Chapter 255: Yggdrasil’s Grace and Immutable Metal

“H-Halt-sama…what is this?”

Tina was shocked to find us surrounded by red fruits to the point that we couldn’t move around.

Why was she so surprised?

Could it be the sudden growth of Yggdrasil here in the courtyard?

Or is it because of the sheer amount of red fruits that had fallen in this place?

Perhaps it’s because Sylph, who had gone MIA for quite some time, had also come.

I was also dumbstruck, and I couldn’t make heads or tails out of this. At any rate, I decided to just tell Tina about what I know.

The ginormous tree that grew in my mansion’s courtyard — it was Yggdrasil, apparently.

Sylph planted it last evening and Luna watered it with the remaining water from the bath.

…Yup.

Doesn’t make sense at all.

Sylph told me the reason why he planted Yggdrasil’s seed here in my mansion.

If Yggdrasil also grew here, Sylph would be able to stay here all the time.

Well, that’s fine.

What I didn’t get was how on earth did Yggdrasil grew to this extent only from the leftover bathwater.

Sylph said that the water must be the cause for Yggdrasil’s alarming growth rate.

According to Luna, she felt it would be a waste to just throw the bathwater, so she decided to use it to water the plant, instead.

Before she entered the academy of magic, Luna was staying in the orphanage. It seemed that they would use the bathwater to water the vegetables in their yard.

Luna’s habit resulted in the situation before us.

She had also planned to water Yggdrasil this morning with the bathwater. See, she was holding a jar.

— Wait, even without magic vision, it’s pretty obvious that a tremendous amount of mana blended with the water.

Was this really from our bath?

…It seemed that there was no doubt that it was.

What the, it seemed this fluid was quite amazing.

It was leftover from yesterday’s bath, but it was still warm.

I could also clearly sense high density energy from it.

In that case, then that made sense why this thing grew this much.

Still, it probably wouldn’t end like this if the plant wasn’t something that could take a huge amount of energy within it.

That meant Yggdrasil could receive this Super Water — I just randomly named this water as such.

“Still, I don’t think the water from Luna’s jug was enough to grow it crazy, right?”

—Yup.

Luna just watered it once with a jugful of super water last night.

Even if super water did contain so much mana, just one jug shouldn’t be able to give the colossal amount of mana swirling inside Yggdrasil.

“Ahm… I think I know the reason.”

“Eh?”

Tina muttered quietly, as if talking to herself.

“What do you mean you know?”

“I will clean these first. Can you please follow me for a while?”

Tina retrieved all the fruits on the ground using her wind magic, then she carried them to the kitchen.

　──＊＊＊──

Tina then led Sylph and I to the mansion’s basement.

I was surprised to learn that food reserves were stocked underground in a cellar, but the fact that there was another space shocked me more.

By the way, Luna was assigned to kitchen duty, so she didn’t come with us to check the basement.

It was my first time in a cellar, so it was a bit exciting.

Normally, Sylph would be excited, but she seemed oddly behaved today.

She was scared of Tina’s behavior for some reason, apparently.

She was constantly staying behind me, as if hiding from Tina’s sight.

“Sylph, what’s the matter?”

“I-I don’t know. B-But, Tina…She’s a bit scary, somehow.”

I whispered my query, but I didn’t expect her answer.

It seemed that Sylph didn’t know why she was scared of Tina.

“I’m sorry, Sylph-sama. I never imagined that it’s Yggdrasil.”

Tina seemed like she knew something.

“What does that mean, Tina?”

“A-Actually—”

Right on cue, we finally reached the deepest place at the end of the stairs.

“The roots of Yggdrasil have already reached this place.”

There was a huge crack in the wall, and stones of various sizes were on the ground.

“Whoa, it’s spacious.”

“This was originally a training area I created, where you could practice your magic, Halt-sama.”

Tina explained what happened to this space.

The super water had leaked into this place, turning the stone walls and the soil into rare ores.

The roots of Yggdrasil had grown so much, to the point that it sucked the mana out of the rare ores and reverting them to ordinary stones.

Only scarletite was left here as it was.

The reason why so many red fruits fell from Yggdrasil turned out to be Tina. She couldn’t help but feel bloodlust against the roots, and she even threatened Yggdrasil.

Sylph was the personification of Yggdrasil.

That explained why she was so frightened of Tina.

“Tina, sorry. I didn’t mean this to happen.”

“N-No! I should be the one to apologize. I also didn’t mean to frighten you in any way, Sylph-sama.”

Sylph was the personification of Alheim’s Yggdrasil.

The seed that sprouted at my mansion was created from the Yggdrasil in Alheim.

In other words, it could be considered as Sylph’s child.

She must’ve felt responsible for what her own child did.

“Halt, sorry, too. You could’ve gotten a lot of orichalcum ores, but…”

“No need to worry about it. I don’t really need that much ore.”

Besides —

“Oricalchum’s too fragile.”

“—Eh!?”

“H-Halt-sama, what do you…mean by that?”

I approached the wall that was glittering the same way as Tina’s ring. It was a mass of scarletite.

This much!!

—Amazing.

“Tina, thanks for making this space. I can mine lots of scarletite that I wanted, thanks to this.”

I said that while wrapping my hand with flames.

It wasn’t the usual Fire Lance or any other flame.

It was an ultra-hot flame that burned a bright shade of blue.

I made this flame by blending mana equivalent to a thousand flaming knights into a carefully adjusted air that had been regulated to the optimum quantity and quality using wind magic.

This was the only way to process scarletite. To put it another way, handling this flames meant having the ability to process immutable metals like scarletites.

It was a spell that required a great deal of concentration and skill to do.

I used the flames to break off a piece of scarletite that was jutting out of the wall.

“See. To be able to get just this much is enough for me to be super happy.”

I molded the lump of scarletite into a beautiful sphere and showed it to Tina and Sylph.