Chapter 29: Return of a friend

I stretch out my limbs on my now far too-small bed. The first rays of sunlight fall in through the peephole in my home. Maybe I should look into getting a door. Shifting dirt around every day is getting annoying.

Maybe I can do something with Bindweed Conjuration? Those flowers I accidentally made were pretty. I bet I can do something like that ginseng cave now. Only it’ll be a painful drain on my Stamina to keep up.

I continue musing on the possible decorations for my home until I remember the human I dropped off at the mushroom guardians.

Immediately, I shift the dirt away from the entrance and head towards the dryad heart, already imagining the worst scenarios. Everything pops into my mind from him getting eaten alive to him fighting the mushroom guardians after he got free by some stroke of luck.

In the distance, I can already see the tree that has leaves a few shades darker than the ones around it. On the moss stand three figures.

I pause. There are only two mushroom guardians that are that tall. Who’s the third? Don’t tell me that another human found him.

Slowly, I make my way closer to the tree until I see a familiar figure. Skin that has a greenish undertone, a cape of leaves that sways in the wind, and eyes that are as verdant as the forest.

“Sairal?” I ask not believing my eyes.

He turns around to look at me. Instead of reaching his hips, I now reach his collarbone in height. He scans me up and down, eyes lingering on the bindweed.

I too look over him and notice black veins pulsing under his skin, spreading up from his neck and ending at his chin. His bare arms show much the same. It must be some kind of aftereffect of the poison, or maybe he hasn’t fully expelled it yet.

“Green. I see that much has changed. First of all, please tell my why there is a human tied up here?” he points to the human in question, a hint of irritation in his voice.

It takes me a moment to understand why he is so peeved. Oh, with him being a dryad and this being his dryad heart that is connected to him…bringing a human that close to it, might not have been the smartest thing to do.

I stare away, a hint of guilt in my eyes. “A group of humans spotted me not that far from here. I had to get rid of them…else they might have gone searching this part of the forest.”

Sairal nods as one of the mushroom guardians happily tugs on his arms like a child and points to the lake. Sairal lets himself be led closer to the lake until the mushroom guardian picks up a pebble and throws it into the lake and a tentacle reaches out to swat the pebble away, having grown bored of playing that game with the mushroom guardians.

Sairal curses.

“Too much has changed,” he shakes his head in defeat. “First off, congratulations on your new evolution. Didn’t expect you to reach that before I returned. Then again, I did take a bit longer than I told you. How many options did you get to choose from?”

“47,” I say proudly while looking at the tentacle that is still waving around in the air in anger before it retreats back into the water.

“You picked a very, very dangerous one,” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “I should have told you about evolutions with a colon in the name. But I didn’t think you would get offered one since they are incredibly rare.”

My heart drops a bit in my chest, “What's wrong with it?” I stammer out.

“The lesser races, the smallest races, and monsters are not allowed to take them. The Greater races take offence. They are the ones that are supposed to have classes, or so they say.” he lowers his hand and presses one finger against his lower lip, thinking. “Then again, who even cares with you being a mandrake? When you are discovered you already will be hunted by everyone so what does taking a class instead of a subspecies matter?” he muses. “What rarity was it?”

“Epic,” I gloat.

He quirks an eyebrow, “I assume that it comes with more than just a cosmetic change. How many stats and resources per level?”

I turn to him, “I’ll tell you if you tell me your level. You are still a (E) grade. Identify says so. But you feel different?” I hedge.

It’s true. His presence is stranger as if the scent of the forest hangs around him. It’s still faint, but it definitely is there.

Sairal nods, “You can sense it? (D) grades and above are strong enough to manifest auras and use them to their advantage. I’m close enough that my own aura is developing. As for how close I am? I’m level 47, three removed from the cap.”

“Isn’t the cap for (E) grade supposed to be level 80?” I say with the level requirement doubling each evolution.

Sairal laughs and shakes his head, “It only doubles up till (F) grade. For (E) grade the level cap is level 50.”

“Didn’t you say that (D) grades are forced to join the Courts? What will you do?”

Sairal shrugs, “I’m a special case so I don’t have to join…until they change their minds once again.” He stretches out, slightly wincing. He moves back to his tree and begins to look over it for any signs of damage, completely ignoring the human, “For now, I’ll stay here and make the best of my time.”

“Good. I’d miss you if you’d leave. These past few weeks have been a bit lonely. As for my level gains? 25 resource points and 15 stats per level.”

Sairal’s jaw falls open, “That’s is actually close to the realm of legendary evolutions. Don’t tell me the drawbacks…wait there aren’t any?” he asks.

“Nope! Only advantages!” I laugh.

He begins to mutter to himself, “I think I see what the system is doing. With you being a mandrake and picking a class, it seems to decide that you walk a very difficult path and therefore will reward you equally. And the feats you must’ve performed in the system’s eyes…”

Satisfied, he nods at his tree and turns towards the human, “Anyway, I don’t really mind since he has lots of uses. Just don’t bring anyone stronger, or someone with high physical stats. You are lucky that this one is a pure chanter or else he would have escaped.”

He continues to stare at the human. In return, the human begins to let out muffled screams again upon seeing the dryad.

Sairal nods, “Very good that you captured him. He’ll be a good bargaining chip for what we’ll do next.”

I frown, “Bargaining chip?”

Sairal nods happily, “Yes. When I travelled to one of the cities in the inner forest, I came across a few opportunities by luck. One of them was getting two tickets to the Wandering Bazaar. It cost me an arm and a leg, but it will be worth it. Especially when we get a good price for him. We can do lots of things with all that money, Green.”

“No.”

Sairal pauses in his musings, “Why no- Ah, because you were human?”

I shake my head, “Maybe. I just don’t want to sell him into slavery?”

I turn back to the lake and watch the tentacle monster write under the surface. In the corner of my eye, I see Sairal’s fist clench, “It is what he deserves. He did a bad thing, Green. The army that you ran from is from and all the destruction they brought to the outskirts is nothing compared to what they did in the inner forest. Thousands, tens of thousands are dead because of them.”

I turn back, to him as he feels at his side, where there is a hole in his bark armour, “Was it that bad? What happened?” I ask wanting to know what happened.

He leans against his tree and stares up at the sun, “They used some sort of powder their alchemists made to make all the monsters go crazy. They turned everyone against each other and then they poured out of the caves to slaughter us all,” he lets out a deep breath and says the next part barely in a whisper, “I almost died.”

He fingers the hole in his armour, the skin under there healed but the black veins continue to pulse painfully under his skin.

Sairal shakes his head and turns back to me, putting on a fake grin, “Anyways, I saw you had a fun time when you were running away from that army.” He chuckles to himself.

He elaborates on how he saw that and I shake my head in disbelief at the magic that was at play.

We spend a short time catching up before Sairal interrupts me, “Let’s continue catching up on the way to the Wandering Bazaar. As the name implies, it won’t stay in the same place forever, so we need to leave today.”

I look at him, “Three things. One, I’m a mandrake. Two, I might have something extra that we can sell. Three, we are not selling that human.”

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Sairal cocks his head to the side when I mention something worth money. He pulls a brown robe out of thin air and hands it to me. “That solves problem one. But we will sell the human. I’m not budging on that,” he crosses his arms.

I stare back at him, “No. We will not.”

He shakes his head. “He knows where my heart is. He knows the area where you live. He holds too much information. We will sell him to a slaver or I’ll kill him here right now. Your choice,” he says his tone cold as he pulls out a simple dagger from his pocket space.

I fold my arms over each other, “Can’t you like, you know talk to him?”

Sairal gives me a blank stare, “You do know that he grew up in Zulis? One, if not the most, fanatic cities of the Human Federation? His entire life he has heard people say that anything else than a human is pure evil. Especially you. Not only do you have a class but you are a second-lifer to boot. The only thing that is worse in his mind than you, is someone like you at a higher grade.

“But if you want to keep him, I’m sure that there might be a soul mage or two in the Bazaar,” he says casually.

I frown, “A soul mage? No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

Sairal chuckles darkly at that, “Honestly Green, killing him will make our lives so much easier.”

I nod at him, “But sometimes the easy path isn’t the best. Didn’t you say that the system rewards the ones who travel difficult paths? Besides…I can’t kill him.”

“I hate it when you use my advice against me. We will sell him. I won’t budge on that. Though, I’m willing to meet you in the middle. I don’t mind searching for someone from the Zulissian army in the Bazaar to sell him back to his city.”

“That’s possible?” I ask befuddled.

He shrugs, “When nations clash, they always pay out for prisoners. It gives the winners some extra coin and will minimize the loss of life. And it’s necessary for some other reasons…” he trails off.

“What about him exposing us?”

“I’ll manage. I’ll need to buy some extra things at the Bazaar though.”

“Great. I’ll grab the sword and we’ll head to where I stashed that construct.”

I move to my home and grab the sword. My claws are better anyway. When I come back to the dryad tree, the human is unbound looking terrified at the dryad.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Planting a seed,” the dryad says before blowing spores into his face. The human coughs, and collapses to the ground, already asleep. “Now, let’s move. It is getting late.”

***

“You fought this construct? Wait a moment I need to report this.” He presses his hand against the closest tree.

Then he picks it up and stuffs it away in his pocket dimension with some difficulty.

At a leisurely jog, we sprint towards the border of the forest.

I stare at him, “Didn’t you say that you can only send messages through your tree?”

He shrugs, “I upgraded the skill.”

***

“Are we really leaving the forest?” I ask while looking at the endless grassland that stretches out before me. We stand at the last line of trees.

“Yes,” Sairal says turning to me. On his back, he carries the sleeping human. “The Wandering Bazaar is always in neutral territory. Come on, we’ll be too late if we continue to dally.”

I let out a sigh and step onto the grassland. Together we continue jogging towards the horizon at a fast clip.

After the sun has begun to set, he speaks up for the first time after leaving the forest. “Green,” he says, his voice heavy. It doesn’t sound like the usual joking tone, or how he carries his voice when he falls into a lecture. It doesn’t even sound angry. It’s strange.

“Deep in the forest, I was badly hurt. I was dying and I knew that I would die. The poison was burning me from the inside.”

He stops and stares at me. “You helped, didn’t you? I think I felt one of my skills reaching out to you and guiding you,” he says more like a question.

I think back on the fight with the Chimera as I felt something push me on, and heard something whisper in my ear, reminding me that I still had unallocated stat points. So that was one of his skills?

In the end, I just give him a casual shrug, “It’s what anyone would have done for a friend,” I say not telling him that I almost died for it. He doesn’t need to know.

“Thank you.”

Sairal looks away and remains quiet, instead looking over the ocean of green.

I find myself not hating the silence, but instead enjoying that nothing needs to be said between us.

***

The sun has set and the last rays of light are fading, engulfing the world in darkness.

It feels uncomfortable to be out this late, “When will we get there? If we don’t reach it soon we’ll be caught in the night.”

“It’s a two-day trip. We will camp soon.”

A shiver runs up my spine at the mere thought, “But what about the monsters?”

Sairal smiles, “The grasslands are different from the forest. There aren’t that many monsters here. It is a quiet, calm place.”

We continue to run. Until the world is plunged into complete darkness.

My legs ache and cramp, not used to running the entire day.

Finally, he decides to set up camp.

He lowers the human to the ground unceremoniously. He’s still asleep but the spores seem to be wearing off.

Sairal pulls out blankets and pillows from his pocket space. He continues to put up strange barriers that work like greenscreens, hiding us from anyone outside. I don’t bother asking him how he got those.

Instead, I start up a new conversation, “Those mushroom guardians at your tree have been acting strange lately,”

Sairal nods, “I have been away but I sensed it. They do seem a bit different.”

“They are,” I confirm. “I once found them gnawing on a human arm, and that is the least strange thing that they did.” I continue to tell him about all the other things they did, bringing a smile to his lip.

“I gave them parts of that Fortress beaver heart. It seems to have given them a personality,” he comments to me.

“That’s bad. Back in my world, there are plenty of stories where things like your guardians do some strange things as they gain sentience.”

He barks out a laugh. He is acting strange, almost as if he had been half asleep before he left for the central forest. I want to comment on it but that will just ruin the moment.

“Trust me, they will not turn on me. The system makes that impossible. And they see me as their creator.”

“You just jinxed it.”

He lets out another honest chuckle.

The human next to him groans and begins to stir.

Groggily, he sits up, and blinks a few times before he comes to a realisation; he is surrounded by monsters.

Before he can scream, Sairal claps a hand over his mouth, “Shut up. We are going to sell you back to Zulis. If you work against us, I will kill you,” he leans in closer to whispers into the human’s ear, “That is before I experiment on you with my spores. I know you heard the stories.”

I don’t comment on it, not exactly sure if Sairal is joking or not.

The human seems to consider fainting for a second before he slowly nods.

Sairal thrusts some food into his hands, “Eat. We don’t want you to be starved and therefore have less value.”

The dryad begins to tell about his journey to the Courts. He is hazy about some of the details since the human is clearly listening to us.

The sky above us fades into the true night. I don’t like it. It goes against my instincts to be out here.

Sairal notices and pips in, “Relax, no one can find us here. And if someone does, I’ll just make short work of them.”

I nod and lay down on the blankets he gave me, looking up at the sky.

“On Earth, we had something called light pollution,” I begin. I don’t know why I’m saying this but the words just leave me as I stare at the stars, “I don’t know exactly how it works but it happens since so many people leave on their lights at night. Because of that the stars seemed less bright and not so pretty as this.”

Sairal lays down on his own blanket, looking up at the sky. The human looks confused, not understanding the language, or if he does, only hearing a part of the conversation.

“I know right? The Illusory curtain is pretty.”

I nod. Up in the sky, there are countless pinpricks of light, forming a scattered ocean of light that is a mix between red, purple, pink, and azure. Dozens of moons hang between the stars, not affecting the night sky somehow.

I don’t know how long I stare up at the sky before I close my eyes. And fall asleep.

When I open them next, the sun is already up in the sky.

Sairal is carving arrow shafts out of branches while he watches over the human that’s eating his breakfast with clear hesitation.

“Good, you’re awake. After the human has had his fill, we’ll be leaving. I want to reach the Bazaar by midday.”

I nod and watch the human eat his breakfast. I spend the time tanning in the sun, hoping to get another level in Photosynthesis. Just one more level and I can upgrade this skill too.

I keep staring at the human and a part of me wants to know what his name is. But I don’t ask it. Seeing him as a person will just make everything more painful. Especially when I will need to kill humans in the future.

It’s bad, and I know it, but the less I see them as people, the better for me. I hate myself for it; that I somehow came to this twisted conclusion. I need to protect myself. I don’t think I can live with it if I keep thinking that every human I kill has parents, a family, and a life outside of the battlefield.

I know it isn’t on me that I killed them. That it probably was their own decisions that led them to join the army, enter the forest, and find me. They are responsible. Not me. But I still feel guilty.

Sairal uses his spores to bring the human to sleep again.

While we run I ask him something, “Yesterday, you said that you were planting a seed when you blew those spores in his face. What did you mean?”

“Nothing special. Just something temporary stuff to extract some information out of him. Besides, any of my usual tactics will just get detected when he is looked over by Zulis. I’m not confident enough to have measures strong enough to hide from a (D) grade healer.”

I quirk an eyebrow, “Usual tactics?”

Sairal nods as he easily keeps up with my highest speed, “Yes. Don’t tell anyone about that. Even among dryads, we don’t talk about it.”

“Then why are you telling me?” I gasp, feeling the roots in my legs strain.

“You asked. And with the most basic knowledge, you are smart enough to come to the same conclusion. Anyway, I’ll retract my special spores out of his system. You want him to stay alive after they buy him right?”

“Yes?” I ask confused, “Isn’t that a given?”

“No? He will be checked over by dozens of healers all searching for spying methods that might have been implanted in his body, or if some other magic is used. Only when he is cleared, he will be fully let back in. If you want him to live, you will need to play hard to get. Haggle like he isn’t important to you. Haggle as if only the gold matters.”

I look at him, “Can’t you do that?”

He shakes his head growing serious, “No. You will. You chose this so you will handle this. Besides, you’ll learn from it.”

I don’t say anything more, digesting everything and beginning to prepare whatever I’m meant to say. If I do it wrong, he will still be killed, or worse, they won’t buy him back.

Later that day, all too soon, we reach the wandering bazaar.