The Strongest in the World Doesn’t Want To Do Anything

51 – Fanatic on the Rooftop

“A person who sacrificed the lives of the citizens just to catch a single cyclops? And he calls himself a king of a nation?”

Jans couldn’t easily dismiss the thought that continued to haunt him. After all, in his hands, there were constantly corpses that had been chillingly frozen to death for unknown reasons.

The fact that all these people had been consumed as mere materials for a single person’s magic was horrifying and gave him goosebumps.

Of course, there was no solid evidence that supported this claim, but there were also many ambiguous aspects that made it hard to deny.

While Jans struggled with his complicated thoughts, he heard a man’s cry in his ear.

“The end is near!”

Following the sound, Jans shifted his gaze to a man on the roof of a house, screaming about the end.

“Terosa has been cursed! They dared to oppress the one who inherited the power of the gods and allowed the corruption of the sacred land, Rome! Repent, for the true saint has emerged to open a new path of salvation for us!”

For the third day in a row, while clearing the corpses in Northessa, Jans encountered scenes like this.

Ever since the news spread about Hagnes taking control of Rome, there had been an increase in people shouting such “new doctrines.”

“Get down from there!”

One of the officers who couldn’t bear to see that sight shouted.

“I am cursed! Accept the new doctrine!”

“Stop talking nonsense! Come down! You will be punished for blasphemy!”

“Blasphemy? What you are doing right now is blasphemy!”

A man on the roof shouted loudly at the officer. Yance, captivated by his crazed appearance, put aside his work and silently watched the scene.

“That lunatic, really…”

– Thud

As the man on the roof raised his robe, several glass bottles filled with red liquid were hanging from his body. Yance could immediately guess what they were.

“Flame flasks?”

A legendary magical weapon. It was a simple yet incredibly destructive weapon that contained a small amount of flammable substance and flame magic in a glass bottle. When activated, it would instantly engulf the surroundings in flames.

Just one of those flasks could easily burn down a house the man was standing on, and from the looks of it, there were more than ten bottles hanging from his body.

It was unimaginable how massive the flames would be if all those flasks were to explode at once.

The officer, knowing what the man had hidden in his clothes, put aside his oppressive attitude and gently tried to calm him down.

“R-relax! I-I won’t arrest you for now… I-I was just concerned! It’s dangerous for you to be up on the roof like this!”

In a state of extreme confusion, the officer babbled on, trying his best to persuade the man.

“Please, holy maiden! Purify the demon inside me with sacred flames! Give me a chance to prove it to these heretics!”

Despite the officer’s heartfelt efforts, the man on the roof, driven by what seemed like madness, continued his own method of evangelism.

“Okay! Okay, I get it! We all believe in the same god! Please calm down! I’ll find a place for you to freely tell your story! So more people can listen! Just come down and let’s talk!”

The officer, while trying to persuade him, also signaled with his eyes and hands for the soldiers around to infiltrate the house.

It was a plan to secretly attack him and bring an end to this situation.

“Crazy… Shouldn’t we evacuate the people around first?”

As Yance watched the situation, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he stood up and dashed towards the house the man was on top of.

Yance couldn’t accurately estimate the radius of the damage, but he tried to evacuate as many people as possible by going to as many houses as he could.

“Sob… Thank you, holy maiden. The miracles you performed in Rome, the retribution you brought to the impious. All the things you have shown have enlightened the reason for my dark life.”

The man on the roof seemed to become increasingly emotional. The soldiers secretly brought into the house by the officer cautiously showed themselves on the roof.

“Yes! You are truly great, holy maiden! So come down and tell us more in detail!”

The officer, feeling anxious about the man’s actions, almost begged him.

The man on the roof continued his confession of faith, completely ignoring the officer’s words.

Yance also sensed the danger in his behavior and quickly moved his body to knock on the door of the nearest house.

– Bang, bang, bang

The old, worn-out wooden door slowly opened, revealing a pale-faced woman with tears streaming down her face.

“Heheheuk… What in the world is happening… Was there an issue with my husband’s body?”

Jans, catching his breath, explained why he had knocked on the door.

“Heuk, heuk, no, we need to evacuate right now…”

“Amina.”

Before Jans could finish his sentence, an enormous explosion occurred with a blinding flash from the direction of the house where the man had climbed onto the roof.

It was a staggering explosion of such immense force that it shook the ground. A shockwave, accompanied by a deafening roar that could cause permanent hearing damage, engulfed Jans along with black dust.

Jans collapsed to the ground, his body sprawled.

“Uuuh…”

Fortunately, he didn’t lose consciousness as he didn’t hit his head, but the sight before Jans was horrifying enough to be preferable. Buildings destroyed by flames shooting up like hellfire, many people lying on the ground bleeding from the aftermath of the explosion. Just moments ago, the dark and eerie streets of Norstesa, resonating with music and a somber atmosphere, now seemed arrogantly insignificant compared to the hell unfolding.

In Jans’s dilated pupils, white flames were soaring high, tearing through the sky like a demonic fire.

***

“But why am I telling you all this?”

“Well, I just asked why the World Tree appeared in the backyard. Your master explained so smoothly, and…”

“Ah, you mean those non-human guys who came then.”

Wolfgang shook off the memories with a dismissive wave.

“There was a tree spirit among them with the seed of the World Tree. Probably didn’t even know it himself.”

“So, what do we do now?”

Raeli’s worried voice made Wolfgang raise an eyebrow in confusion.

“What do we do? Just leave it, let it grow or wither.”

“What? But if it’s the World Tree, shouldn’t we take some measures? What if it withers away just like that?”

Wolfgang clapped his hands together forcefully, as if chasing away a mosquito.

“Enough. I don’t want to be involved in anything anymore. And the World Tree doesn’t wither that easily. It’s a tree that doesn’t burn or get cut down.”

“But your master said that humans burned it…”

“That’s right. They say it catches fire if it absorbs elf blood. Until then, not even a single branch can be broken.”

“Heh. The World Tree is indeed the World Tree.”

“…What are you doing? If you have nothing else to do, go clean the house.”

“…Yes.”

From Noble mtl dot com

With a curt response to Wolfgang’s words, Raeli left to do the detestable cleaning. Left alone, Wolfgang pondered while looking at the sapling of the World Tree.

“When it’s just a sapling, it should be fine, right?”

Wolfgang, who hoped nobody would ever find his secretive and cozy domain, found the World Tree to be a rather awkward existence.

In reality, the World Tree wasn’t as profoundly sacred as the ancient elves once believed, but compared to the numerous other trees in the forest, it held a slightly special quality.

The elves, who were closely connected, could faintly sense the energy emanating from this tree, even from the farthest corners of the continent. Fortunately, given that the elves were practically extinct, there wasn’t much likelihood of them suddenly swarming Wolfgang and bothering him to reveal the World Tree.

The problem lay in the fact that, as Wolfgang well knew, there was one surviving elf whose exact location couldn’t be pinpointed but was known to exist not too far away.

“Ha, Tendrial, please stop teasing me now.”

Wolfgang had lived peacefully in this secluded space for five years. He was someone who neither knew nor cared about how the world functioned, someone who couldn’t ascertain Tendrial’s life or death, but if she were alive, he hoped she’d instinctively ignore the energy emanating from this World Tree, which he earnestly wished to ignore.

“What help could this kind of plant possibly offer you now?”

Wolfgang sighed deeply, gazing up at the azure sky.