Looking at the map we both see that Logholm is at least a few days of travel away, even with flight, so we start planning out if there’s anywhere we’d like to stop by before one our way, we may not have any bad feelings about sleeping outside, but we’ve no good feelings either so if possible we’d prefer to stop in towns to sleep in beds rather than just on blankets in the wilderness.

“How about this path? First we’ll go here to Straitley, then here Gavely, after that we’ll go here to Uphalla and then finally we’ll get to Logholm.”

“Really? But the distance from here to Straitley and from there to Gavely is the same as the distance from Gavely to Logholm, so if we can get from here to Straitley in one day we should be able to go straight from Gavely to Logholm in one day too and skip Uphalla completely”

“Sure, but I want to go sightseeing as well you know? We found squids in Krull so who knows what kinds of food we can find in all the other towns!”

Say Lizz and Cy from inside the book, when it comes to food you can always count on them, just maybe not in the right way…

“Alright I get it, let’s visit all three of them, and if we ever get done with the whole adventuring thing we might as well just explore the world and see what it has to offer.”

After having mostly decided how we’ll get to Logholm we pick up Litly and put her back in the bag, she’d been put on the ground since we didn’t know how long it would take us to decide everything, and then we took off into the sky towards Straitley.

Says Cy.

‘Yeah?’

‘Probably, why?’

‘Alright, thanks for notifying me Cy.’

“Hey Shiona, Cy said the seed the dryad gave us is finally blooming, we should probably land and take it out.”

“Alrighty.”

We descend back down to the ground in a small clearing of a forest, Shiona lets me go and she lands a small distance away from me, before I take off the bookpack and open it.

Out comes a single blue hand, larger than normal, and puts down the potted plant which had sprouted from the seed, and we see its sepals slowly open and revealing a flower bulb.

It looked pretty normal, a two decimetre long stem with three green leaves right at the bottom of the stem. [img]

But then I noticed a few cracks in the pot it was in.

*crack*

And then another one appeared.

*CRASH*

“!” “!”

And finally the pot broke.

As the pot shattered the dirt inside lost its cylindrical shape and fell into a pile with the flower still standing strong on the peak of the pile without budging.

The bulb’s petals bloomed open and the entire flower slowly started to wobble and wiggle around, almost like a snake, and once the flower pointed back up towards us it stopped, again, just like a snake who has set its sights on something. [img]

The little guy looks like this flower but with two eyes on the center petal and the other petals droop downards a bit like human limbs

The flower then lowered itself down until two of its five petals touched the ground as the stem stood tall behind it and it started reminding me more of a cat ready to pounce rather than a snake.

It then somehow proceeded to pull its stem and roots out of the ground as it did the impossible by staying balanced using only the two petals which touched the ground despite its entire stem being in the air behind it and making it very back heavy.

Of the five petals that the flower had, two now touched the ground, two were still pointing to the sides, and the last was pointing straight upwards, and on that last petal two blue lights of energy appeared and started mimicking eyes as the base of the petal bent just like a neck and made the two lights look towards us just like it was a living creature.

Once it had locked onto us it started using both of the pedals which touched the ground to emulate legs as it bent and straightened them and started walking towards us while its tail like stem was still wiggling in the air like an animal’s tail.

While it was walking towards us the roots at the end of its stem started to bundle up into a ball before the three leaves on the stem bent backwards and covered the roots up, once it was finished with that it looked just like there was a green flower bulb at the end of the stem.

It walked up to Shiona, and once its two makeshift eyes had set on the still unnamed copper tree belt the stem froze in the air froze for a split second before shooting out, the bulb of roots bloomed as the roots grabbed the belt and pulled the little flower creature up with it, and once it was standing on the belt the roots let go and covered themselves up again before the creature turned and looked towards me.

I walked up to Shiona and the creature, and since Shiona was a lot taller than me I was already eye level with the small creature without having to crouch down.

“Hi?” I said and waved, hoping it would somehow understand me.

The little creature moved its head petal and looked at one of its side petals, before raising it and waving back to me.

I moved my hand towards it, almost like i was trying to get a bird to land on me, and the creature walked into my hand and I then put it on my shoulder.

“What is that?”

“I have no idea, we’ll have to ask the dryad once we finish up in Logholm and return to Eastern lake city.”

“Fair enough.”

I crouched down next to the book which was still lying open on the ground and I was about to close it and put it on when I remembered something.

Something I hadn’t done ever since the first couple of days I was in this world, but that would have no doubt been useful a lot of times if only I’d remembered.

*flutter flutter*

As the book understood what I wanted to do it flipped its pages and opened the inventory for me, just like before one of the two pages which were open had a list of all the tons of things that I had put in while the other looked like a black void.

Storage

¤ Money

¤ Foodstuffs

¤ Dragon materials

¤ Engdom map x2

¤ Engdoms neighbouring countries map x2

¤ Dragon bone chopstick x4

I only just realized that it’s been a long time since I actually saw the full contents of the inventory, since whenever I saw the contents listed on the small strips of paper that came out of the pouch it only showed specifically the things I had asked about, so I never knew until now, but it seems that if you have enough of a kind of item the book automatically sorted them into groups.

I put my hand next to me shoulder and the little creature moved over to it, I then moved both my hand and he creature inside the page which looked like one of those fancy infinity mirror tunnel trinkets and I looked at the list to see what had been added by doing this.

Storage

¤ Money

¤ Food

¤ Dragon materials

¤ Engdom map x2

¤ Engdoms neighbouring countries map x2

¤ Dragon bone chopstick x4

¤ Plush’s hand

¤ Leafling

The first thing I noticed was that despite the elfs having called me a “fleecy” it still said “Plush’s hand” rather than “Fleecy hand”, So either the book is displaying my name or the elfs were wrong, we won’t know until we meet the other fleecy.

The second thing I noticed was-

“What are you doing?” Asks Shiona when I haven’t moved for a minute.

“I put the creature in the inventory and the book called it a leafling.”

“...Well, that’s good to know. But are we just going to call it that or should we give it some proper name?”

“The dryad said that it was going to stick around with us for a while right? So we probably should come up with a name… Unless!”

I put my hand on the telepathy bangle which I use to speak and phase it off of me, I then hold it next to the leafling.

“...”

Realising that I know can’t actually tell it what I want it to do I put the bangle back onto myself.

“When I take off the bangle I want you to try and… Put your stem in it? I don’t really know what but something that lets you pour energy into it, okay? If that’s even something lealings can do...”

The leafling nods its head leaf and its eyelights start shining more brightly with determination as I take of the bangle and hold it next to the leafling, the leafling then opens the bulb on its tailstem and grab the bangle with its roots, and after a second or so I can see blue waves going through the roots, from the stem and into the bangle, however even after waiting for a good five or so seconds we don’t hear anything.

I nudge Shiona and she seems to take the hint.

“Ehm, little guy? Could you try thinking something?”

When I said little guy I can see Litly poking out her head from Shiona’s bag, however when she sees I meant someone else she goes back down while looking slightly disappointed.

The leafling nods its headleaf again, however we still don’t hear anything so we’re not certain if this is going to work.

“Maybe the bangle just doesn’t work on, ehm, plants?”

I grab the bangle with two of my fingers, when I do the leafling lets go and covers up its roots again while it bends down its headleaf and starts looking down at the ground while sulking.

*pat pat*

I gently pat its headleaf with one of my fingers as I use my other hand to put on the bangle again.

“Maybe Shiona, and don’t worry little guy, you still did well and I still have one more thing to try, so don’t start sulking alright?”

As I said little guy for the second time Litly poked her head out yet again, however this time Shiona spots her and starts petting her and easing Litly’s mood a bit.

*flutter flutter*

I have the book turn over to the notes section in hopes this might just work.

‘Maybe it’s like Shiona said and the bangle just isn’t advanced enough. Book, are you able to try and see what this guy is thinking?’

The book vibrates a bit, as though telling me “Leave it to me!”, and I put down the leafling on the notes page.

At first the leafling doesn’t seem to realize what I’m doing as it just looks at me while tilting its headleaf to the side, and nothing has appeared on the page yet.

“Ehm… Do you have a name?”

The leafling doesn’t react, however this time something does appear on the notes page.

Notes

Or rather nothing appears, but the page changes colour from the normal blue to a new red colour, surprising all of us, except for Litly who doesn’t understand what’s so impressive about a red piece of paper.

Shiona, I and the leafling all look at the red page.

“I think that means it doesn’t have a name.” Says Shiona.

“Does it?” I ask the leafling.

Notes

And this time the page turned green instead.

“See? Red for no and green for yes.” Says Shiona.

“It probably is that, but how do we know it’s not the opposite?”

Shiona stops petting Litly and takes out two blue energy jellies from her bag, holds them where the leafling can see them and asks:

“Are these two the same colour?”

Notes

“See?” She says and puts back the jellies in her bag before she resumes petting Litly.

“Okay, fair enough, green for yes and red for no. Now the, do you want a name?” I ask the leafling.

Notes

“Alright, then we’ll need to think of something…”

“Plush?”

“Yeah?”

“Look at its tail.”

I look at the leaflings tail and I see that it’s glowing.

It’s glowing green.

The bulb of roots and leaves at the end of its tailstem is glowing green almost like an LED light.

“Huh. Are you imitating the book?”

In response both the book and the leafling tail glow green.

“Can you do red for no too?”

Yet again both the book and the bulb both glowed green.

I sigh and decide to follow Shiona’s example, I take out two blue energy jellies and ask:

“Are these different colours?”

This time the book and bulb both start shining red instead of green.

When the bulb glowed red t looked like when you put your hand in front of a strong light

“This means that we can talk while walking now right?”

“Yup.”

I close the book and put it on my back and lift the leafling back up to my shoulders.

* * * *

“Petals?”

Red.

“Sunny?”

Red.

“Flowey?”

…

…

Red.

“Lilly?”

Red.

“Leafy?”

RED!

“Plush jr?”

Red.

We were walking through the forest and trying to think of a name for the leafling, however with a bright red glowing tail it turned down all of our suggestions.

The reason we walked rather than flew was simple: We weren’t sure if the leafling would be able to hang on without falling off.

“I hope you realize you’re not exactly making this easy for us.”

Green.

*sigh*

“Any idea how longs left by the way Shiona?”

“Not until we get out of this forest, I can’t tell what’s what in here.”

*sigh* x2

…

“Stemmy?”

Red.

“Argoth the destroyer?”

Red.

“Really Shiona?”

“Hey, at least I’m not just saying a random part of a plant and putting -y at the end.”

*sigh* x2

“... Buddy?”

…

“...”

...

“See, even it’s getting tired of your names.”

…

Green.

“...” x2

“Do you mean, do you mean you like that name?

Green.

*sigh* “Well, it’s better than nothing, but now we have little guy and buddy then?”

As if to agree with Shiona Litly pokes out her head and starts rubbing her beak against Shiona’s wing.

“Well then welcome Buddy, and do you think you’d be able to hold on if we started flying?”

Green.

“You heard, err, saw it, so shall we go? Maybe I’ll even be able to check the map from up there?”

“... Can we stop for some food first?”

“Shit! Right, sorry, my bad, way back on earth I was always the one that grew hungry first so I guess I’m not used to this. That looks like a good spot”

We had just entered a small clearing in the forest and we went to sit down in the middle of it and I took out some food that I’d already made, for both me, Shiona, and Litly.

While we were eating I looked at Buddy and saw it staring at the sandwich I was eating.

“Do you want some of this?” I ask, not really sure if leafling can even eat sandwiches.

Red.

“Okay, then do you want something else?”

Green.

“... Then what do you want?”

Blue.

“...”

Considering the only blue thing that Buddy had seen were the pages of the book, the blue fruit on Shiona’s belt, and the blue energy jellies I took out a jelly and put it on the grass in front of Buddy.

When buddy saw the blue jelly its tail glowed green for a moment before it split open and revealed its roots again, its tail then pounced at the jelly and covered it with roots before covering said roots with leaves again, and yet again it had reminded me of a snake.

“Do you need another one?”

Red.

The tail bulb which contained the roots and the jelly was a fair bit larger than before, likely due to having the jelly there, however it was shrinking back to size as time went on and after a few minutes it looked the same as before.

*CAW!*

As I heard the sound of a crow cawing I looked up into the sky and only barely managed to see a craw swoop down before it grabbed the leafling by its tail bulb like it was a small egg.

“Buddy!”

“What happened?”

“A crow swooped in and kidnapped buddy!”

“What!?”

Says Lizz as she starts appearing from inside the book.

She grabbed a small pebble off of the ground and threw it with her arms.

“Stone bullet!” Says Lizz.

“Like hell it is!” Refutes Shiona.

“Listen, does it really matter what it is as long as she hit the crow?”

*KAH!*

AS I had said that the pebble did in fact hit the crow and it let out a cry as it lost its balance and fell to the ground.

“My job here is done, later.”

And like a spring breeze Lizz left as quickly as she came.

Shiona and I fly to where we saw the crow fall down, and at the point of impact we see Buddy standing next to the crow.

The crow was covered in roots.

We watched as the crow started to get thinner and thinner and looked more and more malnourished before it ten minutes later let out a final cry as it didn’t have the energy to stay alive anymore.

“Buddy?” I call out to the leafling.

Once it heard me it looked our way and positively started skipping towards us before it thrust its stem into the ground in front of us and performed what I can only compare to a pole jump as it got back onto my shoulder, and after we walked just a few more meters we came out of the forest proper and saw a town in front of us with a large sign that read “Straitley”.