Operating the Dungeon Core Directly

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Observation Deck]

It was just before noon when Marie, by now wholly reduced to a Hiki NEET, opened her eyes.

(Let me see… so long as I'm in contact with the World Tree, I can use the Dungeon Core's functions by way of the World Tree… or so it would seem.)

Ordinarily one operates through a mechanical terminal, going through the management system; but there is also another method, the one the Dungeon Master used back when it set the original monster: touching the Core directly and willing it with all one's strength. If anything, that is the more common way. Of course, it has its drawbacks: fine control is impossible, and mistakes come easily.

(When I touched the Dungeon Core directly in the Core Room, I couldn't do a thing. But if the trouble lies only with this body, then perhaps by way of the World Tree I can manage it.)

Marie tries connecting to the Core.

(Ah, it went through. Ugh. Gh.)

All at once the information floods into the World Tree, and then into her body, and Marie's stomach turns.

(In this state it's useless. In that case, suppose I increase the area of contact with the World Tree. Though the trouble is that I can't move.)

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Observation Deck]

Since Marie had woken, the Dungeon Master and Anne came up.

"I'll get the gaze-input device ready, so bear with me a moment."

(This machine, too, is slow and full of errors. Is there really nothing to be done about it?)

"Do you need food?"

"×"

(There's something more urgent than that.)

"need wider area touchin tree"

Marie struggles desperately to explain, but it doesn't get across at all.

(The kanji-conversion function… it only makes things slower and multiplies the errors.)

"In short, you want to make the area touching the World Tree wider than just your palms."

"○"

(How many minutes did it take to get them to understand even this much.)

Going by Marie's halting explanation, the Master and Anne, the two of them working together, propped Marie's upper body against the World Tree, rolled up the back of her clothing, and pressed her bare back to it. Both her arms were drawn around behind the trunk, her palms made to touch it as well.

Since Marie has no parts created in the regions her clothing conceals, there is no particular problem with stripping her, as it happens.

(My neck won't hold steady, which is… truly, it's enough to make one despair. I'm hardly a human larva.)

The Library-City Dungeon has no shrine, so a good many residents come to pay their respects to Marie in lieu of a newborn's first shrine visit. Asura being on the whole a haughty race, Marie does not mind being worshipped, but she is plainly in no condition to look after babies.

The Master and the others lash Marie's head to the trunk of the World Tree and bind her hands to it as well.

(… Honestly, what manner of public pillory is this…)

Or else a sacrifice offered to the World Tree. Though in this case, Marie and the World Tree are one and the same individual.

"The preparations are done. Marie-san, does it look as though connecting to the World Tree will go well?"

(Well then. It would be good if this works.)