Reborn as an Extra Chapter 629: To The Temple Of Nature! Part-4.
Previously on Reborn as an Extra...
’You mentioned that this artifact was once genuine... your statement hints that it no longer exists...’
[Why do you suppose the fairies, who could just appear out of thin air thanks to that artifact, came so close to total extinction?]
[The primary origin of their existence, the ’Fountain of Elemental Life,’ got destroyed during a clash that occurred way before the thousand-year war...]
’Does that mean their numbers began declining right from the start of the thousand-year war?’
’It’s no surprise they almost vanished completely... with no new fairies born for almost a millennium, and they were hunted down on purpose by demons and various other races too...’
As Lia watched Lyria and Miria beam with joy while waving to the surrounding fairies by the fountain, she could merely shake her head in despair.
’Now I get why awakeners hate diving into dungeons that recreate old times...’
Despite knowing a terrible event loomed ahead, Lia felt helpless to aid Lyria and Miria or alter their destiny; the disaster was already over, and she merely observed this vanished era now.
Powerless to alter the events that had unfolded, she could only stand by as this historical scene unfolded before her like a mere spectator.
[Besides the shelter of the dragon valley, the sole factor keeping the fairy race from dying out is their immortality...]
[Composed entirely of mana and elementals, their forms lack any notion of growing old... they stay largely unchanged from the moment of their creation...]
[A fairy won’t perish without outside intervention... the ones safeguarded in the dragon valley won’t grow in numbers, but their population holds steady without much loss...]
With a heavy sigh, Lia pushed the thoughts aside, unwilling to let ancient history weigh her down with sorrow.
Bursting with excitement, Lyria and Miria showed Lia to a few of their companions, each one assuming she was a royal fairy and treating her with warm kindness.
The mix-up with Lyria and Miria still lingered unresolved, so Lia simply dissolved her spirit armor while keeping the glowing wings on her back to avoid hurting the little ones’ feelings.
That led the other fairies to misjudge her as well, and by then it was too troublesome to clarify, so Lia just went along with it.
Following some light conversation with the fairies and a gaze at the famed sacred fountain, Lia along with the rest proceeded onward, stepping into the majestic temple via the inner entrance.
Silence filled the temple’s interior, which was almost deserted; scarcely any fairies lingered within, yet those present radiated far greater power than the ones beyond.
’Probably the eldest and most powerful ones guard this temple...’
Though these ancient fairies possessed greater might, to Lia they appeared frail and vulnerable still, their presence peaking at a mere C-ranker’s level.
Beauty adorned every corner inside the temple; it seemed like every single stone and marble in its construction had been buffed to perfection!
All surfaces gleamed brightly, featuring intricate carvings of fairies alongside cosmic wonders such as the sun, moon, planets, and more, etched across the temple’s walls and columns!
Traversing the vast hall, Lia and her companions reached a enormous levitating statue positioned right at the heart of the space.
Every fairy visiting for worship directed their prayers solely to this figure, with nothing else like it anywhere in the hall.
Upon examining the hovering statue, Lia discovered it to be a gigantic orb etched with the full layout of the universe!
’What is this!?’
Far from mere carefree tiny beings, fairies led advances in restorative spells, and as devotees of the ’World,’ they dedicated themselves to charting a precise depiction of the ’Universe.’
Representing an early cosmic chart, this airborne statue bore markings for key locations and fragile points in the universe’s spirit domain.
[If my recollection holds true, this cosmic chart slipped into a dimensional rift, and even now its whereabouts in the endless cosmos remain unknown...]
’So how could they craft a chart from it once it vanished?’
[The individual responsible for its loss caught a quick look and recreated it from recall, with descendants refining it gradually over the years...]
[Humans possess devices named ’Telescopes’... those helped fill in vast portions of the chart...]
Even with the universe’s chart in existence, huge swaths of it stay uncharted, since explorers haven’t ventured to spots merely spied through scopes.
Lacking thorough journeys, the chart retains significant errors.
For fairies, the cosmos serves as their deity; hence, they beseech its chart for divine favor, while to humans and beyond, it represents a treasure of immense value.
Their restorative abilities alone didn’t spark the persecution; covetous desires for the fairies’ relics and treasures played a huge role in their assaults and near annihilation.
In contrast to humans and similar beings, fairies brimmed with feeble members, almost all unfit for battle; their tech amounted to nothing.
Even with such feeble safeguards, their hoard of precious relics and goods inevitably drew the avarice of outsiders.