Player Who Became A Constellation [EN]: Chapter 223

The Player Who Became a Constellation – Episode 223

Clang-!

Sharin stopped, startled, and turned around.

She saw Loki and Cancun deflecting the tree branches with their fists and sword.

Loki tilted his head, looking at his fist and the tree branch.

“…Tough.”

Tree branches sprouted from all directions.

“Don’t let your guard down.”

“Yes!”

“…! S-Sorry!”

Cancun adjusted her grip on her sword, and Sharin hurriedly pulled out two daggers from her waist, holding one in each hand.

Tree branches sprouted from all directions.

Each seemed to have an organ that sensed living beings, aiming tree thorns at Loki and his companions.

‘…It’s like they have a mind of their own.’

Moreover, there were many, and they were fast.

The tree branches attacked from all directions simultaneously.

“Hoo-!”

Cancun and Sharin held their breath.

Their hearts began to beat rapidly, emitting divine power.

A sacred aura spread around their bodies.

Then, as if a spring had unwound, the tree branches flying in from all directions slowed down.

Cancun and Sharin quickly deflected the incoming tree branches one by one with their divine power-infused weapons.

‘Tough!?’

Both of them intended to cut the tree branches, but each one was hard.

Thud-!

Loki turned his gaze to a strange presence.

The rotten corpses in the swamp were moving.

Tree branches wriggled like parasites all over their bodies.

‘Plant zombies.’

He had seen them when talking with a man named Renic.

So they could move like that?

Their bodies were adorned with colorful flowers, but the petals of those flowers repeatedly opened and closed like Venus flytraps catching insects.

Of course, they seemed to prefer meat over insects.

The plant zombies held wooden spears and shields.

They seemed to be weapons made from the roots of the World Tree.

Then they would be tougher than most steel.

‘…Were the mercenaries and conscripts here not just nutrients?’

They were different from the undead.

They would soon become soldiers guarding this World Tree.

‘They use strange techniques.’

“There are annoyingly many!”

Sharin stepped back, taking out a bottle from her waist.

It was a bottle filled with oil.

She threw it at the roots of the World Tree.

Then she clashed her daggers together, causing an explosion.

However, the blazing flames failed to completely burn the roots of the World Tree, and their momentum gradually diminished.

“What!?”

“It seems they don’t burn.”

Cancun glared at the tree branch.

There were only scorched marks, and it didn’t do any damage.

Rather than wood, it felt like living metal.

The plant zombies creaked as they approached.

Surrounding them.

「What’s going on!?」

A voice was heard from outside the roots of the World Tree.

The angels had noticed.

The angels flew into the cave and looked at Loki, Cancun, and Sharin.

「Intruders?!」

「…How could they enter this place and survive?」

The angels expressed their bewilderment.

Behind those angels, tree branches staggered and approached.

Soon-.

Thwack-!

They pierced the angels.

「Kuh-ack!」

「Good heavens! The World Tree recognized us as prey!」

The angels held their spears and tried to fend them off as much as possible, but their bodies were pierced, and their limbs were bound by the tree branches that constantly flew in from all directions.

「Kuaaaaack!」

The angels who fell from the sky were dragged across the floor and thrown into the rotten swamp.

Numerous tree branches pierced the angels, absorbing nutrients.

“That monster tree doesn’t seem to distinguish between friend and foe.”

Or maybe it just has a habit of eating everything that comes inside.

So that’s why the outside doesn’t know exactly what’s going on here.

Loki looked ahead.

Tsu-tsu-tsuk-!

The tree branches overlapped.

The only entrance to the cave. The gap in the roots of the World Tree began to close rapidly.

“Run!”

At Loki’s words, Cancun and Sharin nodded.

They sprinted as if bouncing off.

The cave entrance was closing rapidly.

“We’ll be late!”

At Sharin’s words, Cancun grabbed her.

“Huh!?”

“Shut your mouth. You might bite your tongue.”

Divine power erupted from Cancun’s feet, and she shot forward.

Loki also flew like a cannonball and summoned Gungnir [Odin’s spear in Norse mythology].

He gripped Gungnir and threw it towards the gradually closing hole.

The spear, flying with intense speed, was surrounded by black flames.

The spear reached the closing hole, leaving only a streak of light, and exploded.

Bang-!

The hole was blown open in a spiral shape.

Whirr-!

The black flames spread to the tree branches.

The flames gradually spread, and the thickening entrance slowly opened.

Kkyaaaaaaaaak-!

The tree branches made strange noises. It was as if they were screaming in agony, writhing.

Loki forcibly widened the closed gap with his hands and feet.

“Go.”

“Yes!”

Cancun and Sharin jumped through the gap.

“What?!”

The Deshar mercenaries stared wide-eyed at Cancun and Sharin, who emerged from the base of the World Tree.

Burning tree branches.

It screamed and rubbed its body against the roots of the World Tree to put out the fire, but the black flames only spread.

The roots of the World Tree gradually burned.

“T-The World Tree that Gaian-nim [Gaian is likely a title or honorific] cherished…!”

「Humans! Why are you standing there dumbfounded! Put out this fire quickly!」

At the angels’ words, the mercenaries fetched water and poured it.

However, the more they did, the more the flames attached to the roots of the World Tree spread.

“Catch the intruders!”

Bolts and arrows flew towards Cancun and Sharin, but avoiding them was not a problem.

The two looked at Loki.

As Loki was about to escape, tree branches quickly flew towards him.

They wrapped around his arms and legs.

Loki waved his hand and swung Gungnir, but the tree branches continued to cling to him.

“Tenacious.”

Black flames erupted from his body, burning the surrounding tree branches.

“The World Tree is willingly becoming firewood.”

If this tree was the source of the plague, burning it now would be the most appropriate thing to do.

At that moment, the roots of the World Tree moved.

Krrrrrr-!

It split the ground and spread widely.

And the tree branches wrapped around the burning areas.

Wiiiiiiiiing-!

Wood fragments flew.

Kkyaaaaak!

The World Tree’s scream was heard.

Loki’s eyes widened at the sight.

‘…Could it be cutting off part of its own body…?’

Snip-!

The burning roots were cut off.

The entire World Tree vibrated.

Birds took flight.

Kuaooooh!

A scream echoed.

The World Tree’s tree branches spread in all directions.

Piercing the birds that were flying, piercing the angels flying in the sky, and piercing the mercenaries on the ground.

And sucking up nutrients.

Then, the severed root parts began to grow again.

“……!”

Cancun and Sharin’s eyes widened at the sight.

Could it be that it doesn’t care about allies if it’s to heal its wounds?!

The mercenaries screamed and tried to escape.

But before they could, green sap flowed out like a waterfall from every hole in the World Tree’s trunk.

A sweet scent that couldn’t be compared to what the Deshar soldiers had drunk so far.

No, it was a smell close to an extreme stench that tingled the nose.

Tree fruits fell from the World Tree, and the flowers blooming on the World Tree’s branches scattered thick pollen.

The mercenaries who were screaming lost focus in their eyes.

“…T-Thirsty.”

Severe thirst.

“Hungry!”

Extreme hunger.

“Ah, hahaha! This is heaven!”

And hallucinations.

The mercenaries staggered towards the World Tree as if possessed by something, and the World Tree opened its roots.

The swamp could be seen between the opened roots.

The mercenaries fell into it.

Splash! Splash!

The tree branches would not leave the prey that came on its own.

They attacked from all directions, sucking up nutrients.

It was like a plant that emits pheromones to lure and eat insects.

‘There was a reason why this Kaprik territory felt like a flowerpot.’

This was a dedicated flowerpot solely for growing the World Tree.

The low quality of the hired mercenaries and conscripts was, in fact, nothing more than nutrients.

The goal seemed to be to confine them within the fortress walls, feed them, fatten them up, use them as nutrients, and turn the remaining bodies into tree humans to raise an army.

‘Make the enemy perish from the plague, and use the conscripted mercenaries to create an army….’

It’s truly an annoying constellation.

“Cancun. Sharin, go to the harbor and command the Einherjar [Norse mythology: spirits of slain warriors]!”

“Yes! Understood!”

The fleet could be seen emerging from the misty darkness of the deep night in the distance.

They were Asgard’s warships.

The commotion that occurred in the World Tree was taken as a ‘signal’ by them.

“Then I’ll have to cause more of a ruckus.”

Loki threw Gungnir, from which flames were erupting, towards the World Tree.

The spear flew, spinning intensely, trying to pierce the World Tree.

「…To think the intruder would be the Constellation of the End.」

Loki felt murderous intent from behind.

Clang-!

An intangible blade.

A fierce blade made of wind collided with Gungnir, and Loki, grabbing the deflected Gungnir, turned around.

A being with three pairs of wings.

A man covered in light green armor from head to toe.

He was glaring at Loki, holding double-edged swords in both hands.

Loki could sense it as he looked at the man.

‘A constellation?’

It wasn’t Gaian.

Was there more than one constellation!

「This body is the Constellation of Wind, Mekrius. This body will cut off your head.」

A whirlwind blew around the Constellation of Wind.

「The fact that you came here means you came to kill this body and my sister.」

The man shouted, looking down at Loki from the sky as if enraged.

「Give it a try. Dog of Azelan.」

The body of the Constellation of Wind, Mekrius, shot out.

The wind swirled around Loki, and a vortex in the shape of a blade enveloped him.

Mekrius swung the swords in both hands towards Loki.

***

Splash-.

The underground waterway.

Kudan Raguna frowned at the stench.

Then he lowered the torch.

The flowing underground water smelled rotten, and corpses floated around.

Also, wriggling tree branches surrounded the area.

“We’ve arrived.”

This was the bottom part of the World Tree that had taken root in the Kaprik territory.

It wasn’t the center, but at least it was a place where the World Tree sent out the leftovers it had eaten.

Thud-!

At that moment, a small earthquake occurred.

Kudan Raguna raised his head.

The floor vibrated, and dust fell from the ceiling.

Normally, he would have seen it as a small earthquake caused by the World Tree moving.

But Kudan Raguna had received a letter a little while ago.

The woman he had saved.

She said that someone who seemed to be an Asgardian soldier had appeared and gave her a potion.

A man with black and white hair.

There was only one man that Kudan could think of.

‘Loki-nim!’

“The Constellation of the End has come.”

At those words, the Berserker warriors flashed blue light in the darkness.

“He has come to save us and punish the fallen constellations.”

The Berserker warriors took up their weapons.

Kudan gripped Mjolnir [Thor’s hammer in Norse mythology] in both hands.

He looked at the tree branches that densely filled the underground waterway.

The roots of the World Tree.

The roots of the monster that had invaded even this underground waterway, sucking up life, were now-.

“Oooooooo!”

It was time to pull them out.

Electricity flowed from Kudan’s Mjolnir.

With a shout, he struck upwards with all his might from below.

Bang-!

Mjolnir came into contact with the roots surrounding the cave.

Intense sparks flew, and flames spread.

The sparks spread along the roots with intense force, and the roots burst belatedly, disappearing without a trace, burned black.

The underground waterway collapsed, and the electricity traveled along the World Tree’s tree branches, heading to various parts of the roots.