This fucker got lost in a wheatfield for 19 months.

19 whole months.

I'm not sure you can understand the pain of seeing a dryad, a being that can talk to plants, wandering in circles in a wheatfield, trying to follow the sun since this dumbass thinks the sun is fixed in the sky, until you actually experience it.

Even the goddamn grass was telling him that he was going the wrong way, but did he listen? Nah, he completely forgot that they were even saying something until today.

I was a fool to believe that this fool could even try to beat the other shithead harem lead.

Well, in the end, he finally got out of that accursed field. The dryad bowed to the grass, thanking it for helping him. The grass uttered some curses at him, calling him a dumbass for not paying attention, and then promptly ignored him, raising my opinion of it and forcing me to reconsider finding a way to break the fourth wall and burning the shitty field to the ground so I won't ever have to see it again.

If this dude ever finds a way back to the wheatfield, I'm going to smite him so hard.

Finally out of that place, the dryad surveyed the place around him. There was a road straight ahead, a few trees far, far off in the distance to the left, and a plume of smoke to his right, about... 3 or 4 miles away. Shouldn't take more than 3 hours to get there. Either the road or the smoke would be a good way to go, with the road leading to civilization, and fire usually means something, be it monsters or men.

The dryad took a long look at the smoke. It was... strange. Familiar. And yet... repulsive. A whiff of smoke somehow traveled multiple miles without dissipating, and wafted up the dryad's nose.

Writing is fucking hard. That last part of the last sentence was definitely wrong some way or another, but I don't care.

Anyways, the dude recoiled at the smell. 100 years ago, before the goddess got seduced, lighting fell upon the sacred grove when the dumb bitch of a goddess through a hissy fit and wanted to piss off the gardening diety cause of some flowers or something. Jokes on here, there is no gardening diety. Maybe if she actually paid attention to her surrounding she would have realized, but whatever. The sacred tree, or the dryad dude, has no idea about this shit, just that lighting somehow struck the sacred grove and a fire started. Was he safe? Yeah, otherwise he would have been dead. Did it really kill any normal trees? No, even if it was a smite the sacred grove was still a sacred grove, and did sacred grove stuff. Did the trees, despite the minimal damage, still act like pussies and began moaning and screaming that the apocalypse was coming and that they were going to die due to a little fire? Yeah. The dryad was still smart enough back then to realize that no, the apocalypse was not coming, otherwise he'd be fighting some wimpy ass bastard imps, but the screams and moans of his pathetic brethren still were traumatizing, and the smell brought back the memories.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

What did this mean? It meant that this pussy ran for the trees, as far away from the smoke as he could. Down the path? Nope, he didn't trust the strange material that was used. It was likely asphalt. The dumbass protagonist brought back the weirdest things to start a business to bring in the money and the bitches. Should have brought back vaccines or something actually useful to overthrow the church or some shit.

So the dryad, not knowing asphalt, again, ran for the trees and that is redundant. Whatever. The dryad ran and ran and ran, and kept on running towards the trees.

It took quite a while. Not as long as in the wheatfield, but still took a while. Of course, him actually going in the right direction for once helped immensely. It took around 6 hours of nonstop running to reach the trees, long enough that the road and smoke were far out of sight. All that running, and for nothing at all.

There were like 8 trees, sure, but nothing else. No humans, no elves, nothing sentient. There weren't even any fucking animals. Hell, even the stereotypical birds chirping in the trees would suffice.

The dryad seemed worried as he ran his hands down the trees. Didn't seem like he was getting any responses. The trees were very much alive, at least physically. The leaves were a vibrant green, and the bark seemed to be healthy. The dryad stuck his finger in the soil and nodded approvingly. Looked like the soil gained his approval. So then what made it wrong?

It would be neat if the apocalypse already wiped out all life forms due to the holy tree getting stuck in the wheatfield for a while. Then that dickhead would be dead, or more likely gone from this, traversing through the multiverse to fuck up some other world- Damnit, he's still here, and getting his game on with the queens. Disappointing.

The more likely answer is that the hero seduced some dryads in this particular group of trees and they all went and joined his harem as Harem Member #12094 or something. That would explain the trees going silent, and perhaps all the animals leaving too.

The dryad stood up, contemplating something mysterious. I don't trust him to be able to connect the dots on this issue, seeing as his previous performance was... lacking at best, and fucking shit at worst.

"This must be... soul magic?!" See? He thinks it's soul magic- wait, that bastard is onto something. Huh... the dryad changed from a tree to his current form, leaving no husk behind. If that's the case, should there be no tree left if they were seduced?

Damn that hero and his soul magic! I can't even see any gain of him using soul magic on these shitty trees, unless he just extracted their souls and made, I dunno, ghost dryads. Is that even possible? Could be that those evil bitches in his harem killed them so there won't be more members, although at this point it'd be but a drop in a vast and fucked up ocean, or for some experiment or something. Honestly, I can't see there being anyone else who'd do such a thing.

Are there even people trying to stop this son of a bitch at this point, other than this dumbass dryad?

The dryad in question currently had his head buried in the dirt, having decided he wanted to do his best ostrich impression. Or something. I dunno, I don't speak retard. He dramatically raised his head from the hole and shoveled in the dirt. He looked back at the wh- Oh no you don't, you son of a bitch, you are not going back to that shitty wheatfield-

"The path of death leads back to that source of the smoke." The dryad gritted his teeth and got back up. He began to pace back and forth, as if to cool his nerves. The sun slowly set until he finally stopped, and looked back at the sunset.

"I suppose I must go to the fire to stop them." A steely look returned to his eyes. Fun. "So be it. To the fire I shall go." Great, finally this lazy bastard does some work. I just hope he actually does shit now...