Hellmode ~A Hardcore Gamer Becomes Peerless in Another World with Retro Game Settings~

Chapter 541: Repeating history

As Formar's consciousness faded, he began to fall into a deep sleep.

He could no longer tell if his body was upright or lying down, the last figment of consciousness about to leave. But some form of noise kept disturbing him.

Slowly, he focused his attention on that annoying sound.

"What's this noise… Is that a castle? A fort? It's on fire… Where is this? There's a World Tree… Is this Rosenheim?"

Formar struggled to understand what was happening, not remembering being in a place like that. But he could see the World Tree in the background, so it had to be Rosenheim.

He was standing in front of a reinforced wooden fort, which was being attacked by many humans. Atop the fort were many elves fending them off with bows and spirit magic.

After some time, a dozen humans brought a battering ram to break through the fort's gates.

"Alright!! The gates are open, charge in!!"

"Heheheh, now victory is at hand. Just don't get too greedy."

"We'll enslave all the elves, so don't kill the women and children! And capture the royalty alive as trophies!!"

The humans stormed into the fort. Formar followed them in a daze.

Inside they attacked all elves in sight. Still in confusion, Formar reached for his bow, only knowing that he had to do something. But for some reason his hand would not reach the bow.

"Hey, you, what are you doing?"

"Huh? Me?"

A human soldier noticed Formar and spoke to him.

"Hm? Wait, you're…an elf?"

Formar felt uncomfortable, like he was seeing a ghost, but his eyes were glued to the soldier's.

It was like his consciousness was being held hostage by something.

'Wait, why are you looking at him like that? You'll get sucked in! Come here!!'

All of a sudden there was a woman standing next to Formar. She shouted something and then pulled on Formar's hand to take him away. At the same time, he felt like he was shaken awake.

He felt like they only walked away for a bit, but suddenly the elven fortress and human army was gone, and he was standing in an empty plain covered in grass.

It was very confusing, but the World Tree was still visible, so it had to be in Rosenheim.

"What was that battle earlier?! Where am I? Who are you?"

'Now calm down a little, I can't answer everything at once. I'm Elize.'

She looked like a woman in her twenties, and she pouted a little being bombarded with questions like that.

"Elize…Lady Elize? Are you the Spirit King that Lord Rosen used to serve?"

A mosasaurus-looking Spirit called Elize had attacked Formar not too long ago.

Tonies had explained that there used to be a Wood Spirit King that Rosen served.

After a closer look, he realized her arms and legs were made of tree bark, and she had a crown of flowers on her head. She was clearly not human, but a wood spirit.

'Ohh, you know Rosen? Why did you come here?'

"I jumped into the source of the Dew of Life for the Mirror of Truth…where is this?"

His memories after he jumped were fuzzy.

'Really? You're asking even more questions? So you just jumped into the Drift of Life? So there's elves who do such things too…'

"I'm really sorry. But that seems to be the case."

'Well, that's alright. You're still inside there then, only your consciousness is talking to me.'

"So it's like I'm inside the Spring of Life?"

'Yes, your consciousness is in the plane of existence that controls all life now. What you saw earlier was Spiral of Life of the world, and the Great Spirit God Easley's worries.'

"My consciousness? His worries?"

'Well, you just saw it earlier. Watching over the Spiral of Life is Lord Easley's duty. And…just come here.'

"I'm really sorry, but Lady Sophiarone is fighting, so I can't really be here…"

He tried to resist Elize pulling on his hand, saying he did not have time for that.

But then everything around him changed again, and he was standing on a branch.

They were watching a burning fort from one of the World Tree's Branches.

Before they were humans attacking elves, but now that was also different.

"A-are those elves and dark elves?"

Now it was an army of elves attacking a fort of dark elves.

'What you first saw was the battle when divine people split into elven lords and humans.'

"Elven lords? What about elves? There weren't elves and dark elves at first then?"

'Precisely, I see you're actually rather sharp. This battle was fought tens of thousands of years ago…'

After spending so much time with Allen who would analyze everything, some of his habits had rubbed off on Formar. But he chose to focus on Elize's story rather than thinking of that change in him, maybe he could learn something that would help Sophie's fight.

Elize's story was something that happened 1000000 years ago, when Elmea tried to bless the life of the human realm by connecting it to the divine realm with the World Tree.

Then the Great Spirit God was tasked with overseeing the Spring of Life so it would keep blessing the human realm. By his suggestion, Elmea also split the divine people he had created into elven lords and humans.

"So both elves and humans were once divine people?"

'Yes. The elven lords were given a large responsibility in the human realm.'

Elven lords had a strong resistance to the power granted by the World Tree, and were tasked with managing it for the human realm.

"But then the humans decided to attack the elven lords."

'That all happened with time. Humans were given far less power than elven lords, which fueled their greed and jealousy.'

The humans began to resent the elven lords that were given so much authority.

While they were weaker, they were more numerous, and eventually attacked the elven lords in an attempt to steal their power.

That war caused the equilibrium of the world to break, so Elmea reset the human realm.

It seemed like the Demon King was not the only reason for such resets.

"Is this what happened after that then?"

'Yes. Even after the issues with humans were solved, new problems arose between elves and dark elves.'

No matter how many times it was reset, the world would not change.

The humans would always wage war at the elven lords, and defeat them. Eventually Elmea decided to split elven lords into elves and dark elves, with different traits.

Elves were specialized at defending, while dark elves were better at attacking, and that way they could fend off other races who tried to attack them.

"And then they began to fight over the World Tree too."

Formar knew of the conflict between elves and dark elves.

'That's not quite correct. It was more a conflict on who the actual protectors were.'

There was only one World Tree in the human realm, so both races stood in the same position.

The elves gave birth to high elves, their royalty, and the dark elves also gave birth to high dark elves, who started a conflict.

"So no matter what happens there's never a solution."

'Exactly. Though I already told Lord Easley that just sending spirits to tell them their duty is a strange way to deal with it.'

"Ahh, I see. So that's what happened in my world."

'Yes. I believe Rosen also started following my idea. Though he never told the elves that their duty of protecting the World Tree isn't theirs alone.'

With a second World Tree the conflict was softened, but both races were still extremely possessive over their World Tree and Spirit King.

Easley had been restarting the world countless times across 1000000 years, but it would always end in conflict, and he believed the current situation was yet another failure.

"So that's why he wants to get rid of elves and dark elves now. He just sees them as another mistake."

Having to support two World Trees was harming the Spirit Paradise, the Spring of Life, and the spirits, which was having a negative effect on the Spiral of Life.

Formar was filled with an indescribable sense of powerlessness.

Both the Gods and spirits were trying their hardest to bless the human realm.

But the guardians of that blessing would be attacked by other races, or split into two bands themselves no matter what they tried.

'Anyway, it seems you have somewhere you have to be. Let's break out from here!!'

"Break out? So I can leave this place?"

'Of course. Anyway, let's get going! We're going to fly!!'

Elize held Formar's hand and they ascended higher and higher.

Formar felt like she had a rather forceful attitude, but did not mention it.

Elize took him far above the clouds, until a large glass pane stopped them from going further.

"Lady Sophiarone!!"

Formar could see Sophie fighting a Spirit Beast on the other side of the glass pane.

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