Chapter 225

The receding of the flood meant that the Maple People had completely become human beings and would no longer be dissolved by the water of the primordial sea. Having regained the power of the ancient dragon, Navelette forgave the original sin of the Maple People. A crisis that was destined in the prophecy was resolved, and the God of Water, who had successfully deceived the will of heaven, disappeared from this world, leaving only Finna, who had finally stopped pretending to be the God of Water.

"Ah! Come to think of it, isn't the purpose of our coming to Maple Dan to meet the Great Sage and learn about the Dreamless Tree King?!" When the travelers' feet stepped on the solid ground again, Paimon, who had rarely remembered his business, burst into a loud scream, "What should we do? The Great Sage will not be in danger in this predicted flood, Sora!"

Fortunately, Maple Dan's prophecy has been resolved, and Sora has more or less extra time to deal with other things - for example, he can finally free up Sora to do the Adventurers Association's commissions.

——He also posted commissions for collecting intelligence on the Dreamless Tree King and searching for the current Great Sage of the Sumire Academy at every Adventurer Association reception desk from Mondstadt to Maplestage.

“…He probably doesn’t know that the sage has already stepped down.” Nafis, who remained in the position of the sage of the Shenglun School after two sage elections, sat on the sofa in the Jingshan Palace with a teacup in his hand. He smiled and looked at the commission form on the table that the current sage brought from the Adventurers Association. “Hehe, the current sage of the Ordinance Court…”

"I really hope that no reckless adventurer will drag this great sage to Feng*dan directly."

"Let's forget about that." Elhaisen strode to Nashida and took out a stack of well-prepared documents for going abroad. "Didn't Lord Little Jixiang Grass say that he was going to visit Fengdan? This is a good opportunity to stop the traveler's habit of posting missing persons notices wherever he goes. Lord Wumeng Tree King and the former Great Sage Likolis are not his sisters."

"Sister? Didn't he ask Little King of Lucky Grass?" Nafis put down the book in his hand and looked at Elhaisen, who had just left the others and ran to Jingshan Palace to seek some quiet time. "That was when he came to see Little King of Lucky Grass."

"The missing person notices that he asked the Knights of Favonius to post are still everywhere in Mondstadt." Elhaisen glanced at the smiling Nafis, then turned his gaze to Nashida who was swinging on the swing, "Let's go to Maple Dan now - she has left an extra job for us."

"?"

"The fifth volume of the comic has not been released yet. Little Jixiang Caowang, she should have told you this in her farewell letter."

When Kong finished running between the five countries and returned to Maple Stage, the Steam Bird News had already published a newspaper with good news about post-disaster reconstruction. After accompanying Charlotte to collect news materials, the two of them had just thought about meeting Villette to find out about the situation when they received an invitation from the Momang Palace.

"Hmm! I hope it won't be the same as last time..." Paimon followed beside Sora, muttering dejectedly to himself.

"I asked you to come here this time to tell you about the investigation of the great sage of the Sumi Order before you infiltrated Melo Petersburg." After entering the office of the Supreme Judge, Navelette, who had obviously had time to wait for the two of them, handed a document to Sora, "Even the members of the Shadow Chaser Court failed to successfully confirm her whereabouts, but the only thing that can be confirmed is that she left Maple Dan long before the prophecy came true..."

There was a knock on the office door.

"Then Lord Vilet, Lord Sumire's Little King of the Grass, and Mr. Elhaisen, who claims to be the new Great Sage, have come to visit."

"I didn't expect that the two successive Great Sages of Subaru didn't have the habit of making appointments in advance." Although he had lived in human society for five hundred years, Navelette, who was still not used to human thinking, stated his thoughts frankly after organizing the two groups of guests to sit together, "The previous Great Sage came here for Maple Dan's laws, so why did you two come to Maple Dan this time?"

"To deal with some unfinished business before the previous Great Sage left." Elhaisen answered Navrette's question quite simply, and at the same time explained to Sora and Paimon the whereabouts of clues about the Dreamless Tree King. "She has resigned from the Order Institute and will not be coming back - however, based on the current version of the Order Institute's order, we are not dealing with academic matters."

"Apart from academic research... what is that?" Paimon, who was flying beside Sora, tilted his head and looked at Violet, Nashida and Elhaisen in confusion, "And why did this great sage suddenly disappear from Maple Stage!?"

"...Paimon." Having realized some possibilities, Sora interrupted Paimon's words and looked at Nashida and Elhaisen who were sitting together with a serious expression. "The Dreamless Tree King... isn't actually a real god, right? He just lived for five hundred years for some unknown reason - I guess I'm right?"

"You said 'also', which means that Maple Dan's Water God is not the real Water God either." Elhaisen crossed his arms over his chest and answered this question that had long been predicted by the Dreamless Tree King himself in his own way. "But no matter what the situation is in each country, the one who can appear in front of the people in place of the real god must have obtained the permission of the god himself."

"In other words, it is either the original side of the god, or the 'half' that the god recognizes as his own."

"...During that trial, Miss Finnina revealed that she was not the real Water God, but from what I know, she is also inseparable from the real Water God." Navilette paused, and while responding to Elhaisen, he explained to Sora what he saw that day, "According to Mr. Elhaisen, Miss Finnina should be the side of Fukaros that split from himself on his own initiative and represents the human side."

Elhaisen suddenly understood why the God of Grass chose her to temporarily take over Sumi on his behalf; at the same time, he also understood why Azar only dared to keep her under house arrest instead of imprisoning her like he imprisoned the real God of Grass; he also understood how she managed to overthrow Azar's rule in an instant by herself.

——The God of Grass is called the God of Wisdom because he is the incarnation of the World Tree, and the World Tree contains the records of the entire Teyvat; and although the Dreamless Tree King is not the incarnation of the World Tree, he can be omniscient like the Little Auspicious Grass King.

In the must-read manual for visiting Maple Stage that she left for the new Great Sage, it was mentioned that Finnina and the water god Fukaros are two sides of the same coin - Finnina is Fukaros's yearning for all the good things of mankind. Her humanity and her yearning for mankind itself were stripped away, and then Finnina was shaped with these as raw materials; the remaining divinity and godhood were transformed into the Cardinal of Oracle and Judgment, which has maintained Maple Stage's energy supply for five hundred years and has also accumulated the power to shake the future.

"The power that shakes the future" - In order to save time, Elhaisen always carried this manual with him as an ordinary book so that he could read it at any time; but after seeing this sentence, he chose to avoid the meticulous light of the Myo-ron school at home to prevent any disaster from being brought to Sumi without knowing it one day.

Now, after hearing the answer from the Maple Stage Supreme Judge, Elhaisen realized that the contents of the manual left to him by the former Great Sage were probably real facts.

"The Dreamless Tree King is my half, and he was also my best friend." Nashida drank a sip of the black tea that the Momang Palace used to entertain guests, smiled and blinked at the sky, "At the same time, after Azar fell, because the Minglun Sect had no one to use, he temporarily took over the position of the Minglun Sect's Sage and Great Sage as a Minglun Sect scholar."

“Eh——!?!”

"Wait wait wait!" Paimon screamed extremely loudly, covering his mouth as he flew to Nashida's side. "Why would she stay in Maple Dan? Why can't Nashida and Elhaisen handle it together? That's the Dreamless Tree King who can overthrow the current Great Sage and amend the system of the Church Council in one breath!?"

"About this..." Nashida smiled and shifted her gaze to Elhaisen, indicating that he should answer Paimon's question.

"We are here to distribute the final volume of the comics for her." Elhaisen nodded to Navilette and Kong, and took Nashida out of the Momang Palace to deal with the distribution of the comics.

"...Wait a minute." Kong finally came back to his senses and processed all the information he had received. "So, we have completely missed the chance to meet the Dreamless Tree King!?!"

When the Planet Devouring Whale tore through space and appeared in the Opicele Opera House, Lancermello and the four members of the search team that came to look for her successfully returned to Chaldea with the help of the damaged world wall - but before leaving this world completely, Lancermello went to Sky Island.

"What are you doing on Sky Island!?" Roman, who was typing a mission report to Lansermero, almost spit out a mouthful of coffee on the screen. "Ahem... No, how did you find the entrance to Sky Island?"

"My first stop when I entered Teyvat was Sky Island. I have the coordinates there, so it's easy to get in." Lansermelo glanced at Roman and explained the reason why he went to Sky Island. "I went to find Tianli to get additional rewards for the mission. My mission in this world only includes playing the role of the flower god, but it does not include cleaning up the mess of the entire Sumi."

"But we didn't receive any additional compensation...?"

"Tianli is sleeping... No, rather than sleeping, I think that state is more like walking into death." Lansermello crossed her arms and calmly recounted her actions on Sky Island, "So I left a record there - specially protected by magic, it cannot be destroyed. No matter if Tianli dies in the future and a new world consciousness takes over or Tianli revive, he must see this content and pay us additional rewards."

"You can keep owing me money if you want. We have the world coordinates anyway. When we finish rebuilding, the first thing we will do is come back here to collect the debt."

"Ahem, ahem." Marisbilly, who had just entered the control room, cleared his throat behind Lansemello and raised the information in his hand to the two of them. "Here is a commission I received from the world consciousness that I don't know how many times it was commissioned before it was given to us... It's a background related to Greek mythology. Would you like to take a look at it?"