The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

“I did something stupid and I paid for it dearly. Please.”

“Rinne is also very efficient at escort missions. Rinne evaluates this highly,” Rinne said.

Rinne blinked slowly, her eyes turning a sparkling blue. Then, she spoke with a mysterious voice.

[Rinne is giving her successors, the Decepticon Fleet, her orders. Operation Net commence.]

Vwiiiiiing!!!

Clack!!!

Upon Rinne’s command, cubes floated out of her coat, transforming into golems.

Davey had gotten himself out of Emilia’s Charm after much difficulty. For the time being, he needed some protection.

‘It’s not that the World Tree doesn’t have eyes. She must have known that this girl has such power… What is she trying to do?’

However, the person who usually expressed her opinions in whispers remained silent.

‘Perserque.’

Davey called out to Perserque while circulating his mana. However, he was only greeted by silence.

The uncomfortable silence remained for a long time until…

—Sowing discord[1]…

When a small voice rang in his ears, Davey flinched. He turned to look behind him only to see a pair of horns sticking out from behind a tree. Moments later, Perserque was no longer watching him and had disappeared.

“Sowing discord, huh…” Davey muttered. He thought about the direction where the World Tree was headed, then guessed that she was heading toward the Eastern Continent.

‘Right.’

After pondering for a moment, Davey realized that the nation in the middle of the World Tree’s chosen path was the continent’s largest and most powerful nation. It was the nation of swords, the Pallan Empire.

The Pallan Empire had overwhelming power. It appeared that the bastard World Tree knew of Emilia’s Charm and had intended to use her to wheedle the Pallan Empire and bring them to her side.

Shwaaaaaaaaaa—

As the energy running rampant all over his body immediately cooled down, Davey muttered to himself, “Even if this elf does not want to communicate with me, it seems like she’s still offering her tribute to me, huh? She’s not an onion, but I discover more things with each layer I peel off.”

Emilia’s Charm would turn the tides in their favor and would help the others view them in a positive note. However, the Pallan Empire did not have any reason to be antagonistic towards Davey. Besides, no human would be careless and complacent enough to just hate Davey without proper justification.

Simply put, the World Tree Yggdrasil wanted to make full use of Emilia’s Charm to conquer the entire Pallan Empire. By then, small political problems wouldn’t matter, because she would already have half of the empire in her hands.

However, the use of such a method had poor consequences. The humans, especially the high-ranking nobles and members of the Imperial Family, would be incapable of leaving Emilia alone upon completely falling for her Charm.

Davey chuckled darkly when he realized that the World Tree was intending to sacrifice an elf, a child who she valued so dearly. He then asked Perserque, “How high is the probability of this happening?”

Perserque’s small voice rang out from behind the tree.

—A… A hundred percent.

“That’s right…”

The strange tension between him and Perserque was making Davey dizzy. This had never happened before. When Davey and Perserque first met, they had been wary and hostile to each other. After that, through spending more time together and exchanging opinions, they had grown close. So, how did they come to this point?

“But she couldn’t have planned to send a time bomb like this girl all by herself, right?”

In fact, Emilia herself appeared to be unaware of the Charm hidden inside of her. And if she failed to control this power, she herself would be waiting for a disaster to happen. The power affected all races, not distinguishing between humans, animals, and monsters, so Emilia was a literal time bomb.

—There’s a high chance that she has an accomplice…

“Come out. Come out, then talk. I can’t hear you from over there,” Davey said.

However, Perserque still did not come out from behind the tree. In the end, Davey could only break the tree that she was hiding behind with a wave of his hand.

It was an unrefined act that deserved some criticism, but Davey couldn’t do any more than that. It was already a miracle that he could talk while in the middle of a meditation and qi regulation. He couldn’t really move any of his muscles, so what more could he do in this state?

—Ack! Ah…

Perserque, who was covering her face in shame, uttered an embarrassed cry from behind the now-broken tree.

Davey squinted at her.

—Let’s… Let’s talk later, Davey.

“…”

The strange tension remained between them. Thinking that it was difficult to persuade Perserque any further, Davey gave up for now.

“Ugh…” Emilia grabbed her sore neck and groaned. She had just regained her consciousness.

“Whe… Where…? Ha?!” Emilia groaned as she slowly sat up straight. When she noticed that Davey was sitting right in front of her, her eyes widened and she instinctively moved away from him.

“Aaaack!”

However, when someone recklessly shifted their center of gravity while sitting in a hammock…

“Kyaaaaaaack!”

“…”

Well, Emilia had simply turned into the epitome of a kimbap. Looking at how she had done that to herself, Davey thought that she was a bit stupid.

Emilia looked immature and child-like, but that did nothing to change the fact that her Charm could bring about no good. If it could even affect Davey, who had transcended the human realm, then it would only bring about a huge disaster to the general public.

“Rinne,” Davey called out softly.

The leaves of a nearby tree rustled as the silver-haired girl gently landed on the floor. With a laser sword appearing from the back of her arm, she easily cut a string of the hammock that was tied to a tree.

“Kyaaaaack!” Emilia screamed.

She fell to the ground. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she struggled to break free from the hammock that was tangled all around her. This was entirely her fault, but she still glared at Davey with a pout on her lips.

It seemed like Emilia was fearless despite being a hostage whose life and death was dependent on her actions.

“A country-toppling beauty…”

To call Emilia a ‘country-toppling beauty’ was to insult the true great beauties of the world. However, it was true that her Charm was enough to cause a nation’s downfall. As long as the elven woman decided to release her Charm, she would be able to engulf a battlefield and perhaps even the entire continent.

What would happen if she appeared and released this power in front of the most influential figures from an empire or two? Even if she did not do anything, all of the people who were subjected to her powers would grow excited and fascinated by her. In the end, chaos would ensue as they tried to get rid of their competitors.

If that was the case, then what should Davey do?

—Don’t kill her, Davey…

At that moment, Perserque’s head popped out from the base of the broken tree.

—She’s unstable. The World Tree would not let you go if that girl experienced a huge problem. I’m sure of it…

Davey just nodded at Perserque’s sudden input.

Emilia, at worst, was the previous Divine Tree’s Saintess. If so, she would have a lot of memories and information about the most sacred place in the Divine Tree. What would happen if something went wrong with Emilia, then?

Davey looked at it from the World Tree’s perspective. If he was the World Tree, who had chosen to sacrifice Emilia, then… He would have planted a huge bomb within Emilia’s Charm. That way, if anything went wrong with Emilia, everything would simply be blown into smithereens. The World Tree would then be able to protect the elves’ high self-esteem and ego while keeping their information safe and inflicting huge damage on the humans.

Davey hadn’t checked that carefully because he had been hit by the sudden flash of Charm. However, Perserque was aware of Charm being a trap, so she had dug deeper and had seen what was hidden behind it.

“Country-toppling beauty? What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like, someone who is beautiful enough to cause an entire nation to collapse.”

“Why did you mention that all of a sudden…?”

“That is your situation right now.”

Emilia frowned. “You’re disgusting.”

“Disgusting? Me? Do you even have a conscience?”

“You kept on saying those words even before! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Stop shouting. It’s making my head pound,” Davey said as he slowly stood up from the ground. Then, he grabbed Emilia by the collar and slammed her against one of the trees.

“Ugh?!”

“You don’t even know your own body and what you’re hiding deep inside. yet you’re walking around carelessly and without any fear, huh?”

“What do you…?”

“What did the World Tree tell you when she sent you to the Pallan Empire?”

Making guesses and speculations was something else completely from finding out the actual truth. There was a high chance that Perserque was right, but Davey wanted to be cautious. He had already experienced getting stabbed in the back while unprepared.

“Y… You…”

“Ah, it’s high time you found out where you are and who I am, right?”

“No way…”

“That’s right. I am Davey O’Rowane, the one who’s sharpening his blade to kill you and the World Tree.”

Emilia’s eyes widened at Davey’s words.

“It seems like you’re still completely unaware of the situation that you’re in right now. The moment you show your tears in front of anyone, a war will break out and devour the continent.”

“What are you…?”

“Charm. The power of Charm hidden inside of you has already gone beyond the normal limit and is still getting stronger by the day.”

It was embarrassing enough to learn that she had been caught by the enemy camp, but what made her expression turn wrinkled and ugly was discovering that she hid a ridiculous power inside of her body. In the first place, she had not left the forest to make contact with Davey. She had left the forest to become a mediator.

Then, after being attacked out of the blue, she had woken up to the enemy staring right at her. Of course she would be flustered and embarrassed.

Davey let Emilia go. Then, he lightly placed the cup of tea that Yuria had made on the wooden table. He said, “You are a hostage right now. And I’m going to pull everything about World Tree Yggdrasil out of that head of yours.”

In fact, Davey did not even need Emilia to tell him the truth. All Emilia needed to do was to say all that she knew as well as the things that she did not know, then Davey would do the decoding on his own and complete the puzzle.

Davey did feel a bit sorry for Emilia, but she was someone who the World Tree had willingly cast away. He was free to do what he wanted to her. However, Davey also knew the World Tree the best. He knew that Yggdrasil was not an easy opponent who would show mercy and let her enemies go away with only light injuries.

“Do… Do you think I would tell you those things, huh?” Emilia stuttered. She wanted to appear proud and brave, but she was too fearful to even look Davey in the eyes.

‘That’s good. That’s how things should be. That’s right. This is how I get enough motivation to do things.’

“Then, let’s talk peacefully over a cup of tea.”

A mellow scent wafted in the air as hot water was being poured into a teacup.

“What the hell are you…”

“Ah, I’m telling you this in advance but don’t enjoy the tea too much, old lady. That lady? The leader of this forest? She has a strong penchant for a challenge…”

Emilia looked at Davey suspiciously. She didn’t understand what he meant.

“This tea is made out of crickets.”

“What did you say? Cri… Crickets?!” Emilia was appalled.

Davey nodded with a straight face. “I will make you drink this tea from now on. But if you still don’t feel like opening your mouth, then…”

“…”

“I will make you drink tea made from expertly extracted mantis eyes which have been processed and cured for a very long time.”

“You… You’re crazy!”

“Are you already scared by something like this? Just so you know, there’s also tea made from sterilized and dried cockroach eggs.”

No sane person would willingly try all of the tea that Davey had mentioned. In fact, Emilia’s face was turning pale from him just speaking about those disgusting teas.

Davey was listing all of the teas, as if reading from a breakfast menu.

“Rinne, catch her.”

“…Rinne has underestimated Davey’s judgment. Rinne has analyzed the matter. There is a high probability of having serious stomach problems upon consumption.”

Rinne, who always sang a song about gathering data for taste as she looked for food, could not help but show disgust when she saw Davey’s unusually expressionless face.

Despite voicing her complaints, Rinne still moved to overpower the elf. She grabbed Emilia’s limbs and forced her to kneel.

Emilia, who knew the situation that she was in, struggled fiercely. Her face turned an ugly shade of blue.

“You don’t have to worry. I can guarantee that the tea has an amazing aroma and the flavor.”

“I… I’m telling you! So, stop it!!!”

“You won’t tell me? Well, it’s alright. We have a lot of time, and no elf will come here to save you.”

“Kyaaaaaaack!”

Davey did not know about the others, but he had a tough enough stomach to drink most of Yuria’s tea. That was why he could form an objective and unbiased opinion about it. And to be honest, the taste of the tea that Yuria made was better than what anyone thought.

1. 이간계 - (反間計, Fǎn jiàn jì), the 33rd stratagem in the 36 stratagems mentioned in the Art of War. It is the act of undermining and forcing the enemies to compromise their attacks and defenses by sowing internal discord ☜