If the forest was a verdant sea, with all the various hills being its waves, then what Kaltyr looked at with awe could be described as a lonely mountain jutting so far out of the green water’s surface that there could be no reasonable explanation for its existence. THAT was how massive the oak tree in the not-so-distant distance was.

After Kaltyr confirmed that the bears were only copying her rather than understanding her words and replying, she felt so mentally drained from having her emotions pulled in so many directions so quickly that she took a break. In the time that her mental state recovered, the bears did, too. They fearlessly placed themselves into a vulnerable position by refining magical essence in front of her, which she let them do. The beasts were obviously special.

The little bear, being of a lower level than its presumed parent, did not take as long to fill its mana stores, at which point it did something that changed how Kaltyr saw it—the small bear began healing the bigger one. It didn’t accomplish anything breathtaking, probably because of the level difference between it and its patient, but the bigger bear recovered enough to walk within only a couple hours. Considering the level difference and the fact that it was so close to death not too long before, the results were nothing to scoff at. Kaltyr herself only healed that quickly with the best of the best pills she could make—not that she had any such pills now that her Life Level increased so much.

And though the girl looked at the small bear with more than just a little greed, she did not attempt anything. She couldn’t attempt anything. The two large mammals were the only creatures besides a certain someone to not try to kill her. She didn’t nearly have the heart required to backstab them.

Thus, when the mammals began walking away and apparently motioned for Kaltyr to follow, she didn’t hesitate to. They didn’t follow any kind of path, as far as she could tell, instead traveling in exactly the same direction she had been going before she was dragged into the struggle against the fire chicken—toward the enormous tree. Yes, it was definitely a tree. It was quite obvious for a while now, but after everything Kaltyr had witnessed in Manic, including bloodthirsty magical animals and an entity beyond her senses, she wanted to leave her mind open for any surprises. Who knew? Maybe that giant tree was actually a man-made construction? With how little she knew of magic’s limitations, she wasn’t willing to rule any option out. But it was apparently just a giant tree—kinda boring.

Well, that wasn’t entirely fair to the tree, Kaltyr thought. Yeah, her expectations for what it was were higher, but GOD DAMN was that a big tree! Its crown reached farther out from its trunk than the entire thing was tall, casting a huge, yet not very dark, shadow that Kaltyr and the bears had entered a while ago while still not being in sight of the trunk. The plant covered many square-kilometers of land by itself, which was amazing enough until the girl wondered about how expansive its roots system was.

On the way toward the giant tree’s trunk Kaltyr noticed something very peculiar—potentially more peculiar than the tree: the beasts which all also sported the icon of an oak tree. There weren’t an overwhelming number of them, but at the same time, they weren’t a negligible amount, and Kaltyr and the bears just…strolled right on by all of them. Nothing, not a single creature emanated killing intent or showed malicious interest, making the girl incredibly curious about why that was the case, but also quite scared from just being surrounded by so many of what she’d assume were enemies just a few hours ago…

“But if none of these beasts are hostile, what was the deal with that chicken?”

Kaltyr laughed at how she absentmindedly asked the bears.

Eventually, after many more hours of walking than she expected, the trio arrived within sight of the enormous tree’s trunk, and Kaltyr was yet again amazed—the sun had set, but visibility remained high. As though shone upon by an incredible number of soft lamps, everything around her was visible, enough that even small details, like of the green bears’ fur, could still be made out—basically the effect one of her starter kit items held, but that had long since disappeared. Was this a result of magic? An everlasting spell cast by a great wizard? A natural effect of the area? Or perhaps, something related to the ginormous oak tree standing tall in the middle of a clearing?

Yeah, the strangely high levels of visibility were undoubtedly related to her destination. But was the tree causing the visibility? Or was there a shared cause for the visibility and the tree’s size?

The world may never kn—

[Welcome, Kaltyr, to my humble domain.]

The girl froze midstep even as the two bears continued trotting into the clearing ahead toward the tree. Her skin crawled, conflicting emotions and memories of her…friend, surfacing. She swiveled her head, searching for any signs of the stubby avatars Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth took on. And yet, somehow, she knew she wouldn’t find one. There was a certain…aura, for lack of a better word, infused into the words which entered her mind. Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth never “spoke” like that.

[Don’t be frightened, young one, for I am not an enemy.]

Yep, she was sure of it. Whatever was speaking to her was not The System. With every word transmitted into her brain, imagery of the forest was invoked. Kaltyr saw a vast ocean of trees, smelled the intoxicating scent of wildflowers, and…felt the rough texture of bark against her hands.

Kaltyr opened the eyes she hadn’t known were closed to find herself standing at the base of the gigantic oak tree, her hands laid on the bark, her items strewn about the floor around her. This was…worrying.

The warrior awkwardly brought her hands down, crouched, picked up her spear, and backed away. Had she fallen into an illusion of some kind? Mind control? What had done it to her? The entity had claimed to not be an enemy, but then that happened.

Kaltyr stood in a combat-ready stance, facing the oak tree which scraped the sky, by this point understanding of the fact that the speaker was the plant in front of her.

“You say you’re not an enemy, but that doesn’t mean you’re an ally,” she told the tree, prepared to suffer an attack from one of its roots, or something.

[Correct. To become my ally is not a quest just anyone can complete. However, you have proven yourself capable of compassion by aiding my children during their plight. Thus, you are not an enemy of mine, for now. You are a guest.]

She blinked a few times before lowering her spear with a sigh. She’d just have to take the tree’s word—not a rash idea, considering that it called the beasts she’d saved its “children”. If it was really connected to the beasts somehow, which was likely considering the tree insignia on all of them, then it could probably sic them on her, right?

Kaltyr sat and crossed her legs, staring up at the majestic plant life before her.

“Well, what now? I’m on a journey to find civilization and have come across you. Will you assist me in some way? Perhaps by pointing me in the right direction?”

The warrior raised an eyebrow at the tree, feeling nothing strange about conversing with a plant. Much stranger had occurred to her since awakening on Manic.

[That is correct; You are here for me to assist you on your journey.]

Without warning, a vine touched down next to Kaltyr, seemingly having been lowered from the crown. She looked up at the thick, living rope, wondering if the tree was controlling it… Of course it was. Why else would the vine just so happen to land next to her? She reached out to grab the vine with one hand, the other limb still holding onto her weapon. Letting go of her primary tool for defense just wasn’t something she was in the habit of doing. When her fingers had a tight hold around the vine, it began to lift.

[Ah, before I take you up,] the tree began, stopping the vine, [I almost forgot to inform you of how inefficiently you have stored your items.]

Again, the warrior rapidly blinked a few times.

“What?” Kaltyr looked over at the beaver-skin bags full of all the goodies she couldn’t bear to part with. Inefficiently? Those bags were the best she could come up with, given her lack of experience in leatherworking and absence of proper tools. Was the tree judging her for not making something more sophisticated?

[Your items. I assume you have not figured out that you can store them as Cards?]

“C-correct…” she replied, a vein beginning to protrude from her forehead as she somehow began to understand what the plant was getting at. Irritation bubbled.

[Well, go ahead. Place a hand on the items you would like to Cardify, channel a smidge of your mana, and say, “Card”]

Her breathing growing heavy, Kaltyr let go of the vine, pursed her lips, and did exactly as she was told.

“Card.”

Exactly like when she looted corpses, a bright light exploded from the bag she placed her hand on before it shrunk, becoming a smaller object. When the process concluded—Kaltyr noted that it cost her a negligent amount of energy—she bent down to pick up what had dropped.

A Card, apparently.

“It’s that simple?”

[It’s that simple.]

The girl sighed, tilting her head to the sky, wondering why that asshat she considered her friend hadn’t taught her how to do this. Her travels would have been so much easier and she could have taken so much more with her…

Kaltyr took in a deep breath, then slowly released it, repeating the process until she no longer felt the urge to stab something.

“Nevermind,” she told herself, recalling how Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth couldn’t just teach her everything it knew, then bringing her attention back down to the “Card” in her hand. To begin with, it was thick, almost the span of her hand. It should have been called Block rather than Card.

[The Card looks so strange because it is a collection of all the Cards of all the items from within that bag you Cardified.]

Okay, that was reasonable, so she wouldn’t complain.

On both sides of the Card were an image of the bag she Cardified and some words, but before she could investigate those, the tree spoke up again.

[I can tell you nothing about the information on the Card, so do not ask. Go over and consider it on your own time, later.]

“Gotcha,” Kaltyr mumbled, continuing to Cardify all her items. When all her bags were turned into thick Cards she looked at her spear, wondering if the same process could be performed for it and if she could turn it back in time for a fight…

“Wait, how do I turn Cards back?” she asked with hints of urgency and irritation in her voice. It could have been the case that Cardifying items was easy, but reversing the process was painstakingly difficult. If that were the case, and she had transformed her spear, then she would have been left weaponless.

[That much you can figure out on your own.]

The warrior stared up at the tree, thinking. She couldn’t hear any kind of intonation from the voice which transmitted straight into her brain, so wasn’t sure if the tree was sarcastic or just straightforward… She would give it the benefit of the doubt. Not much she could do in retaliation if it was rude to her, after all.

A second later, one of her thick-ass Cards returned to its original form, though at the cost of a bit more mana than it took to transform it. A very negligible amount, nonetheless.

“Okay, so it was just that easy.”

[Indeed. It’s called Decardifying.]

Kaltyr returned her bag to Card form and only hesitated slightly before doing the same for her spear, which became something that resembled its name. The spear became an actual “card”, being paper-thin.

She placed her Cards into her many cargo pants pockets, double and triple checking that the flaps were fully closed before returning to the vine which dangled nearby.

“Done.”

And the vine rapidly rose, carrying her with it. The landscape blurred as Kaltyr’s perspective shifted faster than her mind could process, but before she could even consider if she would become sick from it, she arrived. Not at the top of the tree, but at one of its lowest branches, which was still higher in elevation than she expected.

When her feet touched down on the branch, her legs began shaking. Despite the branch feeling as stable as the earth itself and being wide enough for her to comfortably practice her spear arts, the sight of so much space between where she stood and the ground was overwhelming. Kaltyr dropped to her hands and knees, finding more stability in that position.

“This is terrifying,” she stated bluntly.

[I don’t imagine that you would have spent much time at this elevation before meeting me, so I cannot blame you.]

Kaltyr moved into a sitting position that faced the giant tree’s trunk, feeling more comfortable not looking into the distance.

“Was it even necessary to bring me all the way up here?”

[Not at all, but if you hadn’t come up here you wouldn’t have been able to see this. Hold on.]

The same vine used to bring her up now snaked toward Kaltyr, wrapping itself around her waist, arms, and legs before she could even decide to fight it.

“W-what are you—”

[Just hold still and watch the bears below.]

Against her will, the vine lifted her up off the tree branch and brought her toward its edge, where she would not have been able to bring herself for fear of falling.

“Please don’t drop me!”

[Oh, don’t be silly. You’ve reached Life Level 10 on the path of the Internalizer, yes? You can survive terminal velocity. But I’m not just going to toss you over. Focus on the bears who guided you here.]

Eyes wide with slight panic, Kaltyr tightly gripped the vine which held her suspended over the edge of the branch, cursing the tree for putting her there. However, she could not break herself free of the vine’s hold without risking a long fall. She gulped, doing her best to follow the tree’s instructions.

Far below her were two green specks she knew to be the bears who led her there. She almost cursed them for her current plight but held her tongue, remembering that they were just pawns. They weren’t people, unlike this tree. It was the one giving the orders. The bears just happened to be there. The tree was what she would seek revenge against.

Soon, Kaltyr heard the shifting of leaves as another vine lowered itself next to her. When she turned to look at it, the terrified warrior had only a moment to discern that it carried acorns before the vine dropped them.

“O-okay…?”

Kaltyr watched in confusion as the acorns fell for what felt like an eternity.

“Wait, the bears are directly below—”

The girl’s thoughts were interrupted as the acorns landed, causing the green bears to jump in fright before dashing away, leading to the eruption of laughter in her mind. Kaltyr winced as the tree transmitted its glee, not so much irritated at the mental “volume” of the laughs as the fact that her knees were made to feel like jelly just so that the tree could show her how much fun it had scaring its own “children”.

[Wasn’t that delightful?] the tree asked as it moved her back to the stable floor that was its branch.

“No. I wouldn’t have minded going without seeing that,” she bitterly spat.

[Oh, but it was hilarious! Even very powerful trees get bored, you know.]

This stupid tree. Making her uncomfortable for a joke.

“What’s your name?” Kaltyr asked, tired of thinking of the tree as “it”. “If you have one.”

[I do not,] the tree said, a trace of its laughter still present in its “voice”. [Though, I do sometimes refer to myself as the mother of this forest—not that I actually created it—so you may call me that.]

Kaltyr fell onto her back, now feeling a little queasy and wishing to fool her body into believing she was on solid ground.

“You want me to call you ‘The Mother of this Forest’?”

[Just “Mother” is fine.]

“Err…” Kaltyr knew what a “mother” was, and somehow understood that it was strange for anyone to want to be referred to like that by anyone who wasn’t actually their children, but decided to let it go. The one she was speaking to was a sapient tree so large it scraped the sky, after all. Those could live by different rules, she figured. “Fine. Mother, it is.”

Mother seemed fine with allowing Kaltyr time to rest on her(?) branch after what she’d put her through, and before she knew it, the girl had fallen asleep.