Academy’S Gumiho Is A Magical Genius [EN]: Chapter 342

Academy Gumiho is a Magical Genius – Episode 342

Academy Gumiho is a Magical Genius 342

Branches Extending to the World (2)

Within the small glass bead, there was a world.

Not like a saved video.

A real world existed.

‘Even a world I know.’

It was so bizarre that I examined the glass bead.

No matter how much I touched the bead, I couldn’t interfere with it, but the presence and vitality of the people inside the bead felt even more real.

‘The Divine Tree.’

Seungwoo repeated the name of the tree in his head.

We call it this now, but the elves didn’t originally call it that.

Mother Tree or World Tree.

Mother Tree is a name derived from the lifestyle and culture of the elves, who regard the tree as their parent.

I found out through the records left in the Union.

The Mother Tree bestowed grace and blessings upon her children, the elves.

She also arranged friends called spirits and devotedly gave love to the elves, like a mother raising her children in every way.

Perhaps that’s why.

When the Mother Tree and the spirits became corrupted, and war broke out across the continent, the elves’ country, which had endured the longest without collapsing, was destroyed in just one morning.

It was due to some careless elves who couldn’t believe that their friends and mother, the spirits and the Mother Tree, would destroy them.

‘According to the records, the prince was also one of those types.’

Among the prince and princess, who were the only successors to the Elven King, the prince was so affectionate that he trusted the spirits and secretly brought them into the Elven Kingdom.

In the process, the prince died, and the palace was devastated.

The king couldn’t withstand the spirits’ offensive and eventually sank with the palace.

Seungwoo couldn’t understand.

The prince’s actions, and the king’s thoughts when he died.

And.

‘I don’t know what this little girl is thinking either.’

Another word symbolizing the Elven royalty.

High Elf.

The girl is the only High Elf.

In other words, she was the sister of the prince, who was recorded as being affectionate and lacking a sense of reality.

Seungwoo couldn’t understand her feelings right now.

Even though the tree that had been called the elves’ mother for thousands of years was right in front of her, after the prince who was so affectionate died, and her father and country collapsed.

Luna was now in a position where she could set it on fire right away if she wanted to.

‘Although she’s exhausted and passed out.’

As an outsider, Seungwoo.

He had no time to understand what Luna was thinking and why she accompanied him.

Of course, that’s not an important fact for Seungwoo at all.

It’s just a brief piece of prior knowledge.

Seungwoo, having erased the thoughts he had just had from his mind, recalled another name that referred to this giant tree besides the Mother Tree.

‘In the sense of a tree that connects the worlds, the World Tree.’

At first, I thought it was a figurative meaning.

But now that I’ve encountered the World Tree so closely and seen the beads at the end of its roots, I understand. Connecting the worlds isn’t a metaphor or allusion to a trade route like the Silk Road.

It literally means.

“A tree that connects worlds to worlds. Forcibly connecting them.”

Step by step.

Walking through the vast forest, I dug up all the places where I felt a strong presence.

Glass beads always popped out from under the ground where a strong presence was felt.

Some beads had already lost their life, and some glass beads seemed to be thriving with life. While examining these various beads.

Swish!

As I swung my sword to cut the roots to secure a glass bead that no longer felt alive at all.

Clang!

The root that had been easily cut just a moment ago turned much harder than steel and blocked the sword. It didn’t just block it. The blade of the sword was instantly ruined because it was so strong.

Thud.

Seungwoo examined the sword here and there. The blade was completely ruined, and the core of the sword was also severely twisted. This was no longer something that could be solved by sharpening the blade.

I have no choice but to melt it down and make it again.

‘I didn’t give it a name, but it was a famous sword that often cut through the armor of the knights.’

Such a sword was easily broken.

Seungwoo’s head spun complicatedly. No, even if the roots were originally hard, it would be understandable, but until just now, they were easily cut. The sword that just broke. I used that sword to cut the roots for information gathering and sample collection.

Sensing something strange, I glared at the roots.

Surely these roots. Suddenly, the ends won’t turn sharp and skewer us like skewers from below, will they?

I was nervous because I had a similar experience in the past, but the roots didn’t move at all. Only the durability and hardness increased. It’s still the same.

“I can’t help it. I have no choice but to look at other beads.”

I think I can cut it if I try to force it.

However, I decided to secure the beads as late as possible because I don’t know what will happen if I do. Let’s take a closer look with our eyes first. You can draw almost any conclusion with just the naked eye without having to do complicated experiments.

That’s how Seungwoo discovered ten more beads.

Most of the worlds looked like withered old trees. Seungwoo erased the expression on his face at the sight of the gruesome appearance and dug the glass beads out of the ground. We need more information now.

And the bead I dug up just in time was perfect for satisfying Seungwoo’s desire for information.

“This is an unexpected result.”

Black bead.

Considering that the other glass beads that I have dug up so far have been colorful, this bead is particularly cloudy. The reason is the energy.

I can feel a very strong energy from the bead.

For a moment, I mistook it for being too pure.

‘Energy like that of a demon. No, it’s much purer than that.’

A foul odor wafts.

Seungwoo reached out to that world.

At that moment, black energy wrapped around his hand.

The energy that covered his hand like dark clouds swirled with a strong evil spirit. Instinctively, Seungwoo flinched.

“This was the source of the demons.”

I don’t have any clues, but I was sure.

‘I can feel the same energy as the demons who were called nobles.’

In the world beyond this bead where the roots are spread.

I can feel the presence of demons.

“At least seventy.”

Only seventy are easily detected.

When I looked at it a little more seriously, I could feel hundreds more presences.

Hundreds of pure demonic energies. This was several times more than the 72 demon nobles that already exist in the world.

The preceding information alone is shocking enough.

Um, and there was something a little annoying in my head.

At first, I was sure it was the origin of this world, but there was something more.

For example, I could feel the same energy and the same authority as the noble demons I had killed so far in this world. Even the authority was greater.

It was as if he was the original. It emitted a huge sense of pressure. Nevertheless, the owners of the presences did not move at all.

It’s not that they’re dead, but it’s as if their life force is being taken away somewhere.

They were slowly dying, connected to translucent tubes.

‘Well, judging by the size of their life force, they won’t die even if their lives are sucked out for thousands of years, but does it make sense that the owners of such huge presences have collapsed powerlessly?’

Many pieces of knowledge flashed through my head.

Seungwoo selected only the knowledge worth using from the vast amount of knowledge he had accumulated so far and extracted it separately. Based on the knowledge extracted in this way, he created a background, and in that background, he ran various hypotheses through thought experiments in his brain.

A very primitive thought experiment that is not very objective and does not have the detailed environmental conditions that occur in reality.

I ran the experiment considering all the possibilities.

Every time, his brain screamed.

When I managed to derive an answer, reason screamed this time.

Reason, unable to accept the result, demanded another experiment from the brain, and the brain screamed, and then an endless chain of thought experiments in which reason went into a frenzy again.

‘Ah, my head is going to break.’

The results that the head produced were always good for reason to go crazy and jump up and down.

Because no matter what premise I put on and ran the thought experiment, the conclusion always came down to one thing. A conclusion I never wanted to believe. As I turned away from that conclusion, someone whispered into my unclosed ear.

[What you’re thinking is right.]

“……!”

[Don’t deny it, affirm it. Your brilliant mind keeps telling you the answer. How long are you going to turn away from the truth?]

“……You. This sound.”

In fact, it wasn’t a familiar voice.

But it wasn’t an unfamiliar sound either.

A sound wrapped in a familiar mechanical sound. However, unlike the female tone in my memory, the voice I hear now is clearly male. I don’t know who the owner of this voice is.

I know how he spoke to me.

“System.”

As soon as Seungwoo finished speaking.

Ting!

[Oh. You got it right away. I thought it would take a little longer.]

The familiar mechanical sound greeted Seungwoo’s ears.

However, Seungwoo’s expression, who actually heard the mechanical sound, was distorted.

As soon as the system started talking, he quickly understood the situation.

The strange glass beads and the tree roots the color of the universe. And even the voice of the system that suddenly appeared.

As all this information came together, the brain derived a highly reliable hypothesis that could never be wrong. I can’t believe it, and I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t keep denying it as long as Seungwoo’s head keeps screaming that it’s right.

“This bead attached to this root. You must know about this.”

[Um? Your tone is harsh. Are you wary of me now?]

“Stop playing around and answer the question.”

If you don’t answer the question─

“─I’ll burn this whole tree down.”

Swish─!

I threw away the sword with the broken blade on the ground and took out the red sword hanging from my waist. Seungwoo and his master joined forces to melt down the by-products of the Red Knight they had captured. A memento from my master.

And cut down the entire Divine Tree.

A sword of fire made by burning it and turning it into huge firewood.

“I don’t know why you suddenly started talking to me, but since you spoke to me in the process of exploring this tree. It’s certain that there’s some kind of connection with this tree.”

Seungwoo brought the sword close to the tree.

He was about to swing the sword greatly and cut down the tree if things went wrong. Since the trunk of the tree is so large that it pierces the sky, it is only possible to make a scratch by ordinary methods. But Seungwoo had already cut down the Divine Tree before.

It’s just a big tree.

It’s not very difficult to cut it down once more, burn it, and turn it into charcoal.

Of course, the more I brought the sword to the tree, the more Seungwoo’s head screamed a warning. My head was very noisy, as if a red siren was screaming. It’s not the system’s doing, but the animalistic instinct that I’ve trained in the battlefield so far is giving me a warning.

If you cut down this tree, you will die.

No, maybe problems beyond death will occur.

[St, stop! Don’t do such violent things and let’s solve it through dialogue between intelligent beings with intelligence!]

As if to prove Seungwoo’s instinct.

[Ah, question! You said you wanted to ask a question. I’ll answer anything, so please stop doing such senseless things as pointing a sword at such a beautiful tree!]

The system desperately stopped Seungwoo.

Seungwoo, who finally won the right to ask a question, said directly.

“The beads connected to the roots. Each one of those is a kind of world, right?”

As soon as the system finished speaking, I poured out the question, so I could hear the system’s reaction slightly.

[……Haha.]

That tone was the voice of someone who was expecting it. It sounded like someone who was very excited was chewing over it to calm their mind.