Retrace x1000

Chapter 27: I thought this World was supposed to be Medieval...

Woah...

That's a large ass tree.

...

"That's Cyconis."

<That's a variant.>

Huh-? What?

I turned toward Esther.

"You said that's Cyconis right?"

"Yeah...?"

"Wait so Ode... why did you say that was a variant then?"

<That green core is a variant. It probably happened during the 'Rupture'... they must have merged.>

One of the variants merged with the World tree's core.

I can see that being a problem on so many levels.

"What happened?"

Esther tilted her head and looked at me, so I filled her in.

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"Wha-what?! The World tree is a variant now?!"

We all sat in this sort of awkward silence.

Risible started rowing us to the shore since Levin's running would give us away way too quickly. Of course this was off of the presumption that me being wanted was spread between continents...

We got off the boat, I reabsorbed it once we were all on land... Well, what could be defined as 'land', we couldn't even see as much as a blade of grass. The continent was packed to the brim with cyberpunk skyscrapers. As we walked we saw elves... but um... how do I describe them?

They looked very robotic in a sense, some of them looked like cyborgs and had mechanical parts coming off of them.

"Esther... is this a good time for you to let us know what's up with this place?"

...

I turned toward her since she didn't respond.

She was looking down and her breathing had grown heavy.

"Esther?"

Abruptly we got interrupted by one of the cyborg elves.

"Hey! Want to get some decals done? We can have your eye replaced with a mechanical one that has a holographic display!"

"Um- I'll pass-"

"We also have cybernetic arms and legs! We could replace your lungs, heart and your-"

"Hey. Fuck off."

Esther glared at the cyborg elf. Her killing intent... or aura was higher than when she lost her toast back in Derecho.

The cyborg elf looked Esther up and down before making a clicking sound, her eyes now glaring back.

"Tch- what's a failure doing back here."

The elf quickly decided to move on to this other group of people to our left, she offered them the same things she offered us before she started dragging them off to some alleyway.

A few seconds later we heard screaming. I flinched a little as I saw the people walking out, they looked almost dead and their body parts were mechanical now.

"What the fuck..."

"That's just how this continent is... it's so shitty."

I looked at Esther again.