“—Guru!”

The creature was rudely snapped awake upon hitting the cold ground. His red, shapeless body twisted and turned as he looked around him, and then above. He can see a small circle through the canopies of the trees, probably made by him when he passed through it.

It looks like he landed somewhere in the woods. Roots that are thrice the size of his body littered everywhere, coming from the humongous trees that made up the great forest. It was a bit dark and cold here under the shade of leaves, but it was a pleasant ambiance for him. Plus the ‘hole’ on the canopy provided some sunlight for him too.

He isn’t just small. This forest is really big. He actually fell asleep while flying but he still landed here. Just how far did he fly away?

No, that’s not a priority right now. First, he’ll need to reorganize his memory and assess the data he currently knows.

-His body seems to be fine. The force of the fall was mostly negated by his soft, squishy body. No scratches or wounds anywhere on his skin either.

-The portable Builder-tool is intact too. Since he kept it inside his body, it suffered no damage at all. Same goes for the case of food. It did get slammed on the ground, but it wasn’t made as an interplanetary traveling case for nothing. Upon further inspection, he also confirmed that the ‘food’ inside is unharmed.

His body deflated as he sighed. It would have been very troublesome if something broke.

Now that that was over, he pulled out the Builder-tool from inside his body. The silver, oval contraption looked sleek and clean. An even tinier emerald crystal was embedded in the upper middle of it. The green gem gave off a small pulse once in a while.

He let go of the food case for the meantime and tapped the crystal with the freed limb. “Ru!” With a sudden flash, a transparent green screen appeared above the emerald crystal. He laid the tool on the ground and looked over what’s in the hologram.

Good, it seems to be working perfectly. He presses ‘Turn Off’. The hologram disappears back into the Builder-tool.

Now that he knows that everything’s fine, it’s time to find himself a home. Anything will do, but if he had to choose, a cave would be nice… Not that he’ll ever find one in the middle of a forest.

He started crawling towards a random direction. He’s bound to find something if he moves. At the very least, it’s better than waiting here for nothing.

He ‘scaled’ over a bunch of gigantic roots while he continued crawling. For some reason, he thought that each root looked more imposing and bigger than the last one. The trees looked as if the sky itself; He can’t even tell if it’s still day or night time. The foliage had completely covered everything above and cast a dim shadow below it. Fortunately, his eyes can easily see through this much darkness, him having lived his entire life underground on his home planet.

“Garooo!”

“Garo, gar!”

That… wasn’t him. A pair of voices suddenly screamed somewhere around him, surprising the tiny alien. He looked around, but there wasn’t anybody everywhere he looked…

“Garooooo!”

Something flew through by his side and struck to a tree, nearly hitting him. A quick confirmation told him that it was actually an arrow-- and a primitive one at that. It wasn’t made of metal but instead of wood, and the point looked jagged and crusty. He reckoned that even if it had hit him, he would have barely felt it.

He turned towards the direction where it came from. Up on the branch of a tree, two small human-shaped figures can be seen. One had a wooden bow drawn with another arrow on it, while the other one held a quiver full of arrows.

“Garo?!” It looked like the one with the quiver was yelling at the bow-wielder. It was raising the quiver up and down as it screamed. “Garo garo garo!”

The bow-wielder looked annoyed, so he smacked the back of the head of the other one. Needless to say, it went falling from a thirty feet drop and fell on the ground with a snap. Besides the arrows, something inside him made that sound too.

“G-Garoooo!” The bow-wielder yelled in shock. He probably didn’t expect that his companion would fall.

The alien stayed still. These two creatures are… pretty stupid. They look like human children, but they have green skin. Their faces aren’t as pleasant looking as that blonde girl before, too. They’re also hairless, have pointy ears, and wore rags for their clothes…

The remaining one looked between his dead partner and the weird creature below. After a few seconds, it started jumping from a tree branch to another. It fled while yelling ‘Garooo!’ all the way.

The alien thought that those things might be the locals living around here. He crawled over near the corpse of the one who died. It looked like it snapped its neck from the fall. He observed it for some more minutes, sometimes touching it with his tentacle just to check if it’s still alive.

It felt fleshy… Maybe he can eat it. They did try to kill him, so it wouldn’t have any qualm if he eats it, right?

Well, it’s still double the size of him. He can’t possibly fit all of this inside him…

He raises his front body, showing what his underside looks like. There, a giant hole with a bunch of needle-like teeth on the sides can be seen. His whole lower body was essentially his mouth.

“Kuru…” He spread his maw all over the corpse’s body and ate it in one gulp. A terrible crunching sound soon followed, and a large patch of blood pooled below him. His entire body expanded and shrunk as if to motion how he ‘chewed’ his food.

In a matter of ten seconds, only the pool of blood remained of the creature’s carcass. He felt happy after getting a free and good meal. The alien began to continue his interrupted journey, with a stomach newly satisfied and full.

[You gained 25 DNA.]

The artificial voice of the builder-tool said all of a sudden. Right, he forgot. The builder tool keeps track of his growth, though he still can’t see the details just yet. He’ll need to find or make a base first, then build an ‘Evolution Room’ for him to access his Biodata.

That strange creature gave him 25 DNA. The amount is a bit low, so that thing must have been weak. Well, it did pathetically die like that, so it wasn’t a surprise.

“Suru…”

Now back to exploring.

Somewhere in the middle of the forest lies a gigantic tree. Its roots alone reach over the other trees by a large margin, and the top of this huge plant isn’t even visible— it being hidden behind the pearly white clouds of the heaven itself.

The ‘Yggdrassil’ it is called. Coincidentally, the guardian of this great forest also resided there.

“Is that true?!”

“Y-Yes! That strange creature killed Gru in cold blood!”

Somewhere on the base on of one its roots, two figure can be seen talking to each other. One was the tiny monster from before— a goblin— who wielded the bow. Its body shook in fear as it continued telling its story to its listener.

“We were just trying to find food for our tribe, but it attacked us all of a sudden!” it waved its hand in the air in a wild fashion, mimicking how the ‘creature’ killed the other goblin. “Gru tried to stop it alone for me to escape, but…”

The shadowed figure in front of the goblin did not move. Its two transparent wings quietly flapped, keeping the person afloat above ground.

“That sounds scary! Why do creepy things keep appearing all over my forest?!”

In a brief moment, a minuscule beam of light passed through the countless leaves above them. Purely by chance, this ray shone down above the shadowed figure of the girl. What it showed was a little green fairy, barely even reaching half the height of the goblin she was talking to. Perhaps because of this, she kept her altitude higher than the height of the goblin. Despite that though, her absurdly long green hair still almost reached the ground.

“I don’t want creepy things in my home! You, puny goblin, call your entire tribe.” the fairy pointed her petite finger at the surprised monster.

“Huh? But why?” it replied while stupidly tilting its head.

“As the guardian of this forest, I, Sylph, order you to kill that creepy thing.” Her face darkens while giving out a sinister smile. “And I won’t take a no for an answer.”

“H-huh? But you’re the guardian, shouldn’t you be the—”

Sylph glared down at the goblin. “I’m the guardian, so you should obey whatever I say. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right?” Inside her mind, one thought crossed her mind.

‘I don’t really care whoever wins. No matter who dies, it’ll mean all the same… One less creepy thing in my home.’

Tiny ominous giggles echoed around the forest that day.