Van spent the whole day giving orders alongside Kella, making sure everyone packed everything up to move at a moment's notice. Already messengers were being rushed to and thro towards several outposts and beyond, carrying with them letters and information about the new threat growing in the center of the forest.

When the messengers returned, they came back with reports of mass hysteria as entire villages and towns fled the surrounding area where the giant corrupted tumor was growing. While this was happening, Van gave orders to have everyone and everything moved inside his soul realm, including whatever animals or plants were still untouched by the red knives. He especially made sure to save as many foxbats as possible, including some rare animals and herbs that could only be found in this forest.

More importantly, he issued orders to find someone, anyone with any info about what was going on, and then sent out scouts to gather even more info about what was happening to compile as much intel as possible. It was later he found out something interesting from Alecto, who brought a familiar face.

After finding some time to sit down and talk, Pepper began her explanation of her theory about what was happening. Alongside Alecto who had some knowledge in this field as well.

“Van, as you know, one of the components of the Red Knives, is the use of the Bloodthorn as a base of the weapon. I believe that the knives have mutated to a point, where the biological impulse of the Bloodthorn has reasserted itself and is now in the process of establishing a giant fungal colony. If it grows as big as I think it is, the entire forest and then some could be covered in its red spores… and I think you know what that means…” Pepper said seriously.

Van thought back to when he first saw the Bloodthorn upon entering the forest with his father. How everything within a certain area of the giant fungal colony was under its control, practically raising the dead and devouring everything in its domain. He shivered at the thought of being trapped under such a thing.

“How much time do we have?” he asked, getting straight to the point. Then another thought came to him. “How do you know this?” wondering since he thought Pepper was just a friend of Alecto in the studying of herbs and other weird things.

Pepper hesitated, but then admitted. “I’m… that is to say my family… is the one that was tasked with the keeping of the red knives… it… was actually how general Saline was allowed to get into the vault and unleash the red knives in the first place…”

Then upon seeing Van’s look of confusion and shock began to explain further. “You see, there are three locks on the vault that contain the red knives. My family, who are tasked with maintaining the vault and making sure it never leaked or broke out, held one key. The ruler of house Viridia held one key, and the head of the military held the last key. Only by using all three keys together could you open the vault.”

“Wait… if it took three keys and Saline only started with one… how did she get the other two keys?” Van asked.

“Well… you see… It was later found out that Saline used her access codes to gain emergency control of the tree and thereby temporary access to the secure location of Gloria’s key. Under the pretext of testing the tree’s security measures… as for how they got my key… well…” Pepper took a deep breath, as if unhappy with what she was going to say next.

“You see… Saline and I are actually… cousins… and it was later found out that, using an excuse to visit family, she secretly stole the key under our care…” Pepper admitted.

Van was taken aback, he had no idea that Pepper and Saline were related. “But surely you would have known your key was missing right?”

Pepper hesitated. “Not… exactly… you see, no one has actually touched the key in years. We only bring it out when we have to enter the vault every few decades to take care of all the canisters of red knives, since our family are the foremost experts on biological matters… We are the family's royal physicians after all… and we got that way by being the best of the best.” sounding a little proud, but that pride also sounded a bit subdued as well considering everything that happened.

“By the time we figured it out, it was too late…” Pepper hanged her head sadly. “But…” now looking up with a bit of fire in her eyes. “I’ve been combing through all our family's ancient texts and working with Alecto to figure out a way to fight back against the red knives! In fact, the last time I was here I left a few notes with her and Alecto figured out a method to better damage the corruption! So I'm sure we can figure something out that could work even better!” looking determined.

Van thought back to the thing Alecto was working on some time ago, cutting a special substance that seemed to deal some massive damage to the red knives.

“Alright… but does that mean you are willing to share all your knowledge on this?” Aware of how that might sound.

Pepper hesitated for some time. “N-no… not everything… but enough that you can use it to fight back! I promise to do everything in my power to destroy the red knives once and for all! You have my word!”

“Hmm…” Van figured it would be something like that, after all, if she shared everything she knew about the red knives, that could mean someone could reverse engineer that info to make more red knives in the future, something he would have held back as well if he was in her shoes. “Alright, I want a comprehensive list of everything you can share with us, and make copies as well. I want to distribute those notes to the advance team that is coming our way and to my parents as well. Understand?”

Pepper nodded and agreed vigorously. “I promise! I’ll work with Alecto to write everything done alongside all the notes we made on how to combat the red knives as it is now. Plus a few other things we discovered and a few new things that have been found since it has mutated. By the time we are done, you should have a comprehensive list of all its weaknesses!” Pepper said confidently.

“Alright, don’t disappoint me,” Van said, then dismissed the small meeting with a sigh. He was really beginning to feel stressed… but there were more important things to do. He spent the rest of the day working with everyone else to pack things up to prepare for immediate departure as soon as they were able. Sending scouts on where they predicted the path of the advance party would come by in the hopes of getting in touch with them sooner.

By the end of the day, the fort was practically empty and he was just finishing up the reports that he was receiving from all his girls and making a few last calls to make sure everything they could do was done. As he finished reading the last of the messages sent to him, he wondered what else they could do to help speed up the evacuation process of everyone in the forest. It slowly dawned on him that they simply could not save everyone and sacrifices would have to be made.

“Damn it…” Van thought with annoyance and a hint of anger at his lack of ability to save more lives or take control of this situation. Putting down his pen as his brain felt burnt out trying to put together a plan that would help everyone escape the forest, only able to put a few numbers to paper before realizing that it was pointless and that no matter what, the numbers would never favor him.

He rubbed his temple and looked up at the shuttered window where not even a speck of light peeked through, indicating that the sun had gone down, leaving the only light source in his cabin the one he conjured up hovering above him. “Is this really how it is going to go? How many millions of lives are going to be lost?”

He sighed, oddly enough, he didn’t feel responsible for all those lives lost. He felt like he should a little, but couldn’t bring himself to point the blame to him, or to Lyn, or to anyone for that matter except maybe Saline. The war started because of a lot of reasons, but Saline was the one that escalated it beyond reason.

He began to rub his temples as he tried again to think of an efficient way to save as many people as possible, while also trying to save as many plants and animals as possible, while also trying to figure out how to contain as many of those people, plants, and animals in his soul realm as possible while also trying to prevent his soul realm from exploding if possible, while organizing everyone else as soon as possible to escape the forest if possible with enough food and other stuff if possible so that they could survive if possible and make it back to join up with someplace safe to create a new home! If possible…

Van felt a headache coming on…

He jumped a little when a gentle hand placed itself on his shoulder and he turned to Luna who now moved beside him, her eyes looking upon his own with worry.

“You should get some rest, it’s late now and you’ve been working all day,” Luna said, squeezing his hand gently, trying to convey her love and worry for him.

Van smiled gently in return. “Thank you, but I just need a few more minutes and then I’ll be done.

“You always say stuff like that, and then you spend the next few hours up all night.” she rebutted.

Van frowned a little. “Not always…” he defended himself, feeling slightly offended.

“Van… you need to relax… let me help you…” Luna said, Moving Van’s chair much to his surprise until he was now looking right at her. She then leaned forward and gave him a gentle kiss on the lips.

Van hesitated at first but relaxed a little at the soft touch of her lips, and the feeling of her breasts on his chest as she leaned in, her silken lingerie rubbing onto him. She had changed an hour ago and was now wearing nothing but her pajamas, a large single-piece top.

“Well… maybe I can find some motivation to go to bed…” Van murmured after they broke off the kiss.

Luna gave him a coy smile and went down on her knees.

---Sex Scene---

please read the sex scene on patreon or scribblehub

---end of sex scene---

The next morning Van was feeling both a strange mixture of refreshed and drained. He had somewhat forgotten how insatiable Luna could be, it had, after all, been a while… it made his prior complaints yesterday of being overly stressed a bit silly…

Getting out of bed and getting changed, he gently slapped Luna’s ass cheeks until she woke up in the cute way that she did. Once that was done, he made his preparations for the day by going over a few notes and planning out what to do next after breakfast.

Just as he was going over a few of last night's reports that he didn’t get a chance to go through, he was suddenly interrupted by a goblin violently knocking on his door trying to get his attention.

Worried it was something else serious he had to deal with, he immediately got up and opened the door to see what the new fuss was about.

“Master! The advance party! It has come early! Kella is asking for you!” The goblin said frantically, practically bouncing on her feet as she did.

“Here? Already!?” Van asked, surprised by this not-so-unwelcome stroke of good fortune.

The goblin nodded and pointed over to the center of the fort near the command tent. “They are over there, they're already discussing how they are going to extract from the forest and deal with the giant mushroom thing.”

“I see… thank you for telling me, I’ll be right there,” Van said, quickly turning back inside to tell Luna and get a few last-minute things. Once that was done, he and Luna were quickly making their way towards the center of the fort, nervous to meet the party that was supposed to help them in their hour of need.