＜Infinite Dendrogram＞

□ The village of Torne

Louis broke up with his friends and was on his way home alone.

It's time to bring my mother to the Windstar dance, a specialty of the Windstar Festival, which begins in the village square.

Windstar dancing is a celebration of dancing in pairs between men and women, such as family and lovers. It's like fork dancing if you say "over there".

Until last year, Farica and Sijima danced, and Louis danced with Yuno.

Gringham was unfortunately touring because there were no creatures to pair up with (not even the size to dance in the first place).

Reminds me of some soggy Gringham face when I dance, and Louis laughs at me cously.

Plus when I remember Sijima escorting me to Farica and dancing a little bit, or Yuno dancing at my pace with weird choreography, it warms up somewhere in Louis' heart.

But I don't have a sizima this year.

Neither Yuno, the < embrio > of Sijima, nor Gringham, the horseman of Sijima.

Farica is also weighty, so she can't dance with her family this year.

However, the wind star dance... does not change that the wind star festival is a pleasant memory for the family.

So at least I wanted to watch the dance with my mother, Farica, and Louie was headed home.

Although I can't dance this year, Louis thought I'd like to dance with the whole family again next year.

Also with Farica, Sijima, Yuno, Gringham, … and the younger brother or sister of Louis, who is born.

"... that?

Two, hurrying home, Louis saw something strange at the edge of his sight.

That's a mountain close to the village of Torne. The corner glowed for a moment.

Then something black rises soooo far into the sky from where something glowed.

"- - KYHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Such a noise that rocks the sanity of what you hear.

◇ ◇ ◇

□ [Saint Knight] Ray Sterling

After our call with Senior Moonshadow, we logged in again.

The conversation was about thirty minutes over there, and an hour and a half had passed here.

The day is still high and the festival will come.

But neither me nor the seniors were in the mood to enjoy the festival anymore.

…………

Neither I nor my senior have words.

The answer I heard from Senior Moonshadow was because there was too little salvation.

Louis is looking for his father-in-law, and Mr. Farica is waiting for his husband to return.

But the fact that they meet Mr. Sijima… never again.

That was the answer.

"... bad aftertaste"

"I think... you don't have to look for Mr. Farica, the phrase may have anticipated this outcome a little"

…………

"Mr. Farica knew that Mr. Sijima was doing something“ over there "with his life at stake. From not coming back on top of that... you were guessing"

"... I guess so"

is immortal in this Infinite Dendrogram.

But in “over there"... in real life, it's just people.

If you die, you die.

Naturally...... it's a story.

"Even if I have a feeling I may already be dead... if I can't even stick my answer out, I can keep thinking" I may be alive somewhere ". Then again, Mr. Farica just chose to wait."

That's why I was confused about us taking on Mr. Sizima's search at Lewis's request.

Or perhaps Mr. Farica's thoughts are similar to those of thinking of someone who went missing in a disaster or accident.

If you can't even find the body, "it could be alive somewhere," hopefully.

I remember you, too.

It was when my sister's ship sank in the Pacific Ocean. My sister was missing then...... I was informed of an almost certain death and I was crying.

... Well, after a scattered grief then, my sister came home "right now" normally.

"I broke the wall of a sinking ship and swam in the Pacific Ocean all the way until I found another ship" or something like that. I don't know. That guy...

gossip.

I remember my sister, and I felt sinking but slightly lighter.

"So what do you do, Mr. Ray?"

"Tell or not tell... right"

Even if I told Mr. Sijima how it ended, even if I didn't, which one has a very bad aftertaste.

Communicating despair, hiding the truth… are bitter together.

But......

"I'll tell him."

"Is that okay?

"... Yes. If we don't tell them, they won't know it forever. That goes ahead...... in all of their lives, it becomes a darkness in which they cannot see Mr. Sijima's end"

If you don't tell him, you can't even break up with Mr. Sizima.

Forever, I will be imprisoned by the mystery of ignorance without knowing.

"It has a bad aftertaste, it's cruel, it may get resentful... but still, it's something we have to do"

But given that I would tell the two of you about Mr. Sijima's death... my body trembled.

I thought you were scared.

I'm scared that I'm going to tell you both about my despair.

"... Ray, if that's what you chose, I think you should"

"Senior...?

"It's you who should choose, Ray. I don't have as much deep feelings about Tian as you do about NPC, Ray."

The senior said so, looking at the festival landscape in the distance.

There, many tians and < masters > enjoy the festival.

Seniors look at the landscape, spinning words.

"I am, as they say, a playwright. < Infinite Dendrogram > thinks it's only a game"

…………

"The same goes for Tian again...... We consider it only an advanced and irreversible AI. If I were alone, I wouldn't have taken this request. Even if I knew the truth about this one, I might have disappeared from before my mother and child as it were. But......"

Seniors look me straight in the eye.

"Now in front of me...... there are people who think Tian is more their life than any other player I've ever met. I have you to think, mourn, pity, and work for them."

That's how the senior walked over to me...... he held my softly trembling hand.

"So don't be afraid of your choices. Because no one thinks of them more than you."

To the words that push that back...... how long my tremors had stopped.

"Senior...... thank you"

"Because I'm a senior."

The senior laughed and said so.

All right, thanks to the seniors, I got a stomach set up.

Let's tell him.

Tell the two of you the truth...

"- - KYHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Shortly after I cemented my resolve, some crazy laugh echoed.

They complain that the glass is rubbing against each other.

"What the fuck!?"

Move your gaze to laughter.

It is over a mountain close to the village of Torne.

There...

◆ ◆ ◆

■ Near the village of Torne

Time goes back only slightly.

"Damn, it's an extra expense because of the guys at Sol Crisis! At least we need to find something...!

At that time, more than a dozen people appeared in the mountains near the village of Torne.

Particularly remarkable was the face of the Mohican League, which was rubbed with a group of Mohicans at the festival.

Everyone he digs mountains with one hand of pickel or scoop.

Of all the Mohican leagues, only one is waving the pickel with great enthusiasm.

To him like that, junior Mohican speaks with a sigh of relief.

"Huh. But you won't find it, will you? It was hundreds of years ago, and you said you couldn't find anything last year or a decoy, right?

"You can't win if you come out in the first place," Sighs Mohican says.

But the zealous Mohican smiles invincibly.

"Pfft, I'm not after a big guy like that. My aim is meteorites!

"Meteorite?

"Don't you see? Minerals found in meteorites in comics and lanobes... Meteors can be supertweak weapons. I'm sure it's the same in Dendro."

"Oh, I see. Even if it's long gone, the meteorite that hit UBM remains."

"That's what happened! We'll dig!

"Yes, sir."

That's how they all resumed their mining enthusiastically.

If he was right, I'm sure he wouldn't find anything like this... by sundown he would have gone back to the festival and even had a shame meeting.

But there are errors in what they say.

Things like them disappearing... are still there (...).

◆

The underground sole, waking up in a very slight light, was aware.

Above, there's a “sparkle".

Not only that, but that there are so many "sweet potatoes” on the ground that they were reduced by so much three hundred years ago that they are incomparable.

But Sole, who had just woken up, had no power to get out on the ground.

All I had to do was wait a few hours after I woke up, eating the light in detail.

- Besides, I'm done waiting.

Sole, who had accumulated light and regained only a little power, had the power to go out on the ground back.

"KYAHA"

Sole pointed his tentacles with crystal-like protrusions at the cracks directly above - where the light was slightly inserted.

Sole converted the accumulated light into his MP in the last few hours - releasing it as a thousands of degrees of hotline from the tip of the tentacle.

The heat line captured the crack accurately and in an instant melted (...) the bedrock to the ground.

The hotline rushes, on the cracks of the rock bed - the < master > of the sighing Mohican, who was on the trajectory of light, evaporates from the groin of his body to the top of his head and becomes a death penalty.

The person would have never noticed anything.

Neither did my people, after a moment.

What they saw were vanishing companions and melted rock formations.

And - Sole jumped out of an empty hole in the rock bed.

The sole was a cracked crystal ball that did not reflect the brilliance of a three-metal diameter.

Sole was winging an indeterminate darkness.

Sole was producing two to four transparent tentacles with crystal projections.

Sole doesn't have any organ to express his emotions... but he did.

A body without a face, a body without a mouth, and a body without a crystal.

"KYHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAKYAKYA"

Sole spreads its dark wings, absorbing light into one cup of eyes, instantly making its own MP fully fast (...).

Sole is full... full, intensely delighted.

Oh, there are so many “sparkles”.

Sole is like an innocent kid before his birthday treat.

Like a kid blowing out a cake candle - I was purely happy.

"... Intercept I!!"

I wasn't sure what Sole had witnessed.

But I was sure it was dangerous, and with my skills, at Embrio, I tried to attack.

But...

"- - KYHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Faster than them-- Sole flew.

Straight up.

Straight up, even.

I don't even have eyes under my eyes, thousands of meters...... no keep flying any further than that straight up.

Eventually the sole crosses the troposphere and reaches the stratosphere.

So much so that the sole can no longer only appear to be a black dot from the ground.

"Running away...?

One of them squeaks like that, and the surrounding < master > agrees.

I can't help you here or there in a place like that.

They guessed that the monster that was surrounded had escaped directly above them.

But it was... a big mistake.

"Huh?"

A few seconds after the light blinked above...... the whole body of the < master > on earth burned up.

The hair, the oil on the skin, the clothes worn burn up by the super high temperatures.

Rolling down the ground trying to extinguish the fire, but not to that extent because the equipment and meat are burning, becomes a death penalty as it is.

To the sight, the surrounding < master > looks up at the sky remembering the frigid chills.

"Hey, no way...... from there!?"

That was also stated in the theatre.

- But the knight's sword does not reach Master Cocten, and even the hunter's bow and arrow is not enough.

- Sometimes some tried to try on a flying dragon, but it doesn't even reach the dragon's wings.

They took part in the mining, and of course they know the theatre.

I watched the play and decided to mine it in this mountain.

But they were estimating Sole's “altitude” a little too low.

Well, it's more impossible to tell them to assume.

It has a means of attack with a range of up to 10,000 meters (...) and continues to unilaterally attack from above……….

"KYHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"

The sole is at a high altitude with nothing to block, swallowing the sun's rays that pour down on the earth, widening even wider the wings of darkness - turning the world, which was day, into night.

With that vision of the earth being well visible while fully swallowing the sunlight - ignite the "sparkle” beneath your eyes (...).

And the heat line, which reached the surface while distorting the air with heat, also burns one of the masters.

"KYAHAHAHA"

I was very pleased with that.

Oh, I guess so. You should be happy.

Because Sole loves the sight (...) of "Tamaki" burning.

Yes, that's one thing if you're strong and mention the difference with theatre.

Thoreau hasn't eaten light apart from "Tamaki”.

Sole's energy sources make up enough for it with sunlight and starlight.

Sole, an elemental with light as its staple, need not harm any other organism in living (...).

Though I say so, Sole prefers to burn "sparkles”.

Because I love to see the sight of "sparkling" burning, boring, and breathless from the sky.

Because it was Sole's only hobby (...).

"KYAHA?"

But Sole wonders.

If you fix that thought to people's words, it would be words like this.

- I've been burning it since just now.

- It's kind of different from the way I like to burn my own sweet potatoes.

- Not enough boredom and despair.

- Hey? Why not? How could you?

Naturally, the whole body doesn't feel burning pain because it cuts pain.

I won't die, so neither will despair.

Sole didn't like the fact much.

So here's what Sole thought next.

- There's a pattern on that left hand side. "Octopus" is boring.

- I don't have a pattern. I have to sprout.

"KYHAHAHAHAHAA"

As such, it glances under his eyes and finds it immediately.

The village of Torne, which is busy at the festival... and the many tians there.

◆

The disaster that once struck the village of Torne came back to life after three hundred years, and he turned his attention again to the village of Torne.

The name of the disaster is - [Black Sky Dead Monochrome].

For the ancient epic < UBM > - something nestled in the inviolable realm (...).

To be continued