After the poisonous rain one day and the poisonous tornadoes the next, I was already expecting something for the next and last day of the trip through the Poisonous Forest.
That night we stayed in a tree house, a rare tree that wards off the poison from the area, thanks to that the monsters of this place do not approach and the air here also becomes pure.
This is by far the most beautiful place in this Poisonous Forest so far, the tree is in the middle of a crystal clear lake, the tree had white wood with blue leaves, and its purity was a glow in this place full of poison.
I spent the night talking to Joseph again, in addition to getting more information on what to expect on this final part of the way to the Elf village, I also asked about this tree.
Joseph said that it was his grandfather who planted this tree here, he said that this tree was placed here to be a safe point in the center of the Poison Forest where travelers can rest before reaching the Elf Village.
I look around while listening to this, I didn’t get a correct view of this Poisonous Forest from above as I flew all the way, but this seems to be the most beautiful place so far, an oasis of purity amidst a swamp of poison.
“You must know that our current Queen is still very weak compared to others on other continents.” (Joseph)
“But even if your strength exceeds what the energy density of this continent has, that will be a problem you will have to deal with.” (Joseph)
“Why is this something I’m going to have to solve? I only promised to help the World Tree.” (I)
“We know that during the planting of the World Tree, our Queen’s weak connection will be lost until the process for which you are responsible is over.” (Joseph)
“That means it will be too risky for her to fight the Wave of monsters, so she will remain by your side as the last line of defense.” (Joseph)
“She agreed to this?” (I)
“It was her idea.” (Joseph)
“When her connection to the World Tree was severed from her Aura and energies were thrown into disarray, she found it difficult to concentrate and manipulate her own powers.” (Joseph)
“Most likely, her lack of power could hurt allies during battle.” (Joseph)
“What if she gets in the way of planting the World Tree?” (I)
“I don’t think it’s a problem as long as you don’t use her power.” (Joseph)
It looks like I won’t be alone during the whole process as I imagined.
For the next few hours, I pulled cards to play with Joseph as we passed the time before we went to sleep.
———-
The next morning we flew smoothly the rest of the time without any problems, but I noticed something, something very serious that is making my whole body shake.
“Huh!?” (I)
What I realized wasn’t with my eyes, it was with my Aura, I could feel that the balance of nature was somehow broken, I could feel the differences more and more as we were heading deeper into the Poisonous Forest.
“…” (I)
“What is it, master?” (Ragnar)
“Keep going, I have to understand something.” (I)
I have just spoken with Ragnar and close my eyes, then enter a meditative state to further refine my mind.
Soon I spread my Aura in the surroundings and with my empty mind I try to understand everything I’m seeing, I try to understand why I’m feeling danger in this place.
After a few minutes, I see destruction around me that normal people would never understand.
The energy flows were destroyed, they were by few, but that alone is cause for concern, I could see that in addition to the natural energies, the elemental energies were also in total disorder.
I knew it was this disorder that is giving me this sense of danger, but I don’t understand the meaning behind it.
With that, we kept going more and more to the center where I feel the situation is getting worse, in some places I could see that the elemental energies were gathering uncontrollably and exploding in some cases.
When I open my eyes, I can see that in the place where I saw Fire Element energy gathered, I could see a lake of magma.
I also look around and notice that there are places where it’s covered in ice, places where the trees are twice as tall, there was a mountain nearby that was strangely split in half and there was a place completely enveloped by darkness where I couldn’t see for inside.
“(Did the uncontrolled elements do this?)” (I)
“From the look on your face, I assume you’ve figured out the situation already, right?” (Joseph)
Sigh
“At this point, anyone can see that something is wrong with nature.” (Joseph)
I open my eyes and see a dismayed White Elf looking around before looking at me hopefully.
“How long have these things been going on?” (I)
“It started 74 years ago, since then it’s been getting worse and worse every year, especially during the Annual Monster Wave, these small environments have made monsters that shouldn’t appear in this Forest appear causing a lot of havoc.” (Joseph)
“This is caused by the World Tree, right?” (I)
“Yes, the World Tree is on the verge of death, because of that it doesn’t maintain the same level of control it once had to maintain all its functions.” (Joseph)
“Because of this for the past 11 years, the Annual Monster Waves have been stronger than they should have been.” (Joseph)
“(No pressure at all.)” (me)
Sigh
We keep flying while I think about what we faced on the way here, that rain and those strange tornadoes, could these have been manifestations of these disturbances in the balance of nature?
I have the power to balance nature, but not on that scale, so something as serious as this is best left to the experts.
In the late afternoon, Joseph nods to me and points in one direction, I follow him to a stone portal full of cracks, as I get closer I notice that there are crack marks in the space around that stone portal.
“(A faulty barrier?)” (I)
We got off and stopped in front of the giant stone door, looking closer I realized that the cracks were a lot more than I imagined, this thing had been broken but they put it together piece by piece again.
Joseph takes a step forward as he points to the stone gate.
“We’re here.” (Joseph)
As soon as we arrived in front of the stone gate, I could see why the barrier had cracked like that.
As I have pure Affinity with many elements, I was able to perceive many things that others did not, in addition, I acquired the trinity with nature which gives me a much stronger connection with nature.
Thanks to that, I was able to perceive the collision between the energies in chaos, it also seems that the barrier is not very firm, it seems to be weakened.
“How do we get in?” (I)
“Like this.” (Joseph)
Joseph approaches one of the stone pillars that form the gate and puts his hand on it, then a stream of mana comes out of his body to the stone pillar.
Soon a passage opens revealing a village that was not visible before, on the other side of the passage there were many soldiers wearing light armor wielding weapons, they all looked at Joseph who was in front, and lowered their weapons before getting on their knees.
Joseph waves them back to their positions and so they do, then he looks at me waving inward.
“Follow me please.” (Joseph)
I join Joseph while Orion is still on my Shoulder and Hinata was taken into the Dungeon by Nix, Ragnar also returns to his humanoid form and walks beside me.
We pass the soldiers who greet us respectfully, but with confused eyes not knowing who we are.
“Let’s go straight to where the Queen is, I’m sure she must already know of our presence.” (Joseph)
I follow Joseph through the village as he begins to walk, paying attention to his surroundings as if checking out what has been going on since he left.
I look around as we walk and notice many things, I see troops training to handle weapons such as Swords, spears, and daggers with different teachers for each weapon.
I look at the village as we pass by, the people are normal, but I see few smiling, I also noticed that there were many people of other races living in this village, much more than I imagined.
Everyone watched as we passed, but that was because of the identity of Joseph who was one of the leaders of this village.
But what caught my attention the most was that I wasn’t seeing many Fairies or Spirits.
I kept looking, but I didn’t see almost any, almost everyone I could see seemed to be with other people.
“(Why are there so few Fairies and Spirits around here in this village?)” (I)
I followed Joseph to the center of the village where we entered a circular building, we went straight to the second floor where there were several people talking. ｏｖ𝚕．ｃｏ𝚖
When we enter the room everyone looks at us, unlike the people outside who only had eyes for Joseph, the people in this room had eyes only for me, especially a Dark Elf who was in the center of the group of people.
“(I think I know who she is from the reaction of the people in this room.)” (I)