It wasn’t the hell deer but it was something. The two legs seemed familiar. I felt like I should know what they were but it was escaping me right at the moment.

“Good job Ant3.” I told the ant that had chased one of the two legs away. I flexed my roots. I was getting better at moving my roots. So far I’d only been able to get the bigger and slower animals.

I turned my attention to the root chamber I had made earlier. There was the two leg I had caught. It was struggling to get free but it was too weak to have any effect on my roots. I had discovered that killing creatures granted me portions of their life force. I was getting stronger every time I killed something. There seemed to be a limit to how much energy I could get from the smaller creatures. I shared the energy my ants collected when they killed creatures. I was curious if there was a way to get more energy from the two legs.

I sent my feeder roots into the thing and tried pulling energy from him like I pulled nutrients from the ground. It worked. Sort of. I think. I definitely got nutrients but I also got his memories. Echoes of something as I pulled at the energy stored within him.

I began to see visions. I saw the world. He was a human. He called himself Jason. No, he was named Jason. I saw him growing up. Surrounded by family. I saw the two leg that got away today. Her name was Kendra.

Jason’s body was absorbed into the roots. All that was left of him was a small crystal that was the size of his thumb.

I looked at it and squeezed it with my roots. It popped and energy flashed up my root and gave me a pop up.

Learn skill. Warriors Smash

This was exciting. “Queeny. Check this out. I can learn to be a warrior.” I told Queen Bitey.

“That sounds promising.” Queen Bitey replied. “But will being a warrior really help you out?”

I sighed. A metaphorical sigh. I had no lungs to sigh. “Well what do I do with it?” I asked back. Being a tree was more difficult than I could ever have imagined.

“Could you transfer it to someone else?” Bitey asked.

“I don’t know. Let me check.” I went back to the menu. “Can I transfer the skill?” I asked the menu.

Transfer Skill. Select Target

“Looks like I can. Who do I select? You are already a queen. Maybe Ant3 or Ant4?” I mused.

“Ant3 likes to attack things. She would probably like more abilities that help her attack.” Bitey told me.

I thought about and selected Ant3 as the target of the ability.

Transfer Complete.

Ant3 waved to me from the underground tunnels she had retreated to after she attacked the humans. I thought she would enjoy that. I went back to looking at the memories I had acquired from Jason. I saw a lot of things that explained what was happening in the world. I thought I might have been a human in a prior life. I couldn’t be sure though. There was nothing about thinking trees in his memory.

Jason had been some sort of warehouse worker when the world got turned upside down. People disappeared. Monsters appeared and started killing the survivors. Some of the survivors got abilities that could be used to kill the monsters. Killing the monsters awarded something called XP and sometimes items.

I continued reviewing his memories. This guy played video games when he wasn’t at work. He had been treating the new world as a video game. It wasn’t a bad explanation for what he was observing in the world around him.

“Hey Bitey, I have an idea. These two legs were great for mana. According to the one we got, the entire world is going crazy. However, this Jason thought the world was a video game. He was looking for power ups around the tree. What if we pretend to be a dungeon? The two legs will be drawn to the region and I will get to eat more.” I excitedly told Bitey.