Looking at me with her confused dark green eyes, she asked in a cracking voice, [ “You… will?” ].
She had come back to her normal, happy self just after hearing that, and a smile was plastered on her face.
That sudden change of reaction of this big, cute squirrel was… unique.
And also funny.
“Yes. We should become friends.” I repeated and pointed at my hand.
She was confused but awkwardly grabbed it with her hands, which were just a bit smaller than mine.
I smiled and shook it. It was good to see her reaction to this new form of greeting.
She had chubby cheeks, and it was cute to have a friend like her. 𝗻𝐨𝐯𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
But… I didn’t know how long I would be with my first genuine friend.
As if to read my thoughts, she spoke in a melancholy voice.
[ “Don’t worry. I can’t stop you, anyway. I have a family to look after and you… have a family to go to.” ]
My little friend was wise.
She knew I can’t stay here for much longer even if I wanted to.
It was good so I can rest here for today and maybe… tomorrow too, but not longer than that.
Fern and I talked about ourselves as the night passed.
Celes also came out and greeted Fern.
Fern was born right here where three gigantic trees gathered as one.
As an origin beast, she had some instinctive knowledge about this world and, more precisely, this forest and her duty and the ‘goal’ as a helper.
When she was first born here, she met different small creatures, and after a long time; she found an Orc in devastating pain.
Some other powerful creature attacked him and he was almost on the verge of death.
She thankfully saved him with the help of all the smaller beasts and helped him heal himself.
That Orc was the same one we met earlier.
She also saved the hippo when it was attacked by an Ent, and they both were in a bloody fight.
With the help of Gaar, the Orc, they resolved this fight between them and made them part of their family.
They were the hippo humanoid and older Ent I saw earlier.
The Ent that used [Mana Restriction] was a special case.
It was his special [Innate-skill] that he was born with.
In human age, he would be the same age as an infant, meaning he was a child.
She was happy and excited when she told us about how she met everyone and how they followed her, despite her strong denial.
Fern was more than a hundred years old but when compared to a human, she would be even younger than me.
Unlike Celes, whose natural lifespan wasn’t even a year, most other origin beasts lived longer than the most common species in this world.
After her jumping and dancing story, it was my turn.
,m I didn’t want to recall the events of those horrible times but, I can say them to her.
It wasn’t entirely because of her ability, but also because I wanted to tell her.
I talked, but I didn’t cry. There was just… longing.
And resentment.
There were still some matters that I never talked about the ‘accident’ but I knew, aside from me, only dad knew what had happened that day.
Though I didn’t cry, both of them were crying.
[[ Master~! Hick! Don’t worry~. I. Hick! ]]
Celes was reacting a bit too sensitive, as she can feel all the emotions that I felt.
It was just like her.
But, on the other hand, Fern was more… loud?
[ “E-eon… oh, poor soul! How cruel!!! Those… bastards!” ]
Most of what she was saying didn’t make any sense at all.
But, I did get some idea from her emotional look.
Two little cry babies continued their non-melodious song of agony as the slow night beautifully passed.
***
Inside a spacious room like a hole inside a tree, I open my eyes at the gentle, warm touch of the sunlight.
Slowly waking up, I looked around me.
A chubby squirrel, a bit shorter than me, was sleeping like a baby.
I smiled as I looked at her and stretched my body.
Moving her inside was a bit difficult, but this ‘room’ was just behind the branch we were sitting, so it was… ok.
This was the first time night I had slept at night so peacefully.
This was a safe and nice place, and many creatures were protecting this area.
With such a big family, not even an (Indigo) ranked beast could do anything to this place.
Getting up, I walked outside and stood on a platform-like tree branch.
The sun was rising just a bit other way and I could see the trees lower than the one I was standing on.
This tree was almost like a house and this ‘room’ was one of the many used by different beasts.
There were stairs on the tree trunk so others can climb the tree safely.
These three trees were connected and functioned as one entity.
At its heart, Fern was the one that controlled and protected everything here.
She couldn’t travel much far, but the area she could reach was considerable, and many beasts followed her there.
There were other powerful beasts and groups of beasts that followed other strong beasts, but they avoided clashing with each other and ruled their designated territories.
Though there were wars between these groups for more space and sometimes, just to prove strength, they were a rare occurrence.
Fern’s influence was great and other strong beasts avoided any type of conflict as they knew the meaning of her existence.
If she were to perish back then, many things might have changed in this area of the forest.
Many beasts would have been killed and many wars might have been waged just to take the territories owned by this group.
Though she had three (Blue) ranked creatures following her… the opponents weren’t something small.
There were many large powerful forces in this forest that I, fortunately, hadn’t encountered.
There were even (Indigo) and… (Purple) ranked creatures, but those beings were something very different thing than normal beasts.
Many had higher intelligence compared to humans, and many could produce normal as well as stone weapons with trees and rocks.
And this was only about the area around this lake.
The other side of the lake was unknown territory to all these creatures.
No one knew what was there past that great willow.
All they knew was there was a dark forest, always clouded by darkness.
But my destination, for the time being, was the great willow.
[ “Eon?” ]
I heard a low voice and turned around… just to see a big squirrel getting up from her long sleep.
“Good morning, friend~,” I greeted my friend with a warm smile. This strangely excited me.
It was also my first time saying something like this.
I did greet Celes every day, but we were more than just friends.