Estyle watched as the foreign Awakened stood atop the branch, gazing at the distant hives. He was well aware that the combat power of a single Awakened could rival an entire branch army, if properly utilized, but he wasn’t sure if the same held true for these foreigners. This was the first time they had heard of anyone who grew from the grasses, as opposed to the woods.
Naturally, Estyle and his kin were aware of the other woods, though there were not many methods of traversing such long distances to meet them. In order to travel from wood to wood, one must ride the crawler when they appear, and wait to see where they journey to next. If unlucky, they may simply return to the same wood from which they left, or they may end up elsewhere. Either way, it would typically take an entire year before they stopped to eat again.
This led to communication between the woods being extremely sparse. Every few decades, there would be travelers coming who had left their original woods for one reason or another, but that was all there was to it.
“Hmm…” The pale foreigner, Lifre, spoke up after analyzing the situation. “I can probably deal with your pest problem, I think! Though, before I do, I gotta ask a super important question!”
Estyle blinked at that, unsure what she could be wanting to ask. “Of course, esteemed Lifre. What is it that you would like to know?”
“It won’t cause any kind of ecological disaster if I kill those tentacle bugs, will it?” Lifre asked, tilting her head. Seeing that Estyle wasn’t sure how to respond, Lena stepped in to clarify.
“What she means is, do the hive beasts contribute in any way to the growth or protection of the wood? If she were to eliminate them in their entirety, would there be any long term problems for all of you?”
“Ah, I see.” Estyle nodded his head, glad that at least one of the foreigners was able to talk like a normal person. “To answer your question, no. The hive beasts are a plague on the branches, and those that live within them. To my knowledge, we have never observed these beasts performing any beneficial service to the woods.”
“Sweet!” Lifre beamed happily. “In that case, give me like an hour to get things ready, and I’ll be back.” She began, before pausing. “How long do the big guys below usually feed at a time, by the way? Don’t want to take too long and have them get all active again.”
“You need not worry. Each crawler only feeds once a year, but will feast for between one and three days at a time. This crawler only arrived this morning, so it will still be here for quite some time.”
Lifre grinned, nodding her head. She reached her arm out, and seemed to let it sink into empty space, her hand briefly disappearing. When she pulled it back, she was holding a wooden chair, which she set down, and then did the same to produce a table.
Estyle froze, unsure of how she had done this, or what she was planning to do to prepare. He had assumed that she would feast to stock up on energy, or do some last minute training to warm up. However, she then pulled out a book and pen, and began writing in some strange language.
The other two that were with her, Petra and Lena, did not seem at all as surprised by Lifre’s actions as Estyle himself. “What is she doing?” He couldn’t help but ask.
Petra looked over, blinking. “Ah, right, you wouldn’t know about runes. You’re familiar with mana, right?” She asked, projecting a stream of visible, blue mana above her finger. When Estyle nodded his head, she continued. “There is a mystical language in this world that harnesses mana to create fantastic effects. I’m guessing that she’s writing up a spell now.”
Lena agreed, adding on. “That’s right. She’s recently become a lot better with it. Though, for her to need an hour to finish the spell, I’m going to guess it’s a pretty difficult one.” Her words seemed to slow down near the end, as if realizing something.
“Is something the matter, esteemed Lena?” Estyle asked in concern, and Lena quickly shook her head.
“No, no, I’m just bracing myself. Petra… you’ll probably want to get the others involved here. This is Lifre we’re talking about. That’s not a simple extermination spell.”
When Petra heard that, her eyes widened a fraction, and she nodded her head. Her eyes quickly closed, her shadow spreading out beneath her. A moment later, three new figures emerged, all with the same black hair as Petra herself. Estyle could only assume that these were more Awakened from their original land.
Petra quickly turned to face the three, speaking in a language that Estyle couldn’t understand. At first, they looked confused, glancing between Estyle and Lifre, before their expressions seemed to harden with a nod.
Still unsure of what was going on, Estyle patiently waited for Lifre to finish, watching as she wrote page after page of those strange, mystical characters. Eventually, Lifre closed the book and stood up with a shout. “Done!” She said, turning to face everyone. “Huh? Oh! More people! That’ll make this even better!”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Lena said with a wry smile. “So, what type of spell did you create?”
“It’s a battle game!” Lifre began in a proud tone. “Once the spell is activated, people can choose to participate in the battle game, with the range being the entire area beneath the tree! The game’s all about who can kill the most hive beasts, and it will prevent any collateral damage to the tree itself.”
“Oh, also, if any player is on the verge of death, they’ll be teleported back to the start of the game with a full heal. They can resume the game, but their score will have to start over if they do.”
“Their score…?” Lena arched a brow. “Does that mean that there is a prize for having a higher score?”
“Yup!” Lifre seemed all too happy to explain the rules of the game, so Estyle listened attentavely. “I wanted to make this something that the locals could do after we left, in case those things ever came back. See, whenever a hive beast is killed, their basic energies are harvested and added to a growing pool. That pool is then used to reward the top fifty players! They can get special treasures that boost their physical abilities, new techniques, or even cool weapons based on their scores.”
“Fifty…” Estyle looked around for a moment. “Even if you include the three who just arrived, there are only six of you.”
“Well, duh. I said that this was something that you could do even if we’re not here.” Lifre grinned. “If you wanna summon some of your friends to play, feel free! Like I said, this is a pretty safe game, and every branch can participate! Whether it’s the big crawler or the little pests, they won’t be able to kill anyone as long as the game is going.”
“How long does the game last?” One of the new foreigners asked curiously.
“Well, I didn’t know how good their mana supply is, so I made this work with ambient mana. In other words, it will last for ten hours! Also, this spell takes a lot of ambient mana, so the mana in the area will take about a week to replenish enough to cast it again, if my math is right.” As she said that, she walked over to Estyle, holding the book out for him.
“You want to give this… to me?” He asked in confusion, and she nodded her head.
“Yeah! I made this to work for you guys, after all! Just inject some of your mana into the cover of the book, and the spell will activate. It will broadcast the rules of the game to everyone near the exterior of the tree, and give them the chance to participate.”
Honestly, Estyle wasn’t sure what to make of this. Like everything else that had happened since their arrival, he was struggling to wrap his head around what was going on. It was only after he had injected his mana into the book that the thought of this being some secret weapon against his people sprang to his mind.
Thankfully, that was quickly proven to not be the case. Bursts of blue light radiated from the pages of the book, shooting out to wrap around the tree. As Lifre had explained, the rules of the game began to appear in the minds of Estyle and the others near the exterior. They could choose to join the game by stretching their hand forward and saying the word ‘participate’.
Lifre was the first to do so, eagerly stretching her hand out. “Participate!” She shouted, with Lena and the others following suit. Estyle did not participate in this game, not because he feared it was a trap, but because he still had his duty to monitor these strange Awakened ones.
Five minutes after the spell activated, a large screen appeared near the base of the branch, displaying the names of everyone that had chosen to participate in the game. There were hundreds of thousands of names listed, all currently showing a score of zero.
Without waiting any longer, Lifre jumped from the tree, holding her hands above her head. “Wrath of flames!” She shouted, and a massive flame sparked to life above her hands, looking like an almost solid sphere. “Sever space, connect the world!”
The fireball disappeared, and Estyle could sense one of the distant hives erupting. Lifre’s score shot up, immediately reaching over eight billion points. At the same time, Lena and the others took action. Lena smiled, her body growing taller. The purple at the tips of her hair faded to gold, her hair growing longer and eyes turning jade green.
“It seems the harvest season is here.” She said in a silky voice, stretching her hand out. Estyle couldn’t sense what happened, but Lena’s score abruptly began to skyrocket as well.
“Don’t leave us out of this!” Petra shouted, suddenly holding a giant axe. However, unlike the previous two, she flew out with her friends, their bodies wrapping in shadows and turning into blurred streaks to head for the nearest hives.
“You’re not going to get many points if you go the slow poke route!” Lifre teased, laughing happily. Her voice seemed to deepen, echoing itself as she spoke in a strange tongue.
Nine fireballs, similar to the first, grew in a circle above her head, slowly rotating. As they grew, the heat within began to spread, with even Estyle himself feeling as if he had stepped directly into a roaring fire. Back on the screen, Lifre’s score began to lower, and she looked back with wide eyes.
“Oh, right! Sorry!” She apologized abruptly, and the nine fireballs flickered away, her score shooting up once more. “The power to prevent collateral damage is taken from the pool of energy that the spell accumulates, so it lowers the score of the one who would have caused the damage! Heheh, got a little carried away.”
Estyle’s eye twitched when he heard that, looking back. At the moment, Lena was in the lead, with Lifre close behind her. The next four were Petra, and who he assumed were Petra’s friends with somewhat more normal scores. Each of them were only in the tens of thousands, after all. Meanwhile, the residents of the wood were only just starting to break past the double digits, having taken some time to actually reach the hives where the beasts were residing.
