Chương 21: Save The Trees

Vin blinked at the Ancient One as the strange tree-like man took another sip of his tea, breathing in the deep aroma before placing the cup down. As though he hadn't just confessed to Vin that his entire race of God-like beings was dead and he'd soon follow.

'Well… that's some confession.' Alka said, seeming almost speechless for once.

"No kidding," he muttered, clearing his throat when the Ancient One gave him a curious look.

"So, uh… did you like… kill them all or something?"

"Oh no, nothing of the sort," the Ancient One chuckled.

"As I said, I've been watching you since you entered the forest, so I am already aware you know of how we are on a new world and of the strange phenomenon we experienced where everyone lost their levels."

"Yeah. The first villagers I encountered called it the 'Great Reset.'""Oh, I do like that," the Ancient One smiled.

"Sounds very grandiose. Anyway, back on our world, my people and the elves had formed something of a symbiotic relationship over the last few millennia. We dryads, the official term for our race, took care of the Sacred Forest's defenses and by proxy the elves that lived within it. At the same time, the elves began producing more and more Druids and other classes capable of providing us with much needed nature magic, and turned their primary focus to sustaining us.

The larger we grew, the more the Sacred Forest grew, the more elves were born to assist us, and the larger we grew. It was a cycle that worked particularly well for thousands of years, and none of us were in any hurry to change it."

"But three months ago, the Great Reset happened, throwing our delicate balance into disarray. You see, after millennia of relying on the elves' powerful Druidic magic for growth and sustenance, what do you think would happen when all those Druids suddenly lost their levels?"

"You'd lose your only source of magical food," Vin answered, thinking back to the dozen Druids he'd seen pumping energy into the giant tree's roots, and how the roots had practically guzzled the magic down as though they were dying of thirst.

"Precisely. Unfortunately for us, my people are actually magical beasts. Our magic is purely natural and we are somewhat separate entities from the System. While the elves were reset back to infancy, no such reset occurred for us. In the blink of an eye, we'd lost our primary source of energy, and we've been rapidly starving ever since." The room was silent as Vin took all this in. Everything the Ancient One, the dryad, had said checked out with what he already knew.

Even so, it was hard to imagine such a powerful race of people just letting themselves starve out like that.

"I understand you're starving… but you said your people died. What happened?"

"As we are technically beings half made of magic, life and death are not quite the same for my people as it is for yours," the dryad explained.

"After the Great Reset took place and we realized what had happened, my people came to a decision. Even simply projecting our forms out from the Tree of Ancients consumes energy, so the rest of my race entered a state akin to hibernation. Currently, we're using our own life forces to sustain our actual physical bodies, the Tree of Ancients, which is slowly consuming my people a little bit at a time."

"That's horrible!" Vin stared at the dryad in shock, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Can they be woken up again? How long do they have?"

"Technically yes, they can be. However, their magic would have to be replenished before doing so. Currently it would be akin to freezing a human in time, removing a fraction of their heart, and then unfreezing them. Even if only a sliver of the heart is missing, the human won't last long without it. As to how long they have before they are consumed entirely…" The dryad leaned back, pursing his lips.

"... it's hard to say really. It's not as though we've ever done this before after all. The elves will slowly level up and increase the potency of their magic, which will slow down the rate of decay affecting my people, but we stand no chance of regaining the power that was lost before we are fully consumed. If I had to make an estimate, I would say my people have anywhere from a few months to a few years. There's really no way to be sure."

"Okay," Vin ran his hand through his hair, letting out a sigh of relief. A few years, hell, a few months even was a lot less imminent than he'd feared.

"I get why you want to keep this from the elves. That said, how exactly am I supposed to help you with this?"

"Before my people entered their hibernation-like state, we did our best to brainstorm various solutions to the problem," the dryad explained.

"The biggest issue however, was lack of information. This is a brand-new world, and we simply don't know what exists beyond our borders. For the elves, leaving the Sacred Forest is taboo, so we have been sitting blind within our fragment these past few months. That left us with only two broad ideas to solve our problem."

"The first solution would be for us to somehow get our hands on a Major Artifact, or possibly a Greater one that was specifically nature aligned. Unfortunately finding either of those would be a monumental task, which makes our second idea more likely to succeed."

"While the artifact solution would potentially solve our problem entirely, in truth, we only need to buy enough time for the elves to reclaim their former glory and achieve the strength needed to sustain us once again. Because of that, a temporary solution may be enough. If we could get our roots on the corpses of enough magical beasts, we could use them as fertilizer, and it should theoretically keep us sustained long enough for the elves to catch back up, if only barely.

The problem with this idea is that we would need either an astronomical number of weaker magical beast bodies for it to work, or a couple of far stronger ones. Both pose their own problems for obtaining and transporting."

"For either of these plans to work, we'd need the assistance of someone from outside the village. Someone not only willing to search the world for what we need, but someone capable of doing so."

"Someone like an Explorer," Vin said, finishing his thought.

"Precisely," the dryad nodded.

"To be honest, the fact that you wandered into our forest, someone both capable of communicating with the elves and with the exact skillset we need, was nothing short of a miracle. The first few people who attempted to do so after we arrived on this world unfortunately had their lives snuffed out by the elves before my people even got the chance to speak with them."

"Wait, you had other people attempt to make contact with you already?" Vin asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"And you killed them?"

"Again, the elves killed them. Not me." The dryad sighed, a look of sorrow on his face.

"To be fair, the people made themselves known by attempting to chop down trees on the edge of the forest. To the elves, trees are sacred plants, and thus they dealt with the intruders ruthlessly and without remorse. After that initial slaughter, the people on that fragment haven't attempted to make contact since." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

'These elves sound a tad murdery, even for my tastes,' Alka finally chimed in.

'But the dryad is alright I guess. Don't forget to ask about people with divinity.'

"Alright, this is a lot to take in," Vin admitted, taking a sip of his tea to buy himself some time to think.

"Before I agree to anything though, I have a few questions. To be frank, I'm almost certainly going to help you just because I absolutely love your magic tree, and I dislike the idea of an entire race of magical people dying. But I just want to clarify a few things first."

"By all means," the dryad said, smiling warmly at Vin's honesty.

"First off, what on Earth is your name?" Vin demanded.

"I've been thinking of you as 'the dryad' all this time, and if I'm being honest, the longer I do it the more racist it's starting to feel."

"My people don't actually have names, so 'the dryad' is perfectly fine." Seeing Vin's frown, he chuckled.

"You are welcome to call me whatever you wish, if that makes you more likely to accept my cumbersome request. Perhaps some form of tree-based pun? You humans always seem to love your puns."

'Oh! Arbor! Bark! Leaves! Wood! Uh… Branchy?' Alka rattled off in quick succession.

"Those aren't even puns, you're just listing parts of a tree," Vin muttered, pretending to cup his mouth in his hands as he thought.

'Like you got anything better?'

"I'm pretty sure I can do better than goddamn branchy." Snapping his fingers, he grinned.

"Erik! Short for Erikson. Like Leif Erikson!"

'... I don't get it.'

"He was a famous viking back on my original world," Vin explained, seeing the look of confusion on the freshly dubbed Erik's face as well.

'... What's a viking?'" Anyway! Now that you have a name, my second question! Do you have anyone with access to divinity within the Sacred Forest?" Hearing him finally ask, Alka immediately stopped complaining about his stupid naming scheme, turning her attention entirely on her new hope. Erik seemed mildly surprised by the question, but he still answered.

"We did in fact have a single elf that was blessed by the Goddess of Nature," he said.

"However, when we were transported to this world three months ago, he vanished without a trace. I would have known if he'd left the village, as I can see through all the trees within the Sacred Forest, and he didn't cross by a single one of them. Nonetheless, nobody has seen him since that fateful day."

"Could he have teleported or something? Flown out of the village maybe?" Vin felt like he was grasping at straws, but he was still hopeful there was a chance they'd run into the divine elf somewhere on their journey. Unfortunately, Erik shook his head.

"His class was Druid of the Divine. I can say with certainty that he didn't have access to magic such as that."

"Damn," Vin cursed as another potential lead was removed just as quickly as it had begun. Alka remained silent inside him, not commenting on Erik's revelation.

"Any chance you think one of your current Druids might end up catching one of the Gods' eyes anytime soon?"

"In all my millennia of existence, I've only seen it happen a handful of times," Erik admitted.

"While anything is possible, I wouldn't bet on that occurring for whatever it is you need a user of divine magics for."

"Worth a shot." Vin sighed, shaking his head.

"Well then, I only have one other question really." Scooting forward in his chair, Vin leaned toward the first truly magical being he'd ever discovered, doing his best to keep his excitement off his face.

"In exchange for helping you… can you teach me magic?" For his part, Erik didn't seem to mind Vin getting up in his personal space, which he supposed made sense as this technically wasn't even Erik's actual body after all.

"Sadly, as my magic is natural and not given to me by the System, I am unable to teach you," Erik said, crushing Vin's dreams of being taught by the magical tree man. But before Vin's hopes could sink too low, the dryad smiled.

"... However, I would be happy to ask one of our Druids to teach you a few spells in exchange for your help, if that is acceptable. I also have a few Minor Artifacts I've taken off invaders of our forest over the years that should help you on your journey." An actual magic teacher and more magical artifacts? Hell yeah Greenpeace, I'll save the trees!

"That sounds more than fair to me," Vin said, standing and shaking Erik's hand.

"So how will this work exactly? Assuming we are banking on solution number two; collecting magical beasts for you to eat… How am I supposed to transport them back to you?"

"I'm planning on sending someone to assist you on your journey, if that is alright with you. I will give them some methods of handling all that, so you won't need to worry."

"Works for me," Vin shrugged.

"Just make sure you pick someone with a lot of endurance, or some way to travel quickly. So long as they can keep up, I don't mind having a travel companion." I already have one after all.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Erik said, leading him over to the door.

"I'll have a word with Smohl and see about getting you a place to stay in the village for a few days while I finish preparations. Does that work for you?"

"As long as nobody stabs me in my sleep," Vin nodded, thinking back to the handful of elves that glared at him like he was something they found on the bottom of their shoe.

"I can assure you, while you are under my protection, there is quite possibly no safer place on this entire new world than the Sacred Forest." Leading them back outside, Vin was surprised to see that at least a few hundred elves remained clustered around the Tree of Ancients. The moment they stepped out of the tree, all the elves hit the deck once more, pressing their faces into the ground in reverence. This time, Vin was close enough to hear Erik's weary sigh as the man stepped forward.

"My children," Erik began, his melodic voice drifting over the entire crowd.

"This human has agreed to assist me with a problem that threatens the entire Sacred Forest and should be treated with the same kindness and respect I would expect you to treat your own." Vin expected to see heads raised in shock or even some outcry, but there was nothing but silence as every single elf in the crowd remained motionless, locked in worship toward the Ancient One. Erik must have had full faith in his directions being carried out, as he continued without pause.

"He will be staying within the village for a few days. He has had a long journey and will need to focus, so please give him some space during his time here. Smohl, a word, if you will." Finally, there was movement from the frozen crowd as Smohl hurried to his feet and quickly stepped up to the Ancient One. The elf dared not look Erik directly in the eyes, but he listened carefully as the dryad explained Vin's need for a place to stay.

Once that was taken care of, Erik turned to Vin one final time, offering him a sad smile.

"I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, and your willingness to help my people. Please don't hesitate to come to me if there is anything else you need for your journey." Having said his piece, Erik turned and walked into the tree through the closed door without even bothering to open it, which then vanished in a shimmer of wood right behind him as the tree returned to its unblemished self.

It took a few seconds, but after Erik was truly gone, the elves slowly began rising to their feet and going about their days. Vin received dozens of stares and curious glances as they left the area, but it seemed as though not a single elf dared go against Erik's request that they leave him alone while he was here.

"Come with me," Smohl said, gesturing for Vin to follow him.

"The Ancient One gave me specific instructions on where you can rest the next few days. He also asked for you to let me know when you're ready for your magic instructor."

"As soon as possible," Vin said quickly, already imagining adding a few new spells to his repertoire.

"The Ancient One said you would probably say that," Smohl said, actually going so far as to let out a small laugh of all things. Vin could barely believe that this was the same man that had wanted to execute him on the spot just earlier today. Letting Smohl lead the way, Vin fell in behind the elf as the two of them headed back into the thick of the elven village. It was time to learn some magic!