The Dragon Carriage swayed along a road choked with yellow dust.
Given the era, having a road at all was a luxury. Expecting anything more was just wishful thinking.
After Rem's devastating revelation about the food situation, Gojo had been placed under strict surveillance inside the carriage.
The handful of snacks he hadn't already demolished were all they had left for the next day.
"What a distrustful bunch of companions I've ended up with." He leaned against the carriage wall, watching the sky darken through the window, his voice low and mournful.
"Save it," Felt snapped, hands on her hips. "If we weren't watching you, forget about tomorrow. We'd be going hungry tonight."
His pitiful act didn't buy him an ounce of sympathy.
"Speaking of which, are we really spending the night out here?" Subaru peered through the window at the barren landscape rolling past.
"Not here," Rem called from the driver's seat. "We'll stop at Flugel's Tree. Merchants gather there every evening. It lowers the risk of attacks from mabeasts or bandits."
"Don't worry, we'll protect you guys. Right, Satoru?"
Having successfully broken the ice with Emilia, Subaru was back to his usual energetic self.
"Such enthusiasm." Gojo yawned without a trace of concern. "The night watch is all yours then, kid. Don't let Puck down."
"It's fine, Subaru," Emilia said gently. "We rested at Flugel's Tree on the way to the capital too. With all the merchants camped together, it's quite safe."
"Staying up all night? That's nothing!" Subaru jabbed a finger at the carriage ceiling, chest puffed out. "Back home, I never went to bed before sunrise. I'm a professional night owl!"
"Just let him do it, Emilia." Gojo waved a hand. "Young people need that kind of energy."
"You talk like you're not young yourself," Felt said.
Needling Gojo seemed to have become one of her favorite pastimes.
"That's completely different. I'm an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. Unless something's going on, I..."
He trailed off mid-sentence. His gaze shifted to the window.
Subaru caught something rare on his face: genuine surprise.
"What is it?"
"I'm looking at something that shouldn't be allowed to exist."
"What? Let me see."
Subaru pressed against the window, but outside there was nothing except darkness. Beyond the oil lamp swinging from the front of the carriage, the world dissolved into a murky black.
For Gojo, it was a different story entirely.
Through the Six Eyes, his vision cut through the night as if it weren't there. And far ahead of the carriage, impossibly far, he could see it.
A canopy. Vast, sprawling, dense with leaves.
It appeared out of nowhere, no trunk visible, no branches, just that impossible spread of green hovering at the edge of his sight. Only as the carriage drew closer did the rest of the tree begin to reveal itself.
It was enormous beyond any reasonable scale.
The kind of tree that belonged in mythology. A world-tree from some ancient creation story, its crown swallowing the sky. The closer they got, the more absurd it became. Without seeing it firsthand, no one would believe a living thing could grow to hundreds, maybe a thousand meters tall.
"This tree you mentioned, the one we're camping under. Flugel's Tree. Is it the one that's... impossibly large?"
"It is." Emilia nodded. "Flugel's Tree is one of the most famous landmarks in all of Lugunica. They say the Great Sage planted it with his own hands, hundreds of years ago, when he sealed the Witch of Envy."
"Impossibly large?" Subaru squinted hard out the window. "I can't see a thing."
"Unreal," Gojo murmured.
A quiet curiosity stirred in him. The Sage who had planted this tree. What kind of being could he have been? If a single seed he'd placed in the ground could grow into this, how much power had the man actually wielded?
And the Witch of Envy, the one who'd required the Sage, the Sword Saint, the Divine Dragon, and others to seal her away... how terrifyingly strong must she have been?
While they talked, the carriage continued to close the distance. Subaru could finally make out the shape ahead.
It was exactly as Gojo had described. A tree beyond imagination.
Beneath it, dozens of Dragon Carriages had gathered in loose clusters. Merchants had lit bonfires, and by their flickering glow, the sheer mass of the trunk and canopy became visible at last.
"It really is huge," Subaru breathed.
Rem guided the carriage beneath Flugel's Tree. Compared to the merchants' weathered wagons, theirs stood out sharply, its panels stamped with an elegant noble crest. The merchants who noticed it instinctively pulled their own carriages aside, clearing a path. Nobody wanted trouble with nobility.
Rem drove all the way to the spot closest to the trunk. The merchants who'd been there quietly hitched their own carriages and moved without being asked. With so many traders camped along the outer ring, even if mabeasts or bandits appeared, this position near the center was as safe as it got.
One by one, they climbed out. After so many hours on the road, everyone was stiff.
The carriage was luxurious by this world's standards, easily the equivalent of a top-end vehicle back home. But shock absorption? Not even close. Combined with the rough dirt roads, the ride had been punishing. Even Gojo felt rattled, and Subaru looked like he'd been tumbled in a dryer.
"Emilia's really a trooper, huh." Subaru twisted at the waist and stretched his legs, glancing at her slender frame with genuine concern. "Hey, want to do some exercises with me? This is a famous routine from my homeland. Spread far and wide!"
Gojo snorted.
"What? What's wrong with what I said?"
Subaru didn't see the issue with a little calisthenics. And to be fair, for loosening up after a long ride, it wasn't the worst idea.