“Where is she?!” the roar of an enraged man echoed through the clearing, breaking my zen and focus. “Where’s that bitch?!”

Naturally, my eyes at once fell on the man in the armor of the imperial soldiers who had arrived with his unit of battered men and women. Colonel Gill seemed seriously pissed at someone. He marched through the clearing to the carriage, looking around for the root of his rage.

Lord Wigram had already informed us they’re coming back and that they’ve suffered casualties in the battle with the wave of beasts and the northern eagle. Not an easy thing for anyone to bear. However, it did raise the question of why he was mad at some woman? Defection? Perhaps facing that massive wave of beasts, her courage left her, and she ran away. Did I find that weird? No. After all, that’s what I did. I ran away.

The moment his eyes fell on me, sitting peacefully under a tree at the edge of the clearing, my instincts flared up. For whatever insane reason, I was the target of his wrath.

And damn, he was fast.

Even before I got up, he was upon me.

[Great Knight: lvl ??]

Luckily, Deckard, as Void Walker, was much swiffer on his feet and stood in his way in time.

“Move!” Colonel Gill bellowed. “Or I swear...”

“What? Are you gonna attack me?” Deckard asked when the man didn’t finish his threat. Then he just raised an eyebrow and gestured with a nod behind the furious man.

“Colonel, what is the meaning of this?” the Imperial Chief Healer called out to him as he rushed over. Gill straightened up and turned around, no less pissed.

“Sir, I don’t know what they told you, but no doubt she is behind this all,” he declared, pointing his sword at me.

I wasn’t the only one taken aback. Lord Wigram stroked his beard while he tried to take his totally ridiculous claim in. “We’ve known each other for a long time, Colonel. You are not a rash man, and I never disregarded your warnings. What makes you think so?”

“Sir?”

“Our communication was not very, how should I put it... detailed. I was only informed of your casualties, that’s all. Please brief me.”

Though still furious, Colonel Gill complied. “We faced the wave of beasts. Even before they got to us, we took down half of them. The rest we were prepared to face in close combat. That’s when the northern eagle swooped down on us. The hardest battle I’ve ever fought. Out in the open, against an airborne beast more than twice our level and more of these fuckers…sorry beasts pushing against our front, but we held on, sir.”

“There is no doubt of the gallantry of you and your men, Colonel. You have done most admirably, and no doubt it’s thanks to you we’re all standing here now, but why do you fault Miss Grey?”

The right question I wanted to know the answer to myself. It wasn’t me that caused the beast wave; it was the damn northern eagles.

Gill clenched his fists at Lord Wigram’s question, trying to keep his anger in check. “We defeated the beasts and were about to take down the eagle when the forest moved. It took a while before we were surrounded by trees, and in that time, we managed to wound the feathered bastard pretty badly. Then the mossbears came in, chased us off, pulled the eagle down, but instead of finishing the motherfucker off, they let it go and even stopped us when we tried to do the job for them. It cost Renee her hand,” he growled and spat at my feet. “Who else could be behind this but her, sir?”

Lord Wigram gave him an understanding look. “If I were you, I would most likely suspect Miss Grey, too. But there’s more to it than you know, Colonel. Calm your anger, hear me out, and let me look at your men.”

If Gill had fangs like me, he’d be baring them at me right now. My instincts told me to growl back, stand up to him, and show I wasn’t afraid. Reason told me otherwise, to do nothing and let Lord Wigram sort out this misunderstanding.

“Do you want that as an order, Colonel?”

Gill gripped the hilt of his sword so tightly that his knuckles turned white, visibly waging an inner battle before he turned his gaze away from me. “No, sir.”

“I would have thought someone like him would be more level-headed,” I said through the link of the union rings, not wanting the man to hear me.

“Battle and the loss of one’s men can shake anyone,” Deckard replied without any remarks, watching Colonel Gill thoughtfully. “It’s weird, though. The last time I spoke to him, he didn’t strike me as the type to let something like this throw him off.”

“Wait, are you saying it’s my fault? I never even talked to him.”

Deckard laughed, shaking his head. “Not everything has to revolve around you. Forget it and get on with that moss training of yours.”

That was easy for him to say. Nevertheless, I sat back down among the tree’s roots and tried to find my inner peace again.

Not long after we realized we were in deeper shit than we thought, one of the younger mother mossbears showed up, praising me for my feat of keeping the moss on my head alive. Then I got a lesson from her on how to take further care of the plant I was gifted.

Moss was not exactly a plant from my field of expertise, yet what I learned from that massive beast was completely beyond my existing knowledge and imagination. Fortunately, its growth didn’t actually require some form of fertilizer after all, as I feared. The plant was utterly magic-based and all it needed to grow was mana. This magical substance both nourished and controlled it.

That fact brought up a lot of questions, like what it was doing with decomposed bodies if it wasn’t for nutrients. Perhaps the flesh-eating moss was actually a different kind than the one I had on my head. Anyway, that was a question I didn’t dare ask, as I wasn’t quite ready for that kind of man-eating plant.

So, moss control.

The mother mossbear made it sound relatively straightforward. If I wanted to let the moss spread, I needed to send mana into its thin root-like growths tangled in my hair. To nourish it, mana needed to be sent up through the whole plant, and the healing effect awakened in the moss with mana in its leaves. Simple right?

Only, it wasn’t.

It also depended on how much mana and in what concentration I sent. Too little, and nothing happened. Too much, and I could burn the plant. It required the exact amount to make the moss expand and shrink again. Even more complicated was to make it spread in only one direction, and I haven’t really tried the healing side of it yet.

The moss on my head showed me two things. The mossbears were controlling mana with more precision than I imagined, and I sucked at it.

Hence my spirited efforts to learn more here under the tree, away from everyone. It didn’t look like I was going to be training with a young mossbear anytime soon, so I wanted to use my time waiting for Esu in a meaningful way. Perhap at the crack of night I could show him and the mothers some progress.

It would tickle my pride, for sure.

And the best part, if I didn’t make any kind of headway, there was no one to scold for my failure. Mossbears didn’t ask me to master it tonight or in a week or a month. As far as they were concerned, it was up to me how quickly I could learn to work with moss. It would only be my pride that would suffer for my ineptitude.

It was their way of telling me that I had to master its control if I wanted to gain any respect in their eyes. They cared about moss a lot, for them it was a form of status and ability of a given individual.

Anyway, if anything, this amazing plant wasn’t such a bad tool to learn mana control.

***

Okay, I sat there for over two hours, and while I made some progress, my patience and determination proved to have limits. Slowly, procrastination crept into my resolve, making me shift my focus from the moss to the itch on my back, the rustling of leaves above me, and the murmur of people in the clearing.

It was annoying. However, no matter what I did, after a few minutes of practicing with the moss, I always found my mind wandering around. A sign that it was time to take a break and stretch my legs.

I was just wiping the dirt off my butt when I was hit by a presence that shook the entire woods, and in its wake came the roar. Esu had spoken, telling everyone to come.

Promptly joining the others, I found them all tense, eyeing the heart of the woods warily. And it was no wonder. After all, it was the place from which Esu’s roar came and where the new World Tree was growing. But none of them could tell exactly what the roar meant, and that made them tense.

Well, apart from Lightfeather, who was trying to assure them that everything was fine, as fine as it could be under the circumstances.

Given the tension and the stares some of the soldiers were giving me, I decided not to follow her example, keep my mouth shut and seek out Deckard. He was leaning against the carriage, seemingly sleeping, standing up. I knew better.

“Is everything all right with Colonel Gill?” I asked, still wary of talking about it out loud.

“You have nothing to fear from him,” he said without opening his eyes. “His men may take a bit longer to get their heads around it, though.”

“The World Tree?”

“Would you believe it if someone told you?”

No. Most likely not. Still, I was glad the misunderstanding was cleared up.

“Well, they will soon see the tree for themselves,” I remarked aloud, clearing my throat.

“So what Major Lightfeather said is true, huh?”

“That Esu is telling us to come? Yeah.”

“Shit!”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Who wouldn’t be? But that doesn’t mean I have to be excited about it. Even you must be aware that we won’t get out of there alive if things go wrong.”

That was something he didn’t have to remind me. I was too well aware of the fact. Actually I did my best not to think about it as sometimes ignorance was bliss.

“Let’s make sure nothing goes wrong, then.”

He laughed at my rather silly remark. “And how are you going to do that? Do you know how to make the tree gain consciousness and not kill the old ones?”

“I meant us, humans. Let’s make sure that we’re not the ones who are gonna screw up.”

“Relax, Little Beast. I know what you meant. Wigram is doing his best to make sure that’s the case. He even checked everyone to make sure they weren’t under the spell of mind mages.”

Bloody hell, mind mages. Them influencing Colonel Gill didn’t cross my mind at all. To be fair, I was under the impression that it shouldn’t be so easy to do with someone of his rank and strength, still… “And, were they?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Pussy! Don’t worry. They’re not such amateurs. The man just never liked you.”

“Why?” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. The only thing I could come up with was that he had an aversion to what I was.

“Ever since Wigram met you, his work has doubled. And that’s saying something when he usually ensures his safety in the capital, and trust me, that place is dangerous.”

“People?”

“You get it. They may not have ancient beasts there, but facing humans and their schemes is perhaps even worse, for me at least. Anyway, this mess was the last bit of patience Gill had with you, hence his anger.”

Well, not that I wanted or tried to be his friend. All I needed to know was that he wouldn’t try to stab me again or something. When I asked, it turned out that Lord Wigram had expressly forbidden him to do so.

“So, Little Beast? That’s what you are sticking with?” I inquired to change the subject and satisfy my curiosity for the most part.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, sort of. It kind of came to me when I needed to. Don’t like it? I can come up with another.”

“No, no,” I stopped him. “I kind of like it.”

“Are you sure? What about Mosshead? Or Petal, if you don’t like that one.”

“Little Beast is fine.”

“Did I mention Duster?” he asked, completely ignoring me. “Maybe more appropriate would be Whisper. You whisper in my mind too often.”

“Does it bother you?”

“It used to be harder for women to get into my head. So that one?”

“Damn it, Deckard!”

“I know, I know. Little Beast it is. It kind of rolls off my tongue.”

“And it doesn’t make me cringe every time I hear it,” I added, quite happy with his choice.

Before long, one of the mother mossbears came telling us to follow her, leaving no one behind, not even the horses. The only exception was the carriage. The mossbears did not like this large magic tool and were unwilling to make a path for it to travel through the never traversed woods.

***

“Hello, lady,” squeaked the little squirrel as she landed on my head. She was waiting for me, hiding on a branch as we walked through the woods to its heart.

“Pip, where did you come from, you little rascal?” I said, trying to act surprised to make her happy.

“Secret. I brought nuts,” she squeaked joyfully, dumping her spoils on my head. Honestly, the little creature had to have some sort of skill like [Spatial Storage]. Otherwise, I couldn’t explain the number of nuts.

“You found these?” There were plenty of trees around, but I wasn’t sure if they had nuts growing on them.

Pipsqueak faltered. “Took from others.”

“From other squirrels like you?”

“Not like me,” she objected. “They stupid. Easy to fool.”

“I thought you were running around in the antlers of a mother mossbear, not raiding the nests of other squirrels in the woods?”

“That’s where their nests. It was fun.”

I couldn’t help sighing and hoping that this little creature would not be the cause of our doom. How could she ever think of stealing nuts from squirrels living in the antlers of mother mossbear?

“What am I supposed to do with these nuts, anyway?”

“Hide, don’t tell Wren.”

So I was supposed to be the stash of her loot, a partner in crime. In the end, why not? They were just nuts. “Okay.” I gave her my answer, adding the intention that it would be our secret. Due to the lack of pockets on my clothes, I moved her spoils into my spatial ring. With those inside, the small storage was almost full.

When Pipsqueak saw the nuts hidden away, she patted my head, happy. “Lady, good friend.”

“There you are, you little rascal.” Lightfeather’s voice made the little creature jump in fright. “You know how worried I am about you when you go on your adventures, and you don’t even bother to come to me first? Ungrateful.”

“Lady, closer,” squeaked the squirrel, looking for an excuse.

Lightfeather held out her hand. “Come, Pip. Now is not the time for your mischief.”

The squirrel hopped over to her hand and climbed onto her shoulder, eyeing me to see if I would end up giving away her secret after all. Unless I find myself under attack by squirrels demanding the return of their stock, I didn’t see any reason to do so.

“Sorry about her, Grey.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I waved her off, looking up. “You noticed too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, the deeper we go, the bigger and taller the trees get.”

Even at the edge of the woods and around the clearing, those oak trees, or whatever they were, looked majestic to me. Yet, they were small compared to the ones that grew up here. The trunk’s circumference at the base would be a problem for six men to embrace, and I could only imagine their height hidden by the dense canopy.

“How much further do you think?” she asked, the playfulness in her voice she brimmed with in the clearing or when she was talking to Pipsqueak gone.

“Not far. I’d say we’re close. These woods are old, very old.” Maybe ancient was the right word for these parts of the woods. I don’t know if it was my instincts or just my imagination, but I could almost smell the age from those trees. Walking in their shadow made me feel like they had a presence of their own, weighing down on my mind and senses from all sides.

Was it my vivid imagination that drove my instincts to feel respect for this place, though? I didn’t think so. Somewhere deep down, I knew these trees had been growing here for centuries, and it was Esu who allowed them to grow to such a size. Perhaps it was his presence soaked in those trees that I felt and made me feel like I was being watched from the shadows of the canopy.

“Old, for sure, but it’s also eerie. I can’t believe you like it here, Pip?” Lightfeather asked the little squirrel on her shoulder.

“Lots of trees, lots of fools.”

“What fools?” she paused.

“Not Wren, Wren smart. Nut?” Pipsqueak brazenly asked.

Lightfeather sighed and gave the squirrel her treat. “Sometimes, I wonder which of us is the smart one.” Wisely, the squirrel refrained from making any comment on that, preferring to focus on the nut in her paws, her new loot. Being ignored, the fool who gave her the nut turned to me.

“Look, Grey. I know we’ve been over this before, but I want to make sure we both understand where we stand. This is a mess, so it is necessary to find at least some order in it.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. So, when it comes to dealing with beasts, Lord Wigram and I speak for the humans, for the Sahal Empire. You’re here only as Esu’s pup. We don’t want you to speak on our behalf.”

“Because it might jeopardize my status among the beasts and sound like meddling in Esu’s business on your part. I get that.”

“Seriously, don’t do that. Even if it means the beasts tear us to pieces.”

Yeah, both Lord Wigram and Deckard put a lot of emphasis on that part. Didn’t mean it was going to be easy for me to just stand there and watch.

“Nor will we have any say in any deal you make with Esu.”

“Unless it directly impacts the Sahal Empire.”

“Correct. No one wants the beasts marching on the cities of the Empire. Just focus on yourself, and let us do our job. That goes for you too, Pip. No funny antics.”

“Pip will behave, Wren,” saluted the squirrel.

“Good. If everyone keeps their temper in check, maybe we’ll all survive.”

“I hope we all do,” I said as a completely different feeling from the old trees washed over my senses. This presence was not so old and stuffy, but youthful and full of energy.