Contactless Control

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Observation Deck]

"As I thought, this drains a fair amount of stamina. And willpower along with it. They say a Hiki NEET can manage only one action a day… Is there nothing to be done about this?"

"Marie-san, why not stop pushing yourself and take a break?"

"That would be the correct answer, I'm sure, but the trouble is, while I'm asleep I can do nothing at all… Now that we know I can operate the Core through the World Tree, perhaps it would be better to drive this body hard, even if it means accepting that I may wear it out entirely."

"It isn't as if we've decided you can't recover. Once Miss Maid comes back, let's rest."

"I'll do that… Master?"

"Yes?"

"The World Tree's roots spread through the ground beneath us, don't they. If we dug a hole and buried me from the neck down, could I not connect to the World Tree by way of the roots?"

There is a famous line that goes: Beneath the cherry tree a corpse is buried.

"That, surely, is going too far. Still, if you can connect to the Core by way of the World Tree, then can't you channel the Core's energy into your body and move it through the Core? There ought to be a great deal of energy stored up still."

"Ordinary dungeon monsters do move on energy supplied to them from the Core, after all… But that supply is contactless, isn't it. There's no cradle for them like the cleaning robots or the pest-extermination robots have. Where, and by what means, do they receive their energy? It doesn't seem to be electromagnetic waves, either."

Marie ponders a moment.

"Within a dungeon's sphere of influence, contactless transfer is, in theory, possible. That's what it amounts to, isn't it."

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Observation Deck]

Anne comes back and lays Marie down on the futon.

"Again in the afternoon, please."

So the Dungeon Master told Anne, and the two of them went back down together.

(Before my brain burned through, I could link directly to the World Tree from this body. So in reverse, connecting from the World Tree should still be possible even now. We are inside the dungeon to begin with, and what's more in the shade of the World Tree itself, so there's no reason it shouldn't work.)

Marie focuses her consciousness and tries to perceive the very "force field" of the space.

(The contact area… considering the whole of my body…)

Even if the efficiency were lower than touching it directly, given the surface area of the entire body it ought to be possible.

A sensation ran through her like a jolt of electricity, and her vision doubled. The World Tree and sky she saw with her eyes, and the view from the World Tree. The World Tree shouldn't have eyes, of course.

"Ugh… I feel a little sick."

She shuts her eyes and tunes her consciousness to the World Tree. Even granting that desert air holds little water vapor, seeing as far as 800 to 900 km is no easy thing, yet it seems clearer than through the telescope set up on the roof.

"Now then, let's try moving the body."

From the World Tree's downward vantage, Marie looks at the body laid out on the futon beneath the tree, and tries to move it "from the World Tree."

"How does one move a body? It's not something I've ever consciously thought about… Surprisingly difficult, this."

Whether human or Asura, no one thinks about how to work each individual muscle when they walk. For that reason, controlling it from the outside is hard. Marie tries to sit up, loses her balance, and tumbles over gracelessly.

"… This is difficult."