Chapter 240: The Boy and the Tree

“Is it… over?” Axel couldn’t help but ask.

To whom? He wasn’t even sure.

However, Wrath’s presence had completely vanished. There was not a single sign of him left anywhere. Even after checking the system map, the powerful demon was nowhere to be seen.

Putting everything together, Axel concluded that he was “defeated” for now.

Of course, he wasn’t optimistic enough to assume that Wrath was dead. Although he fought him and sent his head flying off, Axel was fairly certain that wasn’t Wrath’s real body—more likely a clone or something similar.

“Fenrir…” he said as he approached her side.

She had already reverted to her humanoid form, not because she realized the fight was over, but simply because she had run out of strength to maintain her true form.

She wasn’t naked like when she first transformed; instead, she wore an extra set of her usual clothes from her inventory.

Axel reached out, asking, “Can you stand up?”

The two stared into each other’s eyes in awkward silence until she finally spoke.

“Sir Axel…” Fenrir replied, taking his offered hand to stand up. “How come you’re this strong? In our usual sparring, you barely even land a hit against me…” She teased, a wry smile on her face.

Axel smiled back, shaking his head.

“There’s no way I’d fight you with all my strength.”

Of course, Axel wasn’t a feminist. He wasn’t holding back simply because his opponent was a woman or because it was “Fenrir” or something like that. His reasoning was much simpler.

“If we seriously fought and injured each other, and something invaded at that exact moment, we’d be doomed.”

Fenrir’s eyes widened in surprise at his reasoning, but she relaxed her gaze and smiled sweetly. “True. That’s a real risk.” She shrugged. “Then, let’s get back to where everyone is—”

“Wait.”

Axel interrupted Fenrir, his expression suddenly serious.

“Fenrir, you seemed to know that guy earlier,” he said. “Who is he?”

“Him?”

Fenrir’s smile faded. A bitter sadness crossed her face for a moment before she closed her eyes, trying to reset her expression. Her hesitation disappeared soon after as she opened her lips to respond.

“He’s… Mephistopheles,” she clarified. “The current Demon King in Hell… and the one who was using me before I was taken in by you.”

“Mephisto…?”

Axel was quite familiar with the name.

In folklore, he was portrayed as the Demon’s chief in Faust legends—someone powerful and nearly untouchable.

“So I was actually fighting a Demon King’s clone…” Axel muttered, shivering at the thought.

The Demon King was, in simple terms, akin to the Asgard’s Chief God, but in Hell. The highest position and also the most powerful. It was too late for regrets, but Axel felt goosebumps thinking about having exchanged blows with such a frightening figure…

Yet, that wasn’t what he was most curious about.

“Does he have… a younger brother, perhaps?” he asked further.

“Huh?”

Fenrir looked baffled by the question.

Although she was unsure of its purpose, she replied, “No, I don’t think so…”

“I see…”

Axel let out a sigh of relief.

After all, seeing Mephistopheles’ golden eyes made him recall a certain boy.

The one he had saved from being hit by a truck in his previous world and the one who had sent him here with the Harem Settlement System.

’I nearly mistook him for that boy due to their uncanny resemblance,’ he thought to himself.

Fenrir stared at Axel’s pensive side profile, frowning.

However, she didn’t voice her thoughts. What was bothering her?

“Then, let’s go.” Axel stretched, acting as if his earlier question hadn’t happened. “Let’s get back to where everyone is.”

Fenrir’s expression softened.

“Yes. Let’s go.”

She quickly waved her hand, slicing through space itself.

…

With Fenrir’s powers, the two of them quickly returned to the Axevaria Kingdom. However, things were a bit chaotic afterward.

Specifically, it was the new “residents” who were causing the chaos.

There were over 30,000 of them, after all.

Although Axel had prepared a new “fourth” wall section outside of the current Farm sector, he didn’t want to isolate them. Therefore, he created multiple entry points between the third and fourth sections.

Through these points, the new residents and the old ones could mingle and interact, and they could even try to find jobs they were willing to do for life.

However, that wasn’t the main issue. The problem lay in how the various races reacted to certain things. For instance, the dwarves were fascinated by the forge, while the vampires found the farms endearing.

But most troublesome of all were the elves.

“P-Please stop! Stand up, all of you…!” Cherry, who was guiding them due to their shared race, shouted in panic.

Axel understood her distress.

The few elves with her were all bowing toward a certain tree. The plant Axel had worked so hard to revive was flourishing. It continued to thrive up to this day thanks to his daily “fertilizer supply.”

The growing World Tree, the small Yggdrasil.

Over time, it had grown significantly compared to before.

If it had once been the size of an adult apple tree, it was now as tall as an evergreen. The peak of its canopy reached roughly 144 meters above the ground. Its trunk was so wide that over 25 men would need to hold hands around it to form a complete circle.

Yet, in front of that majestic tree, which was growing faster than a young boy in puberty, all the elves were bowing, their heads pressed to the ground, unmoving. Not even Cherry’s desperate pleas seemed to reach their ears.

“What’s going on?”

Axel couldn’t help but intervene.

“Ah! S-Sir Axel…!” Cherry quickly bowed to him before turning back to her brethren with worried eyes. “I… don’t really know. They just started kneeling toward the tree for no reason.”

“Huh…”

Axel looked at them one by one.

In his vision, he quietly inspected their statuses.

“Hmm… Doesn’t seem like a status ailment,” he muttered, hand to his chin. “Could it be… them remembering their roots?”

“Roots?”

Axel knew that in most fiction, elves were linked to the World Tree—either as its protectors, descendants, or simply a race trying to coexist with it.

However, he was certain there was no World Tree in this world to begin with.

In short…

“Nah, ignore what I said. I have absolutely no idea.” He could only shrug.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep