Before now, I’d been a little worried that Treant’s new evolution could only defend and heal, but it seemed like its new battle strategy would be to focus on defense and healing while it waited for the Reaper Seeds to sprout and decimate its enemies.
All right. Last skill.
Normal Skill “Eternal Regrowth.” Greatly increases the user’s life force. When activated, a glowing blue-green moss grows over the user’s body, forcing them to regenerate HP until their MP is reduced to less than 1 percent of its total. While using this skill, the user’s defense is greatly increased, but its other stats are halved.
Another super specialized skill…? Well, I guess I couldn’t be surprised. Treant’s skills had always been really situational in their usefulness.
Still, though. This skill abandoned all stats except defense. It felt like the signature World Treant skill, but…it’s not something it could just use willy-nilly. Once the skill was activated, Treant would be forced to keep using it until it was almost out of MP, leaving it with no way to attack. It might be a good skill to use in a specific pinch, but otherwise…it didn’t seem like it’d do much good.
Even so, Treant’s status had just gone through a major improvement, and it had plenty of new and interesting skills to try out. And with its upgraded movement skills like Fly, it’d have a much easier time moving around in the future, gigantic World Treant form notwithstanding.
Wait, huh…? I don’t see the Final Evolution Title Skill in its skill list. I triple-checked just to be sure I was looking in the right place, but it was true: Final Evolution was nowhere to be seen.
Wh-what’s the deal with that? Was this because of the Wisdom Fruit it ate way back when? Could Treant evolve into a Legendary monster? No, there was no way. It didn’t have a Sacred Skill. Its body would collapse if it evolved again, just like the slime did.
‹Well, Master? How’d I do?› Treant asked.
‹Oh, great! Your stats went up a bunch, and your new skills seem pretty strong. I’ll be happy to have you on our team in a fight from now on, that’s for sure!›
‹Really?!› Treant flapped its wings happily.
‹Yeah! Oh, you have Human Transformation now too. Want to try it out?›
But it wasn’t Treant who reacted first—it was Allo. “Ooh! You can turn into a human now, Treant?! I wanna see! I wanna see!” she shouted, eyes sparkling with curiosity. Somehow, she seemed even more excited than Treant.
‹O-oh, really? Very well. Give me a moment.› Treant let out a little huff of self-importance as Allo and I looked on in anticipation. Then its shape contorted, its silhouette stretching taller and wider. Its body dissolved, then congealed into a bark shell with glowing green light seeping from its cracks. Treant’s “human” form looked vaguely like a cross between a humanoid version of its tree spirit form and a seven-headed penguin. Its bark skin was rough and treelike, and its face was identical to its face as a tree spirit as well.
“How do I look, Miss Allo?” Treant asked, striking another confident pose while glancing over at Allo. But unfortunately for Treant, the shining curiosity that she’d held in her eyes before had all but disappeared. She looked ice-cold and disinterested.
Jeez. I’ve never seen Allo with such a cruel look on her face before. She likes Treant’s tree spirit form, but apparently not this one…
“M-Miss Allo…?”
“Hm? O-oh… S-sorry, Treant. Not now.” Without a single word about Treant’s new look, Allo looked away and fell silent.
“Oh… Okay. I see…” Treant gazed forlornly at Allo for a moment, then turned to me. “M-Master! H-how do I look?”
‹Well, uh, you kinda look like you’d fit right in with the likes of monsters like the Adams and Eves on a remote island somewhere.›
But, well, its Human Transformation skill level was still pretty low, so I guess that was to be expected. When I first tried it out, the humans I met thought I was some kind of super dangerous monster and tried to kill me. Happens to the best of us.
At that, Treant quickly deactivated Human Transformation, went back to its tree spirit form, and turned away from us.
‹I…won’t use it again.›
‹S-sorry, Treant… I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Cheer up, okay? I looked pretty bizarre before I leveled up my Human Transformation skill too. Don’t let it get you down.›
Treant didn’t respond. Allo seemed contrite, but unsure of what to say to comfort Treant. She probably regretted letting Treant see how she really felt…
Part 4
AFTER CHECKING OUT Treant’s new evolution, we took a short break to have a meal before resuming our journey to the sky-piercing spire. Because it would struggle to get around in World Treant form, Treant used its tree spirit form instead.
‹I feel like…we’re better off keeping that form in reserve anyway.›
After making our way through Ngai Forest for a while, I noticed an unusually large figure looming out of the darkness ahead. Whatever it was, it looked about as tall as World Treant. As we got closer, I realized it was a giant monster.
It had yellow skin and a single bent leg as thick as its torso. Its face consisted of two large, gaping mouths: one at the top and one at the bottom. In the center, a single eyeball stared, unblinking. Instead of walking, it bounced over and over, an earthquake rippling from the ground with each step.
It kinda looked like an Adam. Maybe it was an evolved version?
‹Interesting… Bigger doesn’t always mean stronger, but either way, that’s a bizarre monster.›
From my back, Treant nodded in agreement. ‹Yup. Size doesn’t equal strength.› World Treant was way bigger than me, but it was no match for me in terms of stats. Fortunately, though, I could just check this giant’s status from afar to see just how strong he was.
Ymir: Rank L (Legendary). An ugly titan statue. Destroys thousands of trees just by walking around and dries up entire lakes just to quench his thirst. It is said that entire continents have been sunk to the depths simply from incurring his wrath.
…Oh boy. Better give this guy a wide berth. I might be able to beat him, but there was no need to challenge a Legendary right now. Even if I got to max level, I still couldn’t evolve. I’d rather focus on hunting groups of weaker monsters and help Allo and Treant farm for experience points for now. They had a lot more room to level up.
Based on how many I’d seen so far, it felt like Ngai Forest was in no short supply of Legendary rank monsters. I’d have my pick of them when I wanted to level up. And between my quadrupled experience point gain and the mountain of experience points even one Legendary would give me, there was no reason to focus on myself now.
Besides…if I was gonna challenge a Legendary rank monster, I’d rather have a rematch with the Origin Matter. That way I could see if it had anyone useful still trapped inside it.
‹It’s called Ymir,› I told the others. ‹Thankfully, he’s so huge that we saw him before he saw us. We’re still pretty far away from him. To him, we probably don’t look much bigger than grains of rice.›
‹It’s a good thing I’m not in my normal form, then…› Treant chimed in, sounding sincere.
Yeah, for real. If Treant had been in its World Treant form, Ymir would’ve spotted it and gone after us. The thought sent chills down my back. I didn’t want to give that guy any reason to chase us down.
‹I’m not a fan of how close he is to the tower, though. It seems like he’s just hanging out around here for some reason.› We were already pretty close to the tower; if we kept up this pace, we’d arrive by the end of the day. Even so, I doubted this spire was the key to us escaping Ngai Forest. Even if it was, I still couldn’t hold a candle to the Divine Voice’s Spirit Servants. No, I needed to stay here and get stronger. But either way, I had no doubt that this spire held some sort of hint or clue as to what we needed to do to get stronger and get out of here.
I didn’t know what we’d be facing in that tower, and I didn’t like the idea of following the Divine Voice’s design for me. But for now, that was the only thing I could do.
A vision of the Divine Voice loomed in my mind. Just you wait, Divine Voice…! I’ll come back with a vengeance and settle things once and for all.
‹Master! Look! Look!›
“Master Dragon! Master Dragon!”
I heard Allo and Treant frantically call out to me, breaking me out of my thoughts. ‹Whoops, sorry. Was just thinking about our next steps, now that we’ve made some progress on—›
I was interrupted by a booming ka-thud, ka-thud, ka-thud that shook the ground beneath me. Uh-oh.