as Levin and Risible came tumbling in, blue and white sparks flying behind them. They ricocheted against the ground before slamming into the back wall of the cafe which startled all the customers inside.

“Wha- what are you guys doing here?! What about the ship?”

Risible raised his hand shakily and pointed toward the shattered window.

I looked to my right to see a couple of airships flying toward us.

“Fuck…”