With a strong heart, the white-haired white-skinned boy started his long journey…
...or so it should be.
“I’m tired and my feet hurt!”
It wasn’t even an hour since his journey had begun, but now he was totally out of breath and his soft white feet were now swollen red. It was a miracle that he didn’t sprain his ankle yet.
Giving up on tormenting his poor small feet, he sat down on a rock nearby tending to his legs with the herbs he was given as gifts. He smashed them with a small stone and applied the paste onto his skin.
Physically-wise, he was but only a child. If he was a human, there was no way a weak human child could stroll around in a forest with bare feet and… naked.
That’s right. Even though Oscar still didn’t realize, a normal human or any civilized race should wear a cloth on to keep himself warm. He did compare himself with squirrels and rabbits he found along the way and pondered why didn’t he have fluffy fur like them, but never in his dream did he realize the existence of clothes.
“And now I feel a bit cold… It’s still good that I have fruits to fill my belly, but eating doesn’t help me fend off this coldness. Ah, it would be better if I can have fluffy fur like you guys.”
He stared at the rabbits with jealous eyes. Look at those fluffy white and brown fur! Just how good would it feel if he had touched them?
Feeling the depression in Oscar’s mind, the nearby rabbits looked at each other and decided to cheer him up. They approached him and hopped on his lap one by one.
“Woah! You guys… want to comfort me?”
He gave a surprised look at the group of rabbits that suddenly surrounded him.
The rabbits also stared back at him with their round black eyes. They raised their nose high and let out a small cute sound *kuun~.*
“T-Thank you. Please allow me to hug you guys. Ahhh, your fluffy fur is so warm and soft.”
Leaving his harsh journey aside, he decided to rest here a bit longer. Also, since he just applied some herb to his legs, it would take him a while before the effect took place.
He casually spent his long break eating the fruits he stored and feeding the mountain of rabbits he was buried in.
This felt like riding on a cloud, he thought.
Losing to the cuteness of the rabbits and the warmness of their fluffy fur, he felt more relaxed and started to doze off. Feeling that falling down from this rock would be hurt and scary, one by one the rabbits started to fled away from his hug and tried to warn him. However, they were too late.
Before they could wake him up, he had already rolled down from the rock. The rabbits hid their eyes behind their small paws all together until the boy crashed into a bush below.
Hearing the groan coming from Oscar, they ran after him to see if he was fine.
“Ouch ouch, that hurts a lot. Ah, but I’m glad that I didn’t drag you guys down with me.”
He felt relieved from seeing that he didn’t cause harm to the rabbits, but still, that was so dangerous. He must be more cautious in the future, else he might unintentionally hurt them.
Trying to get away from the bush, he tried to lift himself up from the ground. He placed his hands on the ground to support his weight.
But then instead of the sandy sensation of the ground or the rough sensation of the bush, his palm felt an odd smooth surface out of all.
Surprised by the weird object in his hand, he turned to look at the thing.
“Eiii, why is a skull here!?”
His hand was placed on the upper skull of an animal. It had a long face, hollow eyes, and a pair of beautiful antler on top of its white smooth bone.
“It must be from a deer. Maybe a predator hunted him and brought his head to eat here.”
Or it could be here by a scavenger given that normally a predator prefers meaty parts over the head.
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“Still, that scared me. I should leave this place, it might be a hunting ground of some predator.”
He quickly stood up and turned on his heel.
“Wait!,” a small and weak voice urged him to stay.
“Eiii!”
Being scared and surprised, Oscar turned back to see who called him.
“Eh, he was connected to me… in that state!?”
What surprised him was that the upper skull of the deer was unexpectedly connected to him via mutual understanding.
He knew that he could connect a communication link with plants and small animals, but a dead body… not even in his wildest dream!
“A-Are you a ghost?”
The skull didn’t reply. Instead, it gave off a sad and sorrow feeling through the connection.
“I have something to protect. I can’t die just yet!”
The emotion that he felt from the connection now began to fluctuate. It shifted from sorrow to depression and then anger.
“C-Calm down. Can you tell me your story from the beginning? And if there is anything I can do, I will help you out.”
The skull once again went into a long silence. The rage and hatred aura it gave off quickly scared the rabbits away even though they shouldn’t hear him talk.
As for Oscar, he was sweating all over his body. Even his palm was soaked wet.
He was really scared. Right in front of him was but a single inanimate skull; however, the pressure it gave off was like having a big boulder placing on top of his shoulder in an extremely hot sauna.
Be it as it may, he couldn’t move an inch from the spot though he truly wished to run away as far as possible.
It was not because he was too scared, but rather because he had unconsciously asked the skull to tell his story and even promised to help him. If he run away even before the other party spoke his first word, it would be very rude.
Fortunate enough, the rage of the skull was quickly suppressed afterward, and it gave its first word after a while.
“Green warts,” he spat it out with a hoarse, hatred sound.
“Hm?”
“We called them the green warts. they appeared out of nowhere. Before we realized it, they multiplied like weeds. From a small group, they became a pack and then a horde. They trampled everything in their way and devoured every life on their path.”
What kind of monster was that!?, Oscar screamed in his mind.
From the story of the skull, the so-called green warts must be an alien species, a species that somehow slipped away from its usual habitat to a new one and caused an ecological crisis in the new land.
It was nothing strange, but it was a very bad news.
An alien species can permanently damage the new habitat it set foot in. They may compete with the local species in securing foods or they even eat all the local species to the point of extinction. Worse, they usually grow faster in number than the local species in cases that there is no natural predator for them in the new land.
The only ways to stop the destruction of the entire ecosystem is killing every single alien species or driving them back to their original habitat. But in normal circumstances, the later one is almost impossible.
“My herd took the role of protecting this forest for generations. When a strong predator grew too large, we trampled and scattered them to other lands. When a drought came, we begged for the water spirits to provide rain. And when we faced a forest fire, we evacuated the other beasts into a safe place.
Never in my wildest dream did I think that every effort we took would become worthless in my generation…”
He once again returned back to giving off a sorrowful aura.
Oscar was dumbfounded. Surely, he thought that this forest was so fertile and all, but he never thought that it actually has a protector. No wonder why the forest has so few predators and the soil looked unreasonably moist even though the water sources were so far away.
Gradually, the fear lingering in Oscar’s heart was slowly replaced by a new opposite emotion. It was “admiration.”
The entire forest could live happily because of the efforts of a single deer and his herd. Just how much responsibility did he shoulder to make everyone happy? Even when he had died, he couldn’t just cast away his duty.
To Oscar, this guy truly worthed the title of a forest protector.
The skull went silent for a while.
Oscar knew that the skull's story wasn’t over yet, so he simply sat and patiently waited for him.
A hint of rage could be felt from inside the skull. It burnt as though a fire was lit there and it grew fiercer in every moment.
“Those bastards! They used some cheap trick to hide their stinky smell and sneaked in when we were deep asleep. Before I realized it, half of my herd was put to their eternal sleep!
And then, they even chased us during the night with no moon. I swore that I couldn’t notice even a hint of their usually disgusting smell, but their voices were everywhere.
Their creepy, happy yells chased after us. Above my head, they jumped around like a monkey. In the bush on our sides, their red eyes and sharp fangs bared at us like we were already their dead meat. And at the edge of my vision, my partner fell down before my eyes!”
Like pouring cold water on hot oil, the fire fueled with the rage of the forest protector erupted.
As though the storm was formed right before Oscar’s eyes, strong wind swayed the trees and the rabbits that hid far away were blown into the air.
The fire of rage materialized in the hollow eyes of the skull. They stared fixedly at Oscar's face, then the skull roared with a powerful voice.
“O the small one who was loved by the mother forest. I beg you. Please bestow disaster upon those dirty Green Warts and let my hollow eyes see their utter end!”