Chương 540: Chapter 542: The Future of the Tree

I felt my eyes sting as I looked at the village for what would likely be the last time. We had packed what we could - mostly food, water, and other basic essentials. We had even decided to ignore most of our medicine, because there simply wasn't enough room to store big piles of health potions. We needed every scrap of space we could find in order to fit more people into the boat. We just had to hope that people's [Vitality] was high enough to fend off any diseases or injuries until we reached our destination.

As we walked towards the beach, I felt the hope in the area start to dwindle, like water boiling away in the middle of a volcano. It was different from when we had fled the universal tree. Being forced to flee with our tail between our legs again less than a decade later, was a bitter blow to everyone. Even if I couldn't read minds, I still had a good guess what everyone was thinking right now. With this many disasters occurring in a row, people were probably wondering if this would ever end. I felt the same.

When we had first reincarnated into a dimensional cluster with a System, I had been excited, because I knew that dimensions with Systems were great places for members of the Market, especially younger, weaker ones. The ease of improving skills here, compared to other worlds, only proved why this was the case.

In previous worlds, I might need an entire lifetime to push a magic skill up to [Basic] Grade, but here I had managed to push a harder than average magic-based skill up to [Advanced] grade in less than a decade. There was a problem with reincarnating into a world with a System, though. I was just too weak. I couldn't shelter the people I cared about from the tidal waves of this world. I could barely even protect myself.

I wasn't sure if this was typical of dimensional clusters, typical of worlds with a System, or both - but time and time again, I had run into places where I just didn't have enough ability to keep the people I cared about safe. The villagers weren't the only ones who felt like hope was waning. I was also starting to feel frustrated and upset.

I just hoped that the guardian in the Market wouldn't be as absurd as some of the monsters we had come across in this world - but I wouldn't know for sure until we actually went to the Market again. I sucked in a bone-deep, weary sigh. Finally, I looked at the people who had been selected for retreat. Veritum had spent several minutes gritting his teeth as he had sorted out who would be on a boat, and who wouldn't. This time, I hadn't been able to bring my father onto the boat. I had tried.

I had talked with Veritum, and then gone back to talk with my father - but he himself had stopped me. My father squeezed my hand one final time.

"So this is it," said my father. He gave me a weary smile.

"I don't want you to die," I said. My father gently stroked the top of my head. I hadn't received very many head pats since I had become an adult, so it felt oddly nostalgic for my father to do this. It was like I was still a freshly born little girl.

"I'm too old, Miria. My level has never been exceptional, either. I appreciate the sentiment. I really do. I know you want me to live a little longer… but I don't have many years left in me anyway." He gave the ocean one last, forlorn gaze.

"Besides, your mother is waiting for me. I can't wait to tell her about our amazing little daughter." I felt a pang of bitterness in my heart. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I knew exactly what happened to people after they died. The odds of my parents meeting again was so tiny it might as well have been zero. Given how many worlds there were, and how many people lived in each world, two souls meeting twice would almost never happen.

"I'll miss you," I said.

"I really, really don't want you to disappear from my life."

"I don't want to die either. But I don't want to survive at the cost of some other child's life," said my father.

"I love you. Survive for me." I felt the hot sting in my eyes grow stronger. I hugged my father.

"I love you too." Then, quietly enough that he wouldn't hear me, I whispered "I hope your next life is a happy one." I held my father for the final few minutes, until the boats were ready to depart. My father waved at me, before he started walking back towards the village. As if it had been pre-arranged, the other people who were to stay behind walked back towards the village with him.

More tears slid down my cheeks as I got on the boat and watched the long procession of older people return to the village to await their deaths. A moment later, the boats lurched into motion, and began to take us across the underground ocean. We began to sail across the waves. From a village of a little over a thousand people, we had dropped to a wandering refugee group of a few hundred. I sighed. Anise walked up to me and gently grabbed hand.

"It'll be okay. Someday, we'll be strong enough to stop these tragedies in every world," she said gently. I wondered if that was truly the case. Even at its height, the Market wouldn't have been able to make every tragedy in every world stop. What could four people do? Still, I nodded. At the very least, we should try to make every world better when we left it compared to when we arrived. We might not always succeed, but it was a goal worth devoting my time and effort to.

The two of us held hands as the boats sliced their way through the cold waters, just like we had back when we were siblings in our last world. It felt comforting - almost as if, despite the fact that my father would probably die soon, I still had family, even if Anise and I weren't biologically related in this world. At the same time, I watched the shore as it slowly drifted away from us. I shook my head. Truthfully, I had originally sympathized with most of the powers that worked together to bring down the Market.

The Market's actions in the past had been truly abhorrent, and if I hadn't been part of the Market myself, I might have applauded their actions. Even now that their actions had put me in a bad position, I couldn't help but feel that the previous coalition that had fought against the Market had been at least a little justified. Who wouldn't work together to stop a powerful organization that travelled from dimension to dimension and occasionally massacred the entire planet for resource extraction?

However, after being in two dimensions where the universal tree had invaded, my sympathy for them had hit rock bottom. The Market might have been atrocious in its prime, and I didn't think it was a bad thing for the multiverse as a whole that it had been destroyed. However, the universal tree didn't seem much better - or at the very least, the branch of the universal tree that we were at war with didn't seem much better.

I still remembered that the Universal Tree was split into a lot of different factions, so blaming the entirety of the Universal Tree's civilization as a whole felt wrong to me - but I also had a strong suspicion in my heart. In the future, at least a large part of the Universal tree would not be friendly towards us. Perhaps the entire tree would prove to be our enemy in the future. I might be wrong, but that was what my instincts said.

I sank into heavy thoughts about our future and the dangers posed by the Universal Tree for the next hour, as we sailed through the ocean. The others on the boat didn't seem inclined to talk either - given what had happened, and what we suspected was about to happen to our village, nobody was in a big talking mood. An hour later, however, I was jolted out of my thoughts when I used my soul sight to check our surroundings. Right afterwards, I froze.

In the distance, I could see another giant source of life approaching us. I used my spatial sight to confirm what I was looking at, and then felt the urge to swear. Heading towards us was another water elemental.