The first thing Licht had realized after calming down was that his mental load had decreased dramatically, to the point where he almost couldn’t feel it anymore. That was the benefit of the wisdom stat, as he realized. In theory, he should now be able to expand his range of connection! The next thing he found was equally as pleasant.

There was likely no cap to absorbing ambient force!

He hadn’t gotten any message once he reached five points of wisdom, meaning that it was probably purely based on how much AF he could find. Given that only one person among three had caused the crystallization in his roots, he was equally as hopeful as he was pessimistic of his chances of finding more.

It wasn’t like shady men walked into his neck of the woods every day.

“Wait, don’t I have an analysis skill?”

Licht looked through his skill list. Sure enough, the nerfed version of the typical analysis skill was still there, [Psychometric Observation]. Licht cursed in his mind. He should have used that on the crystals! He had no doubt that he had more than enough AF to finally use the skill, yet he had missed using it on the only thing so far to possibly deserve its use.

“Well whatever, time to go to work anyway.”

After a brief check on Muan, whom he found had been totally unbothered by the men’s intrusion and was busy sculpting his roots into different tools, he planned out his next move.

“Though I don’t understand how Muan is already able to make blades out of his roots, just like the Giving Tree. Is there something unique to natural-born plant intelligences that I lack? While some corner of my mind has certainly been changed after I became an ego, I largely still identify with my human tendencies. Maybe there’s something to that that’s preventing me from utilizing the full capabilities of my race.”

Or maybe Woodland Egos just couldn’t do those things. Whatever reason it was, Licht didn’t mind much and thought about how he was going to expand his connection.

“The trio of men definitely saw something wrong with the way my trees were organized, and if that’s the case then I can’t continue to do that. I leave the ones around here like that for now, but from now on I’m not moving the trees when I connect to them.”

It would be stealthier that way. Licht planned on expanding his connection to trees in the direction that the trio had come from in hopes that he would find a civilization there. Even if it was mostly to satiate his curiosity and a little bit of loneliness, Licht didn’t want them getting the wrong idea. Anyone reasonable would likely be creeped out to suddenly see a bunch of trees walking.

Subtlety was key.

Now that the water levels all around had dropped, Licht found it much easier to extend the roots of the outer trees. He just focused on connecting to new trees for now.

“Wasn’t there a tree on Earth that connected itself to other trees through roots? Quaking Aspen, I think it was.”

Licht vaguely remembered reading about it on some forestry site when he was alive. It was supposedly considered one of the biggest organisms on the planet just because of the way it was classified, but the trees weren’t truly ‘one’. At least not in the way Licht was. The other special thing about the tree had been that it could also photosynthesize through its bark, though he didn’t think that feature was unique to the tree.

“I should look into something like that. Winter around here is going to be pure drudgery if I can’t photosynthesize–oh?”

Licht’s vision caught something at the edge. By now, his area of coverage had extended so far that it was a little trippy to process all of the visuals at once, even if he wasn’t focusing on most of it. His territory was now formed into an oblong-shaped grouping of trees, stretching from the central point of his main body to where he thought the men had come from, in the opposite direction of the Giving Tree. Licht basically treated the connected forest as his body, feeling anything that touched him as little vibrations or pinpricks, only really noticing the big stuff. It was far easier on his mind to sort information this way.

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What Licht had noticed just now was someone stepping on one of his roots. He ‘zoomed in’.

“Looks…like an elf, doesn’t she?”

Licht watched as a woman gathered from a fruit tree to fill her basket. Draped over her figure was a basic rag tunic and pants that were rolled up to her knees. Her short black hair was straightened and fell down just before her shoulders, but it didn’t conceal the slight points of her ears that stuck out past it. She would be quite beautiful, Licht supposed.

Wait, he supposed?

“Do I not really feel anything because of my past wife, or is it because of my race?”

Licht pondered. His wife had been dead for quite a long time, so he doubted it was because of that. It’s not that he hadn’t loved her or was unfaithful or anything, but nearly fifty years since her death had dulled his feelings somewhat. It was hard to remember sometimes that he was that old, but he really hadn’t known his wife in his past life that well anyway.

Regardless, he figured his lack of arousal likely had to do with his race.

“If I’m a completely different race than her, it makes sense that I wouldn’t get excited. Wouldn’t that be like, bestiality?”

Eck. Licht somehow got a bad taste in his non-existent mouth. Plus, he was a plant, so didn’t he reproduce asexually? This was a weird rabbit hole to go down right now, he thought. He should just focus on where the elf woman had come from.

A man’s shouting could be heard, to which the elf woman was pulled out of her concentration like a spooked deer. Nearly forgetting the basket, she took off toward the voice and out of Licht’s vision.

“So that direction, huh. I should be careful to do this slowly, not raising any suspicion.”

Tame as his process of connection now was, at least without the walking of trees involved, it still made sound if he did it below ground. Sort of like a minor earthquake if one was really close. He would need to treat it like a stealth mission if he didn’t want to get caught.

“No cones of vision, but I can do this!”

Licht got to work connecting to trees around the forest, stopping his connection every time he saw a person. Eventually he reached the point where he had started, forming a ring around the small clearing in which the caravan had settled itself.

“So it’s not a settlement, but a nomadic group of caravaneers. Tradesmen, maybe?”

Licht watched from all sides, his perimeter of trees being just narrow enough to allow him to see all the way to the center of the clearing. It appeared to be a conglomeration of tents, and with mostly men inhabiting them. There were several men milling about that seemed to be equipped with the same sort of bronze gear as the previous trio, although he didn’t see anyone sporting the same steel-weaponry that their leader had carried.

Further from the mass of tents and makeshift shelters, a couple of wagons had been parked, their horses gone and hitched off somewhere else. Behind the wagon, a group of people were in chains and full of bruises and mud. Their clothes were poorly maintained, and a few of them had clearly been beaten. Most were women.

Licht froze. One cliche that came with fantasy worlds he hadn’t hoped to see was this: slavery.

A lot of people assumed that if they were to ever come across the subject in their life they would be horrified, or indignant and furious. However, upon seeing actual slaves in bondage only a few feet away from him, Licht’s mind wasn’t thinking anything like righteous anger or sorrow, it was merely blank. Devoid of thought.

Seeing the bloodied rags of the slaves, he was petrified.

Licht’s life in the modern world of Earth wasn’t always peachy, but it was comfortable by this world’s standards. He knew slavery still existed on Earth, but being so far away from it he had never felt personally affected. Now, it stared him right in the face.

One of the slaves cast an absent gaze over at the treeline. Licht felt as though his stomach had dropped. Her eyes were gray, completely hollow of emotion.

“...M-maybe they’re prisoners of war?”

Licht thought hopefully there might have been a legal justification for them being here. Seeing them chained behind the wagons though, all sense of joy gone from their expressions, and the bruises…Licht knew he was searching for something that didn’t exist. Most of them being women, Licht didn’t want to imagine what future awaited this group of slaves.

“I should do something.”

Licht reasoned. Of course, that seemed like the right thought, but what could he do? Make pitfalls? The camp was in a clearing, far too distant for him to dig with his roots. What would traps even do in this situation, anyway? Maybe he had another alternative.

Licht racked his mind, looking for any other way to deal with the slaver caravan.