During the what, 46 hours? It has taken for this damn dryad to catch up with the fire, I have realized that 19 months is a long, long time. Long enough that there are a few discrepancies in my information. For example? Saying that he only invented tanks before the 19 months, and mentioning that he invented asphalt afterward. The answer to that? It's been 19 fucking months, he's had time to invented asphalt roads for his tanks. And the 20 harem members before vs the tens of thousands later? The answer to that is a shitty hierarchy system? If you're a main female? Then you get specially fucked. If you're a generic member? You don't get a name and only get included during parties or some shit. It's a shitty system.

You know, shouldn't the caste system be abolished rather than reinstated in the typical reincarnation stories? This dude's fucked up.

Whatever. So the dryad, initially spurred on by the burning desire to seek revenge against the whoever performed the soul magic, began to slow down when the sun finally set. It was night, so no sun, and thus no energy. And yet he walked, for... I guess to avenge his brethren? I dunno, I just want him to finally get there, to fuck some people up, to prove that he can take that bastard down and rip his guts out or something.

It took another 12 hours for the sun to finally rise again. And thank god for that, since this man is fucking slow during the night. I nearly fell asleep, although it will never be as bad as the wheat field. But we're finally out, and that man started to sprint. It took yet another 3 hours to finally reach the remains of the camp, at the original source of the smoke. It sucked. It sucked hard. No, I guess it functioned or something somehow while they were there. But...

It was a shitty cover up. There were still tents there, all torn up and destroyed. The camp was still smoldering, a cooking pot was torn in half, and what's this? The innards of some beast or human were strewn across the floor. Not to mention disgustingly gaudy skulls with like earthen spikes systematically embedded in them, forming some awful patterns on them. It was hideous. The whole camp was. Whoever decided this looked good should be executed in the messiest way possible. No, they probably were in order to get all the severed body parts for the camp. Necromancers should have proper aesthetics if they're going to parade around the fact that they mess with dead bodies and souls for a living like fucking dumbasses.

They couldn't even clean up after themselves properly, judging by the mess and the set of bloodied footprints heading north. At this point, it's likely that this was either a trap for dumbasses like this fucking dryad who just decided it was such a brilliant idea to start following the tracks without even scouring the camp for important stuff like that fucking book with a goddamn cover made of human flesh which may or may not have tons of spells and shit in it that would drastically improve his fucking repertoire of combat things, or that an animal mauled the necromancers and trashed the camp... Which I would find rather unlikely since they were necromancers, but since the final option is that they just ditched the camp in this sorry state and just ran without even hiding anything, I suppose they are fucking idiots who deserved to get mauled by an animal if that is the case.

If they really are harem members, I've got to say them just ditching the camp like morons with shit for brains would be the likeliest bet

Anyways, without considering any of the fucking options the dryad just followed the bloody footprints. There weren't any bloodstains near the tracks, just the footprints, making it rather unlikely that the person running was actually injured rather than stepping into entrail and having blood on their shoes, but the look on that dumbass' face made it certain that he thought someone was in danger.

It took a while to reach there, but reach there he did. Where is there? I don't fucking know, it was in a random no-name plain. Rather, dryad dude caught up with a pair of skeletons swaddled in dark robes in the middle of the say, carrying a...

One of those royal carrying things. A litter? I don't really know the names of it, so whatever. It had thin chains and talismans all over it as if it was held to seal something. To imprison whatever was inside. A feminine silhouette could be seen inside off said... litter, and was visibly struggling, giving the impression that someone was trapped in there and kidnapped. It almost seemed to be a trap, seeing as the chains were made of thin and shitty string disguised as chains and the talismans had absolute gibberish written on it. The skeletons didn't seem to skeletony at first glance either, seeing as the robes covered their figures, making them seem like generic bad guys.

That was most definitely a trap, and a shitty one at that. Only fucking dumbasses such as the dryad who was currently rushing towards the thing would fall for that, but alas the dryad was a dumbass.

The feminine silhouette stopped struggling when she noticed the dryad charging at the first form and began to cry out for help. In response to that, the dumbass opened up the fight by performing a beautifully executed flying knee to the face on the front skeleton, causing it to drop the litter and falling on its back. Ignoring the fact that the dryad somehow knew how to do a flying knee strike, the fact that the skeleton would just get caught by surprise by that was pathetic, only enhancing the fact that it was a trap. The knee strike was likely ineffective, judging by the fact that the skeleton was only made of bones. Of course, the dryad hadn't figured this out yet, and thus turned his back to it to fight the other skeleton soldier, thus catching him by surprise when the first skeleton nearly decapitated him with a cheap axe. Pathetic.

The dryad backed off, leading to a situation where the dryad was separated from the litter containing the figure he probably wanted to rescue due to wanting to act like a hero for whatever reason, despite likely being the necromancer/soul mage by two axe-wielding figures who were most definitely skeletons. The best strategy would be to use holy plant magic to absolutely wreck the poorly equipped figures and hopefully include the litter in that damage, causing him to instantly win. He could probably do that despite his curse since he was a holy tree or what not. After all, how is he defeat the apocalypse or at least be able to preserve the world and shit? I don't even know his powers at this point, but whatever.

Instead of busting out whatever made him important, he rushed at the first figure yet again and performed yet another flying knee strike, and yet again the dude got sent flying. This was pathetic. Hadn't he learned his lesson- Ah, the dryad picked up the axe. The dryad took a hard look at the axe, contemplating what to do with it. Fear and contempt flickered in his eyes- We aren't doing that shit again. Long story short, after facing his fears he began to rain blows upon the skeleton dude using the axe, and missed way too much. See, he was unused to using the axe. So he missed and missed due to the unfamiliar weight, and even when he did hit the general figure, what else would happen except this dumbass missing the bones and letting the axe slip through the skeleton's gaps? This, of course, confused the dryad's pathetic little brain until he took to using his feet to stomp upon the skeleton. After a few satisfying crunches, the dryad finally smashed the skull of the skeleton, causing it to fall limp.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Why? Who knows. The necromancer must have tried to make it authentic by cutting the connection with the skeleton when the head was crushed, making it seem like a human. This was a pointless move of course since even the dryad could tell something was wrong when he didn't feel flesh. He rummaged through the clothes and managed to pull out a few pieces of bone shards out. His eyes widened. Had he been fighting against skeletons? Yes, yes he had. He nearly began to fucking ponder the meaning of this, but luckily he noticed the other skeleton at first still standing there, not moving a bit. When the dryad began to move towards it, perhaps to break its skull, the other skeleton took a shitty swing at the dryad and missed. Luckily, perhaps realizing the futility of his previous strategy, the dryad reached into the cloak while the figure was struggling to pull out the axe and pulled out the skull by grasping the eye sockets, and proceeded to crush it using his bare hands.

Now that the dryad had finally finished mopping up the skeletons, he turned to the litter, axe in hand- Wait a second. He raised the axe high above his head, and the female silhouette retreated from the entrance. A single strike split it open, and the silhouette was revealed to be a female. Duh. It was your typical elvish girl, fair skinned, blue eyes, with your standard long a flowing blonde hair. It may be boring as fuck, but it wasn't something that you'd see on a necromancer.

"You didn't have to chop it all up, you know..." She sounded rather disappointed by that. "But hey! I've got to thank..." She began some boring ass spiel about how she's gotta thank him for saving him from the evil skeletons blah blah, super generic and boring and she needs to shut up and just backstab this fool already so he could finally shank her-

The dryad took one look at her and swung again. "Begon you foul beast! You used your accursed soul magic to slaughter my brethren! I will stop you!"

Sweet.

"Wh- what are you doing! How do- I mean how dare you-" The elf seemed pretty shocked being revealed that she was a necromancer. Generic flustered accusations began to be emitted by her mouth. Couldn't she have decided to just get with over it, admit it, and die already?

"Your unholiness is palpable! As the guardian of this world, even in my weaker form. I can detect such monstrosities such as you! I will stop you!" Yet another swing of his axe was stopped by a weak-ass shield that the elf threw up that shattered upon the first hit. What? She was already sweating? Oh god, this bitch won't be satisfying to chop up. Just finish it already.

"Necromancy has been legal for a long time now! This is a hate crime based on my occupation, and this won't be tolerated!" The dryad continued to chop, ignoring her futile struggles. I suppose laws don't matter to him. It was a retarded law too, and probably one that was enstated so that the asshat could fuck necromancers without the law getting on him.

Each shield was destroyed by a single shitty strike, and each got progressively dimmer. She was quickly running out of mana to use. Perhaps she sensed her imminent doom, but the elf decided to switch things up and blasted the dryad with a dose of necromancy magic or whatever. I suppose it's death magic.

It was a pile of dog shit. It didn't even manage to scratch the dryad in his weakened state. The harem lead had cheats galor, and could even summon fucking meteor showers to obliterate fools, and although he only cast a curse, I'm pretty sure the dryad still shouldn't be able to form a body if the curse was cast correctly. What was the curse even, honestly? I have no fucking clue. But anyways, that pathetic little eldritch blast of whatever did absolutely nothing to the dryad. It just disappointed. The dryad just tanked that shot like it was nothing, which I suppose it was.

Yeah, she's fucked.

The elf paled at the sight. It was her strongest move! It was impossible that he just shrugged it off! That was likely what was going through her tiny little brain as she gaped at the barbarian dryad that was hell-bent on chopping her up. With little to no mana left, she had no options left to survive.

So she ran up to him, shoved him, and sprinted as fast as she could away from him.

And of course this fucking dumbass, due to him wielding a massive weapon he was unused to, fell down. He fucking fell down, stunned at what had happened. This is what happens when you use a shitty woodcutter's axe instead of fucking magic when you're a fucking magic tree you fucking fucker.

Fuck.

So she ran, he got up after what seemed to be a fucking eternity and began to chase her. The elf was running back to her ruined camp, and honestly was getting further and further away since this tree decided that lugging the axe was a brilliant idea. Spoiler alert, it wasn't.

After an hour or so of running the elf reached the camp, and began to rummage through the remains. Funny, if you had something back at camp, why would you leave it behind if it was a fucking mess and you were leaving it?

That's not a question, I the narrator will answer because this shitty elf shouldn't matter in the long run. She shouldn't even be alive

I am so disappointed in this son of a bitch right now.

Well, she found the flesh-bound book that the dryad didn't find before and began to rummage through it. How much do you want to bet that it has a teleportation spell or something that doesn't require mana? Or can be used to summon a demon or undead or shit? Because this day's going like shit, so I'm not doubting something about an asspull is going to happen soon.

"Master Yiesla, please have put something good in here!" The elf muttered out loud as she flipped through the book, fear in her eyes. SHe was flipping through it as fast as she could, looking for something good in it. Is that redundant? I don't fucking care. Who is Yiesla, anyways? Is she an upper tier harem member or something? As she turned each page, the elf began to look more and more worried. Maybe all the spells were absolute shit or something or were too advanced. Heh, no asspulls today. Let's see what's in there...

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"Put down that heretical book, you heathen!" The dryad tossed away the element of surprise when he ran back into the ruins, axe dragged behind him. The edge had dulled quite a bit, dumbass. Well, it's not like that cookbook would have helped, anyways.

Which sick bitch uses human flesh to bind a cookbook, anyways?

Could be encoded or something, but at this point I doubt that the elf could decode it fast enough to use-

Ah, she ran away again after knocking the dryad down again. Fucker still won't let go of his axe, either.

You know what? Fuck this shit. I'll just be gone until he finally chops this bitch up, or at least busts out the magic roots or something, cause I have a terrible feeling that this pathetic chase will take way too long.