The sensation of slowly sinking into tofu lingered for quite some time.

Then, at some point, my vision suddenly brightened along with a feeling of weightlessness enveloping me.

"Ugh."

I was about 3m up in the air.

I landed lightly, immediately clenching my fist as I spread my Tide Sense across the surroundings.

After confirming that there were no enemies or traps around me for now, I let out a sigh of relief and looked around. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

I thought it was simply the underground filled with melted stone, but it wasn’t.

It was an entirely different world. It was still a mountain, but there were no trees, rocks, or wild animals. There wasn’t even the most common of streams running through it.

The only things that existed here were flowers.

There were all kinds of them of every color, blooming in full, releasing a fragrance so thick it stung the nose.

"What is this?”

Grabbing my throbbing head, I spread my Tide Sense even further.

As expected, no matter how far I extended it, there wasn’t a single place without flowers. A space where, if you stepped anywhere, you would inevitably end up trampling them.

It was beautiful, yet grotesque. Having confirmed that much, I immediately heightened my guard and covered my nose.

If it was this unusual, there was no way this was just a normal space.

—This place was a world.

Being inside a world you couldn’t respond to was dangerous in itself. Even more so if its owner was likely Heavenly Balance.

'Even if I don’t need to breathe, just in case…'

I pulled out a long handkerchief and fashioned it into a makeshift mask, tightly sealing my mouth and nose.

Just because they were flowers didn’t mean I could just ignore them. For all I knew, this could be a place filled with poisonous plants or carnivorous ones that drained one's nutrients.

If it was the latter, it could explain why Heavenly Balance needed offerings. I casually pressed down on the flowers beneath my feet with water pressure, sinking into thought for a moment.

It was impossible to be brought into a world without the owner’s explicit invitation.

The one who brought me here was Heavenly Balance. She knew I was alive and still chose to invite me into this place.

Why? Did she think she was stronger than Decay? I really had no clue why she went out of her way to take me here.

However, what mattered the most was that my presence here was Heavenly Balance’s decision.

Staying still like this would be exactly what she wanted.

"...Looks like she’s confident."

So this is how it was going to be.

If I wanted to learn about the prophecy, a fight was pretty much inevitable. No matter how advantageous this battlefield was for her, there was no way around it.

-Crack

As I drew in water pressure, the flowers began to bow, as if a powerful storm had swept through.

I wasn’t even applying any real force here. They were just too fragile and soft, reacting even to the slightest change in humidity.

'Should I start with wiping them all out?'

If this really was a flower-based world, then destroying them all should trigger something.

That was where I’d begin. I clenched my fist.

And—

"Aaaaaaaaaagh!!!”

"Gaaaaaaaaaargh..."

"C-cough…”

"?"

Painfilled groans began to echo through the area.

Were they carnivorous plants? Thinking that, I looked toward the source of the cries and found three flowers.

A lily of the valley. A violet. A dandelion.

They looked no different from the countless other flowers around them, yet they writhed, shaking their leaves in agony as they cried.

"Please!! Stop this! It hurts so much!”

"Damn it, what the hell is this?! What did we even do wrong?!”

"Aaagh…Agh…”

In this vast garden, only three flowers were crying out in pain under the pressure.

I immediately dug up their roots with water pressure and brought them in front of me.

"What are you?”

"Are you blind?! We’re flowers, flowers! Never seen one before?!”

The violet burst out in rage, scattering pollen everywhere. I frowned and grabbed its stem, to which it convulsed like an insect.

"Y-you do this and the Gardener will be furious! I’m their favorite flower!”

"Is that so?”

If this “Gardener” was Heavenly Balance, then this one had value as a hostage. I stuffed it into my pocket and turned my gaze to the other, more obedient flowers.

"I only need one hostage. I won’t ask again. What are you?”

"F-flowers…”

"Just flowers…”

"You weren’t flowers from the start, were you?”

"Uhm, excuse me, but the one you’re stepping on right now is my mother…I mean, the one who gave me pollen so I could be fertilized…”

...I lifted my foot slightly off the lily of the valley I had been stepping on.

"I-It’s okay! I was wind-pollinated, so I’ve never even seen her face! Please, just spare me…”

The lily of the valley and the dandelion trembled as if begging for their lives.

No matter how I looked at them, they had no combat ability. Of course, I couldn’t let my guard down—but no matter how much I scanned them with my Tide Sense, if these things were enemies, even a child could kill ten thousand of them in a day.

Clutching my throbbing head again, I asked once more.

"So, you’re saying you’ve been flowers from the beginning? Who told you what flowers even are?”

"The Gardener…told us we’re flowers…”

That probably was Heavenly Balance.

"Did they tell you why you’re the only ones who can think and talk while the others can’t?”

"They said it’s because we’re flowers invited from the outside world.”

"...?"

"A-and, there are more like us in other gardens, too. If you don’t kill me, I’ll tell you everything.”

"Shit! Hey, don’t act like a traitor! Kill me! Go on, try killing me!”

The violet screamed hysterically from inside my pocket.

I sealed the pocket shut so it couldn’t speak at all, then grabbed the stem of the lily of the valley.

"Don’t lie to me. You said you came from the outside world, so how the hell were you pollinated here?”

"Eeek! Well, my body is here, but my soul is from outside…B-but! I don't remember anything about what I did out there! If I did something wrong, I’m sorry! It probably wasn’t me. It was another flower! There are over a hundred lilies of the valley I know!”

Pollination. Outside. Soul.

Offerings, both Fallen and normal humans. Humans dying under Heavenly Balance’s command. Countless corpses. Heavenly Balance’s location.

As I pieced all these fragments together, my expression slowly twisted.

"You—Are you a Fallen?”

"P-pardon?!”

It looked confused, as if it didn’t even understand the term.

"Did you lose all your memories from outside? You don’t have a single one?”

"Yes..."

I stared at the countless flowers in full bloom across the garden for a long moment, then let out a hollow laugh.

Why would she need this many flowers?

The answer came to me in an instant.

"...These are all spare bodies, no…feeding vessels.”

Heavenly Balance...

seems to be planning to turn every human on the continent into flowers.

*t*t*

"Th-this is where the others are. There are really a lot of them besides me. The lily of the valley you saw before probably wasn’t me…”

Guided by the lily of the valley that seemed to recall something, I headed toward a place where flowers with different personalities, abbreviated to "human-flowers," were gathered.

My Tide Sense, sharp enough to count every strand of hair on someone’s head, detected countless flowers turning their heads toward me the moment I entered the garden.

"Huh? Did the Gardener change?”

"Idiot, why would the Gardener change? It’s just someone else.”

"But everyone else the Gardener brought here was already dead.”

"Just because it’s moving doesn’t mean it’s alive, right? It could be dead and still moving.”

Judging by their chatter, they were a bit dim, but not much different from humans conversing.

Mentally, they seemed to be around seven or eight years old. I frowned, reminded of the children in the spire’s basement.

Perhaps sensing the start of something violent, the lily of the valley trembled and spoke.

"You know, the Gardener will come soon. If you kill everything here, it could cause a big problem. I don’t think that would be good.”

I half-listened, half-ignored it, and sat down nearby to organize my thoughts.

'It’s safe to assume these are all humans.’

It would be one thing if only Fallen were accepted into this place, but Sunken Mire said ordinary human corpses were also used as offerings.

And according to the lily of the valley, these flowers didn’t just number in the dozens or hundreds. More like thousands—and if you included the other kinds of flowers, easily tens of thousands.

If you added up all the people secretly killed by Scarlet Abyss in places we didn’t know about, the number would roughly match.

Even if it wasn't all of them, most of them had ended up here, living as flowers.

Though whether this could even be called ‘living’ was another matter.

What mattered was one thing.

'I don’t see the purpose.’

What could she possibly gain from this?

These flowers were nothing more than useless plants. Even if there were a million of them, they wouldn’t pose a threat to me.

More importantly, what the lily of the valley had just said stuck with me.

"What do you mean the Gardener will be here soon?”

"Th-the Gardener comes once every week. They gather the dead people collected where I was, increase the number of flowers, and then leave. She just repeats that process.”

"So they’re not here right now?”

"N-no! When they come, we can tell.”

"If you’re lying—”

"I’m telling the truth!”

The way the lily of the valley flapped its leaves, trying to prove its innocence, was incredibly irritating.

Its words implied that I hadn’t been invited by Heavenly Balance. I had simply fallen into this world through a passage.

That shouldn’t be possible. It would be like someone suddenly appearing inside the Abyssal Sea. If this really was Heavenly Balance’s world, she would have had to invite me.

In other words, this world wasn’t Heavenly Balance’s.

Now I couldn’t even be sure that this ‘Gardener’ actually was Heavenly Balance at all.

After a moment of thought, I casually planted the timid lily of the valley nearby and pulled out the foul-tempered violet from my pocket.

"Hey."

"You bastard intruder, who the hell do you think you’re—”

Unlike the naive lily, this one immediately resisted, thrashing about.

I let it struggle for a bit before it calmed slightly, then crushed it with water pressure.

"What do you know about the Gardener? Tell me everything.”

"G-gkh—You think I’d tell you anything? Why the hell would I?”

Even facing death, the violet refused to back down. Quite impressive for a mere flower. I shrugged.

"Is that so? Then it can’t be helped.”

As the pressure suddenly vanished, the violet glared at me (or that was what I thought at least). Instead, I lit a small flame on my fingertip.

"...!!!"

The reaction was immediate.

The one who had stood fearless before death froze solid the moment I moved the flame closer.

"I’ve got business with this Gardener of yours.”

"..."

"If you don’t talk, I’ll just wreck this place until they show up.”

"D-don’t do that.”

"This place is nothing but flowers. I’m curious how far a tiny flame like this would spread.”

Even as the flame neared the ground, it held out—

—Whoosh.

"...You fucking bastard.”

The moment a single flower began to scorch, it finally lowered its head.

"What do you want to know?”

"Everything."

I kept the flame hovering just above the ground as I spoke.

"Tell me everything you know about the Gardener.”