To boost his morale, Tetsu rewarded himself with one solvable mystery. With Info over the mind fuck tree.

{ Ripoff Oak of Illusiant. Level: Unknown. Affinities: Unknown. The mighty oak originates from one of the seed branches... }

Tetsu gets the information in bits. Most of it was broken or vanishing as soon as it appeared.

"Color me impressed." A light smile perks onto Tetsu’s lips. “This is the strongest one by far.”

Tetsu strengthened his willpower and focused his intent, trying to pierce deeper and gain more information about the mighty oak. Bits of information fill his mind and then immediately vanishes.

The implications of such power were frightening. What is to say that the information he received was even genuine?

If the oak can delete the incoming information, it’s not farfetched to assume that it can alter or implant a memory.

In a sense, erase who you are or mold what you can be. Even Tetsu’s wildest imagination couldn’t comprehend the extent of the mighty oak’s power.

An overthinker already suffers from the common what-ifs. Imagine stumbling into a world that can entertain every possible what-if.

A world filled with mana doesn’t seem all that fun now, does it? As an overthinker, Tetsu has a simple rule about bypassing this conundrum.

When in doubt; act Kile.

“So... The oak is a powerful healer and mysterious as fuck.” Tetsu took what information he got from Info, altering his intent to peek into different aspects. “Can almost heal anything by burying the patient in a coffin.” Tetsu thinks for a while and agrees with the approach. “Sterile... coffin?” *Saint nods at that. “Sterile coffin, operating needles, illusions... for soothing, and mysterious as fuck. In short, the best doctor in the world. No, Multiverse.”

The last part gets him a shrug from the saint.

A part of Tetsu wanted to check his status screen, but that only brought back the pain.

Maybe after the revenge...? He didn’t know and while his healing ended quite a while back, it became harder to sense the life force.

Buried in guilt, Tetsu wanted to stay inside the coffin, hide away from the promise and revenge he promised himself to fulfill.

Flesh meets flesh, Tetsu searches lower but his hand only finds flesh. A normal search turns into a full-blown panic.

The pants, his gift, RJ’s final remembrance, were missing, and this fucking oak is named; rip-off.

Tetsu bursts out of the coffin, ripping away from the tiny roots, and drawing blood. A single drop from every pore painted him red.

Tetsu limped around the battlefield, his feet carrying fine dust... dust that belonged to RJ.

Tears blurred his vision, flowing down his cheeks, and clearing dirt along their path. He croaked, heaved, and tripped over. Yet he kept getting back up, apologizing.

“I’m sorry. I...” Tetsu carefully checked every rock, pebble, and boulder around him, completely forgetting about the pants.

He wept at every rock, begging for forgiveness, and later patted them with a smile. “You are alive...” His voice broke, heart squeezed, yet he smiled and spoke as he coughed up blood, clearing his throat. “... Aren’t you? Do you need time to heal? Are you angry with me? I... am. Sorry.”

At a distance, roots sneak underground. They thought they were sneaky, but Tetsu caught the escape from the corner of his eye.

Forming a mental image, Tetsu digs furiously at a spot where he last saw his pants. The sharp shards of rock dug into Tetsu’s fingertips, cutting and peeling away bits of his nails, but he did not stop until he felt wood. Then he only increased the speed, pumping more mana, cutting the roots, and re-claiming his pants.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“These are mine, my friend gave them to me. It’s the only memory that’s left of her.” Tetsu clung to the pants, crying and slashing roots that tried to reclaim them.

It was true. The Dandralith grinded every broken piece of mold to dust. Tetsu did not know how the Dandralith accomplished such an outlandish task. They were diamonds mixed in the mold, after all.

But it had been a whole day as he stayed unconscious, Tetsu reminded himself, and this realization hurt him more. He slept while his friend acted as a shield to save a worthless life.

More roots sprout out, wrapping themselves around Tetsu and his pants. Tetsu groveled, wept, and bit the roots like an animal until he stole the pants.

Yes, stole. The pants might be priceless or worth a fortune, but what value can one place for life? And the mighty oak did save his life.

Tetsu accused it of stupidity, telling it and himself that it saved the wrong person. He understood and more than agreed with the payment, yet he stayed greedy and wasn’t willing to part from the one thing RJ gave him. It was his gift and his alone. No one had a right over these pants and he would kill anyone that dared come close.

Long back, he knew and forced a promise over himself. Until he lived, he shall never accept a bond, become a slave, or some plaything in someone’s grand schemes. He detested politics and agendas. They all were selfish and manipulative. Once he grew up, he would be free of the world and its mediocre views.

He promised himself that and now, as the world has changed to better suit his needs, he shall never squander this opportunity.

"I will repay my debt." He makes a vow, staring at the mighty oak. “This might be awful greedy of me, but I refuse to be a pawn. You can try to force me, but I would rather die than bow. I can work under you...” Tetsu gets up, breaking the roots connected to his pants. “Name your price and I shall work around it, but after a while...” Tetsu pauses, turns, and walks away, with pants closely clutched to his chest and tears dripping down his chin. “... I will leave and follow my own way.”

Tetsu disappears into the forest, searching for a different answer. ‘Is he worthy to even wear these pants?’ After some thought, he detached and buried half of the pants, marked the tree, and slumped over the small heap.

"You keep running." Kile mocks Tetsu in his dreams. A memory from long ago.

"Let me guess, you also have a problem with that?" Tetsu imitates Razz’s disappointed look.

It wasn’t hard. She always had that face around Kile. Whether she was actually disappointed or was pulling Kile’s leg, no one could guess.

"Just keep in mind that you will have to fight one day."

As a well-reversed sentence, they both utter the same line. “Some fights should be to the death.”

Kile was predictable and repetitive enough for Tetsu to catch and chant alongside him without missing a beat.

In Tetsu’s defense, both of them were four years old and a normal four-year-old behaved like him, not Kile.

Razz did not mock Kile when Tetsu tattled on him. "Not a kind phrase, but it holds deep meaning." She said and tried to explain to a four-year-old the gruesome reality of life.

It’s safe to say they both were insane.

Thank god for Tetsu’s dumbfounded mind. Back in those days, everything flew right past his head. But now... now he understood the depth of what they meant. What Grandma witnessed, what she had to live through.

Kile is just weird. A painfully simple weirdo.

He sponges off of other’s experiences and grows faster than them. Okay, maybe weird doesn’t justify him. He is Kile and the best verb, noun, adjective, or an insult/praise to best define him is his name; Kile.

It was something else, and he changed it, but this suits him well enough. Kile is quote-on-quote “Kile,” and he is right almost all the fucking time. If he did do something wrong, he makes the wrong, the right thing to do.

Like the other things Kile is always right about, he is right about Tetsu’s current situation.

Ignore or run, when someone wants you dead, kill to survive. The world isn’t rainbow and candy anymore. Heck, it wasn’t such back on Earth either. When someone comes after you with a knife, use the same knife to stab the imbecile who dared attack you. That’s the reason even law permits self-defense.

Claim sainthood when you’re on your own and have no human in sight.

Tetsu wanted with all his soul to stick with his values, yet in this new reality, his resolve would either get him or the ones close to him killed.

If he were a few levels higher, RJ would still be alive. He would’ve had better sense to be vigilant.

He could. No, will kill that bastard responsible.

Time has changed and so should he. The Dandralith will regret the day it crossed his path.

Fueled by his rage and with the ‘Crimsonfae’ tooth adding more wood to the blazing fire, Tetsu set out to hunt, to quench his thirst, and douse the flames, consuming his heart.

Many weaklings roamed the forest and while Tetsu used to roam covertly, every one of them peaked with interest, but now when Tetsu strode through the forbidden forest like he owned these grounds, they ignored the level two human.

While they ignored and treated Tetsu like a harmless target, he considered all of them to be inferior weaklings that aren’t worth his time. They might be six to eight levels above him, but intellectually and quite literally, Tetsu can squash them like a bug.

All the data he collected over the days, which used to scare him, now only made him pity the darn bugs. One control fire and they all will be roasted beyond recognition.

Marking trees with runes and creating resource bubbles in the open gave him a sense of freedom, power, and pride. After all this time, these lands were finally, truly, his.

Balancing a dead expression, which told others to stay the fuck away, Tetsu also maintained a stoic, focused exterior, twirling four miniature tornadoes on his palm.

A little match of tops or the fancier well-known term, Bey blades, clashed against each other. These were indeed small resource tornadoes, two of health and two of mana, which Tetsu regulated by using ‘Pave Path.’

═─┈─{═E═}─┈─═