Prologue: The Faded World
The World Tree, Ygguel.
A colossal tree whose roots stretch across the entire continent from its center, boasting a height so great that its canopy is lost in the haze of the clouds.
Its branches and leaves spread so wide that sunlight never reaches the base. They have grown sturdy enough to serve as paths for those who manage to reach the upper strata, and the top of the World Tree is so vast and shrouded in mystery that an entire civilization could be built upon it.
In the upper reaches of Ygguel—a place where humans, beasts, and even demons dare not venture—the sound of light, rhythmic footsteps echoed as if dancing.
The owner of those footsteps, however, wore a gloom on her face that didn’t match her stride as she kicked the ground—or rather, a branch of the World Tree.
The branch was so solid it served as a road; a single kick wasn’t enough to make it quiver. It simply let out a dull, bored sound.
“…………So boring.”
The words were spat out in a low mumble, a voice that was adorable yet laced with disdain.
Her eyes, nearly vacant and having lost their color long ago, looked upon the unchanging scenery with loathing.
Her duty was to sit at the summit of the World Tree. Her days consisted of nothing but fulfilling that role.
With nothing to do, she would try to look down at the world below, but for over a hundred years, all she saw was the endless cycle of human conflict. Eventually, the color of blood began to look like nothing more than a colorless, transparent liquid to her.
The Guardian of the World Tree, Hresvelgr.
Her hair was a pale, sky-blue, reflecting the heavens themselves.
Wrapping her youthful body in revealing clothes, she tread upon the World Tree, cloaked in the wind.
Her loose side-tail hairstyle, which swayed as the breeze stroked it, had remained unchanged since the day a certain King had praised it ages ago.
“……Hel-kun~”
She threw the words out in a flat, emotionless voice. She knew there would be no answer.
The way she distorted her face in frustration at her own lingering attachment was likely due to her innate nature.
After all, she was certain that those people she absolutely loathed were probably doing the exact same thing.
A half-celestial, half-demon “half-wit” woman. A brain-dead, moronic dragon. Despite how poorly they all got along when they were together, they all yearned for the same person.
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The Corpse King, Hel.
His name, which she was supposed to have decided to forget a long time ago, remained stubbornly stained in the back of her mind, refusing to leave.
“…………Disgusting.”
A single word spat out.
Whether that barb was aimed at herself for uttering his name after all this time, or at the Corpse King who had vanished and left them all behind…
even Hresvelgr didn’t know the truth.
What came to mind were the days they spent living in that single mansion.
There was a King, there were bickering colleagues, there were friends… a collection of reliable outcasts.
A bond so suffocating it was annoying—the very thing that had pulled Hresvelgr, born with the lifelong role of “Observer,” out of her boredom.
That bond, which centered around the King, vanished along with his disappearance. They scattered. They vanished like mist.
Dragged back into her boredom, Hresvelgr could do nothing but return to her observations of the world below, as if waking from a dream.
The men had made names for themselves as prominent figures across the continent.
The women had cut themselves off from society as “untouchable” beings.
Hresvelgr was no exception.
“……Maybe I’ll go see Gar-chan.”
Still wearing a look of boredom in her competitive, upturned eyes, she softly let the name of one of her friends slip out.
However, saying it didn’t make it a concrete goal.
A restriction had been etched into her from the moment of her birth:
a curse that caused her to weaken the further she moved from the World Tree.
If she strayed so far that the tree was lost from sight, the restriction of self-destruction could erase her very existence.
“……Whatever. I don’t really care about anything anymore.”
She threw herself into the air, manipulating the wind, under the pretext of “going to see Garm.”
Hresvelgr gave a thin smile at her own fate—the fact that she couldn’t even leave the World Tree without a purpose.
“Everything… might as well just break, right?”
If she wandered and happened to meet someone from Helheim…
“Maybe I’ll just vanish. Yeah, that works! Brilliant idea!”
Just by moving far from the World Tree without a strong purpose, she could disappear.
She could escape from the boredom, from the loneliness.
“The~n…… for the finale, I’ll go tease some stupid humans and do whatever I want!”
Plastering on a fake version of her original liveliness, Hresvelgr turned her steps toward the place where human desires congregated.
This was a short scene from just before the Corpse King raised the signal fire of his return.
“Nihi.”
The hand that would scoop her up from her boredom would once again be extended in the “Sleepless City.”
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