After we woke up the next day, we had a brief meal in town before immediately leaving to continue our journey. Although we did not have any specific time limit to reach the bottom layer, there was also no benefit to us staying here longer than necessary. Besides, for all we knew, whoever WAS the overlord of the underworld in this story was already gathering their forces to march for the surface. Sometimes, no clear time limit was worse than knowing.

That being said, our journey to the World Tree was not exactly a fast one. We still had to stop regularly to deal with the wolves that attacked, and occasionally even dealt with enemies from previous floors that fell this far. Of course, most of them would already be eaten by the wolves before we could find them, so that wasn’t much of an issue.

The only strange thing that happened during our trip was personally witnessing someone ‘falling’ to this layer. And calling it falling seems entirely accurate after what we saw. While we were walking along out of the final city along our route, a tiny dark spot appeared in the sky.

Confused by its appearance, I glanced up to see what it was, though Lilith did not seem bothered at all. “Looks like he got lucky.” She said simply, not even paying attention to the limp figure that fell from the void, which instantly closed behind him.

I watched as the man plummeted to the ground, only to stop a few inches from the surface, and gently fall the rest of the distance. “Huh… never saw anything like that in the game.” I admitted. Although we could look up, as there were many giant monsters or those that fly in the game to deal with, there had never been a chance where you see someone else descending to the level you are currently at.

“Oh? Really?” Lilith turned to ask me in surprise. “It’s not that uncommon a sight, honestly. The only real problem is if a monster gets to you before you wake up.”

Okay… I could definitely see that being a problem. “Remind me to add an item that prevents sleep to our priorities later on. Maybe we won’t be unconscious when we descend if we have that.”

She seemed to think about it briefly, before nodding her head. “Alright. Though you’re the one that knows when things like that would appear.”

She… had a point. Thinking back, I felt a grim expression forming on my lips. “The first one… Should be somewhere in the fifties, I think. Sleep effects weren’t too common in the game until the deeper levels, and by then there were more means of defending against them.”

Lilith let out a light chuckle as she heard that, nodding her head. “Okay, well I guess we’ll just going to have to get used to post-death naps for a while then. At least until we figure out some kind of magic of our own that might work.” She added on with one last shrug.

I couldn’t help but agree with her. Definitely there would be some floors where we would absolutely have to wake up soon, otherwise we might lose certain chances. Things like layers where you die too quickly if you can’t wake up soon.

Our journey through the forest was long, but with the help of our map I was able to keep us on course. The more surprising thing was that, after we had been in the forest for a couple of days, we stopped seeing any monsters. Whether it was wolves, or anything from the previous floors, there was simply nothing around us. The forest had gone silent.

“Well… this is just creepy.” Lilith couldn’t help but saying after a while as we trekked forward. “The least that they could have done is let the insects stay here, right?” She asked, looking in my direction.

Right now, I had my greatsword drawn, keeping a wary eye on my surroundings. “Yeah…” I replied, not really considering what she was asking. Even though I wasn’t much one to explore the wilderness before coming to hell, I was still able to realize why there were no monsters around here. We were getting close… this was the territory of Fenrir.

All around us, roots as thick as entire trees jutted from the ground, seeming to make a forest all their own as they rose high into the air, before finally curving and moving towards the main body. The area that we were in right now could be considered the very edge of the World Tree’s domain, but it was still dangerous for us. Fenrir could appear at any moment to attack.

“Why don’t we just grab the amber from around here?” Lilith asked as she looked at the massive roots around us, causing me to shake my head.

“We can’t. The amber we need only grows on the main body of the tree. But if you want, you can start picking up leaves.” I said jokingly, but my tone turned surprised when she actually dropped down and began picking up any healthy looking leaves on the ground, seriously looking around for them. “I’ll… figure out which ones are useful later.” Even if it did seem a bit silly, I was glad to see that she was taking this matter entirely seriously.

She gave a brief nod, and I decided to wait for her to finish. “So, what are these leaves for, anyways?” She asked as she found an especially big one, and decided to use it as the base of the pile to hold the rest.

I smiled slightly as I explained, keeping an eye out for any movement nearby. “The World Tree is infused with magic down to its very core. Whether it’s the wood, the amber, or even its leaves, they are all heavily magical items. With the leaves, it’s possible to turn them into a potion that increases your available mana.” This was something I learned about through the forums, from some people who had taken the Alchemist class and found the leaves.

“Wait, you can just raise your magic like that?” She asked in disbelief, looking down to the small pile of leaves she had begun forming. “Isn’t that kind of… I don’t know… cheating?”

I shook my head at her question, easily denying it. “Quite the opposite. In the game, it was possible to ‘level up’ by killing monsters. But whenever you died and dropped a floor, your level reset, as well as all of the stats that you spent when you leveled up. The only way to get stronger is to train manually, or to use the items that boosted stats throughout the different levels.”

“Oh… you mean the death’s aura.” Lilith said with an understanding nod, making me look at her curiously. “Yeah, whenever you kill something, you absorb a small part of their ‘death aura’. After you get enough, your body becomes more powerful. I didn’t know anything about losing all of it when you died, though.” She finished with a casual shrug, standing up with a pile of leaves half as tall as her torso. “These should be enough, right?”

“..Right.” I nodded faintly, taking the pile of leaves and putting them in my living armory. Taking a quick glance at the list, I saw that most of the leaves were simple tree leaves, while nine of them were from the World Tree itself. “You stand watch for now…” I said with a shake of my head. “We need one more to make the potion…”

Rather than having her look around blindly, I had her start watching for enemies as I looked through the ground, identifying any leaves I spotted until I found one that identified as the World Tree Leaf. With a satisfied nod, I put it in my armory, and then we moved on to continue. “Uhm… Grim.” Or we would have, if Lilith didn’t apparently need my attention for something.

“Yeah?” I asked, looking over to her. She was looking at the ground a bit strangely, and it wasn’t until I followed her gaze that I figured out why.

“Why’s the dirt red?” I hadn’t noticed it at first, but she was right. I had thought that it was simply red clay, but this was different. The red was deeper, almost like blood. Curious, I turned my sword over in my hands and stabbed it into the ground, drawing a surprised gasp from Lilith.

“What was that for?!” She asked all of the sudden, until I pulled the sword back out, fresh blood dripping from its blade. “And why the hell is the ground bleeding? You didn’t tell me anything about that!”

I focused my attention on the ground, where I had stabbed. The sword had sunken roughly a foot into the soil before I felt it stabbing into something else. “Lilith… we might have a problem.” I said as I once again began looking around.

“...Grim… talk to me. What’s going on?”

My mind was racing at a mile a minute as I tried to process everything that was happening. I was sure that there wasn’t anything like this in the game. This area wasn’t supposed to have blood-red dirt, it was just a common ground texture. Of course, the only reason I remembered that was because of the bad end scene I got, when my character became a ‘guardian’ of the tree…

“Oh fuck.” I muttered as realization hit me. “Lilith, I need you to be very, very calm right now.”

“More calm than you are?” She asked, her nervous face showing a somewhat amused smile.

“Yes. Way more calm than me.” I answered seriously, causing her to gulp in response. “Now… I’m going to ask you a few questions.”

She seemed confused, but nodded her head. I could see her brand slowly lighting up on her hand as she glanced around, as if expecting an ambush. “First… What are the odds that nobody would have found the World Tree before us? I’m not talking only recent history…”

“We’re… about three or four days from the nearest town… Obviously some people would explore the forest. These roots alone are enough to get people’s attention… What are you getting at, Grim?” She asked, her eyes moving between the ground and the thick roots.

“And if these people found an unfamiliar fruit fallen onto the ground, what are the odds that they’d eat it?”

“Grim, if this is just you trying to gently break it to me that we are standing on a pile of people buried alive, please stop.” Lilith shuddered looking down at the ground. “Why aren’t they rising up to fight us or anything? Doesn’t the tree’s fruit make you into guardians?”

“Fertilizer.” I said, recalling the feeling that had been transmitted through my sword when I stabbed. I did not feel the resistance of any armor, so either they were a mage, or they had none to begin with.

“Grim, bodies only become fertilizer when they decompose… Or are you talking about something else…?”

“I’m thinking that there’s a reason why the tree is so magical, and the idea of ‘drawing the magical power from the soil’ might have a different meaning here…” I slowly walked over to Lilith, keeping a defensive posture as I glanced around, wanting to make sure the ‘gardener’ didn’t show up. “If I had to guess… He crushes them, and like any dog with a bone, he buries them in his backyard. Their bodies heal misshapen with the ground pressing down on them, making them unable to push their way back out.”

“Grim, these are bad thoughts you’re having, and I don’t like them. Can we please go fight the giant wolf thing so I can pick up a couple branches and we can die already? I really don’t want to stay in this forest anymore.” Lilith moved behind me, lightly grabbing my arm as she spoke.

“Oh, I’d like to… But I think we might have been a bit too loud.” I smiled grimly. Now that I focused, I could smell the scent of blood faintly in the air. I could feel the ground shaking ever so slightly beneath my feet. “He’s coming.”

“But we haven’t made it to the base of the tree yet.” Lilith whispered, concern showing in her voice.

“Well, then I guess that it’s time to try something new… You ever been surfing?” When I asked that, Lilith shook her head, confused. “Great… me either.” As I said that, I dropped my sword flat on the ground. The width of the blade was roughly a foot and a half, so I moved to stand on top of it. “Hop on, unless you want to be puppy chow.”

“Grim, if you want me to believe that you can carry the two of us on a flying sword, I’m going to slap you. I might kiss you, but first I’m going to slap you.” She said as she slowly stepped on the blade of the sword, her cheeks darkening as she realized what she said.

“Well… I hope I can. Otherwise, this was a wasted purchase.” Saying that, I invoked my own magic brand, causing one of the swords to break off from the image, embedding itself into the blade of the sword beneath our feet. “Hold on tight to me… This is not going to be a steady flight.”

No sooner had I finished speaking then I found her arms hastily wrapping around my waist, holding herself close to me. I had to distract myself from the feeling of softness on my back when I felt the ground shaking again, a bit stronger this time. “Lift…” I commanded, focusing on my magic.

Slowly, the sword began lifting up off the ground. Lilith almost stumbled slightly, but it seemed like my feet were glued to its surface. Realizing that this wasn’t fast enough, I made the second sword in my brand join the first, using my full power to control the weapon.

Almost instantly, the sword shot rapidly into the air, drawing a surprised scream from Lilith. Looking ahead, I saw the fenrir charging towards our location. It was not just some large dog… It was a huge dog. Its fur was pitch black, its eyes blood red as they locked onto us. Even though we had flown over twenty meters into the air, we were still barely eye level with it.

Judging the distance, it seemed to be almost two miles away, but that was almost nothing to a creature of its size and speed. Unfortunately… my magic could only be used for so long. “Lilith… hand on very tight. I’m about to see how fast we can go.” I heard a faint whimper from behind me as I said that, but I couldn’t spare any attention for that at the moment.

Focusing all of my attention on the sword beneath our feet, I commanded it to fly forward and up. Our target was well behind the giant wolf, one of the branches of the World Tree. And with that target in mind, we shot off like a rocket, moving every bit as quickly as the fenrir.

In almost no time, it was below us, jumping up and trying to reach us with its claws. Reaching back and holding onto Lilith, I abruptly changed our direction to dodge the attack, almost causing her to fly off from the sword in the process. “Grim I haaaate yoooouuuu!!!” She cried out, her legs hanging off the side of the sword. Drops of blood fell down from her leg where it had been cut from hitting the blade.

“Sorry!” I called down to her, still holding on tight. “We’re almost there!” And sure enough, by the time I finished saying that, we had arrived at the branch, and we abruptly slowed down. This of course caused her to cut herself on the sword again, letting out a pained whimper as she fell onto the branch below, its size even bigger than the fenrir. “You get what we need, and I’ll distract him.” As much as I wanted to help her, she was the one that knew healing magic, and I was the one that had to fight the giant mythological doomsday wolf.

Abruptly turning around, I caused the greatsword beneath my feet to launch me at the wolf again, before it shattered into a bloody mist, returning to my armory. Now, I was free-falling towards a very angry looking wolf that was bigger than my old house. “This better work…” I muttered to myself, the bloody mist reforming into two arrows. Each arrow was then imbued with brand, and flew beneath my feet to correct my course slightly.

Only when I was sure that I was flying directly towards the mouth of the beast did the arrows come out from under me. “Piercing volley, spiral bolt.” I muttered two skill names, one for each arrow.

The brand on the arrows glowed a bloody red as they shot out ahead of me, spinning violently. The arrowhead currently looked like drills, each one aimed at one of the fenrir’s eyes. Naturally, that was the only spot of the wolf that I could hurt with an arrow, so I had to try!

Unfortunately, this was not an entirely mindless beast, and it slowed its charge just enough to lower its head, the arrows digging into its thick fur instead. By now, I was less than ten meters away from it, and that distance was closing fast. I really hope you had enough time to at least grab a couple small branches by now!

Once again, the bloody mist formed around my body, again turning into the previously discarded greatsword. Using my descending momentum, I brought the sword over my head and prepared the only skill I thought would help in this situation. “Mountain…. Cleaver!”

My magic was extremely limited right now, so there was no way I could lead it on a prolonged chase. My only shot was to put as much power as I could into one attack. So… naturally, using myself as a living bullet, falling at terminal velocity and swinging a giant lump of metal is the most damaging move I could do.

Unfortunately, this damage went both ways. When my sword landed on its head, I could feel the entire sword shaking. My hands and arms immediately shattered, before the rest of me crashed into the fenrir as well. I could only feel a brief moment of intense pain before everything faded away. Well… at least the next floor won’t be as bad.