After sneering at the queen she once served, Resilia turned to face the people staring blankly in her direction.
"People of Peledia, the World Tree has commanded the dethronement of the current queen, Iris Remeria Baiart Peledia."
"?!"
The nobles had expected some foul play from Resilia, given her treasonous stance, but her words were so blatant that they were all left speechless.
All except for a single elder and his faction of nobles.
"I, Biglis Harun Hartz, First Elder of the Council, shall obey the World Tree's command."
The deeply wrinkled First Elder made the shocking declaration.
'What the hell is that crazy old geezer saying?!'
'Wasn't he supposed to be uninterested in power?!'
'…This is dangerous.'
'If the First Elder himself is saying this…'
The high nobles' anxiety soon became reality.
"I, Alanya Remong Provina, Second Elder of the Council, shall obey the World Tree's command."
"I, Amal Florence Khashka, Fourth Elder of the Council, shall act according to the will of the noble and great World Tree."
"I, Rayken Van Pitel, Seventh Elder of the Council, shall obey the command."
With the exception of a few absent elders and the Sixth Elder, who had just berated Resilia for slandering the queen, every elder present had just voted in favor of the current queen's dethronement.
"What... what is the meaning of this outrage?!"
The Sixth Elder shouted at his fellow council members, his face a mask of disbelief, but they did not respond.
"Your Majesty? No, Iris?"
"Resilia!!"
Finally losing her grip on reason, Iris reached for Resilia, only to be restrained by a mysterious figure in black who appeared out of nowhere.
It was the appearance of the fourth master-level warrior.
Even for Iris, an 8th Circle Archmage, there was no chance of victory against a master-level knight once she had allowed him to get so close.
Besides, no matter how much she had lost her composure, she could not commit the atrocity of using magic in the holy land.
"Hmph? Since when were Her Majesty's hands so quick to strike? Ah, but you're the former queen now, aren't you?"
"What…! What in the world have you done to the World Tree!"
"Oh, dear..."
Resilia looked at Iris with a feigned expression of pity, but her eyes were filled with blatant mockery.
"People of Peledia! As commanded by the World Tree, I, Resilia Runvanien Falun Peledia, hereby declare that I have ascended to the throne as the fifth monarch of Peledia!"
It was a series of statements and events that the mind simply couldn't process, even while seeing and hearing it all unfold.
Their benevolent former queen had been rejected by the World Tree. A woman claiming to be the chancellor had slandered Her Majesty, then committed the atrocity of laying hands on the World Tree's very body. She was a traitor of the highest order, whose entire family line deserved to be annihilated.
And now, such a criminal was the new queen?
The people, struck by one catastrophe after another, could not easily escape their confusion.
But that, too, was only for a moment.
"...Lo-Long live the new Queen!"
"Lo-Long live Queen Resilia!"
"All hail the World Tree!"
"Glory to Peledia!!"
"Hooray! Hooray!!"
For the elves, the will and choice of the World Tree—their one and only god, their mother—was more than enough to captivate the masses.
No matter how benevolent a ruler Iris had been, a believer always offers absolute faith and loyalty to their god.
After that, things proceeded swiftly. Iris was fitted with a powerful sealing device that suppressed her magic and sentenced to eternal confinement in the underground cavern.
She would never be able to leave the prison until she took her own life or died for some other reason.
Iris, who had become a traitor overnight and was now locked in a prison, dazedly asked herself the same questions over and over.
Why did this happen?
Why would Resilia do such a thing?
'Why…?'
Thud—
Until the very moment the prison door slammed shut, no one appeared to answer her questions. And just like that, 200 years passed.
*
Perhaps it was the app's influence, but Iris recounted a story that was difficult to even listen to with a calm, detached voice.
'…Two hundred years.'
Just thinking about it was suffocating.
For a mere human like me, who had lived only twenty-one years, it was a length of time I couldn't possibly fathom.
There were no words to describe what she must have felt, living all alone in this place for so long.
After revealing her entire past, the light returned to Iris's eyes.
"Don't you want revenge?"
I tried my best not to show it, but the words slipped out before I could stop them.
"Revenge..."
Iris looked somewhat detached from it all.
"Who is there to blame now? Seeing through to a person's true nature is a virtue of a monarch… I was simply a poor judge of character."
Iris seemed to be blaming herself, and though her voice was calm, she looked sad.
"Still, you can't want to stay here forever."
"That's true, but..."
"Then it's decided."
Personally, the most satisfying conclusion would be for Iris to get revenge on that woman, Resilia, but I had no intention of forcing it on her if she didn't want it.
Whatever the case, the wishes of the person involved were what mattered most.
"Revenge or not, let's just get out of here first, shall we? That much should be fine."
Besides, it wasn't right for an innocent person to rot in prison for the rest of their life. For now, that was all that mattered.
Iris was too pitiful a figure to be trapped in a dark, damp place like this for eternity.
"G-Get out of here...?"
Iris's voice sank heavily.
"Thank you for the thought… but that's impossible."
She pointed to a colossal door. It looked to be about the height of a five or six-story apartment building.
"The only exit is blocked by the World Tree's barrier, and I can barely use any magic because of this sealing device."
It wasn't as if she had been idle for the past 200 years.
Even with her magic restricted by the device, she had tried everything she could to dispel the barrier. However, at her current pace, she calculated it would take roughly 1,200 years just to analyze it.
Of course, the very idea of a mortal like her analyzing a god's barrier was absurd to begin with. But even if she did finish the analysis, dispelling it in her current state was another problem entirely.
"Hey, now, things are different from back then."
"Huh? Different how?"
"You have me now."
Was there really no way to escape without dispelling the barrier?
I didn't think so.
Even a department store on Earth sold escape artifacts designed for civilians trapped in Gates.
The problem was that they were ridiculously expensive, but I figured I could afford one if I just got Iris's permission to dig up some of the World Tree roots scattered all over the place.
However, there was one fact that Kang Hyun-woo had overlooked.
Earth, where magical beasts had existed since the dawn of human history, was overflowing with a wide variety of artifacts and magic tools. But when it came to the existence of gods, nothing had yet been proven.
Ancient historical records occasionally described transcendent beings, but experts still debated whether these figures were actual gods or simply super-powerful individuals like S-rank hunters.
As a result, Kang Hyun-woo had no way of gauging the true nature of a god like the World Tree, which actually existed in this world.
Such is the nature of a shallow imagination.
He hadn't even considered for a moment whether an artifact developed by humans could ever break through a god's barrier.
It would be some time before Kang Hyun-woo learned this fact.
"I came from another world called Earth."
"What...? Another world?"
I explained the circumstances of my arrival here to Iris in as much detail as I could.
Except for the part about the dating app.
It wasn't like I was trying to pick up girls, but my pride wouldn't allow me to admit that a grown man got dragged here while using a dating app.
Of course, Iris wouldn't know what a dating app was, but I might have to explain it later.
At first, I was at a loss as to how to explain what a cellphone was, but it seemed the development of magic tools in this world was quite impressive.
"...So, you're saying you traveled between dimensions to our world through this communication device from your world, called a cellphone?"
"Yes."
With just a brief explanation, she seemed to understand the concept of a cellphone.
It was quite surprising how she grasped the key points despite my poor explanation skills. Her reaction to the idea of dimensional travel, however, was surprisingly mild.
'Is it because it sounds too far-fetched?'
If anything, she seemed more interested in the phone itself. I could tell just by looking at her, even if she didn't say it out loud.
"Want to try using it?"
"Is that really okay...?"
"Of course."
"Th-Thank you..."
I handed the phone to Iris, who had been staring at it as if mesmerized.
With a happy expression, she began to fiddle with it. I explained various functions to her, satisfying her curiosity.
The disappointed look on her face when I told her she couldn't connect to the internet right now was so cute I wanted to take a picture of it.
An elf's reaction to using a modern cellphone… If I uploaded this to NewTube, wouldn't it get at least five million views in a single day?
'I guess the 'Another World Dating App' is only visible to me.'
Just in case, I tried to show Iris the app, but she couldn't seem to see anything.
It seemed this app didn't match me with girls from another world, but rather sent me to a place where a girl who met my desired conditions existed.
'I think I can be sure after a few more matches.'
For now, that was a distant prospect.
"Um... Hyun-woo..."
"Yes? What is it...?"
I turned my head without much thought and saw the screen Iris was showing me. I felt a shock as if someone had just smacked me on the back of the head.
On the screen was an all-too-familiar picture.
It was an uncensored photo of an AV actress, her large breasts fully exposed.
It was fap material I had gone to great lengths to acquire recently. Why was Iris showing it to me?
'...Ah, I forgot to tell her not to go into the gallery.'
Although it was a relatively recent photo, it wasn't the last one I had saved. If she was showing me this, it meant she had already seen pictures that were far more explicit and catered entirely to my tastes.
"H-Hyun-woo, is this... what you like?"
"..."
Kang Hyun-woo was speechless.
He felt as if he had just shown his collection of porn videos and lewd pictures to a blind date, declaring them his 'type.' Not that he had ever been on a blind date.
—Hey, just kill yourself.
He even heard an auditory hallucination, as if his own instincts were speaking to him.
"I-If you'd like...!!"
Just when I was thinking it might be better to just drown myself in a bowl of water, I heard Iris's pitifully trembling voice.
Her face, red as if it were about to explode, drew closer as she tightly gripped my hand.
"Would you... like to touch my breasts?"