Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 1436 - 222: Her Majesty the Queen’s Last Gift

"The moment of separation is finally coming?" Leaning against the wall outside Between the Rituals, Catherine’s gaze was soft as water as she watched Pannis walking steadily toward her and sighed softly, "Although I have been mentally prepared for this, when the moment arrives, it still feels so unreal. Oh, how I wish this day could have come later. How about it, Pannis, are you all ready? Is there anything you want to say to us?"

"There are some things I need to instruct first." Pannis stopped in front of the girls, took a small cloth bag from his pocket after a moment’s hesitation, and handed it to Catherine, saying, "Keep this with you. If I don’t make it out alive, remember to give this thing to Flare and tell her not to take such things out to scare people casually."

"If? It seems you haven’t made up your mind yet." Catherine sighed, took the cloth bag, and played with it in her hands, "What’s inside here that requires such a solemn instruction?"

"It’s not for the reason you think; it’s just that battles always involve casualties, and no one is an exception, so we must prepare ahead." Pannis pointed to the cloth bag in Catherine’s hand, "There are a few seeds inside. You must keep them close and never leave your side until you hand them back to Flare." freёnovelkiss.com

"That important?" Catherine resisted the urge to open the bag and peek, "If it’s something this important, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to give it to Vivian and Freya? If there’s a battle, I’ll always be in the front line. What if the bag gets damaged? They are relatively much safer being at the back of the team."

"No, it must be on you, until you hand it to Flare." Pannis insisted, "Putting it on them would be meaningless."

"Meaningless?" Catherine hesitated, looked at the cloth bag again, and although she obviously couldn’t see what was inside through the cloth, she flipped and rotated the bag in her hand for a while but eventually had to ask Pannis, "What exactly is inside here? You say it’s meaningless, then surely it must produce some effect. What effect would that be?"

"Actually, you could just keep it and not know what it is," Pannis sighed, "But telling you won’t hurt, lest you inadvertently let other elves see it. There are just four seeds in here, one of which is quite special, uh, particularly troublesome. This seed, the elves call it Tetela, translated into the common language... the seed of the Tree of the Beginning."

"Oh, the seed of the Tree of the Beginning," the girls did not immediately grasp the significance of this name, but a few seconds later, Lina’s face suddenly changed, she uttered a low growl, seemingly losing her sanity, stepped forward, grabbed Pannis by the collar, pulled his face close to hers, and roared in an almost insane tone, "How could you have such a thing? Tell me, where did you steal it from?"

"Er, this is why I didn’t want to say what it is." Pannis scratched his head with a wry smile and said helplessly, "Tifa, Tifa, Miss Tifa, please calm down. Look, knowing you’re also in Lina’s body, and still mentioning this name, it couldn’t possibly be stolen, could it?"

"Oh my God," the girls finally realized what that name, described by Pannis as particularly troublesome, meant. It was the seed of the first plant in the Yarran World, the half-body of the mythical forest goddess Yuktiraxil, which could even be considered her offspring. Until then, the girls hadn’t even heard that the Tree of the Beginning, or the World Tree, had seeds. This showed how crucial the Elves regarded these seeds, to the extent that even their existence was kept a secret. The importance was apparent from Tifa, the Elf’s, behavior.

"You’re not trying to tell me you found this on the road, are you?" Tifa, controlling Lina’s body, didn’t believe Pannis’s words and growled, "A seed from the World Tree matures only once in thousands of years, and so far, we only possess five. Only the divine representative of the goddess on earth is worthy to touch them. If it wasn’t stolen... Wait, the new young queen, damn it, did she give it to you? This bastard, I am going to report her crimes to the goddess."

"She really is thorough with you," Catherine remarked with an odd chuckle, but immediately grabbed the furious Tifa’s arm and said, "Miss Tifa, don’t rush to conclusions, Queen Flare has already borrowed the Hunting Arrow through the Elder Council, so this seed must have been approved for Pannis by the Council as well. It’s not a crime."

"You don’t truly understand what the World Tree’s seed means." Tifa finally calmed down a bit. Letting go of Pannis’s collar and flinging Catherine’s hand away, she said angrily, "The Hunting Arrow is merely a creation by Lord Artemis, but the World Tree’s seed is an extension of Lady Yuktiraxil’s divine body. It is an outrage against the goddess. How could these two be compared?"

"See, I told you it was particularly troublesome," Pannis shrugged at Catherine with a helpless expression. Seeing Tifa showing signs of fury again, he could only give a bitter smile and tried to calm her, "Miss Tifa, are you forgetting something? Indeed, the seed of the Tree of the Beginning is thought of as an extension of Lady Yuktiraxil’s divine body, I acknowledge that. But if I remember correctly, the conditions required to activate the seed are much more stringent than those for the Hunting Arrow."

"..." Lina, controlled by Tifa, suddenly lowered her head in silence. Under the puzzled gazes of the few girls around her, she suddenly looked up and just as confused, asked everyone, "What’s the matter, why are you all staring at me so intently? Did Tifa do something again? She suddenly went crazy wanting to come out, I didn’t even have time to tell you before I let her take over, she definitely didn’t do anything good again, right?"

"This maniac..." Pannis gritted his teeth, pulling at his wrinkled collar, and spoke irritably, "She realized she was acting like an idiot and just ran away without saying a word."

"Uhm, Pannis, explain this, please." Catherine, massaging her temples with a sense of headache, felt that the sadness of an impending goodbye could never be found again. All she could do was mourn the lost sadness as she asked, "Why did she suddenly run off?"

"I told you, because she realized she was acting like an idiot." Pannis shrugged: "How could such a thing be passed around casually?"