(If it’s like this…)
“What are you going to do to my Ailuna?!”
Yue Liuyi was still mulling it over when a stern female voice rolled in, like thunder over distant hills.
“Huh?”
She lifted her head. A graceful elven maiden stepped into view, bold as moonlight on silk.
A sheer white dress sketched her figure like mist over a lake.
Her lips burned like coals at dusk. Long legs in black thigh-highs gleamed like wet obsidian, dangerous and inviting.
“Is that Tisinate?!”
Yue stiffened. It was her first time facing the Elven Queen.
Not as imagined—seductive makeup, mature, yet beneath it, a clean-browed girl like rain-washed jade.
After all, a queen is still an elf—otherworldly, like starlight caught in dew.
“Invaders, die.”
Tisinate wasted no breath. She saw Dixue and Yue Liuyi holding Ailuna and marked them as enemies.
She raised her hand; magic bloomed like spring petals, a storm of shimmering bolts.
“Yue, careful!”
The silver-haired girl darted forward and hugged Yue close.
The barrage poured in like a flock of blazing birds, dense as monsoon rain.
It came in waves, dazzling and relentless.
Anyone would freeze, lost in the swirl, with nowhere to run.
Yue felt no impact, no sting of magic.
Dixue held her and ghosted through the hail, like a swallow skimming river foam.
The silver-haired girl tugged at the wind around them.
Currents bucked and twisted, like eddies under a waterfall.
She became a silver butterfly in flight, borrowing the breeze.
The barrage slid aside like reeds in a stream, as she swept both girls farther from Tisinate.
“It failed?!”
The elf’s eyes widened.
She drew her sword; milky light welled around her, like moonmilk spilling from stone.
The blade’s edge bit air and sent a crescent gust slashing toward the girls.
“Yue, take care of Ailuna.”
“Yeah, leave her to me!”
Dixue set Yue and Ailuna down, then lifted her longbow.
She drew the string; silver gathered like frost under sunrise, bright enough to sting.
“How—?”
“Sorry, but the World Tree’s secret realm isn’t just your home turf.
It’s where I move best.”
Even with eyes closed, Yue felt the surge rolling in, like tides under a full moon.
The ground hummed and shook, answering the call.
“Ha!”
Dixue cried out and loosed.
The silver light wasn’t an arrow anymore; it was a cannon, a beam half a meter wide.
It drove forward, straight as lightning spearing cloud, toward Tisinate.
“—!”
Tisinate didn’t flinch.
She gripped her sword with both hands and fixed on Ailuna, like a hawk staring down prey.
The gem-bright blade woke.
From hilt to tip, colors climbed like a rainbow after rain—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan.
The glow stopped at cyan.
Tisinate swung into the beam, cutting toward it like a storm cleaving sky.
The meadow rocked, a soft ocean of grass gone wild.
Wind slammed into them; Yue’s hair streamed like waterweeds in flood.
She was still only a normal girl.
The shockwave broke her stance; she pitched, balance torn away.
“Damn!”
She twisted a heartbeat before the fall, turning her back toward the earth.
At least Ailuna, cradled to her chest, wouldn’t be hurt.
“Sis!”
No pain came.
A soft vine caught her like a forest hand, and she hung between sky and grass.
“Huh? Breeze?”
A small hand steadied her.
A familiar, airy voice chimed in her mind, like bells in fog.
“I’m sorry… I came late…”
“It’s okay. I’m the one… who came late…”
Yue opened her eyes.
Silver light fell away like snow melting into stream.
Breeze crouched beside her on the meadow, a sprout sheltering under a tree’s shadow.
Ahead, two girls stood rooted in place, silent as statues.
Even after that earth-shaking clash, Dixue and Tisinate looked untouched.
Skirt hems neat; silver hair swayed like river willow.
But that was only the surface.
With a soft thud, Tisinate dropped to one knee.
Dixue’s arrow had the edge; standing alone had drained the elf’s strength.
“I… lost.”
“It really was a beautiful fight, wasn’t it?”
The silver-haired girl stepped closer, her voice a warm spring.
“Who are you? Do you plan… to destroy this world?”
Even beaten, Tisinate held her pride like a blade.
For her country, she wouldn’t let villains tread this sacred soil.
“Not destruction—salvation.
Right now, elves alone can’t fix this. We need to work together to help Ailuna.”
Dixue offered her hand, a branch extended across a ravine.
“Hmph. Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all. As a guardian to a World Tree Maiden, I’m the one who can help you.”
“Huh… Guardian?”
For the first time, Tisinate’s gaze wavered like ripples under wind.
(LittleSnow?!)
Yue bit down on her doubts.
She felt LittleSnow was acting, like when she routed that old granny.
Sure enough, after a breath of thought, the Elven Queen’s brow knit.
Her hostility thinned, yet she lifted her chin, stubborn as pine.
“Are you… Breeze’s guardian?”
“No. I’m Yue’s guardian.”
(Huh!?)
Yue’s heart jolted.
She didn’t expect Dixue to spin so boldly—calling her a World Tree Maiden.
That lie was too easy to break.
A World Tree Maiden can’t be faked—life-force rings her like spring sap, power thrums inside like thunder.
Yue held back, watched with Breeze, like deer still in grove shade.
She waited on the girls’ negotiation.
“Yue?”
“This blue-haired girl.
Yue is my wife, the one I’ll protect all my life.”
Dixue’s cheeks flushed like cherry petals, but she didn’t look away.
“So, three World Tree Maidens and two guardians are here now.
Even with so many resentful souls knotted in the World Tree, we can unravel them.”
“Th-three? Then… this one, too…”
Tisinate fixed on Yue, the queen’s thoughts scattered like leaves in wind.
“Mm… Breeze can testify.
Sister Yue is also a World Tree Maiden.”
Breeze rose and nodded, solemn as a sapling facing rain.
(Huh? Since when did Breeze learn to lie…)
“But I don’t feel a strong life aura on her.
Though there’s a close, indescribable warmth, like sun through leaves.”
“Of course. Tisinate, you know this—besides World Tree Maidens and guardians, no one can enter the World Tree’s core.
No trick can get you in.”
Tisinate fell into silence, thoughts moving like roots underground.
After a time, she straightened, queenly calm returning.
“I understand.
Will you help me purge the resentful spirits inside the World Tree?”
“Absolutely. That’s what we came for.”
“Eh?!”
Yue felt the air tilt, like a bird sensing storm.
Yedie Snow, Breeze, even the Elven Queen—everyone looked deadly serious.
“LittleSnow, what’s going on?!”
She couldn’t hold back and ran up, like a stream rushing the bank.
Pretending to be a World Tree Maiden was too hard; without Dixue, she was lost.
“LittleSnow, how do I fake it?
I can’t exorcise anything!”
She pressed close and whispered in the silver-haired girl’s ear, voice thin as rain.
“Looks like Yue really doesn’t know her true self.
But that was expected.”
“Huh?”
Dixue smiled and pulled Yue into her arms.
Her hand brushed Yue’s cheek, gentle as silk on skin.
“LittleSnow…?”
“Hehe. Yue’s as adorably clueless as ever.
Yue is a World Tree Maiden, just like Ailuna—she’s simply forgotten.”
“Wait—LittleSnow, are you serious?”
“Of course.
If you don’t believe me, let Breeze back me up.”
“World Tree Maidens can call to each other.
Only Sister Yue could hear me and save me.”
Breeze drifted closer, her voice soft, like wind through branches.
“Yue’s a very capable World Tree Maiden.
Even with her identity forgotten, her mission stayed true. That’s wonderful.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me, Yue—why did you come to the New Land?”
“Because… I had to reach the Rainbow Secret Realm.”
“Why go to the Rainbow Secret Realm?”
“To find the Eternal Tear?”
“And what does the Eternal Tear do?”
“It can save my homeland and heal the land…”
“Then what is a World Tree Maiden’s duty?”
“When the planet is on the verge of ruin… Huh? What?!”
It hit her like a bell struck at midnight.
Her original reason lined up with a World Tree Maiden’s duty.
“That has to be a coincidence!”
Yet memories rose like mist after rain, one by one.
They pressed into her mind, as if proving a point.
Elven girls adored her, with near-fervor, like pilgrims to a holy spring.
After touching Ailuna, Breeze, Dixue, her body changed, like sap waking in spring.
When she defeated the Third Princess, she used power far beyond her norm, like a flood breaking dams.
Odd then, but—
If she was a World Tree Maiden, all of it made sense.
“Hehe, looks like Yue remembers.
She’s a World Tree Maiden.”
“LittleSnow, wait!!!!!!!!!!”
There were so many coincidences.
Everyone already saw her as a World Tree Maiden.
There was even Ailuna’s precedent—memory lost, duty intact.
But—
One thing was completely off.
World Tree Maiden—it’s supposed to be a girl!!!
But I’m a boy—straight as a pine, not some flower—!
How could a boy like me be the World Tree Maiden, like calling thunder a lullaby!
The whole premise is wrong, like a house built on sand!
A boy becoming the World Tree Maiden? What a joke, like crowning a scarecrow!
Absolutely not! I haven’t lost my memory—it’s a mirror uncracked.
And I don’t have that life-force aura like Breeze does—no spring wind around my skin > <
So Yue Liuyi shook his head like a rattle-drum, rejecting the tag of World Tree Maiden.
Life force? You’re not missing it, Little Moon; it’s just hidden well, like spring water under ice~
Huh…? L-LittleSnow?!
Dixue suddenly seized Yue Liuyi’s chest, quick as lightning catching a branch.
See? Like this—if I just squeeze Little Moon’s boobs, like kneading cloud-soft dough…
Huh?! His voice popped like a soap bubble.
I squeeze—like wringing dew from a leaf!
Whoa—like a startled deer bolting!
Cheeks blooming like peach petals, Yue Liuyi realized—
a blue glow was rising behind him, like moonlight on ice—
the same feel as Breeze, the same wind through the pines…
