“And these,” she said, nodding toward them, “are the ones Gregald brought with him? Can they truly be trusted?”
“They can,” Gregald replied with conviction. “Belamus and the others found Lady Mimi unconscious and protected her. They helped bring her all the way here to the Rugen region, and without them, we would’ve been overwhelmed by the assassins. They’re strong, capable, and most importantly, they’re reliable.”
Meira studied them for a long moment. Then she bowed her head deeply and sincerely.
“Then I thank you,” she said. “For bringing Lady Mimi safely to us.”
Rising again, she placed a hand over her heart. “My name is Meira Alonso. I am the leader of Gagagamoor. It is an honor to meet you.”
She introduced herself with formality, but not stiffness. There was strength in her voice, but no arrogance.
One by one, Belamus and the others returned the gesture, introducing themselves in turn. As he spoke, Belamus watched Meira carefully, measuring her presence, not just her authority, but her humanity.
Polite. Composed. Not without warmth, he thought. She might actually be someone worth trusting.
After the introductions, Mimi spoke first, her voice hesitant yet steady.
“Um… Lady Meira,” she began, clutching her hands in front of her. “Do you know what sort of calamity is supposed to happen… if someone like me, if a Blessed One, doesn’t exist?”
“I know everything,” Meira replied without hesitation.
Mimi froze for a moment, gathering her courage.
“Would you tell me?” she asked at last, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I intended to from the start,” Meira said gently. “You deserve to know the truth.”
She took a slow breath, then began: “The Blessed are individuals capable of performing a specific ritual—one that no one else can enact.”
“A ritual?” Mimi echoed, confused.
“Yes. Deep in the western reaches of the Great Frazes Forest, there grows a magical creature known as the Emperor Treant, a sentient tree-beast, ancient beyond imagination. Long ago, it could move. It roamed the forest freely, shaking the ground with each step. But now, it no longer stirs. Its roots have taken hold, and to the untrained eye, it looks like nothing more than an impossibly massive tree.”
Belamus’s eyes narrowed slightly. Treants… He’d heard of them before. They were living trees, capable of movement and thought, closely related, at least in magical taxonomy, to the Alraune species. Unlike most monsters, Treants didn’t evolve by devouring others. Their growth came with time: centuries of stillness and survival.
To be called an Emperor Treant, one had to have lived for at least a thousand years. By that point, its body would span vast swaths of land, its roots deeper than memory, its trunk wider than a fortress.
Even in his previous life, Belamus had heard tales of the ancient, unmoving Treant that slumbered within the Great Frazes Forest. He’d never seen it himself, but rumor claimed it had lived for over ten thousand years. It wasn’t as tall as the World Tree, said to grow at the forest’s center, but it was still a living colossus, a being inspiring both awe and dread.
“There’s a cave beneath the Emperor Treant’s roots,” Meira continued, her voice steady and precise. “If you follow it deep enough, you’ll reach what we call the core, a place where the Treant’s consciousness resides. You can speak with it there.”
She paused, letting the weight of her next words land before saying them.
“But not just anyone can enter. Only those who bear the mark, those chosen as the Blessed, are permitted through the cave’s threshold. It’s sealed to all others.”
“W-Wait,” Mimi stammered, blinking. “So, I… I can go into this cave under the Treant, and… what? Something good happens?”
“There is a benefit,” Meira said. “Though the explanation is somewhat complicated, so I ask that you listen carefully.”
Her voice grew quieter and more reverent.
“According to ancient texts in my possession, the Emperor Treant once communicated with the dwarves. It issued a warning: unless someone visited its core every fifty years, a disaster would fall upon the Kingdom of Crystia. Specifically, it warned that the ranma grass above the kingdom would begin to wither.”
Mimi gave her a blank look, her brows drawing together. She clearly had no idea what that meant, or what ranma grass even was. Belamus, too, frowned. The term stirred something in his memory, but the details were frustratingly hazy.
“What’s ranma grass?” Mimi asked, finally.
“It’s… well, it looks like ordinary grass,” Meira admitted. “But it has one crucial property. When a creature called the Glaz Insect eats it, it undergoes a unique evolution. It gains the ability to burrow underground.”
Mimi’s confusion began to clear, her expression shifting to something more thoughtful. The pieces were starting to fall into place.
Belamus, meanwhile, recalled something Mimi had told him before, something about the dwarves’ delicate subterranean ecosystem. The Glaz Insects were essential. They served as prey for the massive Iron Worms that lived beneath the soil. And those worms, in turn, produced a special form of iron the dwarves relied on for sustenance.
If the Glaz Insects couldn’t evolve—if they couldn’t burrow—then the Iron Worms would starve.
And if the worms starved…
“What… what happens if the Blessed doesn’t go into the cave?” Mimi asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Meira didn’t hesitate. “The ranma grass will wither completely. Without it, the Glaz Insects can’t evolve, and without that evolution, they lose the ability to burrow underground. When that happens, the Iron Worms stop producing iron.”
She looked Mimi straight in the eyes.
“Vast numbers of dwarves will starve,” Meira said quietly, her voice steady but laced with a sorrowful finality, like someone who had already imagined the outcome too many times.
Mimi’s breath caught in her throat. “I-Is that really true? Are you absolutely sure? What if… what if the grass wouldn’t have died anyway?”
Her voice trembled. The weight of it all was too much to accept at once. She wasn’t ready to carry the fate of an entire people on her shoulders—not without asking why.
Even Belamus, standing off to the side, remained silent. He didn’t dismiss it outright, but the idea that one ritual could mean the difference between survival and extinction was a lot to accept without proof.
Meira nodded solemnly. “The Emperor Treant began planting ranma grass the moment it settled into its current location. It’s not just the grass; it has the power to spread all kinds of flora wherever it anchors. Long ago, simply by existing, it caused ranma grass to flourish.”
She paused, then continued more quietly. “But around the time the Kingdom of Crystia was founded, centuries ago, it began to change. The Treant’s awareness started to dim. Since then, unless someone visits its core every fifty years and reminds it to consciously will the grass into existence, the effect fades. The grass dies. That’s what it warned.”
Meira gestured as if drawing the words from memory.
“This is all recorded in one of the old texts I possess. It documents a conversation between the Treant and one of the dwarves who had reached the core. Word for word.”
“W-Wait,” Mimi stammered again, her brow furrowing. “Why can’t anyone but the Blessed go inside? Why not just… send someone else?”