The Extra is a Hero?-Chapter 290: THE HERESY
Chapter 286: The Heresy
The teal light of the Under-Roots flickered, casting long, skeletal shadows against the tunnel walls. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and ancient decay, a cloying perfume that masked the smell of the dried corpse at our feet.
I held the scroll open. The parchment was brittle, threatening to disintegrate in the humidity, but the magical ink burned with a defiant blue luminescence.
"Read it," Leon whispered. His voice was hushed, reverent, as if we were standing in a church rather than a dungeon. "What did they find?"
I adjusted my cracked glasses, my eyes scanning the elegant, frantic script of the dead Elf.
"It’s a confession," I said. "And a warning."
I began to read aloud, my voice echoing softly in the hollow root.
"My name is Elandra, High Arborist of the Third Circle. If you are reading this, I have failed. The roots are not dying of natural causes. They are being poisoned."
I paused, scrolling down to the next entry.
"Day 12. The corruption is deeper than I thought. It is not a disease of the wood. It is a disease of the spirit. I found traces of Abyssal Mana mixed with the sap in the lower arteries. Someone is feeding the Tree... darkness."
Leon stiffened. "Abyssal Mana? In the World Tree? That’s impossible. The tree is the source of all Light Mana in the North. It’s the barrier that keeps the demons out."
"Keep listening," I said grimly.
"Day 14. I brought my findings to the High Council. I showed them the blackened sap. I expected horror. Instead, I saw fear. Not of the Rot, but of the truth. High Elder Vaelen told me to burn my samples. He said it was ’necessary’. He said the peace requires sacrifice."
Ren, who had been leaning against the wall cleaning his fingernails with a dagger, stopped. His head tilted slightly, a microscopic shift in his posture.
"Sacrifice," Ren repeated softy. "A common currency in politics."
I ignored him and read the final, hastily scrawled paragraph. The ink here was smeared, as if the writer had been shaking violently.
"They made a deal. The Council. To maintain the barrier’s strength during the Mana Silence, they accepted power from the Shadows. They are feeding the Tree with the blood of the un-chosen. The Rot is the price of their contract. I tried to run. But the Shadows are faster. The Queen’s Guard... they are not coming to save me. They are the blade."
I let the parchment roll back up with a dry snap. I looked down at the skeleton. The rusted dagger in its back wasn’t a bandit’s weapon. It was an ornate, ceremonial blade—the kind carried by the elite protectors of the Elven Crown.
"He was right," I said, looking at Leon. "He was assassinated by his own government to cover up a heresy."
Leon looked devastated. He stared at the bones, his hands trembling slightly. "The Elves... they’re supposed to be the guardians of nature. The wisest race. They wouldn’t... they wouldn’t sell out the world to demons."
"Desperation makes monsters of everyone, Leon," I said, putting the scroll case into my inventory. "The Mana Silence terrified them. They lost their power. So they took a loan from the only entity that was still solvent: The Abyss."
I stood up and brushed the moss from my knees.
"This validates everything," I continued, my voice hardening. "If we had followed the original plot—if we had taken the train to the capital and asked for the Life Dew nicely—we would be in a dungeon right now. Or dead."
Leon looked at me. The naive light in his eyes—the belief that authority figures were inherently good—was dimming. It was a painful growth, but necessary. A Hero who couldn’t see the knife in the smiling hand was a dead Hero.
"You knew," Leon said. "You didn’t know about the diary, but you knew they couldn’t be trusted."
"I suspected," I lied. I knew because I had read the forums where players complained about the ’Corrupted Council’ raid boss. But to Leon, it just looked like supreme intuition.
"So we’re alone," Leon murmured, gripping the handle of the Breaker’s Hammer. "No allies. No backup."
"We have each other," I said. "And we have a job to do."
I turned to Ren.
The assassin was staring at the skeleton’s back, specifically at the rusted dagger. His expression was unreadable, a mask of bored indifference, but my [Observation] stat caught the tension in his jaw.
"Ren," I said sharply.
He snapped his head toward me. "Yes, Captain?"
"You’re the expert on shadows," I said, watching him closely. "What do you make of the ’deal’ mentioned in the diary? Selling out a World Tree seems like a high-level play."
Ren shrugged, but his fingers tightened around the hilt of his own weapon. "Power abhors a vacuum. If the Elves lost their light, they would seek another source. It is... logical."
"Logical," I echoed. "And the ’Rot’? Does that sound familiar?"
Ren’s eyes flickered. For a split second, the mask slipped. It wasn’t fear I saw. It was reverence. A twisted, hungry sort of recognition.
"Rot is just nature in reverse," Ren said smoothly. "Decay feeds growth. Perhaps the Elves are just... gardening."
"Let’s hope not," I said, turning away before he could see the suspicion in my eyes.
He knows, I thought. He knows exactly what the Rot is.
In the game, the "Rot" was the signature corruption of the Puppeteer Demon—a slow, insidious influence that turned allies into sleeper agents. Ren wasn’t just a generic assassin. He was a disciple.
I kept my hand near my sword.
"Let’s move," I ordered. "The air is getting thinner. We’re getting close to the Chasm."
We left the alcove and the tragic bones of Elandra behind, pushing deeper into the tunnel.
The environment began to change as we descended. The vibrant, healthy teal of the bioluminescence started to fade, replaced by a sickly, yellowish-green hue. The massive roots forming the walls looked distinctively unhealthy here—the bark was peeling, oozing a black, viscous tar that smelled of sulfur and spoiled meat.
The Rot.
"Masks up," I ordered, pulling my scarf back over my nose. "That tar is toxic. Don’t touch it. Don’t breathe the fumes."
"It smells like the dumpster behind the Alchemy lab," Leon gagged, his voice muffled by his collar.
"Worse," Ren said from the rear. "It smells like old blood."
The tunnel widened abruptly, ending in a jagged precipice.
We stopped at the edge.
"Oh," Leon said. "That’s a problem."
We had reached the Chasm.
It was a massive tear in the root system, a void in the biology of the dungeon. It stretched for hundreds of meters across, a gaping wound in the earth.
Below, there was no floor. Only a swirling ocean of purple mist that churned and roiled like a living storm. I dropped a small pebble over the edge. It vanished into the mist. A second later, a sizzling sound echoed up.
"Acid mist," I noted. "Instant death."
Across the chasm, about three hundred meters away, was another opening—the entrance to the Heart-Root Chamber.
Between us and the exit? Nothing but a series of disjointed, floating root fragments. Some were swinging like pendulums. Others were rotating slowly. They were suspended by thin strands of sticky, glowing webbing.
"The Jumping Puzzle," I groaned internally.
In the game, this was the part where controllers were thrown at screens. In reality, looking at the sheer drop and the corrosive fog, it was nightmare fuel.
"We have to jump across those?" Leon asked, pointing to a slick, moss-covered platform floating twenty feet out. "In full plate armor?"
"Physics is going to be tricky here," I admitted. "The Ancient Mana creates localized gravity fields around the roots. That’s why they float. But if you miss the platform..."
"I melt," Leon finished.
"Basically."
I looked at Ren. "You’re the most agile. Can you make the first jump?"
Ren peered over the edge. "The distance is feasible. But the surface looks slippery. And those webs..." He pointed to the strands holding the platforms. "They are vibrating."
"Spiders?" Leon asked, raising his hammer.
"No," I said. "Drift-Weavers. But they’re dormant in the mist. As long as we don’t touch the webs, they sleep."
I reached into my inventory and pulled out a set of gear I had prepared specifically for this moment. It wasn’t magical flight gear—that wouldn’t work in the Zone. It was mechanical.
[Item: Pneumatic Grappling Hook (x2)]
[Description: Compressed air launcher with diamond-tipped claws. Range: 50m.]
"One for me, one for you," I tossed one to Leon.
"What about Ren?" Leon asked.
"Ren is a ninja," I said. "He doesn’t need training wheels."
Ren looked at the grappling hook in Leon’s hand, then at the vast emptiness of the chasm. For the first time, he looked genuinely annoyed.
"I am not a ninja," Ren muttered. "I am a retrieval specialist."
"Retrieve yourself to the other side," I said, checking the pressure gauge on my launcher. "I’ll go first. Leon, anchor me."
I aimed the hook at the first floating root.
PSSHT.
The claw shot out, trailing a steel cable. It bit into the wood with a solid thunk.
I tugged the line. It held.
"See you on the other side," I said.
I jumped.
The wind rushed past my ears. For a terrifying second, I dangled over the purple abyss, the acid fumes stinging my eyes. Then the cable went taut, and I swung.
I landed hard on the floating platform, my boots skidding on the slime. I scrambled for purchase, digging my fingers into the bark.
"Safe!" I yelled back, waving.
Ren went next. He didn’t use a hook. He backed up, sprinted, and leaped. He soared through the air, a white bullet, and landed gracefully beside me. He didn’t even wobble.
"Show off," I muttered.
"Your turn, Leon!"
Leon looked at the hammer. He looked at the hook. He took a deep breath.
"Here goes nothing!"
He fired the hook. It connected. He jumped.
But Leon was heavy. Heavier than the physics engine expected.
The root platform I was standing on groaned as his weight hit the cable. The entire island dipped violently.
"Whoa!" I grabbed a vine to steady myself.
Leon landed—not gracefully, but heavily. He crashed into the center of the platform, the impact sending a shudder through the web strands above us.
Twang.
The webs vibrated.
Deep in the purple mist below, something chittered.
"Oops," Leon whispered, untangling himself from the cable.
"Don’t say oops," I hissed, looking down. "Just jump. Keep moving."
We were a third of the way across. The hardest part was yet to come.
Ren looked at the next platform. It was farther away, and rotating slowly.
"I will secure the next landing," Ren said. He crouched, preparing to spring.
As he passed me, his foot "slipped."
It happened fast. His boot slid on the moss. His shoulder slammed into my chest.
It wasn’t a clumsy bump. It was a calculated check. A shift of weight designed to throw me off balance right as the platform tilted.
I flailed, my boot slipping over the edge.
"Michael!" Leon shouted, reaching out.
I stared into the purple abyss. I stared into Ren’s eyes. They were cold, empty.
He missed his QTE? No.
He aimed.
I jammed the spike of my boot into the bark at the last second, arresting my fall with a jolt that wrenched my shoulder. I hung there, one hand gripping a root, my legs dangling in the toxic air.
Ren "recovered" his balance instantly. He looked down at me, extending a hand.
"Careful, Captain," Ren said, his voice flat. "It is slippery."
I looked at his hand. Then I looked at the dagger sheathed at his waist—the twin of the one in the skeleton’s back.
I grabbed his hand and let him pull me up.
"Thanks," I said, dusting myself off. "Clumsy of me."
"Indeed," Ren said.
I checked my status window.
[Passive Skill: Danger Intuition triggered.]
[Threat Level: High.]
[Source: Ally.]
The Chasm wasn’t the only thing trying to kill me.
"Let’s go," I said, turning my back to him. But this time, I kept my hand on the trigger of my grappling hook.
The traitor had made his first move.
