Chapter 89: Chapter 85: Theft of the Forbidden Fruit

To Ichiro’s surprise, Garden of the World Tree did not make his battle against Meg and Neph trivial. Though they were individually far weaker than he was, their teamwork had grown leaps and bounds in the couple weeks they had been separated. It was as if they had suddenly spent years working together in their new forms, using intimate knowledge of their partner’s abilities to let loose incredibly effective attacks.

 Were he able to let loose lethal attacks, he probably could have ended the fight earlier, but he was trying to save these girls, not kill them, so his options were limited. Garden of the World Tree greatly boosted his physical stats and nature magic while it was active, but those same boosts meant he had to hold back even more against them, putting him in an awkward position.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that both Meg and Neph were able to fly now, Meg with her wings, and Neph by simply running into the air, jets of fire trailing behind her as she did. They used this ability to stay out of reach of the trees, nimbly dodging as Ichiro attempted to manipulate the trees to capture them.

And, all the while, the battlefield slowly began to grow darker and darker, and the pain in Ichiro’s head grew and grew as Neph’s nightmare abilities grew in strength. After a couple minutes of this back and forth, Ichiro decided that he would have to stop holding back if he wanted to properly capture his friends, even if that meant roughing them up a little.

He stomped on the ground, and in response the trees grew as swiftly as an arrow flew, the sudden movement catching Meg off guard and knocking her away as a tree grew directly into her. She floundered for a moment in the air, and that was all Ichiro needed to cast a spell, ensnaring her in the branches of the same tree that had pushed her away, then drawing her into its trunk.

Neph dodged the tree that was growing underneath her and didn’t miss a beat as she descended back down to the ground, nimbly weaving through Ichiro’s attempts to snare her. She drew close to him again, and then seemed to vanish entirely, the pain in Ichiro’s head intensifying.

Quickly, he reached back and laid a hand on the bark of the Echo of Yggdrasil behind him, a small fruit forming on its surface. He grabbed the fruit and ate it in one swift motion, and the pain in his head lessened, the figure of Neph becoming visible once again. She was dangerously close to him, so he did the first thing that came to his mind and sprung forward, tackling her to the ground and pinning her beneath him. She struggled under his grasp, but the roots of the Echo of Yggdrasil erupted from beneath her, swallowing her whole just as Meg had been earlier.

With the two of them safely captured within the trees, he began to transfer them to the Echo of Yggdrasil’s main body, where he would begin to perform the greatest healing magic he knew.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of clapping from above him. “Not bad at all.” A familiar voice said. Ichiro whirled around to find a woman who matched the description of Amelia sitting on one of the branches of the Echo of Yggdrasil, nonchalantly eating a fruit of Yggdrasil. “Pretty neat little spell you have here, but…not enough. I mean, the construction is sloppy at best, and you have no safeguards against other mages appropriating it for themselves.”

Dangersense blared an alarm, and Ichiro threw himself sideways as a spear of wood erupted from the Echo of Yggdrasil, piercing the space he had been standing just a moment before. “See?” Amelia said. “It’s not hard, anyone with a half decent understanding of magic could do it.”

That was a bald-faced lie. Ichiro was the best spellcaster in the very prestigious school he attended back home, and even if he wasn’t, Garden of the World Tree was a spell he only had access to because of his status as a Hero. Even then, he had to lean heavily on the system to fill in the more advanced parts of the spell, and the system was notorious for having tightly secured spells.

But…the power he sensed from Amelia wasn’t on the level that Neph had been building her up to be. She was strong, yes, but barely stronger than Meg and Neph. Even if she did appear to have a very high-level grasp of spellcasting, he could just overturn that with raw power. So, he focused, channeling his will through the Echo of Yggdrasil and forcing her influence out, then entrapping her within a pocket of wood formed from its branches.

“Too slow.” Amelia said from behind him. “Seriously, this is what we were worried about? Pathetic.”

Her taunts were little more than empty words, though; he could feel her magic power draining, that one teleport having cost her about a quarter of what she had come into this fight with.

“Yeah, yeah, keep yapping.” Ichiro growled, causing the ground around Amelia’s feet to erupt into spiky growths. “I can do this all day.”

“I’m sure you can.” Amelia said, giving a dismissive flick of her wrist and causing all the growths to bend sharply away from her. “If by all day you mean roughly ten more minutes. I mean, really, this spell is hideously inefficient, I could have done better than this as a child.”

“Big talk from someone who hasn’t even been able to counterattack.” Ichiro said, reaching his hand out and grabbing a wooden sword that he formed from the ground. He dashed forward and swung down at Amelia, who cast a magic shield in response. The shield held for a moment then shattered, the sword coming down and slicing into Amelia with sharpness that wouldn’t normally come from a wooden blade.

“Hm.” Amelia said, looking down at her wound. “Well, that’s all I needed to know, he’s all yours, ladies.”  Amelia’s wound knit itself back together before Ichiro’s eyes, and she moved to teleport away, but Ichiro grabbed her, invoking the power of the Garden of the World Tree to keep her trapped inside its area.

“Fine, fine, I’ll play with you a little more.” Amelia said. “But I’m not going to deprive my companions of all the fun.”

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Dangersense once again triggered an alarm, this time indicating that the threat was coming from all directions. He tried to grow a tree out underneath him to propel him upwards, but the floor in this particular area was significantly harder than the rest, and the tree came out a fraction of a second too slow, and he was clipped by a couple of spells.

And those spells hurt. Despite being very basic spells, they displayed a power that was far greater than they should have otherwise contained. He quickly cast his gaze about, noting that four more people had been teleported into the arena. There was Lia, a pale green woman dressed in leaves, and two identical twin wolfkin, all of which had their eyes locked on him.

The biggest threat here was clearly Lia. She had the most magic power of any of them, and the rings on her fingers were likewise bursting with strong magic. So, he made a snap judgement and transitioned the Garden of the World Tree into phase two, the various trees withering away as the Echo of Yggdrasil grew brighter and brighter.

The tree underneath him morphed and twisted, the wood flowing up and around his body, solidifying itself into a full-body suit of armor. The strength of his nature magic faded slightly, but in return his physical abilities increased explosively, allowing him to dash forward and completely ignore the attacks from the wolfkin and the green woman, the armor retaliating and ensnaring them in branches as he passed them on his way to Lia.

Lia only had a moment to react as he bore down on her, fists flying as he struck over and over, each blow carrying the force of a truck. She was able to get a magical shield up, yes, but even though it was oddly strong, he could sense that it would give way any moment.

Yet, despite all this, Lia was smiling. “Checkmate.” She whispered.

Dangersense gave off a warning that made all other warnings it had given him seem inconsequential, and he whirled to see Amelia, calmly walking towards the Echo of Yggdrasil. Though her posture was relaxed, her strength had somehow increased tenfold, and magic circles were filling the air around her, spells already being fired off at Ichiro.

He dodged to the side, but most of the spells curved, unerringly seeking his position before impacting his armor, cracking and even breaking it in a few places. Ichiro ran towards her, raising his arm and using a spell to shoot a spike of wood out from his hand, but it froze in midair before rushing right back at him, plinking harmlessly off of his armor.

“Let’s see…” Amelia said, laying a hand on the Echo of Yggdrasil. “Given this construction, I think this should work…”

Ichiro felt a deep, pulsing sensation in his gut, accompanied by Dangersense’s continued warning. The air seemed to chill, the shadows lengthening as Amelia spoke one simple sentence, packed to the brim with power.

“Theft of the Forbidden Fruit.” She said, causing an enormous wave of magical energy to wash over the area. Ichiro felt the power of the Garden of the World Tree fade, his armor becoming little more than a weight on him, not responding in the slightest to his magical power.

A spherical white fruit appeared out of the Echo of Yggdrasil, one which Amelia grabbed before teleporting over to Lia, crushing Ichiro’s attempt to block her teleportation with the ease one would use to crush an ant.

Ichiro tried to dismiss the Garden of the World Tree, but found to his horror that the spell was no longer his own; though his magic power was still being sapped to maintain it, he had no control over it, no ability to change its function or even stop feeding it power.

He was able to eventually break free of his armor, but by then Amelia had handed the fruit to Lia. “Eat.” She commanded.

Lia obediently bit into the fruit, and Ichiro watched in horrified fascination as the buffs that had been applied to him just moments before were transferred onto her, her power swelling dangerously. A layer of a thin, off-white substance covered the partially eaten fruit, and then it disappeared, and Lia turned her attention towards him.

Still, he had a hope. Connie! He cried out. Help me! I’ll do whatever you want, give you anything after I get through this if you do! I’ll devote my everything to you!

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