Resillia, having hurled a venomous sneer at the queen she once served, turned towards the people of Pelledia, who were staring intently.
"People of Pelledia, the World Tree has decreed the removal of the current queen, Iris Lemeria Baiaert Pelledia!"
"?!"
The nobles had expected Resillia, who had taken a stance amounting to treason, to have impure intentions, but they were rendered speechless by such an overt declaration.
Of course, this was only true for a single elder and the nobles.
"First Elder of the Council, Biglis Harun Hartz. I shall obey the World Tree's command."
The shockingly wrinkled First Elder uttered an even more shocking statement.
'What the hell is that crazy old geezer saying now?!'
'Wasn't he supposed to be disinterested in power?!'
'…This is dangerous.'
'If the First Elder is of that opinion…'
The anxieties of the high-ranking nobles soon materialized.
"Second Elder of the Council, Alanya Remong Provina. I shall obey the World Tree's command."
"Fourth Elder of the Council, Amal Florence Khashka. As decreed by the noble and great World Tree."
"Seventh Elder of the Council, Reiken van Pitel. I shall obey the command."
With the exception of the Sixth Elder, who had scolded Resillia for slandering the queen and a few absent elders, all the elders were now in favor of removing the current queen.
"W-what is the meaning of this behavior?!"
The Sixth Elder, wearing an expression of utter disbelief, shouted at the elders of the council, but they did not respond.
"Your Majesty? No, Iris?"
"Resillia!!"
Finally losing her composure, Iris reached out towards Resillia, but was stopped by an unidentified figure clad in black.
It was the appearance of a fourth master-class expert.
Even for Iris, an archmage of the eighth circle, once she allowed her opponent to get close, she had no chance of winning against a master-class knight.
Moreover, even if she had lost her reason, she could not commit the sacrilege of using magic within the holy grounds.
"Hmm? Since when has Her Majesty's hand become so light? Ah, but she is the former queen now, isn't she?"
"What…?! What did you do to the World Tree!"
"Oh dear…"
Resillia looked at Iris with an expression of faint pity, but it was clearly mixed with mockery.
"People of Pelledia! As the World Tree has commanded, I, Resillia Lunbanien Falun Pelledia, declare that I have ascended to the position of the fifth monarch of Pelledia!"
It was a succession of statements and situations that the mind could not comprehend, even while witnessing and hearing them.
The former queen, a wise and benevolent ruler, was rejected by the World Tree, a woman who appeared as a minister slandered the queen, and then committed the sacrilege of laying hands on the World Tree's physical form. She was a traitor worthy of extermination of her entire lineage.
And that criminal was now the new queen?
The people were unable to easily emerge from the confusion caused by the series of catastrophic events.
But that was only for a short while.
"…Long, long live the new Queen!"
"Long live Queen Resillia!"
"Long live the World Tree!"
"Glory to Pelledia!!"
"Long live! Long live!!"
For the elves, the choice and will of the World Tree, their sole god and mother, was more than enough to captivate the masses.
No matter how wise Iris may have been, believers were bound to absolute faith and loyalty to their god.
After that, things progressed rapidly, and Iris was forced to wear a powerful seal that suppressed her magic power, and was sentenced to eternal imprisonment in the underground cavity.
She would never be able to leave the prison until she took her own life or died for some other reason.
Having become a traitor overnight and confined to prison, Iris endlessly repeated the question with a blank stare.
Why did this happen?
Why would Resillia do such a thing?
'Why…?'
*Thud-*
Until the moment the prison door closed, no one appeared to answer her questions, and thus, 200 years passed.
***
Perhaps because of the influence of the app, Iris, the person involved, calmly recited the story, even though it was difficult to listen to without feeling suffocated.
'…200 years.'
Just thinking about it felt suffocating.
It was such a long time that a mere human who had lived for only 21 years could not even begin to fathom.
There was no way to describe in words how she must have felt, being alone in this place for so long.
The light in Iris's eyes, after having revealed all her past, returned to normal.
"Don't you want revenge?"
I tried my best not to show it, but the words slipped out without me realizing it.
"Revenge…"
Iris seemed somehow detached.
"Who can I blame now? It is a virtue of a ruler to see through the essence of others… I just didn't have an eye for people."
Iris, who seemed to be blaming herself, looked calm, but also somehow sad.
"But you don't want to keep staying here, right?"
"That's true, but…"
"Then it's decided."
For me, the most satisfying ending would be for Iris to take revenge on the woman named Resillia, but I had no intention of forcing that on someone who didn't want it.
Whatever it was, the person's own will was the most important thing.
"Whether it's revenge or whatever, let's get out of here first, okay? That much is okay, right?"
Besides, it was not right for an innocent person to rot in prison for life. For now, that was all I needed to think about.
I felt so sorry for Iris, being trapped for life in such a dark and damp place.
"H-here…?"
Iris's voice sank heavily.
"Thank you for your kind words… but that's impossible."
In the direction she was pointing, there was a huge door. It seemed to be about 5 or 6 stories high.
"The only exit is blocked by the World Tree's barrier, and I can barely use any magic because of the sealing tool."
It wasn't as if she had been idle for the past 200 years.
Even in a situation where her magic power was limited by the sealing tool, she had tried to break the barrier somehow, but at the current pace, it would take about 1,200 years just to analyze the barrier.
Of course, it was absurd from the start for a mortal to analyze a god's barrier, but even if she did finish analyzing it, breaking the barrier in her current state would be another problem.
"Hey, it's different now than it was then."
"Huh? What's different?"
"I'm here now."
Was there no way to escape from here without breaking the barrier?
I didn't think so.
Just by going to the department store, there were escape artifacts made in preparation for when ordinary people were trapped in gates.
Of course, the problem was that they were so expensive that it would cost a fortune, but if I asked Iris for her understanding and mined some of the World Tree roots scattered around, wouldn't I be able to buy one quickly?
However, there was one fact that Kang Hyunwoo had overlooked here.
On Earth, where monsters had existed since the beginning of human history, there were really a wide variety of artifacts and magic tools, but the existence of gods had not yet been revealed.
Occasionally, transcendent beings were depicted in the old history, but whether they were gods or super-powered beings like S-class hunters was still being debated among experts.
As a result, Kang Hyunwoo had no idea what kind of being the World Tree, a god that actually existed in the present world, was.
That's usually the case with shallow imagination.
He didn't even think about whether a god's barrier could be penetrated by an artifact developed by humans.
Kang Hyunwoo would only learn about this fact later.
"I came from another world called Earth."
"What…? Another world??"
I explained to Iris in as much detail as possible how I came to be here.
Except for the part about the dating app.
It wasn't like I turned on the matching to meet a woman, but my pride wouldn't allow me to say that a grown man was dragged here while using a dating app.
Of course, Iris wouldn't know what a dating app was, but there might be a situation where I had to explain it later.
At first, I was at a loss as to how to explain what a cell phone was, but it seemed that the development of magic tools in this world was surprisingly remarkable.
"…So, you're saying that Hyunwoo-ssi traveled to our world through a communication device from your world called this 'cell phone'?"
"Yes."
With just a few explanations, she seemed to understand what a cell phone was.
Even with my poor speaking skills, which didn't have the talent to explain things in a way that others could understand, she was quite amazing to be able to grasp the core of it. However, her reaction to the dimensional travel was more calm than I expected.
'Is it because it's too absurd?'
She seemed more interested in the cell phone. There are things you can tell just by looking at the atmosphere, even if they don't express it in words.
"Would you like to try using it?"
"Is that okay…?"
"Of course."
"Th-thank you…"
I handed the cell phone to Iris, who had been staring at it as if possessed since before.
Then, I explained this and that to Iris, who was touching and looking at the cell phone with a happy expression, satisfying her curiosity.
The sight of her being disappointed when I told her that she couldn't connect to the internet right now was so cute that I wanted to take a picture and save it.
An elf using a Samsung cell phone and showing such a reaction, if I uploaded it to YouTube, wouldn't it get 5 million views in one day?
'By the way, it seems like the "Otherworld Dating App" is only visible to me.'
I was going to show Iris the otherworld dating app just in case, but she didn't seem to see anything.
It seemed that this app wasn't matching me with women from other worlds, but rather sending me to where the woman who met my desired conditions was.
'I think I can be sure if I do the matching a few more times.'
For now, it was a distant dream.
"Um… Hyunwoo-ssi…"
"Yes? Why are you calli…"
Without thinking much, I turned my head and was shocked as if someone had hit me on the back of the head when I saw the screen Iris was showing me.
A very familiar picture was being shown on the screen.
It was a picture of an adult film actress, showing off her big breasts raw without any mosaic.
It was a nude I had worked hard to find a while ago, but why was Iris showing it to me?
'…Ah, I didn't tell her not to go into the gallery?'
Even though it was a relatively recent photo, it wasn't like I hadn't saved other photos after that, so if she was showing me that photo, it meant she had already seen photos that were more explicit and full of my preferences.
"H-Hyunwoo-ssi, do you like this kind of thing…?"
"…"
Kang Hyunwoo couldn't say anything.
It felt like he had gone on a blind date and showed the other person his favorite porn and nude pics. Of course, he had never been on a blind date before.
-Hey, just kill yourself.
He even heard an auditory hallucination as if his instincts were talking to him.
"I-if you're okay with it…!!"
Just when I was thinking that it would be better to just drown myself by burying my face in a bowl of water, I heard Iris's voice trembling pitifully.
Iris, who was approaching me with a face as red as if it would explode at any moment, grabbed my hand tightly.
"Would you like to touch my breasts…?"