He's apologizing? I wonder what Stanford's talking about...

◄Barbra, were you watching?►

After a while I got a response. Wonder if she was able to fall asleep, I wish I could. I would have went insane being forced to stay up all day and alone.

[I just woke up... let, let me check the memories...]

Okay, she can go to sleep. What does she mean by checking the memories though.

◄By checking memories, what do you...►

[Stop. Just stop, please no more questions right now. I'll just say it already. I'm able to look at the trees memories, basically everything that happens inside your domain. I can't see your memories though. That's how I knew about how those people respect you.]

Barbra immediately stopped me from asking another question. She doesn't seem drowsy anymore either. While I was waiting for some reason when I could just tell her what to do, Stanford was still bowing down before me. It seems like he's waiting for some kind of response.

[I found it. If you told me, it would have been much faster.]

◄You did it before I had a chance to.►

After I said that, I told her to go out and question Stanford. Like that, a sphere of light once again left the tree and changed into a small fairy around 6 inches in height. Stanford upon seeing light on the ground looked up at Barbra then spoke.

"I give my respect to the divine guardian..."

"Speak of your business with master."

"...I wish to apologize to the divine tree..."

Stanford started fidgeting when he said that. It looks like he's nervous about something, what the heck did he do to be like this...

"What do you want to apologize to master for?"

Slowly exhaling then breathing in, Stanford gulped and answered her.

"I had use the divine tree to bend my tribe's thoughts... I used it to gain power..."

It's just that? I seriously already knew that he was doing that, but unlike before, I can know his reason. I tell Barbra what to say to Stanford.

"What was the purpose of you using master?"

"It was... for my tribe... please listen to our story first."

"Very well."

Collecting his thoughts for a while, Stanford started to explain.

"We are a tribe of elves from the Great Spirit forest, I was the chief of it. There we lived peacefully until we were suddenly persecuted by the other tribes. The reason we were... I don't know why. We had been cornered to journey into the waste land because all our other paths were blocked off. For a year we had traveled through the wasteland, at first we had a large amount of supplies and used them freely thinking that there would be land soon enough. On the eigth month, we only had a quarter of our supplies left and over half of the tribe had died from the heat or sickness... my people were quickly losing their will to live, so I..."

He paused for a while during this heavy story. It looks like I was right about them being elves with a tan too. Stanford said it took them a year to arrive, so that's why I couldn't see anything else when I looked beyond my domain... It took a while but Stanford finally continued his story.

"I had to give them the will to live... I told them that it was a trial by the heavens; they didn't believe me at first but... I continued it for the four months it took us to reach your land. Slowly I bent their desperate minds, they started believing in the words I said about destiny and the paradise that it will lead us to. That's when I gained the power to control them... I never knew that one day we would finally find paradise in your land."

That was the reason why they believed in Stanford's words so easily. I knew it was weird when they immediately thought I was a divine tree, but that could be my fault too for growing so fast that day. Now there's something I don't understand so I tell Barbra about it.

"If you finally found paradise in master's domain, why do you continue to bend their faith?"

This time he answered quickly.

"They already believed destiny had guided us here, they wouldn't believe me if I suddenly said that it wasn't destiny. Even if I did, there could be a backlash to the trust they have in me... all of their minds have degraded because of me, I needed to lead them until the day they heal! I couldn't do it though because the divine tree had showed them so many miracles they didn't doubt it was a sacred being. I just thought the divine tree was some special existence, nothing else. I had to manipulate their thoughts once more because they might have gone too far with the divine tree."

How far did Stanford think they would've gone? On the other hand, I think he went pretty far making them have ceremonies dedicated to me everyday... Barbra seems to have thought the same thing when she asked Stanford...

"Then why have you increased their faith to master that you didn't know too much about?"

"...I knew that the divine tree was making this land a paradise. I felt that it was a coincidence that the divine tree grew once we created the lake, but when we planted the trees and they grew so fast... that's when it made me realize the only existence that could cause it was the divine tree that was in the center of this hill. The divine tree at the time looked fragile so I wanted my tribe to protect it and increase its fortitude. On the day divine guardian appeared... I truly believed that the tree was a divine tree. Please forgive me."

I... really can't be angry at him for what he did. Well, I never was angry at first. I'll tell Barbra to say that there's no need to apologize.

◄Tell Stanford I there's no need to apologize.►

[As you say master.]

Yes, I can put my thoughts into action like that.

"Stanford... master forgives you, but you must dedicate yourself to master for master will spread its roots throughout the world one day. At that time, you will be master's loyal sapling who will spread his glory. Are you ready to become a child of master?"

"I... I will become the divine trees sapling!"

Barbra who reliably conveys my words... did not. Though Stanford has good makings as a cult leader, Barbra has the backing to be a legit cult leader. If they were to team up and brainwash everyone... Well, when that happens, I just have to live up to it. I'm not some sacred existence, just a tree with the new goal of spreading my domain to the whole world. It's not like I want to become a godly figure, there's just no harm in me spreading throughout the whole world and it sounds like something else to kill time.