The foliage was dense, but the pants were more so. Noise filled the surroundings, not just that of the birdsong and the crunching jeering of the undergrowth, but those ragged breaths doing their best to escape.

"It's useless, you know!" The man calmly shouted; amusement led his voice. "Run all you want; you are only delaying the inevitable."

Whilst it was problematic that he was losing this much time with a single head; he couldn't deny he was enjoying it. Sometimes life was about taking pleasure in those small moments.

Crash. Thud. "Ahh!" And a scream.

A brilliant mind wasn't needed to guess what had just happened. The man slowly strode to the source of the noise. There he saw a boy with chocolate skin whimpering as he clutched his leg. Both his feet were naked, devoid of any footwear and covered in blisters, but that wasn't the greatest of the wounds.

"Ah," the man scratched the back of his head and clicked with his tongue. "That's why I told you to not run. You are useless to me now with a broken leg. No one wants a cotton picker with a broken leg unless you know how to write. Do you know how to write?"

The boy painfully swayed his head from side to side as he clutched his leg, trying to keep the flowing blood inside. Props to the boy, he wasn't screaming, and no one would have blamed him after such a brutal wound.

"Fuck," the man was no longer amused. "Welp, that's a day lost. We could have avoided all of this if you remained with the rest of the slaves, but nooo, someone had to run for their freedom." He strode around the boy doing theatrical gestures. "Don't blame me, blame yourself."

The man took out his sword, a saber. A fire burned in his blood as his strength suddenly increased. A misuse of vitality and money, but he wasn't that bad of a person, he would put the boy out of his misery with one swift cut.

Rustle.

The head of the man snapped to the source of the sound, and he took another stance, both literally and mystically.

"Who goes there?" He asked. We are far from the heart of the Evergreen, there shouldn't be monsters here.

The foliage rustled again, making the man more nervous, but after a few tense moments, the source of the sound revealed itself.

A person.

No. A humanoid being.

With the skin of that of trees and a crown of leaves on its head.

"Oh, a dryad," he relaxed. "I wasn't aware this was part of your realm. Surely you do not care about my passage, do you?"

The dryad failed to respond.

"Fret not, I am already going away," the man raised his hands with his weapon still on them. "You can do whatever you please with the beast boy. Uncivilized bunch, you see."

Once more, the dryad failed to answer.

"A-are you a dryad?" The man asked in confusion. "You don't look quite like the others I've seen. Never before with a crown. That's for sure."

Silence.

"Do you not know how to talk?" That's weird, all dryads are supposed to understand any speech. Maybe no one has taught it? "A newborn, are you?"

He got no response. He took that as an affirmation.

"Oh, well, it seems that it is my lucky day. Lost a slave, gained a dryad." The man chuckled. "Sorry boy, can't put you out of your misery now, dryads hate whenever any life is extinguished. Once again, blame yourself. Come on, follow me," he told the dryad after grabbing its hand.

The dryad did as commanded, exacerbating the man's smile.

Whilst wielders of much destruction, dryads were pacifists. Unless their hands were forced, they wouldn't resort to violence. As a matter of fact, they were quite amenable. And as good as it seemed, newborn dryads were obedient.

Getting out of the forest was a time-consuming task, but he managed to reach Selen before the sun came out. The city had once been a mighty fortress, but as the need for war ceased – at least in this part of the world – now it was nothing more than a logistical hub.

A pitstop for more important locations.

But there were advantages of being located at such an important hub.

Intercontinental travel was still slow and tedious, so the foreign slaves always made their entrance to Ydaz from the fjords, but from there to the heart of the country, there were many kilometers. Selen was just one of the many pitstops from there to Asina, this just happened to be the biggest one.

The dryad kept gawking at its surroundings as they strode around the forest, but the monster plant's mouth truly became agape when they reached Selen. Not quite the metropolis the capital was, but still bustling with movement.

He didn't want anyone to steal his dryad though, so the man covered it with his cape and then carefully brought it to his safehouse.

Complacent, the dryad remained standing in place once he finally let its hand go.

"Now, I don't want you running away until I find a buyer, so I'll need some precautions." He grabbed some of the chains they normally used for slaves and locked the dryad against the wall.

Whilst the moving plants were quite strong, they were also… well, plants. Unless they were given a stimulus, they were more than happy to remain perfectly still until the end of time.

"Nice," he dusted his hands after checking the dryad wouldn't be moving any time soon. "Now to get paid."

Finding a buyer in Selen wasn't difficult. Perhaps in other cities, it would have been a nightmare to contact the black market, but between the slave trade and the offshoot assassins, it was hard to get in contact with the appropriate sources.

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"Quite the find product, indeed," said the gentleman wearing a mighty top hat he had brought to inspect the dryad.

Though calling the old man a gentleman was quite the praise. He was but a bourgeois and a nouveau riche who had amassed his fortune through the slave trade and cotton plantations.

And he showed it with his appearance.

The old man's hat had no business being this big. The only reason why it didn't collapse on itself was because of the copious amounts of cotton it was made with.

"Do you think it will sell well?" He questioned with a hand close to his weapon in case things turned ugly. Rich people may be able to afford a lot of power, but it was lent strength, most had never wielded a weapon and didn't know how to use their gained strength.

"Oh, it absolutely will sell!" He twirled his mustache with one hand and supported his glass cane with the other. "Not only is it quite the find to see a newborn dryad, but beyond collectors, most would like to use its properties. And there are those who would like to taste one. In what way, I cannot say, but…" The gentleman pointed at the dryad's exposed crotch with his cane. "Those lips are apparently as real as that of a human, and I've heard they feel even better. Surely there's a deviant out there willing to pay a fortune to try to impregnate a plant."

"I wish," the man cared not about the plant, but how much money he could gain from it. "So how much?"

"Ah, that I cannot tell just yet. This product is worthy of an auction," the gentleman explained. "But I can say in advance that the starting point will be at least ten drupnarea."

The man did some fast calculations in his mind. Real hard workers didn't use such old metrics of currency as drupnars were more than enough to measure their net worth.

"Ten thousand drupnars?" He contained his reaction after realizing how much money he was being offered.

"As a starting point," the gentleman reiterated. "And, of course, you will only get a fraction of that. How does fifty percent sound?"

A fucking robbery. Those were the man's honest thoughts, but he was dealing with the true garbage of humanity here. Maybe the gentleman was not able to kill him, but his goons most likely could.

"An agreeable amount," he responded. Greed led people to their demise, and honestly speaking, five thousand drupnars was quite a good offer, and that amount could only get bigger.

"Will be seeing each other next week then. Good afternoon to you, sir." The nouveau riche tipped his hat and went away.

"So, you actually have a hole between your legs, huh?" The man crossed his arms and said to the dryad once the slave trader had disappeared. "As interested as I am, surely you will sell for more if you are a virgin. If plants can even be virgins. Well, isn't olive oil virgin? Or how does that work?"

The man remained pensive and musing as he convinced himself against putting his dick inside the plant's hole.

Unsurprisingly, during the following week, the dryad failed to react even once unless prompted. He left it next to a window so it could take a bit of sunlight and peed on it to water it a bit after he came drunk back to his safe house on the first day, but beyond that, the dryad didn't seem to require any sustenance.

The auction house ended up being quite a gaudy place with lots of decorations coated in gold – though it was most likely an alloy of brass – and much red cotton velvet. Even if it was a misuse of cotton, rich people loved having it everywhere as a show of their wealth. Still, quite the avenue for an underground hidden lair.

The man didn't bother socializing at that event, he was only interested in the profits. And, oh boy, profits he gained.

The rich loved wasting their money and a newborn dryad turned them crazy. Not many people had a dryad, and even then, it was with the dryad's very consent and not as a slave. If a plant could be called a slave.

It was a golden opportunity.

Two hundred and fifty thousand drupnars, that was how much he obtained. And that wasn't even for how much the dryad sold for as he got only paid half. Half a million drupnars. He had never seen that much money, he doubted that much money existed before that, but as the auction paid him in bills and treasury notes, he almost choked from the amount of money his eyes saw.

That much money changed a man.

No longer could things be counted in what he could afford, but in what he couldn't afford.

And there weren't many of those.

A house and some slaves of his own were the first he bought. A good villa with sights of the city but far away from the noise of its poor inhabitants and the factories.

Slave women were fine and all, but he preferred those gold-diggers that flowed to him. Ah, he had such a magnetic presence.

"Ah~" He moaned as the woman between his legs did her best to please him, but truth be told, she was quite rough.

He was enjoying more the fact that the woman was a fallen noble aching to recover her fancy way of life by any means. Noble whores are truly the best ones. Except this one.

"Come on, woman put more enthusiasm!" He grabbed her by the hair and pushed her mouth to the root of his shaft. "I've seen retard homeless little girls sucking better than you!"

The woman unsurprisingly gagged after a moment unable to handle the sublime manhood that she had been offered. She forced herself off and started coughing with tears coming from the corners of her eyes.

"Useless!" He slapped her, knocking her to the ground.

The sight of a naked noblewoman coughing on the ground excited him more than her mouth had done. If he wanted any good sex, he would have picked up any slave. Those who were mothers were the best ones as they not only had experience, but it was also impossibly exciting to fuck them in front of their children. If they were girls, even better, gotta make them know that they are next.

He truly was a good person; no other person would buy a slave mother and her daughter. He was basically a saint by allowing the family to remain together. Except the men, those he sent to the cotton fields to pocket him some money.

Passive income was almost as good as sex.

As the noblewoman failed to continue pleasuring him, he stood up and grabbed her by the hair. Lifting a person was hard, especially with such an awkward hold, but it was nothing that a bit of strength stance couldn't help, especially now that he could afford the pills.

"As it seems your upper mouth is lacking, I will have to try your lower one," he whispered to her ear.

"No, please no!" She screamed. "You promised me that only my mouth would suffice!"

"That was before knowing how awful your mouth was, you dumb whore!" He slapped her again and she broke down crying.

In any case, that only excited him more.

Then the door to his dormitory swung open.

"Who dares interrupt me? Don't you see I'm occupied, dumb ser…vants?"

The figure standing at the door wasn't a servant, not even a human.

It was a humanoid being.

"What are you doing here?" He shouted at the crowned dryad. "Don't you see I've sold you? Return back to your master before we get into problems!"

The dryad failed to respond.

Instead, it... she approached.

And approached.

Before the man could react or switch stances, the dryad had grabbed him by the head.

And raised him from the ground.

The man tried to fight against the dryad's hold, but no matter how much strength he mustered, the dryad's fingers didn't bulge.

What happened next chilled him to the core.

"You truly are the worst garbage of humanity," the dryad spoke.

Her breath was so potent that it came out in thick puffs of orange and her eyes shone with a green so vivacious that put emeralds to shame.

Then she put pressure on her hold.

"Stop!" The man ordered. "Do you know what you are doing? I am your master!" He wasn't, at least no longer. Or rather, had never been.

The dryad failed to respond.

Instead, she put in more strength.

And more. And more. Even after assuming the defense stance, the man felt pain as his cranium was more and more compressed.

His vision became blurry, and the scenery melted. No longer was he in his room with a whore on his feet, but back in the forest where he had spotted the dryad, the boy from then was still there and he looked at him with fear.

"Whuh?" He expressed confusion. "Where am I?"

Finally, he noticed. The one the boy was looking at with fear wasn't him. Oh no, not him.

It was the dryad.

"Stop!" The man screamed, flailing his body around.

The dryad's response was to put more strength in her grip. He heard something crack.

"You don't have to do this!" The man begged.

The next crack was the last one he heard as his cranium gave up and the dryad's fingers turned his brain into mush.