[ Level Up ! ]

With the last of the nests gone, the meaty substance continued pouring out of the exposed wound per throb for a few more seconds, then the pump lost strength and gradually ceased—the first of the Pretenders was gone.

Tanuki stood silently, hoping after some time he could calm down. It was not happening.

“Let’s go,” he turned and looked at Six, “Lead me to your village.”

After climbing the last of the stairs, Tanuki arrived on top of the cube. There, he found another forest, one affected by the same gravitational pull as him. The flora around here was less dense, there were also more pines around the road. He saw signs of wildlife, fox pawmarks in the mud for example. Though he enjoyed cute little critters, remembering what he saw with the fish, he was less enthusiastic about anything this world had to offer.

Following the beaten path for ten minutes brought him to a field. It was meant to hold wheat but one could not guess by the look of things. Weed and grass have grown over the yellow plants, stealing the riches of the soil and shading the food of the sun. Nobody was caring for them or whoever it was did not possess the necessary knowledge to work the fields.

Dark brown houses grew on the horizon and Tanuki could finally see the village. Healthy trees cast fat crowns to conceal the houses, but he still managed to make out seven of them. To his surprise, there was no traditional church or castle he would imagine to hold a King. He asked Six about it, but that brought him no answers.

“Castle? King needs no house,” he answered, seemingly confused by the idea.

As they entered the village, the decrepit state of things revealed themselves. The walls were rotting, moss coated the roofs of houses, tall mushrooms grew from under the floorboards creeping up above the surface. Some buildings have half-collapsed, exposing mouldy beds and broken cabinets within.

The streets were eerily quiet. Not a soul nor a sign of life to be made out.

“Where is everybody?” asked Tanuki.

“Don’t know. Maybe town square?”

As they passed by another collapsed building, a large area came into view. In there were about twenty to twenty-five souls all looking away. To the front was an elevated platform that Tanuki could not see clearly, and behind that a taller tree with a large black hole in its trunk.

Tanuki and Six approached the crowd. The people of the village could be separated into four groups, including children. The younglings wore masks that only had eyeholes. They bore no antlers, nor a cape. Old torn clothes made up their appearance. Behaviour-wise, they acted like regular children, playing with toys made out of sticks and running around the place.

The other group were the soldiers. They almost all looked identical, sporting the same armour and smiling mask. The difference came in antlers and scars. Some had tall antlers, while others were missing one, while some had both intact but only one arm.

The third group were the farmers. They had shorter antlers and masks that had another hole in place of a mouth. This group wore ragged clothes and either poorly made straw hats or withering flower crowns.

The last group consisted of the specials. There were only three of them, a shopkeeper with moon-shaped eyes, a bartender whose smile was much wider, and a third whose body was wholly unique.

She appeared to be the only true female amongst the villagers, considering her bodily proportions. Her hips and chest were wider than the abdomen, her arms were slender, her hair short and decorated with water lilies. The mask she wore was white as porcelain. It bore only two eyeholes, but they were much larger than those of others. Two green orbs shone from within, turning like eyes as she observed the crowd. Her armour was the only one fully covering her body, at least from the hips up, as below he wore two steel boots and a short leaf skirt that was purely decorative.

Two guardians accompanied her on the podium. Something lay in front of them, but Tanuki could not quite see it from the crowd.

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He jumped but to no avail. As a final solution, he turned to Six.

“Can I stand on your back?”

This proved to work, though it was a struggle not to fall off. At least he could finally see that the thing on the podium was another guard, locked in a pillory.

The female plantfolk stood with both hands behind her back. Tanuki expected she would speak, but the next voice came from the hole of the tree behind her.

“People of Yosh! Today we have gathered under a serene sky to decide the fate of the unruly. This guard has breached the King’s Law by passing the holy border to enter the lands of degeneracy. Thus, he has become one with the stain that threatens our peaceful way of life. Let me hear, what does one deserve that threatens the safety of our village?”

“Death!” the crowd shouted in unison. Tanuki felt considerably less safe.

The voice from the tree continued, speaking to the female plantfolk directly. “Hundredth, I address you! Take over the execution. I have pressing matters to attend to, I cannot waste my time on such a lowly lifeform.”

The ground trembled as a stone shifted and sealed the hole within the tree. The King turned his eyes from the crowd, handing over the proceedings to the unique girl, Hundredth.

She stepped forward to address the crowd. Her voice was more human than the rest, though still noticeably artificial.

“People of Yosh! We have gathered to punish one of us that has turned degenerate. He stepped foot over our holy line fuelled by selfish thoughts. He has endangered not just his partner, but the village itself! Such recklessness was made worse by the lies this one spreads. The coming of the Great Hero? Foolishness! He lost two companions and tried to lie his way into a promotion.” –– she turned towards the guard in the pillory –– “Speak your name, traitor!”

“Fourteen,” said the guard calmly, and upon hearing his voice, Tanuki realised he was the same guard who was with Six. He thought what must have happened was that when the guard returned to the village, the King misunderstood and thought he was lying.

But his words were the truth. He knew, for his arrival was the matter at hand.

“Guard Fourteen, do you have any last words?” asked Hundredth while drawing her sharp wooden sword. She raised it above her head, ready to cut and behead.

Tanuki could not just sit around idly, especially when he knew the guard was innocent.

“Wait!” he yelled, and the crowd all turned in his direction, “He is speaking the truth!”

The plantfolks gasped but due to their tree-ish voice, it sounded akin to a creaking door. Hundredth looked over the crowd and into his eyes. Her mask lit up by the green beneath. She too whispered in surprise, “Great Hero?”

Tanuki balanced himself atop Six’s back and continued, “H-Hello, people of Yosh! I am Hachiro Tanuki and I can attest that man is innocent! Let me, uh, let me show it to you…”

He fidgeted with his inventory to find the thing. He felt thankful for the idea of taking a corpse home to be researched. Even if he could not get it to the Gaia Core, he would find a use for it right here, right now.

When he pulled it out of his inventory, the nestman corpse fell onto the ground.

“I got this one after entering the mines, this is from the spawning place of the monsters. Yes, I have slain one of the Pretenders. But to provide further proof, let me show you what a hatchling looks like!”

Another corpse popped out of his inventory, but one of the smaller monsters released from the spawn. This was undeniable proof that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Shocked gasps, surprised exclamations and a dozen whispers emerged all around him. Hundredth stood frozen, then the blade fell out of her hand.

The green light oozed from her mask as if hot steam evaporating. In just a second, her powerful aura changed as she squeaked like a little girl and ran over the crowd. Tanuki watched on in horror as the girl stomped over the other plantfolks’ heads and flew straight at him, all while screaming and fangirling.

“Great Hero! Great Hero!”

She crashed into Tanuki like planes crash into towers, which sent him rolling away, until he fell on his back, with her on top. There, she looked down, screaming as her eyes glowed brightly.

“This is the best day ever! I knew it would be great when I woke up, I had this feeling that today was going to be special but –– eek! –– I would have never expected to meet the Great Hero! Is my hair right? Oh no! It looks horrible, doesn’t it?”

“Get off me,” he gasped while forcing her off his chest.

The crowd surrounding them stared curiously as Tanuki got up and scratched the dust out of his hair. Hundredth hopped around him, poking him, smelling him, observing his every detail. She wanted to gobble up all his attention by filling his vision and bombarding him with questions.

“Where have you been? Are you mateless? What kind of weapon do you use? Are you mateless? Do you like flowers? I like flowers! Are you mateless?”

Unluckily for her, Tanuki had not forgotten the people who had helped him and focused on their rescue.

“Now that you know Fourteen is not lying, will you let him go?”

“We shan’t! The King’s law says that we should not overstep the holy line. It is an offence punishable by death!”

Tanuki thought for a second. The plantfolk did not seem like the kind of people who would care about their fallen comrades’ corpses, so telling the truth would not have been enough help. Therefore, he lied.

“As the Great Hero, I declared martial law to allow him to step over the holy line and aid my quest. He did honourably fulfil my request. Now, release that man!”

Hundredth stared for a second, but like someone stuck in the Sahara Desert and finally stumbling upon a bottle of stale water, she gave in to the thirst. She turned and ordered the other guards. “Release that man!”