While Hermione was having her heart-to-heart with her mother, Arthur was preparing to enter the Lands Between.
He summoned the system's login interface—only to discover, to his surprise, that he had unlocked a new achievement.
[Congratulations to the host for completing the achievement "First Blood." You have received 1 mini-game draw opportunity.]
Looking at the achievement's teasing name—and its timing—Arthur instantly understood where it had come from.
He asked the system, half-jokingly,
"System, you're not going to give me things like double kill, triple kill, or anything like that next, are you?"
If that were the case, he'd have to seriously consider going to find Ranni tonight to research spatial magic.
The system sensed the dangerous direction of Arthur's thoughts and immediately panicked—terrified that one day he might lead an entire football team of women to demand achievement rewards.
(Arthur: You underestimate me. At the very least, it'd be three palaces and seventy-two consorts.)
The system hurriedly clarified:
[Please do not misunderstand. This achievement is not part of a chain and has no follow-up achievements.]
Arthur clicked his tongue.
He'd thought he'd found another way to fleece the system.
Turns out it was a one-time deal.
"Alright then," Arthur said. "Go ahead and draw a new mini-game for me."
[Command received. Drawing…]
[Draw complete. Congratulations, you have obtained the mini-game: Soda Dungeon 2.]
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
If he remembered correctly, this was a sort of idle, afk-style game—more precisely, a classic retro dungeon crawler.
You ran a soda tavern, recruited cheerful soda-drinking adventurers, and sent them off to explore dungeons.
Later on, you unlocked buildings like a blacksmith, wizard shop, arena, and more.
The game even involved multiple dimensions with wildly different styles.
Arthur was curious.
"How does a game like this count as 'cleared'?"
[Clear all achievements in the game.]
Arthur checked the achievement list.
There were only thirty-two, but fully completing them was no simple task.
One of them required reaching dungeon floor ten thousand.
Idle games like this usually took thousands of hours.
Sure, Arthur could use the time dilation in the Zen Garden to finish everything in a single outside day.
But this wasn't some urgent task.
It was meant to be a game for leisure and relaxation—there was no need to rush.
He launched Soda Dungeon 2, fiddled with it briefly, dispatched a team to explore the dungeon, then left it running in the background.
Right now, he had something far more important to do.
He was going to harvest Miquella's Haligtree.
By this point, Arthur had explored nearly the entirety of the Consecrated Snowfield.
Together with Miquella and Malenia, as well as the spirit jellyfish sisters Aurelia and Aureliette, he had traversed almost every corner of the region.
Along the way, Malenia had witnessed Arthur's pluck-every-feather habit firsthand.
She finally understood what her brother had meant when he'd asked Arthur to show restraint back then.
If Miquella hadn't intervened, Arthur probably would've stripped Elphael bare.
At this very moment, Malenia—still sleeping alongside Miquella—had no idea that what Arthur was about to do was effectively the same as emptying Elphael completely.
Arthur Apparated back to the base of the Haligtree.
He took out the soul crystal housing Miquella and Malenia and placed it into the hollow that Mohg had once carved out.
Sensing the familiar, homologous presence of Miquella, the Haligtree reacted.
Roots spread and writhed, wrapping around the hollow—along with Malenia—encasing both soul crystals.
Arthur thought for a moment.
Before the roots completely sealed everything, he tossed in Aurelia's ashes, Latenna's ashes, and Aureliette as well.
Even Aureliette—the only one among the three people and two jellyfish still conscious—didn't have time to react before the Haligtree's roots fully engulfed them all.
Once that was done, Arthur turned his attention to the system.
"System, manifest this Sacred Tree into my Zen Garden."
He added casually,
"Oh, and this should only count as a single manifestation, right? After all, I'm only manifesting one object."
(System: …I'm speechless.)
After holding it in for a long time, the system finally spat out a line of pure sarcasm.
[Host, why don't I just include Elphael along with it while I'm at it?]
Arthur's eyes lit up.
"Huh? That's possible? Then even better—let's do it!"
(System: You really don't understand sarcasm, do you?)
The system fell silent for a long moment.
Then, reluctantly:
[…Just this once.]
What else could it do?
This was the host it had chosen.
Arthur's lips curved upward into a satisfied smile.
He wasn't misunderstanding the system at all.
He was simply, unapologetically, milking it.
The ground shook violently.
Arthur's vision suddenly brightened.
Moments ago, he'd been underground—now he could see the open sky.
He scanned his surroundings.
Elphael and Miquella's Haligtree were completely gone.
They had clearly been transferred into his Zen Garden.
As for the Haligtree's native inhabitants, the system hadn't counted them as part of the manifested "object."
It had already lost energy exploiting this loophole—there was no way it would lose more.
Even if the system could have brought them along, Arthur wouldn't have kept them.
Most of the Lands Between's natives were already mentally unstable.
What was he supposed to do with them?
Keep them around as mobs?
Outside the Lands Between, once they died, they would die for real.
They couldn't even serve as infinitely respawning enemies.
In short—they were useless to him.
With the structures beneath them suddenly gone, countless creatures that had been standing atop Elphael and the Haligtree plummeted from the sky.
Those incapable of flight met inevitable death.
Which conveniently delivered Arthur a fresh haul of runes.
After collecting them, Arthur left the Lands Between and returned to the Zen Garden—to deal with the aftermath of manifesting the Sacred Tree.
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