Though the final battle had just begun, we first ought to focus on the past a bit to get a greater grasp of the situation as a whole. Namely, what ever happened to Issei and Lem after they had safely escaped from the main island of the archipelago.
"So, how're things going with Nelly?" Issei asked after a bout of awkward silence between them.
"Seriously? That's the first thing you wanna ask?" Lem averted his gaze with a groan, "...It's getting there."
"Right, getting there. I remember when I used to describe mine and Othelia's relationship like that too." He nodded, "That was like 10 years ago, though. From one guy to another, you ought to man up and just tell her you like her."
"I don't want your advice, you Slanted-Eyed polygamist!"
As it were, these two never really could get on good terms, or at least that's how Lem saw them as. To him, Issei was this enigma of a man, a complete and utter disgrace to the human race as a whole. Someone who could seemingly get away with almost any form of sexual assault without anyone around him seeming to care. He backs this claim up by recalling the numerous times he'd pinch Othelia's and Eleanor's butts at the same time, with the only reprimand he'd get being a smack to the face accompanied by some kindhearted giggles. Even if this was to be done for comedic purposes, Lem thought it to be way too forgiving of a punishment.
"How long do you think it'll take for us to find them?" Issei looked towards the top of the Tree.
"Nel's dad and the others?" Lem figured, "Ehh, I dunno. It's a pretty damned huge tree. Climbing it is gonna be a pain, so I feel like it'll be easier to set up camp down there and wait for them to fall on their own."
"You mean climb down?" Issei chuckled nervously.
"Depends on if they slip or not." Lem shrugged back.
Again, the air between them grew awkward and sour. Every single one of Issei's desperate attempts to strike up a conversation with Lem ended up dead on the spot, and Lem wasn't making it any easier with his constant shut downs. Most of their voyage was spent in absolute silence, primarily caused due to the fact he just refused to answer back with anything positive in the slightest.
"Geez, the hell was Lee doing with you?" Issei finally got a bit antsy as well, "That guy's an absolute legend, so how the hell did he mess up this badly in teaching you?"
"He's a great father, shut your trap!" Lem vehemently went to defend his dad, "Don't go blaming him for me being an ass."
"Well I'm not gonna be proud of him, am I?" Issei reasoned, "If he really is a great dad, then show me and act like a son he properly raised. None of that edgy, angsty teen behavior. You're like 20 or something, dude, grow up."
These words cut Lem deep. Putting it that way really managed to ground him fast, because for his actions to reflect poorly on even his father, whom he dearly respected, gave him quite the reality check. Of course, it's never that simple to change.
"...Screw you." Lem grumbled.
The duo didn't take too long before reaching the island. It was still pretty late into the night, around 1AM it seemmed. One could say the dead of night, but in truth—The atmosphere was anything but.
"It's like this tree is filled with life." Issei commented on the lush greenery, the Tree's roots' bioluminescence showing them the way to the entrance, "Eh? You can actually go inside this thing?"
"Not only that, looks like someone really made this place their home." Lem added, "They really tried their best to furnish it. Not that their best is any good, though."
Heading through the main entrance to the Tree, they recounted how poorly made the entire Tree's interior was. The mechanisms were outdated, the houses were shabby looking shacks, but that all was made up by the sheer scale of it. One shack is boring, but a hundred (or in this case a thousand) is way more than impressive.
"By now I've traveled through two entire worlds..." Issei gawked, "But I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life."
"...Hey, someone's up there." Lem pointed to a bit of movement near the Tree's crown, "That's gotta be them, right?"
"You actually see that far out?" Issei squinted, "Well, that's good, then! Let's go find them and think up what to do next."
He said that, but such a feat as scaling the Tree from the very bottom wasn't as easy as they had originally surmised. The paths weren't at all simple to traverse, with each wrong step taking them three floors down, so they quickly found themselves lost in the dark.
"Ugh, I fucking hate this damned tree!" Lem kicked something over, "I'm gonna burn it down!"
"Quit whining." Issei took something out of his trusty backpack, "Here, let's first get some light in."
Flicking on the flashlight he had kept on his person at all times, he revealed the room they were in semi-fully. The side he had pointed the flashlight on showed wooden walls made up entirely of roots. It seems they had accidentally gone underground somehow.
"That's just great. We literally went the opposite way of where we were supposed to." Lem clicked his tongue, "Alright, let's just go back and-gah!?"
Turning around to light up the other side of the room, the side they entered from, they were appalled to see it—An entire wall of human bones entangled within those very root walls. As if to decorate the barren basement room, whoever did this sick and twisted design surely must dislike visitors.
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"Oh hell no." Issei walked right out of the room, "Come on, let's go."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"Where to?" Lem asked.
"Where t-The boat!" Issei shouted, "I ain't dying to some crazed lunatic that stuffs bones into this damned tree!"
"Eh!? Giving up on your friends already!?" Lem could hardly believe Issei's cowardice.
"They'll be fine, they got three S tier fighters in their party!" Issei reminded him, "If anything, the person who buried all these people here should be worried about those three, not the other way around!"
"Hey, hold on!" Lem noticed something, "Shine the light here real quick!"
"Dude, I get you're an edgy teen, but trust me, watching gore videos won't make you cool!"
"Videos? No, dammit, just shine the light!"
Begrudgingly doing as he was told, Issei shined the light onto the remains of the deceased wallroot dwellers. The grotesque scene suddenly got a lot more clearer once they saw an odd looking inscription below them. Ducking down to read what it said, Lem figured out the true answer behind the mystery.
"Names of all of them, as well as their date of birth and death respectively." He nodded, "Yep, this isn't anything scary like some crazed killer harming anyone that approached the island. It's a burial grounds, like some sort of underground graveyard."
"A catacombs." Issei nodded.
"Can cats even groom themselves?"
"No, not a cat that combs, a catacombs." Issei corrected him, "An underground graveyard, we have those back on Earth. Really, there's no way you guys don't have those in the Vast World."
"Well obviously we do." Lem pointed to the walls, "I just never heard of the term, I guess."
In spite of wondering if this really was the case or if the Vast World truly never before contained the tradition of burying their loved ones in underground passageways, Issei silently made a note to ask Lune and the others just this once they reconvened. Nevertheless, they pressed on with a lot more calmer of a pace.
"Right, you never told me what it was like to live on that island." Issei thought to get another topic going, "Are there any more hot babes like the one that attacked us?"
"Hell if I know. I was asleep until just today." Lem shook his head, "Geez, thinking back on how all this started, it all happened when some old guy attacked Nelly's house and went to kidnap her."
"Right, we got that much from his letter." Issei nodded, "Honestly though, this world is a scary place, you could say we're lucky such a thing only happened to us now."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, huh!? You saying Nelly getting kidnapped by some ugly bastard is lucky!?"
"No, of course not! I just meant we've all been going through life pretty haphazardly, so it's a surprise something this serious is only happening now."
Bandits, adventurers, gang leaders, war veterans... All of these guys could be considered reckless in their own ways. None of these "professions" expect you to live a long nor a healthy life, yet everyone here was somehow managing that and much more. To Issei, it felt like a blessing for no serious deaths to occur in his adventure. As for his rather tactless words regarding Nelly's situation, in truth the reason he said this so happily was because he doesn't at all doubt it'll all end up okay.
"We went through worse and survived." Issei reassured his younger friend, "Right, we're all super powerful in our own rights! Essentially, our endgoal is to recoup with the guys up top, cause after that the old man won't stand a chance against us!"
"Right, that's true." Lem agreed with a smirk, "Alright then, we better hurry up and find the right path this time."
To get a better grasp of their surroundings, it should be noted that they have currently made their way back to the entrance of the Tree. The main room (or the trunk) is made up of thousands of twisting tangential and curvy pathways, with no way of knowing which one leads to where. You could very clearly see everything from the bottom, but there was just no way anyone could go anywhere but the designated paths. That is, if you were only restricted to your hands and feet.
"Hey, hold this." Issei handed the flashlight to Lem as he rummaged through his backpack.
"What's up? Got another useful gadget stored in there?" Lem jokingly teased before dropping his jaw in astonishment, "Dude, the hell is that...!?"
"A somewhat new contraption I came up with that might help us traverse the area a bit easier." Issei proudly showcased, "I thought to tinker a bit on my own with the spare parts we had from making the airbike, and wouldn't you know it—I had just enough for these babies!"
"Iron boots?"
"Close, but these guys are way cooler!" Issei put them on and fastened the straps, "Unlike a hoverboard, these things are way easier to control! That's right, the second generation of hovercrafts has reached the Vast World—Hoverboots!"
Stomping on the ground with his heels, Issei's boots had gotten rather loud. This was of course in large part due to the heavy duty propellers doing their hardest to lift his entire weight off the ground. Still, he truly was hovering. And not only that, but he could fly around with great ease. Extending his hand to Lem, he had invited him to latch on so they could both rise to the pathway above this one together.
"I'm..." Lem extended the I, "...not getting on that thing with you."
"Eh? Oh come on, it's totally safe!" Issei pleaded.
"Okay, you go up alone and carry those three down. I'll just be waiting for you guys down here, sound good?"
"Oh, so you're a wuss?" Issei raised a smug Eyebrow.
"Am not."
"No balls."
"Ah." Lem rolled his Eyes with a long winded sigh, "If you drop me, I'll make those propellers slice your dick into a thousand tiny pieces."
And so, with that rather gruesome depiction of a threat, Lem was successfully persuaded by Issei to follow him up the Tree. Together, these two press on, slowly but surely learning how to work together as a team—One step at a time.