We take Esofy and Jowaru to the infirmary, really just a large tent with beds. There we use several healing spell crystals to heal them along with Lotuna's and my healing. While tending to the wounded, I look over my messages.

Ting! Your Bond has obtained levels 363-379!

Ting! Persistent State has obtained levels 33-40!

Ting! Clear Mind has obtained levels 78-79!

Ting! You have developed a new Bond skill, Channel Beauty!

Ting! You have too many Bond skills; please remove one.

I have never really made good use of [Aura of Elegance]. It probably could have been very useful, but I just didn't have an opportunity to really improve it, and it doesn't quite fit my build anyway.

Ting! You have Lost the Bond skill, Aura of Elegance.

Channel Beauty: You can channel your Bond skills to cast a potent effect.

Interesting, can I channel my clones to make them more physical?

I then look at the contents of the treasure chest. The chest is made of void essence gold and covered in ornate space essence decorations. Inside the chest is a war scythe with a blade of void steel, an attempt to recreate my metallic mana. Did the dungeon just learn from me? Not to mention that it has done extremely well in constructing the mana blade, placing the mana particles in just the right MM valleys so the blade will be flexible enough and not too rigid.

Devouring Void Scythe:

(Enchanted)

This scythe blade is made of void essence and removes matter that touches its edge.

All of its enchantments seem to be for the void devouring capability, which suggests there is a limit to how much it can handle. Additionally, the description explicitly mentions matter, not mana, so mana armor of mana silk or metal could still be effective against weapons like this.

The second item from the chest is a pair of space essence gauntlets.

Gauntlets of Retrieval:

(Enchanted)

Can teleport objects and small beings to the wearer’s hands.

There should be a range limit for it, but it would be very useful for someone who throws their weapons. It does seem to be made to pair with the void scythe, however.

The last item is a bow made of light steel; it has a string of pure light mana and is enchanted to fire arrows of light like a spell.

Bow of Light:

(Enchanted)

Shoots spell-like arrows with up to 300 mana.

Too bad Klora isn't here; this is exactly what she needed.

We don't actually open the chest, since it would be in bad taste to do so before Esofy and Jowaru are fully healed, but with my [Sense Mana] I can see what's inside of it.

A part of me wonders if my crappy luck with the chests is because the dungeon doesn't like me... maybe this treasure chest, with properly useful rewards, is its way of thanking us for me showing it mana metals? Or is it all a coincidence?

Once Esofy and Jowaru are fully healed we go through the loot and make claims. Esofy claims the scythe and Kadona claims the gauntlets, then we take the rest of the day off to relax and sort out the trauma from the near-death experience.

Early the next morning, I notice a commotion at the edge of my perception; a group coming from the direction of the Arachnoid den. They are heavily injured and trying to support each other.

Leaving the Infirmary I send out a small army of healing familiars to tend to the injured, but that won't be enough; my [Grace of Wholeness] really isn't great healing. I am getting good bonuses to it, so it is only mediocre rather than actually awful; at the very least, it'll prevent lethal wounds from killing someone. I also summon dozens of instances of [Fairy Strike] to escort the group back.

The group is still far out so I have time to inform Tato, the leader managing the main camp today. When I walk into the command tent, she looks up from the papers she’s organizing – inventory records, by the looks of them.

"Did something happen? Tato asks.

"The Arachnoid den group is returning, heavily injured and they are missing several people; I don't know if they are still in the den or not." As I explain what I am seeing, Tato appears visibly worried, getting up and running out of the tent when I finish talking.

When the group arrives, we tend to the wounds too serious for my healing to fix before in transit, while Tato questions them.

"What happened? Where are the others?" Tato scans the group, appearing more and more agitated as she doesn’t see whatever, or whoever, she’s looking for.

"Dead," a fire mage says. "That thing knew the exact right moment to catch us all at the same time."

"What thing?” Tato asks. “Is it a roaming boss?" There are only two known roaming bosses outside of the dens: the Treant, and the Alpha Wolf that was killed. Another boss should have spawned to replace the Alpha, but the Treant is still out there.

"I couldn't even [Analyze] it, but all of a sudden roots and vines started bursting out of the ground, wrapping people up and... oh Myrou! The sound of their bones breaking... I can still hear it" Tears are streaming from the fire mage's eyes now as the immediate shock wears off.

"Razor Leaf Treant, Grand, level four hundred nineteen." A speed warrior volunteers, one of the few uninjured people. "We tried to burn it, but it seems to be immune to fire, or very resistant at least."

"I know that one," I say quietly. "Its class is Iron Bark, also Grand tier with a nature essence Bond. We managed to kill a Heroic-tier monster in the ruins, so we should be able to handle this one."

"It seems that before we continue, we'll have to find both of the roaming bosses, and more if they are out there. Call back all the groups." Tato gives orders with a calm voice and a hard expression, then goes back to her tent, but I can see her grit her teeth and clench her fists once she’s alone.

Did she lose a friend?

I'm not good with these things, so I let her sort her own feelings out while I focus on finding the Treant. From the report, it attacked from below and worked around the subcamp’s fortifications, which suggests that not only is it capable of thought, but of planning ahead. It also waited to strike at the perfect time, when the maximum number of people were actually in the subcamp. The Alpha Wolf, too, showed intelligence not befitting the usual monsters in here.

A worrying question occurs to me: if the Treant has attacked one camp, perhaps it's going for others. How far can its roots grow?

My perception extends for over a kilometer now that I’ve stopped forgetting about my racial bonuses like a complete idiot, but I have some control over its shape, so in order to see farther outwards, I normally reduce the area I can see belowground; after all, I don't really need to see hundreds of meters below the earth. However, maybe I do now. I extend my perception downwards, much farther than I would normally, and see... Roots, a huge network of roots, lying one hundred meters below the main camp, all leading off to the north, away from any dens.

For weeks we haven't seen anything of the Treant, and now I know why; it's been preparing ever since I first saw it; it knew the range of my senses from that time! Way back when I first saw the Treant it learned the distance I could see it at! Even worse, not only did it learn my weakness but it also seems to have copied my long-range artillery-style method of attack.

It's waiting for us all to group up here or at the subcamps. It intentionally let some people live to scare us all into gathering together!

Presumably it learned from the wolf attack that, when we think there’s a new danger, we all group up for a few days.

What do I do? I can't stay in this camp— nobody can stay in any camps; we need to seek shelter inside the dens or outside the dungeon until we can kill the Treant.

I'm confident we can kill it, but what if it can live on through the roots? We'll have to burn kilometers of roots if that's the case; either way, we need to leave the dungeon altogether, now.

We have the waystone key, so we can teleport everyone directly to the dungeon entrance. I head into the command tent again – Tato taking a few moments to stop staring grimly at nothing – and explain the danger and what my plan is.

"Alright, let's do it,” she responds after a few moments of thought. “We'll take what we can and leave until the Treant is slain."

"For it to learn so much from us…” Esofy steps into the tent behind me, having overheard the tail end of what I told Tato. “Aly, we cannot underestimate this one. It has clearly planned ahead and shows great intelligence. We are calling off the expedition; for now, no one is allowed into the subcamps for any reason; we'll get what we can from the main camp and then we’ll leave." Esofy says.

I nod in agreement. I initially, impulsively, thought we could take it on but now I am rethinking it. I know from first-hand experience just how much of an advantage planning ahead gives, so we can't treat the roaming boss like a simple monster.

I send out my clones to warn the subcamps as quickly as possible. Thanks to Kadona volunteering to use the waystone key to teleport everyone out of the dungeon, the evacuation itself is mostly uneventful. Utilizing the key, Kadona teleports to each den, orders everyone out of the subcamps and teleports each group back to the entrance one by one.

I send a clone with a storage backpack to the Arachnoid subcamp to retrieve the bodies. Roots have taken over, the subcamp looking like it’s been abandoned for a hundred years, they don't react to my clone even when I store the bodies The roots have the same mana signature as the Treant, so I seriously hope we don't have to hunt down every single one to kill the thing.

I can probably retrieve any materials left behind from the subcamps too. Since they don't react to my clone I might as well get everything I can. I start sending more clones out to each deserted subcamp, gathering what I can and running it back to the main camp where it is all dumped into random crates. There isn't any time to sort the materials, so it's just boxed up and stored into a large spatial item. Once we have everything ready, we leave the dungeon, feeling the familiar humid atmosphere of the Nexus, the mana density brightening my vision.

I get a few dirty looks for some reason from some of the priestesses as we walk by, however, there seems to be one carefully studying me. She is holding a book titled ‘Incidents involving the Likeness of Myrou’, which seems to be a simple record.

"Gutaly, I have something for you." The priestess holding the record gives me a knowing look and walks away when someone calls for her. It’s odd… but I’ve had people do weirder things around me over the years, so I put it out of my mind for now.

Now that I am here, at the Temple, maybe I should ask Kayafe for some advice; I wonder if she has encountered any Treants before? I can get some information on it and its abilities with my clone, but it’s impossible, for example, for me to determine what sensory skills it might have using the clone, since most such skills aside from [Sense Mana] can’t see my clones anyway. [Sense Life], [Sense Heat], [Tremor Sense] and many others simply don’t apply to the clones.

"I'm going to ask Kayafe for some information; perhaps she has some experience with Treants," I tell Esofy.

"That's a good idea; I'll wait for you then." She replies somewhat absently, still looking a bit haunted after what happened with the Void Slime, now that the immediate pressure of the evacuation is gone.

I walk up the pyramid to the now familiar scene of the Mana Arc floating in the middle of the sheltered platform. I approach and place my hand on it, establishing contact with the ancient ancestor, then wait for her to wake up before asking my question.

"Kayafe, what do you know of Treants?"

"Treants? They are usually guardians of forests, but I take it this one is in the dungeon?” Kayafe waits for my confirmation before continuing. “Treants are known to be watchers, able to see through any tree in their territory and command vegetation from a distance. Their race is almost always tied to nature essence and usually their class is too; their Bonds are usually water or earth aligned, but they do have a higher than average chance for nature essence Bonds. Vitality Treants are a thing too; I once met a Treant that had shed its corporeal form to become pure vitality; another I have met became the forest itself, planting itself and spreading its roots to sprout an entire forest. Treants are varied and usually peaceful if left alone, but they do hate wooden buildings and will seek to destroy them; stone buildings they tend to leave alone as long as trees aren't destroyed in the process of clearing land."

"What about their intelligence? The one we are facing seems to have learned by watching us.” I ask, worried that this one is perhaps abnormal. “It's a nature Bond Treant and seems to have a defense-focused class and offensive race."

"Treants normally act instinctually, but ones that have been around for thousands of years do tend to develop intelligence and may observe offenders, often for years. It's important to note that they don't have the same emotions of people and animals; most plant-based beings don't, so it's incredibly difficult to reason with them," Kayafe informs me.

"I see... that makes a lot of sense." Plants probably don't have the right brain chemistry to allow for similar emotions.

"What tier is it?” Kayafe asks. “Most old Treants are around Heroic-tier, but it being locked into a dungeon may change things."

"Grand for both race and class, level four hundred."

"Normally, I'd say that is a weak one, but I also know the Runalymo haven't been training for thousands of years and your current civilisation is likely experiencing your first ‘real’ fight with monsters in that dungeon, so let me warn you: dungeon monsters tend to be weaker than ones in the normal world. When monsters are spawned they are born with instincts and intuitive knowledge of their skills, and they start with maybe five breakthroughs... but what this means is that for each of their breakthroughs they only have three levels in knowledge and that's it, no action levels. A dungeon monster's skills, if recently spawned, are three tenths the max, which makes them very weak even if they have good stats."

Wait, so that Heroic-tier monster we killed… I put the pieces of that statement together with a sense of growing horror. The Void Slime… that killed two of us and almost killed two more... was just a flailing baby?!