Chapter Eight

Mister Greeny, which he supposed was his name now, watched the villagers as they scrambled through the forest. They were looking for him, the ‘monster’. He hadn’t meant to scare the children but could not let the little one be hurt through his inaction. He didn’t know the reason behind their animosity toward the little fawn, but it didn’t matter; they had forced his hand.

He hadn’t wanted to reveal himself to her for a few more years, but even he knew that one did not always get what they wanted. It would be best if she were a bit more mature and able to handle things better before he started her lessons. He had learned many things through observing the village, and one thing was that children were often not the best when it came to attentiveness. But it was still good to see her up close and not from a distance through the trees.

He waited patiently for the villagers to give up, all of them eventually agreeing that the monster was nothing more than the children’s imagination. Even so, they kept an eye on the forest as they retreated toward the village. Mister Greeny followed them.

He had been watching over the village for many years, ever since he had given up custody of that tiny infant. It took some effort and a little time, but he had found a couple that he thought would make adequate parents for the child. He was glad to see that he was right, even though she had ended up not being quite like the others.

That was a mistake on his part.

Due to his ignorance, he hadn’t considered that there was more than one species of sentient life in the world, and as the child grew, that shortsightedness only became more apparent. He should have known. Her biological parents looked considerably different than the villagers, but he had only seen the two legs and two arms, not the minor , more important details. Still, it had worked out for the best. Her foster parents loved and cared for her; she was healthy and hale. However, he did not care much for how the others treated her.

It angered him to see it occur so frequently; it was almost a daily occurrence. Still, they were simply children. Over the years, he had seen other children single one another out as they developed. It was part of a cycle he was unfamiliar with, but a cycle, nonetheless.

Once he was confident the little one had made it inside her home, he returned to the forest—his home. The once-foreign trees now held a sense of familiarity. Every brook and boulder, every crevice and crag, every fallen leaf was as recognizable to him as his own body. He had worked tirelessly to make it a safe place for him and his little one to live.

The beasts in this forest were fierce. The worgs from that snowy night were just the beginning. There were short and gangly creatures, objectively ugly and terribly smelly. Individually, they were weak and easily frightened, but as a group, they were violent and stupidly brave. It had taken him some time, but he had managed to clear the area around the village of their hidden dens.

Another species of beast was much larger but equally as ugly as their smaller cousins. They showed almost as much intelligence as the villagers themselves but held none of their compassion. Through his observations, he discovered that they held no aversion to killing their own over the smallest slight and would then gladly strip the flesh from their bones, eating it raw. It was disgusting even to his broad view on life, and the differences within, and took no small amount of pleasure in driving them from the forest.

One thing he discovered during his righteous crusade was that certain beasts, or monsters, according to the villagers, held vastly more magic within their bodies than others. Usually, the stronger ones, the more violent and aggressive a monster, the more magic it held. That fact made him curious whether the magic made them that way or if their constant killing and feeding on others was the reason behind the increase in magical concentration.

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Life had changed so much since his time, and he had to take into consideration his own role in that fact.

Another thing that had significantly changed was, in fact, himself. Not only had his power been effectively reduced to barely a trickle of what it once was, his very being had shifted into something much closer to the life he once watched over. Although he still did not require sleep to function, it was something he found he took great pleasure in, which was a part of himself he had never known; the pleasure itself was also new, as was the anger he felt when he watched the little one being single out, and the loneliness plaguing him as he returned to the forest without her.

His first form, the man he had killed— for that was what it was, murder— had affected him greatly, on more than just a physical level. Not only did he take on the man’s two legs and opposable thumbs, but also the emotions that came with it. It hadn’t been as if he had never felt anything before. He had felt anger when the devils started to devour the world, and he had felt sadness when the others like him had perished in the attempt to stop them, but those feelings had always been muted, only nibbling on the outer edges that was his whole.

Now everything felt so much more intense , so raw.

A field of violet heather stretched before him, the tall forest trees surrounding the clearing like verdant sentinels, giving it a semblance of privacy. Stone pillars of unnatural make jutted from the far end of the clearing, the only signs of some ancient people who once called this place home. Now, fuzzy moss replaced the crumbling mortar, and clinging vines twisted together to crown each one with wide arches that connected them like an open wall.

He ducked beneath an arch, careful not to disturb the still-growing vines. Beyond the columns of stone was a mess of creeping roots and leafy fronds, all visibly growing into unnatural shapes. Mister Greeny, a name he was growing fond of, inspected each shrub and sprouting tree, ensuring that this place would have plenty of tables, chairs, and anything else a schoolroom might need.

He was certainly missing many things; he only knew of what one should look like from his sneaking about the one inside the village. One was glaringly obvious, though: books. However, they would have only served an aesthetic purpose here, as the knowledge he planned to impart to his little one would never be found inside any book. Of that, he was sure .

A scraping sound filled the space like something being pulled through tall grass. Mister Greeny held out his hand and ran it absentmindedly along the earthy scales of a huge snake slithering by.

It was as big around as any man and nearly ten times the length, with thorns as thick as fingers lining its mouth like a shark. Its large but lithe body comprised of the same twisting vines that gave him his form, and its scales were mushrooms pleated in a stunning array of iridescent colors. It gave a gentle hiss, like a breeze moving between two reeds, and looked up at him with eyes like two opals glinting in the moonlight.

But nothing was behind those eyes. No matter how lifelike his creation was, it was not alive. It was simply a tool, a guardian he had created with much of his accumulated power. Something to watch over this place when he was busy elsewhere. To drain so much of his mana was a detour on his long road to regaining his former strength, but he could not ask for a more stalwart follower.

I hope she is fond of what I have done for her. Mister Greeny confessed to the enormous, pleurotaceae-covered serpent. Soon, we will see.