Mash was walking through his world; two elders were following close beside him. It was a bit awkward for him. He was supposed to act as a tour guide and show them a place they might be safe. It wasn’t really fair to them, but it was the only solution he had come up with that would avoid all-out war. The others had suggested taking them to another world and his personal one. Although, they quickly realized why that would be a terrible idea. The Kishiv and even the Elders looked like monsters. He didn’t think that any adventure or knight would treat them as anything else.

The two elders were Elder SerJi and Avji as they both had spoken with Mash prior. It was a ploy for trust, but Mash didn’t really care. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to harm him, and his world didn’t have anything valuable as far as he was aware. They walked around the planet, not really in hopes of seeing everything but just in an attempt to show the elders what Mash’s offer really entailed. He wasn’t offering them a furnished world. There would be no cities or maps, and they would pretty much have to do everything on their own. Mash would help when he could since he felt responsible for their situation, but he wouldn’t be there all the time. He could help with constructing wooden buildings easily enough, almost everything else would have to come from them.

Mash didn’t even know what someone would need to establish a small village. His objective here would be to foster an entire world’s worth of people. That would be a much bigger venture than he could accomplish. Plus, there was the issue of him receiving dozens of questions from the Elders that he couldn’t answer. They asked him about the seasons and changes in climate, but Mash hadn’t seen any changes yet. Although that didn’t mean they didn’t happen, just that he hadn’t been around for them. The questioning did let him learn a lot from the Elders too.

Mash learned that the Elder’s world was called Stavon and that it was small. Also, their world was called Seras. They claimed to be able to estimate the size of his world by the amount of land they had explored, and Elder AvJi was fairly confident that his world was two or three times as large as theirs was. Honestly, they sounded somewhat hopeful, and Elder SerJi was obviously excited, or maybe, he was just intrigued by the opportunity. He claimed that the energy here was denser than their own world too, and they would be able to make even better things here. Mash was a bit interested to see what they would develop and had asked them about it. Their answers to those questions were vague and he didn’t really understand much of them. It felt like they weren’t very good at teaching. When they spoke, they glossed over the foundation, leaving Mash unable to comprehend any of it.

One problem came up a lot as they explored. His world didn’t seem to be any animals or monsters. No plantations or farms were set up, so the people would really have to do everything from scratch. The elders had asked about his portal when he had made it, and he implied that he could make it bigger if needed. The plan that had been crafted was a large-scale move. They had a few mobile buildings as well as plenty of farm animals that they wanted to bring with them. He also expected that they would be bringing as much food as possible and whatever farming equipment they had. They had found a source of food in a strange green fruit that grew on the trees. They were hard and sweet, reminding him of an apple. It wasn’t quite the same as they had a large central seed in the middle. He didn’t think it was very nutritious, but it was tasty.

They had been exploring the land for several hours. Only Red had joined him with the two Elders. Jill and Luke decided to help in the other world and focused on preventing any of Daniel’s people from slaughtering the Kishiv. Then they would lead or teleport as many people as they could. The plan they had come up with was fairly simple. Jill would go from city to city so that she could teleport Mash to them later. Luke was just tagging along as security. It would take them a while even with Jill’s speed. The plan meant that they would need to go to every major city, and also alert any travelers or villages that they saw as well. He felt bad pushing something that exhausting onto them but was glad for the opportunity to take it easy.

Although it seemed like that would change. They had just arrived at the large tree that seemed to grow even beyond the clouds. The tree had been further away than Mash realized, and it was wider than he expected to. It was even thicker than a mountain, its base could easily house several cities. The more impressive aspect of the tree was its hardness. Mash had tried breaking it with raw strength and it hadn’t even chipped.

“What are you doing?”

The elders were standing beside the tree, and he noticed one of them draw a small metal tube. Mash could see the whole object with his domain and wondered what it was. There was a glass pane on one end. He aimed it at the tree and a small red light shot out and struck the bark. Mash walked over, curious about what they were doing. The elder started speaking as he turned something on a dial on the back end of the tube. Mash didn’t notice anything happening with the tree, but Elder SerJi started explaining.

“This is a Heat Beam. I am simply testing the likelihood of the tree catching fire. This device can get hotter than even lightning.”

Mash stopped his hand in the air. He had been about to move it through the red beam of light but decided he didn’t really want to get burned. More importantly, the tree didn’t burn at all. Even with the dial turned all the way, it didn’t even start to smoke. The elder looked impressed and asked Mash a question.

“If we find out a way to cut the tree, may we use the wood for our experiments?”

Mash almost said yes but decided against it. He felt like the world was somehow connected to the tree. It was just a guess, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he became.

“No, I think the tree is linked to the world. I would protect it if possible. Maybe make it and its surroundings sacred or something.”

The elders didn’t protest and just nodded to Mash’s prompting. They seemed to accept his words for the moment. Plus, breaking the tree didn’t seem like an easy task, nor was it something they could focus on right now. Their concern would be reestablishing enough cities to house a world’s people. The task was daunting, and he couldn’t imagine where to even start. The elders seemed more satisfied with the situation, as both were wearing smiles while whispering to one another. Elder AvJi turned to Mash, startling him slightly with the suddenness of her motion. He had learned that Elder AvJi was considered a lady, although he still didn’t understand where the distinctions came from. It seemed somewhat arbitrary.

“Do you know what lies atop?”

Her gaze drifted back to the tree, and Mash froze. He actually hadn’t seen what was above. It was certainly something he had wanted to do, but everything that had happened halted his childish desires. Now it seemed like his duty and desire aligned.

“I’ll go check!”

Mash was a little too excited in his response, and his cat-forms wings sprouted from his back. He could have used his wyvern wings, but they used a lot more energy than these did. He could fly for days with these, and he started scaling the tree without waiting for a response. Red didn’t let him escape on his own and caught up quickly.

“I’m not staying behind with them. They’re kind of annoying.”

Red’s words would be unheard by the elders, and Mash nodded in agreement. The elders were a curious people and had been very interested in Red’s body. It wasn’t in a creepy sense. Well, it was but not in the way someone would expect. They had somehow figured out the strange situation of her body and had been trying to figure out what she had done. Apparently, the elders had turned their bodies into the form they currently had. It was something that happened over decades. They had somehow changed their bodies through their generations, and their ideal was something like Red. Mash wondered what they would think if they found out she was technically undead.

“Yeah, but I think I would use weird instead.”

Mash replied but added something a second later too.

“Although, we’re pretty weird too.”

That was the truth for sure. Mash didn’t doubt that he would be considered weird now. The bird-like wings that were fused with his back was proof of that. The fact that he was no longer human also added to the fact. Besides that, he was currently flying along with his teammate who was mostly made of blood and undead. Yeah, weird was probably an insufficient word to use for them.

The tree was next to them, and they were flying quickly, but it still felt like it would take a while to get to the top. Already the elders had blended in with the grass below. They were barely specs to them at this point. The tree actually looked bigger now that they were ascending along the side. The clouds were quickly approaching too, and they crashed into them. The clouds were thicker than he expected, and Mash was surprised when they turned to water as he flew through them. It wasn’t a gentle condensation either. it began to feel like he was swimming through a cloud, and he saw that the water poured down in large splashes around him. His eyes weren’t much help within the cloud, but he didn’t really need his eyes to fly upward. After clearing the clouds, he paused and waited for Red. She had slowed when she entered the clouds. She had probably been stunned by the sudden appearance of a river. At least that was what it felt like.

“That was cold.”

Red spoke as she breached the cloud and saw him. Mash nodded. He noticed that it was cold, but it hadn’t bothered him too much. His body was resistant to temperature. Though he was bothered by something else. Red’s clothes were wet and stuck to her body, and Mash snapped his head downward. His own clothes were in a similar state, and he spun quickly to get rid of most of the water. Afterward, he increased his body temperature to help him dry more quickly. In his domain, he saw Red’s clothes ripple before all of the excess water fell away. Within a few seconds, she was dry, but he still avoided looking at her for the moment. He started flying again.

“Yeah, it tends to get colder the higher up you go…I noticed that before.”

His words came out slowly, and he didn’t get a response for a while. After a few seconds, Red spoke.

“I see the top.”

He had been looking in front of him, but his focus had been elsewhere. Now that he was looking he noticed that they were nearing the treetop. The seemingly endless trunk broke into a countless number of thick branches. Leaves sprouted from them and covered the sky. They were even bigger than the trees in Aifell’s world, and the leaves practically seemed like they were made of stone. Mash sped up a little, his excitement letting him forget about any discomfort. He was curious to explore the treetop.