“Identify yourselfs.” A big muscular orc dressed in heavy armor up to his neck and a magic staff pretty much shouts at all of us as we reach the gate of the castle. As of this moment it isn’t there, probably removed via magic. The castle looks to be made out of some type of grey stone.

“Jack, sir!”

“Mess.”

“Lucia.”

“What are your intentions here? You were able to come here so you have some potential.”

“We came for that dog that just ran past you and Maxoiliodas.” I say.

He looks really confused at us.

“I can understand the great mage but not the dog. Are you here to learn?”

“We just need to have a word with him and that dog, after that we are leaving.”

“Do you know him?” he asks me, more confused.

“Maxoiliodas? Yes. The dog? No.”

The orc is having problems understanding what we are and goes to ask the other guard that is a human male, around his twenties with short black hair.

The human goes inside and a few minutes later he comes back pale.

“You may go, he is waiting.”

The orc also turns pale as he gives us passage.

As soon as we pass the area of the gates, space itself bends and instead of being in a great corridor we are now inside some type of lab where 2 elfs and a beastman, half-human half-squire or something similar are preparing a rune in a stone tablet on the ground using chalk. I recognize one of the elves as Maxoiliodas.

“What do I owe the honor of this visit?” He asks me.

“You may not believe it, but nature spirits told usto come here and talk with you. Also that blue dog a girl has.”

He looks amused at us.

“And who are those two?”

“Greeting great mage, my name is Jack, I am a farmer.”

“Hello I am Mess. I used to be part of the church.”

“Quite the group.”

“Sir, shouldn’t we continue?” The other elf asks Maxoiliodas.

“Take a break, we have a live subject here.”

I feel a chill in my spine.

“Before that, whatever it is, can you tell someone to bring that dog here? His name is Ice Cream.”

The beastman just receives an eye signal from Maxoiliodas and leaves the room.

The two elfs clean the place a little using spells to move books and other objects out of chairs and the ground so we can use one of the tables there. This place, if empty, would be as big as the entire mansion I live.

“I didn’t know you could talk with nature spirits, that is a really rare blessing.” Maxoiliodas says to me.

“Actually, I can’t.”

“So the farmer here can?”

“No sir, it is the grandma and grandpa of my fiance that can.”

“Are they farmers like you?”

“Yes, we are all proud farmers.”

“Interesting.” He says while taking notes.

“Hey, there is quite a lot of divine energy here. Is everything ok?” Mess asks.

“You can sense that?” Maxoiliodas asks, surprised.

“You have to know when you get blessings from the gods or they will be angry. Words of my teachers.”

“You could say that this place is very blessed.” Maxoiliodas says in cryptic tone implying information we can’t have.

“So, already back to work? We were attacked just a few hours ago and you came right back.”

“Actually I am relaxing right now. This that we stopped is just a little exercise.”

I have no idea how this works but if what he is saying is true, let’s have the men do his thing.

A few minutes later the beastmen come back with the girl and the dog we saw before.

“Uncle, what did I do this time?” The girl asks in a sad tone, like she is ready to cry.

“Nothing my child. These people just wanted to see your dog.”

The dogs then get near us and start to bark non-stop.

“Ice Cream, stop!” They don’t look like evil people.

The dogs then grab my hand with a bite without hurting me and start to drag me towards Maxoiliodas on the other side of the table. After that he begins to bark again at both of us?

“Ice Cream, they can’t play with you.” The girl shouts again a little angry as the beastman is holding her in place.

“I never heard about this dog doing things like this before.” Maxoiliodas says surprised.

“Hey Ice Cream. Do you want something from us?” I ask the dog.

He barks back only once.

“Is it something we have on us?”

He starts to shake his head. I guess that is a no.

“Can you point us to what you want?”

He then walks to a window. I go look out of the window.

First we are really fucking high. Second there is only a rainbow colored forest as far as I can see.

“You want to go outside?”

He shakes his head again.

“What you want is outside?”

He barks.

“Ice Cream, I can just take you for a walk if you want.” The elf girl shouts.

The dog shakes his head.

I stop and think for a second. This dog is really intelligent and probably knows what he wants.

“What you want is there in the forest but your owner can’t get it, right?”

He barks and goes to the door.

All of us follow him but he barks at Maxoiliodas until he is near the elf girl. Everytime he tries to move he starts to growl and bark at him.

“I think he wants you to stay with her.” I say.

“Ice Cream!” The girls shout really angry.

“Don’t worry, you can go. I will stay with the lady here. Just be sure to return the dog, it is very important to her.”

“Yes…” She says while pouting.

“Don’t worry, we will be back in no time.”

Ice Cream barks confirming.

As we leave the room we are right back outside.

Ice Cream runs towards the forest almost making us lose sight of him but he stops the moment he realizes that we can’t follow him. He is really fast, I would have to fly full speed to follow him.

“What do you think the dog wants?” Jack asks me.

“I have no idea.”

“Maybe bones.” Mess says.

Ice Cream doesn’t show signs of liking that supposition.

We then continue to follow him in silence and a somewhat normal pace as we don’t know what to expect.

All the trees in this forest are maple or oak trees and both have colored leaves.

After at maximum an hour of following Ice Cream we reach somewhere. An open space equal to that of a soccer field in the forest with no trees except a big one in the middle that is withering and a small house made out of wood.

Ice Cream runs full speed towards the tree and waits for us near it while barking.

When we get near it we see that around the tree are a lot of humanoid bones.

“Please tell me he didn’t bring us here to die.” Mess says cowering in fear.

“Poor tree, it is already black, must be almost dead, there aren’t even leaves left.” Jack says.

“Ice Cream, what do you want?” I ask.

He stops barking for a second and pushes Jack towards the tree from behind.

Jack is a little confused and tries to move but Ice Cream grabs his clothes if necessary and makes him stay near the tree.

“What do you want? To heal this tree?” Jack asks, a little annoyed.

Ice Cream Barks confirming.

“Can you even do that?” I ask.

“In theory, yes.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Then try at least.”

“I am going to need some space.”

Ice Cream moves away from the tree and gets near me and Mess.

Jack digs the ground a little and puts his two hands in the ground. After that I feel mana going from him to the ground.

After a few minutes of this the tree is a little healthier. The wood is now brown and some leaves appeared but for a 15 meter tall tree this thing is still not in the best shape yet.

Ice Cream begins to bark at the tree and soon enough we discover why.

“Thank you for revitalizing me, I was almost giving up.” A beautiful voice says directly in my head. By the reactions of everyone I was not the only one to hear this.

“Did the tree just talk?” Mess asks.

“I don’t have much time, please protect me, they are coming again.”

“What is coming?” Mess asks in panic. But we get no answer.

Just a few seconds later Ice Cream is ready to fight, growling and barking in every direction.

“Hey, I don’t know what is coming but if I stop this half-way things will be bad for the tree.”

We don’t even have time to say something to him, from the forest hundreds of goblins, orcs and ogres come as if spawning from thin air. All of these are races that live somewhere in this world and they are civilized, but these ones are what mobs on a rpg game would be. They ooze bad intentions and are clearly here just to kill. They are bathed in blood, almost naked, only with some loin cloth covering their genitals and any type of primitive weapon you can think of.

“Mess, do anything except burn them and try your best to protect the tree and Jack.”

“AAHHHHHHHHH!” Mess screams while forming runes in his hands and shooting wind blades from them cutting some of them.

Ice Cream also runs towards the enemies and goes to town on them. He probably is well versed in fighting those things. WIth just one bite he can drop even the ogres who are at least 2.5 meters tall and really fast if he can get a good hit.

I can’t use fire here so I draw Mira and run toward the area where no one is at and begin to hack away the creatures.

They are mindless and are trying to win with numbers. They just run or walk forward trying to hit anything in their way.

The goblins are weak so I can kill them even if I don’t hit somewhere vital. The orcs need a cut in the chest or to have their heads chopped off. The ogres are the real problem, you need to separate their head from the body or they just heal any damage and it is kinda hard to do it when I can’t give him a horizontal cut as even using the thrusters seem to be enough to start a fire here for some reason.

At some point I receive a hit from both a goblin and an orc but I feel nothing more than something touching me. These things must be weaker than I thought.

On the other hand the ogres are too strong. Every time one actually attacks, be it with a club or just a punch, you can feel the impact even if it doesn’t touch you. I don’t want to even think about what would happen if I got hit by one of those. Every time I see them moving I move out of the way ignoring everything else.

Mess is using Ice, Wind and Earth to stop the enemies on his side and Ice Cream is bouncing from one enemy to another.

After a few minutes of cleaning the small troops only the ogres that we couldn’t outright kill remain. As I look around I count 5. two on me, one in front of Mess, one that Ice Cream is trying to bite the head off and one that is really hurt but not dead near the tree.

I get in front of one of the ogres as it walks towards the tree and it prepares to give me a punch with his right arm. I quickly move to his left side with Yin and Yang in hand.

“Short Circuit!” I shout while stabbing him. A powerful electric current passes through me into the blades and goes straight to his insides. As he falls to the ground I cut his head off using both blades as scissors.

The Second one tries to hit me with a club after that but as I dodge it only hits the body of the first ogre making the club get stuck.

I use this opportunity to jump from the club directly to the shoulders of the creature and stab him in the head with both of the blades.

“Short Circuit!” I say again as my blades are in his head. He falls to the ground and as I try to remove the blades from his skull his head comes along.

I take a look at Ice Cream and he is eating the head of the ogre off. The thing is falling at any moment.

Mess made his last ogre a big ice statue that he shatters with a pebble he also created.

As I run towards the tree the last ogre regenerates enough to walk and it gets near Jack.

“Jack, behind you!” I shout.

Jack removes one of his hands from the ground and out of nowhere a carrot of all things pierces the head of the ogre. Before I can say anything he puts his hand back into the ground and I run towards the corpses to kill this thing for good.

Moments later Ice Cream and Mess also come back and we admire the tree coming back to life.

“AAHHHHHHH!” Mess scream as we look at the tree.

“What’s wrong?” Both me and Jack ask.

“I am alive.” He says as if he is in a frenzy.

We are all bathed in blood, so I guess that is a reaction.

Ice Cream just barks.

After a few minutes Jack removes his hands from the ground and lies down exhausted, as if he had just run a marathon.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

“Whoever did this deserves to die.” He answers me.

“What…” I try to ask something but I am interrupted again by the tree.

“Thank you. My dear dog here can only take care of so many of them alone.”

Ice Creams bark a little in an angry tone.

“Hey, you are a dog, aren’t you.”

Ice Cream whines a little before becoming silent.

“I am sorry about what is about to happen but it is necessary. Inside myself you will find a Glass ball and a fruit. Give the ball to the dog and promise me that you will only eat the fruit after he gives the ball back to the girl.”

We all nod in agreement and I take both of the items from inside a hole in the trunk.

The ball has the size of a handball and is quite heavy for something made out of glass. The fruit looks like an orange but is red and doesn’t seem to be the kind of fruit where you have to peel it before eating.

I give the ball to Ice Cream and the fruit to Jack. We take a few minutes to breath a little and take a look at the house there.

It is open, clean and full of stuff I don’t think should be in this world.

The place is just a big open square with the only walls being the walls that make the house and the ones that make the bathroom. This looks like a modern house from my world. There is a kitchen with a refrigerator and a stove, in the dinner table there are various children's books about fairy tales from my old world that I can’t see the name of, even knowing what it is about.

Various dolls and things to play along with the dolls like houses and dresses are in the area of the living room. There is even a TV but sadly it doesn’t work. In fact nothing here works.

“I don’t think we should be here.” Mess says.

“I also feel it.” Jack adds.

“Then we are three.”

This house gives a weird feeling, like you are being watched closely by someone you don’t like.

We go out and Ice Cream begins to walk back to the castle. Along the way Jack starts to talk.

“I have never seen a fruit like this one. Do you mind if I keep the seeds?”

“Sure.” I say.

“If it has any.” Mess say.

As we reach the castle the guards panic a little as 3 out 4 of us are bathed in blood.

“What happened?” The Orc guard asks us.

“We will find out.” I say as we walk through the gate.

We appear again in Maxoiliodas Lab and we are clean. I could have cleaned us up with fire but not in the forest, I was going to do that here.

“Ice Cream, you are back.” The little elf girl says happily, jumping from the chair she was.”

“What did you find?” Maxoiliodas asks us.

“That ball in the dog’s mouth. The fruit on Jack’s hand and some monsters.” I say.

“That is one of the many defences of the forest, probably.”

I ignore what he just said and look at Ice Cream and the girl.

He drops the ball in front of her and gives her a hug and begins to lick her. I guess he really likes her.

“Stop. If not for the spell I would be all goey now.” She says laughing a little. “Is this for me? It’s beautiful.” She says as she grabs the ball.

It begins to shine and a light envelops her and Ice Cream. In just a second Ice Cream’s light jumps from him to her as well a light coming from outside. Maxoiliodas is especially shocked by that one.

The girl begins to tear up and hugs Ice Cream really tightly.

“Daddy!” She screams before starting to cry.

We all freeze for a moment but before we do anything I feel like we have to eat that fruit.

I quickly tear apart the fruit in three pieces and eat it whole. Unluckily for Jack there are no seeds.

Images begin to flash in my mind. Probably for a good 10 minutes all 3 of us stay in place not moving.

When we come back I am beyond pissed, I am wrathful.

The girl stopped crying while we were tripping. She is also a reincarnation like us but her state is abnormal to say the least. She is knocked out and being cared by the mages there with Ice Cream on their side.

I turn my back on everyone there and begin to walk to the door. Mess and Jack stop me by standing in my way.

“You can’t.” Jack says in panic.

“I don’t want to die.” Mess shouts at me with fear all over his face.

“They need to pay.”

“What is going on?” Maxoiliodas asks, worried.

“You stay out of this. In fact, adopt that girl or something if you wanna be useful if anyone didn’t do that already.” I shout at him.

“Lucia, you can’t. Even you should know.” Jack says to me.

“What do you want me to do after seeing that? Nothing?” I shout angrily at him.

“Lucia, please! If you do it it will not only be you that they will come after. Trust me I saw them in person.” Mess says, still in fear, but trying his best to make me stop.

In my rage I punch both of them and leave the place.

“How do I get out?” I scream at the orc guarding the castle.

“Purple tree, just ahead, walk through.” He says panicked.

I fly straight into the tree and see myself back at the shack. I then fly out of the city and go back to the place I fought the demon before. There are some people there but it is the only place I can think of right now.

I move as far as I can into the grasslands and begin to just discharge mana from myself in rage while the images of what I saw begin to come back.

A flash of white light in the middle of an Ice Cream shop. There is a woman and girl, there is a man and girl, all sharing a big sunday and then nothing.

At first it is all black, then it is all white, then the sun hits my face. I look to the side and see the man, I look to the side and I see the woman. I panic, I stand up and look around. We are at a hospital.

We walk desperately asking everyone about the girl but no one understands us. We flee the place but are before we know it is all black again. I see a husk of a man, I see the husk of a woman, we don’t have the will to live anymore.

But then hope appears, the girl walks in front of us, but she mocks us, makes fun of us, and then we don’t see the girl, we see the devil.

The devil will give us the girl if we give him something. We accept without listening.

I see a big tree, I see a blue dog, we see a house. Inside the house we see the girl. She has pointy ears now but it is her.

The girl wakes up, wash her face, eat bread from the stove and drink milk from the refrigerator.

The girl hugs the tree and plays with the dog. The Girl reads a book and sees a cartoon on the tv.

The girl eats spaghetti from the stove and makes a mess. The girl takes a bath and makes bubbles.

The girl plays with the dolls and imagines herself as a princess.

The girl eats a sandwich from the refrigerator and after that eats a big sunday all alone.

The girl goes to sleep.

“Mom and Daddy will come tomorrow, I better sleep early today.” The girl says.

The girl wakes up…

At this point I also begin to punch the ground.

The dog looks at the tree and the tree looks at the dog. The tree speaks with all the other trees and the dog runs through the forest.

The tree talks to the dog, the dog follows the tree’s intructions. An angel is found. The dog brings back the angel to the tree and the girl.

The girl ignores the angel. The angel mocks and makes fun of the dog and tree. The angel is no angel, it is a devil. The devil flies away.

The dog is angry, the tree is sad. The tree uses a spell, a shine ball appears. Life begins to leave the tree.

The devil appears again, this time with green things. The dog fights green things but some hurt the tree. The tree can’t finish the spell but continues anyway. Life goes away from both.

Green things appear.The dog fights green things but some hurt the tree.The tree can’t finish the spell but continues anyway. Life goes away from both.

Green things…

The tree hears from other trees about good people. The tree uses almost all of its energy to call good people to her.

The Dog takes the girl to a castle nearby. Nobody finds the girl strange.

The dog finds the good people and guides them to the tree.

Good people heal the tree. The tree gives gifts to good people.

The dog guides people to the girl. The girl picks the gift, the shine ball of the tree.

Light flashes, the dog becomes a dog, the tree dies. Memories go to the girl.

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I shout as loud as I can, releasing all the mana I can from my body generating a big explosion.

I am calm now. There are a lot of people around me. Sophia approaches me.

“Lucia, what happened? Are you alright? Why did you create this crater?” She asks me in a panic.

“I am tired, I need to rest a little.”