Chapter 48: The Underdark 2

“Honored Mage, please, please go right ahead!”

Grett hurriedly jumped down from his mount and bowed repeatedly as he spoke. With his short, stocky figure, however, the exaggerated gesture made him look almost like a clown from a traveling circus.

Kent had already spotted the city from a distance.

Calling it a city was somewhat unusual, because the entire settlement had been built on an isolated island of stone. Deep ravines surrounded it on every side, and only a handful of enormous stone bridges connected the city to the outside world.

The distant volcano was still a long way from Muan City.

The word Muan meant “peace.”

Not far beyond the stone bridge, rows of houses built from massive blocks of rock began to appear. Some were rough and rugged in design, while others possessed an unexpectedly elegant and artistic beauty.

And Muan City itself was enormous.

“Our Muan City is home to several different races,” Hark explained as they walked. “It’s not like some cities where only one race lives there.

“Take Night City, for example. That’s where the dark elves live. There are more than a dozen cities of different sizes around it, and almost everyone there is a dark elf.

“Hammer City is entirely populated by dwarves. We’re gray dwarves, by the way—the dwarves best known for our skill in forging.

“Then there are the Dark Caves. Those places are full of those damned goblins. They’re all thieves.

“Ironarm Cliff belongs to the gnomes.

“And there’s Flame City, which belongs to humans. That’s actually the largest one. Humans control several cities on the second level, and most of the people living there are humans like you, though there are also some intermediate-level races mixed in.”

Hark seemed to enjoy talking once he got started.

“Most of what we eat down here is dried meat. Of course, we also have fresh fish, as well as mushrooms that grow in the surrounding caves, and a few kinds of underground plants.

“The cheapest food here is dried meat. The most expensive foods are fruits that grow on trees. I heard those trees were originally brought down from the surface.

“Take the spiders we hunted today, for example. Just one of them can be turned into more than a hundred jin of dried meat.

“The legs can be used to make arrowheads and parts for bows. The tendons inside the legs can be made into bowstrings. Even the brain is considered excellent food.

“But the most valuable thing is the venom. That stuff is so rare that sometimes you can’t buy it even if you have money.

“Of course, that’s valuable to people like us, since we’re only apprentice warriors. We aren’t even allowed to enter the deeper caves to hunt.”

As Hark spoke, he suddenly pointed ahead.

“See that place? That’s my home. My father is one of the best blacksmiths in Muan City.”

“Oh, gods... what is that?”

Kent had barely entered the city when something in the distance caught his attention.

“Is that... a tree?”

Several enormous trees stood ahead of him.

Each one was more than twenty meters tall, with trunks so thick that it would take several people joining hands to encircle one.

But that was not what shocked Kent the most.

Their branches were covered in strange fruits, each roughly the size of a football and covered in sharp spikes like an enormous hedgehog.

Even more astonishingly, there was a human-like face growing directly out of the trunk of one of the trees.

It had eyes and a mouth, but no ears or nose. There were no eyebrows either, but aside from those missing features, the face was unmistakably human.

Kent stared at the enormous tree in complete astonishment.

Ever since arriving on the Twin-Star Continent, he had already encountered more bizarre things than he could count.

There was Yuris, the magical pet who constantly complained.

There was Big Nose, who knew how to act spoiled.

And there was Niuniu, who seemed to take pleasure in bullying people.

But those were animals.

This thing in front of him was a tree.

“A mage... and a human mage at that.”

Before Kent had even finished speaking, the enormous tree suddenly opened its mouth.

A pair of green eyes fixed themselves on him.

“Where did you come from, little fellow?”

“Grandpa Keta!”

Daphne immediately brightened.

She ran toward the enormous tree with obvious familiarity and affection.

“Kent, that enormous tree is an Ancient Tree of War of the elven race. It’s also Daphne’s home,” Hark explained.

“You know that elves are born from the Tree of Life, right? Grandpa Keta is the name of that Ancient Tree of War.

“In battle, he can hurl those fruits growing on his branches as far as a thousand meters. Then—boom! They explode on impact. The fragments can pierce through three layers of leather armor, and they’re coated with a paralytic toxin as well. If even the slightest amount gets into your body, you’ll collapse within three breaths and won’t be able to get back up.

“Grandpa Keta also knows wood-element healing magic.

“There are thirty-five Ancient Trees of War in Muan City, but only five of them are old enough to attack on their own. The others need to reach six thousand years of age before they can fight independently.

“More than ten dark elves live on Grandpa Keta alone. Trees like him are also one of the main sources of long-range defensive power in Muan City.”

Hark glanced toward the enormous tree as he patiently explained everything to Kent.

The more Kent heard, the more astonished he became.

Ancient Trees of War were unique weapons of the elven race, though technically they were also a type of plant magical beast.

Kent remembered that Travels Across the Continent had devoted an entire section to these terrifying elven war machines.

Not only could they move, but their attack range was enormous. They were practically living versions of giant siege engines.

Once an Ancient Tree of War reached six thousand years of age, it no longer needed an elf to direct its attacks. It could continuously identify and attack enemies by itself, while also slowly moving across the battlefield.

And its close-combat ability was equally terrifying.

Ancient Trees of War grew at an extraordinarily slow rate, which made their enormous branches as hard as steel. Once those branches began sweeping across a battlefield, even heavily armored troops could hardly withstand them.

According to recorded history, there had once been a human invasion of elven territory. Tens of thousands of heavily armored knights had participated in that campaign, only to be annihilated by Ancient Trees of War, bringing the invasion to a disastrous end.

And that was not even the most frightening part.

Ancient Trees of War often carried Arcane Archers among their branches—an advanced profession evolved from ordinary archers.

Even more importantly, the trees themselves could instantly cast wood-element healing spells.

Among the three major forms of healing magic—water, light, and wood—wood-element healing was considered the most powerful.

Water and light magic generally forced wounds to close, accelerating the body’s natural recovery.

Wood-element magic was different.

It healed by pouring tremendous amounts of life force directly into the injured person.

For precisely that reason, the Ancient Tree of War was widely regarded as the greatest living war fortress on the continent.

It was one of the most terrifying magical beasts anyone could encounter. No matter who faced one, it was enough to give them a headache.

And yet Hark had just said that Muan City possessed more than thirty of them.

Kent could hardly believe it.

Were Ancient Trees of War really so common down here?

Of course, even Ancient Trees of War had natural enemies.

Elemental beings such as Fire Giants were particularly dangerous to them, as were high-level fire mages.

But an Ancient Tree of War often had Arcane Archers stationed in its crown, and Arcane Archers were notorious mage-killers.

Kent had heard that the entire elven race on the surface possessed only a few dozen Ancient Trees of War in total.

Yet there were more than thirty here in Muan City alone.

That made him increasingly curious.

What exactly was it about the underground world that allowed Ancient Trees of War to flourish so well?

The more he thought about it, the brighter his eyes became as he stared at Keta.

“Kent!”

Before long, Daphne came jogging back toward him.

“Grandpa Keta asked me to tell you that, when you have the chance, he wants you to go and see him.”

Kent blinked in surprise.

“Kent, you know, you’re the first stranger Grandpa Keta has ever personally invited,” Hark said.

There was a faint trace of jealousy in his voice.

After saying that, he led Kent toward a nearby street.

On one side stood an enormous house constructed entirely from massive stone blocks.

If Kent had not known better, just looking at the enormous doorway and the proportions of the building would have made him think it had been built for mountain giants rather than dwarves.

“Typical inferiority complex,” Kent muttered inwardly.

He looked up at the doorway.

It was more than five meters tall.

Once he stepped inside, the interior was even more exaggerated, with a ceiling nearly seven or eight meters high.

Then Kent looked down at Hark, who was only about one and a half meters tall.

For a moment, he could not help muttering to himself.

Now he finally understood why the gates of Ironforge in World of Warcraft had been built so ridiculously large.

Whoever designed that place probably had the same sort of psychological imbalance.

“Hahaha! So you’re the one who saved my Hark! Thank you! Thank you!”

The moment Kent stepped through the door, a figure suddenly rushed toward him.

The newcomer shouted excitedly as he ran, spreading both arms wide as though preparing to wrap Kent in a huge embrace.

Then he abruptly froze.

There was one rather obvious problem.

Their heights were nowhere near compatible.

The man stood there with his arms still stretched open, caught in an awkward pose, while Kent stared down at him in silence.