“The World Tree and the High Elf”

Even though it had already been [Charmed], it was still able to put up a resistance. This was a rather powerful monster. But eventually, the furious shaking of its leaves stopped.

It had accepted Rare's [Subordinate].

"So it's an 'Elder Camphor Treant.' It's a lot stronger than those treants from before…"

<<Your follower has fulfilled a condition for reincarnation. You may spend 5,000 XP it to reincarnate. Permit reincarnation?>>

—Reincarnation!

She never would have imagined that a follower would fulfill the conditions before she could. But this was a perfect opportunity. She would have to think about what the exact conditions were later, but for now she should jump on this chance. Right…

—Even if I have to use up XP… Wait, 5,000?! That's expensive!

Even for Rare, paying 5,000 XP wasn't something she could just blithely accept without batting an eye. She did have enough, though. She certainly did, but…

"I wonder if… there's some way I could take out a loan…?"

<Princess? Is something the matter?>

"No, it's nothing, just hold on a second…"

<<The current action will now be deferred.>>

"No, I wasn't talking to—Never mind, that helps."

This here was peak confusion.

However, she needed to force herself to calm down and think things through. She wasn't sure if this was the only chance she had to reincarnate the treant. If she let this opportunity pass, would there be another? The condition was unmistakably linked to the act of taming. The question was whether the timing was "while it was being tamed" or "after it had been tamed." If it was the former, then this was her only chance; if it was the latter, then it was possible at an unspecified future point in time for her to trigger a reincarnation. She really wanted to test this out. But that was also really risky. She couldn't waste this chance.

Plus, Rare found that she was having trouble suppressing a compulsion born out of pure curiosity. In any case, it cost 5,000 XP. No normal person would be able to go out and just earn that much XP on a whim. Who out there would choose to go forward with the reincarnation? Who aside from Rare, that is?

—All right, let's do it. I permit the reincarnation.

<<Initializing reincarnation.>>

Immediately after, the elder camphor treant's bough began to shake, and little grains of light began to sprinkle down. The grains covered its branches and trunk until the entire tree started to shine.

<Wh-What?! >

"Boss?! What's…"

Her other followers already recognized this tree as one of their allies, so they didn't sense any danger, but that didn't stop them from being startled. Deas and his fellow knights used to be human but were now undead; that meant they should have gone through reincarnation at some point, but they probably had never seen it happening themselves. Neither had Rare, but she simply found the experience of watching in and of itself fascinating.

Before long, the light-covered treant's entire body began to shiver, then, with a creaking noise, it started to grow. It had already been the tallest thing in the forest, but now it grew even taller, to the point where the top of the tree was no longer visible from the ground. Its trunk was becoming thicker as well; Rare's group had already backed up, but the space where Sieg had originally been was already taken over by the still-expanding trunk, tearing up the earth and piling it into constantly growing mounds. At that point, the trees at Rare's back suddenly began to fall over. As she wondered why that would happen, she realized that the elder camphor treant's roots were growing as well, displacing those trees from under the ground. It was quite an unbelievable sight.

But now, it was no longer an elder camphor treant.

When Rare checked its status screen, its race had become "World Tree."

"Impressive… So that was five thousand XP."

<<A special condition has been met. You may reincarnate into a High Elf.>>

"Wait, huh?"

This time it even told her the race name in advance. Maybe because it was happening to the player instead of a follower. Perhaps a useless "You may reincarnate into a World Tree" system message had also been delivered to the elder camphor treant earlier (which it couldn't read).

Of course she would accept. There was nothing to consider. She also knew what the trigger was: It was most likely "Have command of a world tree."

<<An 200 additional XP is required.>>

She immediately accepted. The amount was more than reasonable. However, it wouldn't do to forget that while the world tree's 5,000 XP was mind-bogglingly expensive, 200 XP for high elf would still normally be considered pricey.

<<Initializing reincarnation.>>

She was overcome with an odd sensation, almost like being tickled. If she opened her eyes, she would probably look the same as the treant had earlier: excessively luminescent.

<Princess?! >

"Boss!"

Rare heard her followers' worried cries, but she casually raised her hand to head off their concern. Her own transformation ended quickly and the light that had enveloped her faded. She felt strangely powerful, like she had just pumped all her stats up with XP.

"Just now, I reincarnated into a high elf… How is it? Has anything about me changed?"

"Yes, um… Your face hasn't exactly changed… but, well, you seem a lot prettier than before…?"

"Yeah… Plus your hair got longer. And your ears too."

Marion tacked it on like an afterthought, but ears didn't normally grow out like hair did. That must have been the visible difference between elves and high elves. Kerry's remark about her beauty must have been due to this racial characteristic.

Racial Characteristic: Extreme Beauty

Your race is considered unusually beautiful. All other peoples are meant to prostrate themselves at your feet.

Favorability with NPCs is increased (Large).

Characters under your control have increased combat morale.

This truly was a race suited for ruling others. And it was unnecessary since Rare already had it, but apparently [Subordinate] was learned at birth for high elves. It even had its own skill tree. The game announcements had said something about this, how some NPC nobles had [Subordinate]; maybe this was what they were referring to. High elves must occupy the noble class in elven countries. That meant a higher rank of human probably existed as well, one that might be ruling over a kingdom like Hiers, for example.

When Rare had read that old announcement, she thought that if she ever antagonized the kingdom, she would have to be wary of nobles using [Mental Magic], but seeing this now she realized that might not be the case. If they only received [Subordinate] as a racial bonus, then it's possible they wouldn't have any [Mental Magic], [Necromancy], or [Summon] skills. If so, then the advantage Rare held was immeasurable.

"This could be a key to victory."

However, she couldn't rule out the existence of NPCs who learned skills unrelated to their races. At best, this discovery would only slightly improve her odds.

"Unexpectedly getting a world tree already made this trip a resounding success, but I was also able to reincarnate myself, which was why I wanted to make a Philosopher's Stone in the first place… Ah well, it's all good. With this much wood, I can make tons of them, then play around with them as much as I want."

Additionally, after turning the elder camphor treant into her subordinate, she found out why it had just been sitting there, unmoving.

Camphor treants didn't match up well against undead. The treants were full of life and purity, as expected of monsters that could evolve into world trees, meaning they were diametrically opposed to undead. Therefore, since Sieg was already emitting noxious air at its feet that gave it a weakening debuff, if it tried to move and had to fight Sieg, it would have stood little chance. Due to that, it had been completely immobile ever since Sieg had awoken as an undead. The reason Rare's [Charm] succeeded may have been because of that debuff as well. Other treants were only active during the day, but less because of photosynthesis and more because all the undead clamoring about at night weakened them.

"If that's how it is, then leaving Sieg and his forces here would be a problem… I'll leave World Tree in charge of this forest instead and take all the undead back to my forest. There's a lot to do. Listen to what Deas tells you, and do your work properly. I'll let the undead loose in Liebe to entertain the human invaders."

<As you wish. Please leave the instruction of our new allies to me.>

<By your will. How nostalgic it is, to be trained by Sir Deas again.>

It was great that they were getting along so well. Visually, though, their eyes weren't sparkling with camaraderie since they were dead and lifeless.

"All right, now it's time to head back and continue my research. Oh right, World Tree, sorry to bother, but could I have one of your branches?"