Year 96

Another year passed, and finally, I got something. Dammit. I’ve been fighting the pain for so long!

[Skill : Pain Endurance upgraded!]

And that was when I realised I could stay awake a little bit longer. But the fires still remain, my body can endure the pain, but it still remains that my senses are still gone.

“Fire.” I thought to myself. If this is oil, maybe I could... be like a refinery. Have a designated flareoff location, instead of it burning my entire body?

So I tried that. I tried to push all the demonic energy to the very top of my tree. In a way, such that it only burns the top off. I have no senses, but my body is still mine, and so my branches now burn a lot more.

Along my trunk, there’s still a few large lines of demonic flames, the ‘tunnels’ used to carry the demonic corruption sucked in from the surroundings, and that tunnel is charred. I kept it up, and gradually, gradually....

Over a period of 6 months, I’ve gradually concentrated the demonic corruption such that the fires are just on the very top of my head.

I imagine myself to look a little like Hades from Hercules, with fiery hair. Only, well, I’m a tree, he’s a god.

-

The two heroes were still somehow holding on. Their face was half human, half demon.

I somehow expected both of them to give in already. I would have. I think. Or maybe not. I did last in this world until now. Maybe I’d also stay around.

“How are you guys doing?”

“Could be better.” Simone responded. “We’re getting the hang of it. Maybe we can fight back soon.”

“Really?” Well, that’s unexpected, but I suppose heroes are special.

“LIES.” They both said simultaneously. And then they were back to their human self again.

“Why are you doing this, actually? I’ve never had a conversation with a demon before. Tell me more about yourself.” I mean, it’s true. No one ever had a conversation with a demon to find out what their motives are, what they are trying to achieve, or whether it’s something more fundamental.

“I think it’s just an animal.” Victor was the one who responded. “We just feel... strong emotions. Like, a need. To grow. To find. To conquer. To.... have things. To seize things. To... multiply.”

“Really?” I thought that was quite strange. It’s recent behavior clearly suggest it’s somewhat intelligent, I mean, the demon-king especially, so if it’s really strange to be told that it’s actually, well... just a beast. Feral. “Is it... local?”

“I... I think it’s from another planet. Another... world. We see visions of this vast wasteland quite like our current decimated terrain. Areas filled with spires and craggs, that seem to spawn more of those monsters. It’s so big, yet so... broken.” Victor said.

“Why?”

“I... don’t know. It just... craves. It has something it wants.”

“But it’s recent behavior has been intelligent. The humanoid demons, what’s the deal with that?” I suspect whatever possessed these two heroes may not be truly intelligent, that’s why they just feel it’s craving. If I may, maybe this is just a ‘program’ or ‘software’ the demons have. Maybe demons have artificial souls too, and the demon king is the only truly sentient one that it sends over.

Victor didn’t reply. Neither did Simone. A while later, the demon came again. “WHAT. ARE. YOU?”

“Tree.” I responded. I was going to be factual about it. “Who are you?”

They both muttered something incomprehensible.

“Well, I didn’t get that. So I’ll call you demon for now.”

“CONSUME!” Okay, I understood that word.

“Where are you from?” I have the golden opportunity to have a conversation with a lesser demon-alien. Why not take it?

“HOME.”

“Why did you come here?”

“ORDER...” They both muttered, and then a long pause later. “MOTHER. EARTH MOTHER...”

I paused. Mother? Earth mother? Hmm. I don’t think the demon is referring to earth itself, it’s merely copying and reading the two’s memories to find a comparable word.

The demon responds to some kind of order, so they are compelled to invade our world.

“Why? What does Mother want?” I feel a bit corny saying that. It almost feels like I’m talking about how Sephiroth kept talking about Jenova. It was so corny. Mother here, mother there. Especially Advent Children. I hope it doesn’t even repeat the same kind of corny motivations.

“CONQUER!”

I mentally sighed in relief. Thank goodness. “Why do you want to conquer our world? What’s here that mother want?”

The two pause. “CONQUER!”

Ah. For conquest. I guess this is all I can squeeze out of a demonic artificial intelligence. Maybe a demon king would offer a proper conversation.

Year 97

[You gained a level. You are now level 147]

[You gained a passive skill : Demonic Energy Transmission]

“What in the fuck is that.” Well I got the answer soon enough. The demonic corruption that’s being sucked in through my roots, well, there’s now a dedicated pipe-like root that now covers it, essentially reducing the damage from the rest of my body. It still hurts like hell, like being electrocuted, but, less. And more specific.

I’m starting to stay conscious longer. I could stay awake for two-three days straight for a month. The demonic energy is still strong, even with my new skills. But, every small step counts.

Every level counts too.

[Demonic energy is interfering with all telepathic and magical abilities. Most non-core functions are disabled.]

“Shit.” I have so many heroic shards. Tell me why can’t my heroic shards offset the demonic energy? I mean, can I use my heroic shards as some kind of cleaning device?

But maybe I can just wait this out. If more heroes die, I would get heroic shards, and that will make my anti-demonic powers stronger, and that will eventually break me through.

So wait.

A tree can wait.

Year 98

Despite the demonic interference, I still sensed huge magical energies flying around. I couldn’t pin their location, other than a vague general direction. It’s one of the few things I can still sense.

Is it something about blood magic that makes it so... detectable?

Year 99

Well, not exactly how I was expecting to spend the year before I turn 100 in this world.

Quiet, and in the silence of my own world. I wonder why I’ve not gone crazy, honestly. Its’s like... cabin fever. But I suppose it’s quite silly for a tree to have cabin fever, right, since I mean... I am part of nature itself, and my nature is to stay still.

I could totally imagine the heroes to feel claustrophobic, restless, because well, they are trapped. But to be still, and to be here, is exactly where I want to be.

The two heroes are still somehow hanging on. Not much deterioration to their state.

“Is the demon keeping you around intentionally?”

“ I think so. It wants you. Not us.”

“Oh.” I mean, owh. So the demon intelligence is intelligent enough to keep the two heroes around, because thats the only way it can interact with someone it doesn’t have some sort of mind control over. Well... suddenly I feel like I walked into a trap visiting them.

“It sees you as some kind of ally.”

“Ally? Why so?” Huh. Now that is even more unexpected.

“I don’t know. We don’t know.”

“Well, let me know if you find out. Happy to see the two of you holding up.”

Victor shrugged. “Now that it isn’t actively trying to take over us, we’re getting quite bored trapped in this stinking little place. It’s even feeding us things to tell you.”

“So it’s listening.”

“Of course it is. I thought you figured it out already.”

“Just wanted a confirmation.”

“Heh.”

“So, what does it want to tell me, that it doesn’t want to tell me itself.” Well, if the demon wants to talk to me, and wants to show me something, then well, let’s see it.

“It’s actually quite strange. It’s just showing us scenes of some kind of animals, that resemble goats, dogs, apes and elephants. So many different kinds of animals.”

“Well, they should have your memories of animals?” I mean, the demon read their minds, surely the topic of animals must’ve been covered somewhere. “This world has cows, dogs, goats.”

“I’m not sure if some of my terms will make sense, but it’s a timelapse-like thing, if you understand me. The demon’s letting us see scenes of creatures changing over time, slowly, and then some kind of red lightning struck, and then the earth around it cracked, changed, and then those creatures warped into the demons. It’s like watching evolution happen, and then something disastrous happened and they turned into this demon. And then the demons were sent into this portal, here. To fight,”

“It’s giving you the history of demons? Why would it do that?”

“I don’t know?” Victor shrugged.

At that moment, I felt like I’ve been given a monumental task. The heroes don’t know why, but me, a tree, why would I get a history lesson? There must be something about that history, isn’t it? That red lightning reeks of divine intervention.

Between Lilies’ history and the demons, I think I sort of have enough to piece together what’s actually happening. The gods are behind everything. Maybe there’s two factions of gods, or they are just the same faction toying with us, or something, but the gods are behind this.

What do they want?

No, what do the demons want?

Are they... pawns of the gods as well? Sacrificial lambs forced to play the role of a NPC in this world? Even if that is true, what can I do about it?

Year 100

Ah. I finally made it to a hundred years!

[Title : Centurion obtained]

Oh okay. I made it to a century old. The title does mostly nothing anyway.

Quite a letdown, maybe I should throw a party of some kind, to celebrate that I’ve survived a hundred years in this new world. Seriously. But then I would reveal my otherworldly origins, and attract all sorts of people.

And I’m trapped. If there was a time for a sad smiley, this would be it.

I guess I should reflect a bit on my first hundred years, even if I’m in such a terrible state. The first 60 or so years was just me... well, doing nothing. I couldn’t do much. Then I moved to that Gaya temple’s compound, and after that the move to Freeka, that little elf village, where I am till this very day.

Come to think of it, it’s probably the 2nd time Freeka was destroyed since I came. The people of this world are quite hardy, able to rebuild after so many disasters.

The next town should probably be called Neo Freeka. I mean, once I’m out of this quagmire, I should propose the next town to be called Neo Freeka, but then that would also probably reveal my otherworldly origins.

Ah, naming matters for later.

The people of the world are hardy. So many species still survive despite constant world-ending level disasters, I suppose they must have patrons that watch over them in difficult times. Gods.

But difficult times also create high level characters. I believe that to be a law. So...

Where are all these high level characters hiding? Is there some ‘elevated’ world where all these high level people ascend to, like some cultivation fics with different tiered worlds?

Year 101

If I had dogs every year, this year I would have dalmations. Maybe 101 decorated hellhounds. Woodhounds. I’m pretty sure it died. There’s no way it survived this. I would have all 101 of them, all with flowers.

101 years, I mean, if there’s a time for a tutorial, well, 101 is a good time to start. Like come on, Basics of Isekai-ing to Another Magical World As A Tree 101. Probably given by a lecturer or some sort, explaining things that are too freaking boring to understand but ultimately useful someday later on.

But nope.

Nothing. Like come on, give me a hand here, system! I wanna get out! Like, uh... give me some regeneration skills. Or some skill that bypasses the pain.

No?

No?

-

Bored out of my mind, and I went into that part of my soul realm that’s linked to the two trapped part-demon heroes again.

“I’m back. I’m bored out of my mind. How are you two holding up?”

The two look the same as last time. “We’re part demons, all things considered, we’re doing alright.”

“So, now that it knows you are from another world, with your otherworldly heroic origins, what are the demons going to do with it?” I asked.

“Nothing much. It’s still processing, and I think it’s having difficulty transmitting the information back to it’s... homeworld. So in a way, the information is stuck with us, or whatever that’s possessing us.”

“It’s not a hive mind? I had the impression the demons are a hivemind of some kind.”

“Uh... it’s complicated from what we’ve seen. It’s like a tier-ed intellectual system. All levels are capable of intellectual thought, but less so at the lesser levels. And despite that, there is an overarching command that it obeys without objection.”

“And it’s telling all of this because?”

“Look, Mister Weird Person who looks like a tree. I don’t know anymore! It doesn’t want to tell us and yet it’s still showing us all these, about them... It’s random, and it’s making us confused!” The look of confusion on the faces of the heroes seems to suggest it’s true. The demons don’t seem able to manipulate emotions just yet. “Look, I wish it could just show it to you directly instead of using the both of us as connectors. We don’t understand why it’s telling us about itself, and we honestly don’t really care. We’re just ordinary kids on a bus that somehow got into the wrong place, at the wrong time, and now we’re going through this fucked up nightmare of fighting demons, watching the world burn, and now being consumed by a demonic mind of some kind.”

Okay. They’re snapping.

“Not only that, we’re only here because this damned demon wants us to somehow relay messages to you, and so it’s keeping us barely alive in this pathetic, miserable state. And then, you, of all people, only drop by once every few years! So we just spent days, the two of us, just in this miserable state, being bombarded with demonic imagery and scenes.”

True.

“So, I’m sorry if I can’t freaking answer your questions, because I don’t fucking remember what it showed me for the past few years, other than what it repeats all the damned time! Have you ever been watched television, the same damned series, perhaps few hundred times, no, make that a few thousand times? Well, we both have, and it sucks. It fucking sucks. Even if it’s awesome on the first watch, by the 1,000th time, it all sucks. I am sick of it, and it there was dialogue I’d be able to repeat the words, word by word.”

I’m confused. He said he didn’t remember, but he also said he was watching something so many times.

“Fuck you, Tree Creature. But I’ll tell you everything just to get this damned demon to show me something else for a fucking change.”

The Victor guy went for an hour about demonic... society? There’s a kind of hierarchy, and there is this... mother at the top. The mother makes a decision, and they follow. They’re sent into this portal, and then they are here. And he talked about their world. Dry. Filled with smoke and fog. Spires. Craggs. Creatures that emerge out of weird spawning pools. All kinds of spawning pools.

And stars. Scenes of multiple massive spires shooting some kind of beam, and created the rift.

Well, demon origin story.

Now, what should I do about it? Leak out some kind of speculative story of it’s origins? What if I end up empowering the demonic cults? Would that make things worse?

What if this is what the demon’s trying to do? It wants me to spread this knowledge. And what good does that do to me? Would the world start suspecting and looking for a demon sympathiser?