Now, the plant known as the "Thorin Giant Tree" stood before Andesa's eyes.
She lay in a convalescent room specially prepared for her. The room was located on the western side of old Thorinburg and had once belonged to the local lord. Much of its once-refined decor remained, though modern furnishings had been added among the lavish household items. Beside her was a tall crystal window, through which she could see an endless expanse of green.
That was the canopy of the Thorin Giant Tree—strictly speaking, the underside at the edge of its canopy. An unimaginably vast mass of branches and leaves spread layer upon layer there, filling Andesa's vision like a green ocean hanging upside down in the sky. It was so enormous that sunlight was completely blocked by the canopy. The closer one came to the Thorin Giant Tree's central region, the scarcer the sunlight became, and the entire area beneath the canopy should therefore have been shrouded in perpetual night—or so it should have been.
In reality, countless light sources had driven away the shadows beneath the canopy.
Along the surface paths and in several villages and towns, the Cecilians had set up numerous artificial lights, illuminating the human settlements like a city that never slept. Meanwhile, luminous vines and fluorescent fungi wound through the overhead canopy and around the woody pillars extending down from it, ensuring that the wilderness beneath the Thorin Giant Tree did not sink into complete darkness.
Artificial lights on one side, glowing natural plants on the other—the two had merged in a strange symbiosis upon this land once ruined by war, both sheltered beneath the giant tree.
It was a sight Andesa had never seen anywhere else.
After settling in, she spent a long time staring out the window, taking in every