Early Afternoon - Late Fall : 150 Kilometers South of Morva Asari

It had been about half an hour since I unknowingly dropped the news on Amara, and we were still barely talking to each other.

After I handed her the notebook, she read it through several times and asked me various questions about the condition of the place and the scene I was met with when I arrived.

It wasn't till she finished her tenth read through the notebook that she finally closed it up and put it in her bag, seemingly suppressing her anger. "I'm not sure I can even be mad at the hunter..."

She was clearly still dealing with conflicting feelings, but I couldn’t understand her reasoning at all. "W..what? How?" -I have no relation to that halfie, yet even I am upset about it...-

"Honestly, from everything you’ve told me, plus the information in the diary, I think that child would have died regardless. In some convoluted way, that hunter gave it mercy… Even if her intentions were.." Her anger immediately became more apparent. "..a bit skewed."

"But.. how? How could killing, and skinning it possibly be mercy?" I was starting to get a bit upset with her.

And she noticed. "In the diary, some creature on the outside of the cave kept the hunter inside and tried to kill her. By the way it's described, I think it was a wyvern attracted by the smell of the kid's body... Dion was strong enough for wyverns to naturally avoid him and his territory, so he must have passed to the afterlife before the hunter even showed up."

"So you think the kid would have died on his own and that dying to the hunter was better than getting eaten alive?"

"No.. if it could get outside, it could probably live long enough to run into an older half-breed somewhere, but I can say for certain it wouldn't have been strong enough to break the lock on the door to get outside. Dion probably locked the poor kid in there to keep it from getting involved with whatever ended up killing him, but instead, it just served his child the death sentence."

-So it would have starved to death...- Finally seeing part of her reasoning, I hung my head slightly. "But how did Dion actually die, then? From the sounds of it, it seems like a monster, but…" -There was nothing remotely strong enough to kill a dragon in the area…-

"If I had to guess, it was probably that mystic beast that destroyed Ravndal, that city southwest of here. It was definitely capable of killing a dragon in the mid-high adult stage as long as it got a lucky hit or two."

My whole body twitched as she spoke. -That monstrosity was that strong?!- But after another moment of thought, I concluded it must have been a different beast she was talking about. -There’s no way that flying amalgamation of creatures was that strong…-

We continued in light discussion for several more minutes after that until Amara finally calmed her emotions enough to change the subject.

"What's in that barrel you've been carrying? I've been wondering since earlier..." She gave the barrel on my back an odd glance as we ran.

"Ah, it's a drink I got to share with you, Yolanda, and Bjørn. I did promise you guys I would get you all some alcohol while I was gone, didn't I."

"Oh, it's an alcohol barrel? I thought it was perfume or something."

"Haha, it does sort of smell like that, but it's just an alcohol called Piótita." I tried to laugh off the awkward atmosphere, but Amara immediately overlooked it.

"What? Piótita?! You actually managed to get some of it?!" Nonetheless, she seemed to cheer up.

"Y..yeah? Have you heard of it before?"

"Of course I have! It's a liquor made by dragons, specifically for dragons. It sells for nearly 5 platinum a barrel in Bahamut, so most dragons try to buy it through human markets, but it's still incredibly hard to get a hold of."

"What? If it sells for that much, why is it in the human markets at all?" -I got it for a few gold per barrel…- "Plus, according to the person I got it from, most humans don't even like it." -Are the people selling it just bad at business?-

"I'm not sure, to be honest, but it does keep money moving."

-Huh... I guess that would be a decent way to move draconic wealth back into human markets...- As I slowly sank into my thoughts, I glanced over to see Amara eyeing the barrel again. "Do you want to try some?"

As the last of the subtle look of anger and sadness disappeared from her face, an untainted smile appeared. "C..could I?" She looked like a shy child asking for a piece of candy as her previously suppressed rage finally disappeared.

"That is what I got it for!" With a warm smile, I pulled out the cork along with a small sphere of liquid accumulated with mana.

"Your control is really something, isn't it..." She watched intently as I moved the sphere of liquid in front of her face, where she quickly snatched it out of the air. But the instant she closed her mouth around the liquid, her eyes widened.

"It's good, isn't it?" I couldn't help but smile seeing her react just like I did.

"That's.. freakishly good..." She looked at me in awe.

"Haha, you want another one?"

She vigorously nodded before I even finished talking.

"Haha, alright, alright." Even though her reaction would seem over the top to outsiders, I knew firsthand why she reacted that way. -I just hope she can pace herself. We have a whole day of running left.-

The next several hours ticked by quickly as half of the barrel was drained, and Amara started to crave the drink more and more. -If she wasn't a dragon, she'd have blacked out already...-

Thankfully, with a bit of convincing, she could muster up the willpower to save the rest for the others, but the entire time we ran, she eyed the barrel.

It wasn't until several hours later that she finally moved her attention away from it.

"We should be getting close to treant territory, so we will need to go up soon."

"What? ‘Go up’? Like, fly?"

"No, that's not what I mean." She went silent as we wrapped around the center of the tree to continue running along its branches, but this time, instead of jumping from the branch of one tree to another, there was a rope bridge that seemingly climbed up through the canopy.

-What is that for?-

"We need to slow down here. This rope bridge will snap if we hit it too hard."

Immediately slowing down to a walk, we started climbing up the rope bridge through the canopy.

The leaves were extremely dense and the bridge was incredibly overgrown, so we couldn't see much in front of us, but once we finally got above the canopy, I was met with a view I was completely unprepared for.

"Woah..." In front of us was a distant wall of oak-like trees that were each 4 to 500 meters tall, completely dwarfing the ones we had previously been running along. "What.. are those?"

As Amara glanced back at me, a wide smile came to her face. "Haha, those are treants. Is this your first time seeing them in person?"

I could only nod in response as the memory of Mother describing them came to mind. -THESE ARE WAY BIGGER THAN 'fairly large', MOTHER!-

After several more minutes of climbing, we eventually made it up onto the branch, where I noticed a familiar flow of mana. -For Mother to describe them as dungeons in the form of trees... Talk about a perfect description...-

All around me, I could feel the slight suction of mana, as if the tree was breathing. -But if they're like dungeons.. why are there so many?- "How are there so many of them here?"

Not expecting the question, she paused to turn to me. "Hm? What do you mean?"

"I can feel it breathing like it's a dungeon, but if they formed similarly, why are there so many?"

She tilted her head slightly before a lightbulb went off. "I think you're thinking about it wrong. Instead of thinking of them as dungeons, think of them as monsters." Seeing me not following, she continued. "You see those trees down there?" She pointed down the bridge we had just come across. "Those will eventually become treants as they age, grow, and accumulate enough mana from the ‘Tree of Prayer’ to form a mana core."

-So are they the same as dungeons, where they're just a mana core with enough sentience to be able to manipulate its surroundings? Do treants actually have any instincts or are they still just plants?-

Quickly falling into a deep rabbit hole, we continued walking along the branch until I was pulled from my thoughts by some distant chatter.

-Huh?- Looking up, I was met with the sight of several buildings lined around the base of the massive branches. "What town is this?"

A playful smile slowly came to her face as she glanced at me. "Haha, technically this is the very outskirts of the capital, but the locals call this place the Northern Sunset. This is one of the countless ‘treant towns’."

With how nonchalantly she spoke, I almost overlooked it at the time. I didn't quite realize what she said until several seconds later. -Treant towns? They couldn't come up with a better name-Wait, the edge of the capital?- "I thought we had another 5 or 6 hours to get to the inn? Didn't you say that it was on the outskirts of the city?"

"Hm? That’s why I said this is technically the edge. Most people consider the actual city to start with the Northern Market District, where our inn is, but the actual border of the city covers the entire treant territory and all of the countless ‘treant towns’."

I felt my jaw hang open as the size of Valtivar, the capital of Siratha, finally came into perspective.