It had been nearly another week since I had found the lake, and thus, I now have been alive in this world for two weeks, and you know what? I love this place.

Not only was it full of water, the smell of nature and trees felt more pure and in harmony here than where I was before, and I have to say that it felt quite amazing!

The way my senses tingled from the fresh air, combined with the sensation of water on my body, well, my lower monster-like body to be precise, felt just right. My lower half had made all these excited faces quite often from the sheer love of the natural and pure water that I had full access to.

I had also found out that the Worker Bees had increased their numbers thanks to my nectars. Apparently, the Queen Bee (man, I still don't know a lot about her even now) had used my nectar as a source of both energy and building material to create more Worker Bees via her eggs that were put inside the honeycombs, and from what they could state from their buzzings and what I can pick from their qi, the queen is most pleased with me and was apparently wanting to thank me.

Hooray to me, then? Hopefully she is rather reasonable, though from what they are telling me, she wanted to have me as an ally and her first step is to ensure my protection. Don't ask how I can know all that with just a bunch of buzzing and body movement. I just can.

Man, beasts can understand each other easily without words, huh? This is almost like an upgrade from being a human, really. Just with exchanging few words from me and a few nods of them, I got some knowledge about their boss, and she seemed like a being with a good mind.

And apparently, the Queen Bee's idea was that I need some protection, just in case, since there are many hungry and rather strong beasts in the forest still.

Which is why I was now having nearly forty Worker Bees alongside me as I bathed fully in the lake, even after I had given them all some nectars. They just took turns to transport the nectars to their colony, which I am certain was relatively closer to my new location.

I had no problem with that, since that only meant that if I decided to live here for now (which I am very tempted to, frankly), I would have a quicker route to my possible ally and maybe even a possible friend!

Even if I was being too optimistic, and the Queen Bee only wanted an ally or a subordinate, then I can deal with that too. It probably won't be worse than working as a mangaka in my previous life. Ugh, thank goodness I became a writer instead of a mangaka. Not that I would have been a good manga artist.

"Haa!" I breathed as my head exited the water, hair wet and clearly cleaner than before. It also smelled fresher than before. Makes sense though, since I hadn't washed myself for a whole week inside a forest. Even with my bullshit Alraune physiology or this world I would still feel a bit unclean.

"Now that's a bath!" I spoke to myself, still using Japanese language, as I enjoyed the feel of the cool liquid on my body. A lady like me always loves a good bath, after all.

Feeling fresh and good, I left the lake now that I was ready for a bit of exploration.

Turns out that the lake was quite close to an area where plant beasts thrive, and so far, I had seen about ten beasts in that category.

A couple of Treant Warriors, Bronze-ranked Level 3, were the strongest, when it comes to rank and level. They were a moderate challenge for me, but I managed to defeat them using my poisonous nectars, which I had to use a highly concentrated one since they just can take quite the amount of poison. Being a plant-type beast gives one some resistance against other plant beast poison, or poison on their level, I suppose.

I also fought a couple other Thorny Flowers, along with a Thorny Alraune, all Normal-ranked, and only Level 1. Sadly, the Thorny Alraune had no real intelligence to speak of, and she was only thinking of swallowing the Worker Bees who were surprisingly fast and able to avoid the vines before pricking the unintelligent beast to death with their needles.

I can only say: I definitely lost my humanity, since even the sight of a human-like being getting stung to death didn't tug at my heartstrings. I of course ate the corpses.

The remaining plant-type beasts I killed were just so flower-looking I basically called them the Flowerhood Group.

Their bodies consisted of large stems and legs/roots to move with, though even now, I still don't understand how they eat anything at all since they don't have any mouths. Still, they were quite varied, really.

One had pink petals surrounding a barbed spike that could extend and inject poison, kinda like my vines, but even its poison was weak. I assume it only preyed on weaker animals. It was apparently called Florn.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Another looked a lot like a sunflower, but not completely, it had yellow petals surrounding long pistils, and could apparently charge sunlight into electricity. It was a bit shocking, pun intended, when it tried to blast me with a lightning beam. That thing actually stung and nearly burned the skin of my lower mouth. Not fun, I say. It's name was the Stunflower

The third was a white daisy flower with a weird green orb where stamens should be. It was basically the healer of the group, and quite fragile. Its healing skills seemed to be more effective than my healing nectars when I was reborn in this world, and it could basically heal others at distance. At least, that's what I believe when my Alraune physiology told me when I consumed it. It was appropriately named Heasy.

The last one was, obviously, that rather adorable blue flower plant beast. At least, one of them. If the other Flowerhood Group members could were the poisoner, the healer, and the stunner, then the blue flower beast was basically the "freezer guy" and the water errand person due to its ability to generate water and freeze things. It was called Frose.

It was rather fun trying to test their acquired skills for my own, though admittedly, even if I could create an overpowered version of their skills due to my Qi being way larger, I won't be making rivers of water or freeze an entire lake with just a snap of my fingers anytime soon.

Still, all was well for now.

I was living the high life here (at least compared to my previous life), I had plenty of food to eat, a good place to clean myself, I can practice my skills in relative calmness! This Kasumi Ai is practically a queen compared to what I was before!

And of course, I didn't forget to cultivate the Natura Aeterna Nirvana technique. While I still was in the first stage, I had opened about twelve meridians in total out of my closed 108 ones.

Not bad, really, and my Qi became even purer, and with that along with the many beasts I got either from the Worker Bees, or the occasional hungry carnivorous beast that got attracted to my nectar, I had evolved yet again just yesterday, thanks to consuming the bodies of two Bronze-ranked Level 5 Ferocious Bears.

Killing the two, while it would be flat-out impossible for my little buddies, the Worker Bees, and even rather hard for me if I actually fought, was quite easy when I just give them condensed balls of poisonous nectars.

It wasn't an epic battle where I heroically fought a monster beyond my level that I barely defeated, nor did I have to do anything more than being on guard. It was just a terrible match-up combined with their lack of intelligence. Just a few poisonous nectar balls thrown to them and they died moments after swallowing them.

And, as a result, I had turned from a Bronze-ranked Level 2 Large Bloody Tongued Thorny Alraune, into a Silver-ranked Level 1 Large Rainblossom Alraune.

I didn't really change much, honestly. My once-red petals decided that they liked rainbow colors, and I now have a bunch of colored petals, both in my oversized petals that allow my upper body to sleep inside them, and the flower petals on my chest and my lower body also liked to show their fashion sense.

In my opinion, I looked ridiculous being a mismatch of colors, though I'm sure that if some warrior human from the continent saw me, they would call me majestic or something.

Also, I had gained some bust, for some reason. I now have a C-cup bust size. I don't know why, but thanks, evolutionary progress, I guess?

Of course, I had also become stronger thanks to this increase in rank.

Now, I obviously hoped for life to continue this way, peacefully, and most importantly, relatively quietly. But, that would mean that the Heaven would love me, which of course it wouldn't.

I mean, the only Heaven that would love everyone was that certain Goddess from a certain visual novel, and she got killed by a self-centered asshole and her kindness created the worst Heaven that basically said: "I hate everyone! Just die and leave me alone!" and unleashed a world of extreme narcissism and self-love that everyone massacred each other if not for the effort of a bunch of ragtag team saving the entire reality.

Which is why, a few days later, while I was enjoying myself having yet another bath with only my lower half under the water, I got... visitors that I only noticed when they got rather close.

Visitors who showed themselves by cutting the few poor Worker Bees that was rather close to them, with the other thirty+ bees staying close to me.

"Tch. Only Normal-ranked Level 1 beasts. Are you sure this is where your senses guided us?" a male voice that seemed to be rather arrogant spoke, and answered by a female voice that seemed rather worried.

"Y-yes... it is here. My Qi sense definitely leads us here, Young Master!" well, that wasn't reassuring.

Soon, the visitors appeared. Three humans, from what I can see. Two guys, one muscular, and another looking like a handsome man and one girl that looked rather cute, I think.

"Ah, it seems that luck is truly on our side." one of the guys, the handsome-looking one, wearing what I assume is fancy clothing along with a sword, spoke loudly. He didn't bother hiding his gaze on my chest as his face looked surprised seeing the blooming flower right below my breast before he took a flirty expression. I'm supposed to be disgusted, I believe, yet I just can even be bothered with that, honestly.

"Young Master, something's wrong. Let's leave." the girl, holding a dagger and possibly the only one with actual danger sense whispered, to the pretty boy, though he just handwaved her opinion. Why do I have the feeling that this happens a lot? Also, girl, you look rather pale while looking at me. Are you alright?

The remaining guy, who just looked like your run-of-the-mill thug snorted, his large axe held in one hand, "Are you still worried, Mei Wu? With the Young Master Xie Li, there's no need to worry." his laugh shook his entire body.

Yep, this indeed happens a lot.

Also, they're speaking chinese. How do I understand their words? I will just say that the Heaven are the reason.

So, how am I supposed to react to this, I wonder...

I didn't have to think of how to answer, because the pretty boy, or apparently, Xie Li, spoke in what I assume is a blatantly flirty tone. At least, that's the impression I thought he wanted to make.

"My dainty flower, be honored. This Xie Li welcomes you to be his date for the night."

And I assume it was quite romantic, but I felt like cringing at the awfully, too-sweet line, and being disappointed. Mercurius, with his tender yet mysterious voice flirted better.

Great, I possibly have a Young Master annoying me. Now, is he an asshole, or a jerk with the heart of gold?