Year 109

Just like that, she’s gone. A group of 400 of them went on a quest, to find the nearest surviving civilisation. They packed up after months of preparing, and finally set out when the weather’s slightly less hostile.

I don’t know when I’ll see her again, or ever. I recalled those who left me usually died. But oh well. A choice has been made, and she has to live with it.

I don’t know what lies out there, but maybe she will reach the edge way faster than I am. I’m constrained by the terrain, I can’t move forward without clearing the demonic corruption that contaminated my path.

I tried slowly, and worked to upgrade my [giant attendant trees], so that they can help absorb and process the demonic corruption. It’s a very long process, and not very successful, so I went back to researching the demonic trees.

I had two main ideas of getting myself out of this place, they overlap in a way.

One, is what I was doing presently. Disperse and process the demonic mana using my super high demonic resistance. Problem is, this hinged on me having a high level, high natural healing, and demonic resistance from my hero shards, which is unique to my main body, and the benefits are only partly shared by my other trees. I wanted to upgrade the various healing and endurance abilities of my subordinate trees such that they have higher demonic resistance, better base healing and toughness such that they can play my current role to a lesser extent.

To use an analogy, it’s as if me, and my other trees are made of water, and the demonic corruption is fire. Right now, my other trees can’t withstand the fire so they just burn down before putting out any of the water. I have a finite number of water I can produce, and the water I produced is used to fight the fires, kind of like what a fireman does facing a wildfire. If I have more water than fire at the boundary, I can expand that boundary. If not, my boundary shrinks. It’s quite like fighting a perpetually growing wildfire, come to think of it.

So, I must have stronger, tougher trees, that can also produce that ‘water’, to help fight the fire. This restores the land to what it was, too.

The other area of focus was something a little more inspired by my recent fascination with these demonic hybrid plants.

That is if I could not expand the safe areas and recover the corrupted lands, could I coexist with it? Such that my trees and roots, all gain an ability to grow on these corrupted lands, instead of being blocked by it. It’s a difficult endeavour, and my initial attempts at studying the live demon-trees are quite good.

I would need to figure out how to either be able to control the demonic trees, or assimilate some of their natural attributes and qualities, which can then allow me to enhance my existing trees to better operate in the demonic terrain.

Going back to that earlier analogy, instead of looking at fire as the problem, I’m attempting to create plants that can operate in fire, or absorb fire, instead of fighting it. Far harder than it sounds, since well, I’m essentially attempting to graft demonic biology onto my trees.

But I think it’s possible. The fact that hybrids can exist means I can create hybrids. Certainly possible in theory.

This idea, of course, is hugely opposed by the trees in the valley. They abhor it. I can sense their rejection of the idea, and that earlier duty to just restore the land to what it was before.

Duty. Responsibility.

The more it is imposed on me, the more I resist it. Or is this just me, after I woke up? I recall being sucked in by the powers and influences of my fellow trees? Did the domain make me more aware of all these influences, and yet, at the same time, attempts to influence me?

So strange. It is a duty. Restore and clear the world of demonic corruption.

Which I did. I mean, I resist the thought of being told to do things, but I understand the principles of it, and so I did it anyway.

I suppose I’m like a petulant child that hates to be told to do something, but knows that it needs to be done, so I did it. How immature. I’m a hundred year old tree, now’s not the time to mentally regress and act like a child.

There’s now a sizable area that’s been cleared of demonic influence around my valley, so much so that some of the survivors are now moving outside to live there. Once the corruption was cleared, the weather too quickly returned to normal. It seemed the corruption and the demonic vegetation does generate a microclimate, as predicted.

It’s about as large as the former territory of New Freeka, so, a semblance of normalcy has returned to the area.

Still, the corruption stretched far and wide, and there’s more demonic monsters to attend to.

Every day we would be attacked, and our beetles would be at the forefront of the battle. Luckily, Horns is back in business after a few months of recovery. And he’s been incredibly chirpy.

“It’s totally awesome.” Horn said. “All I do all day is fight all these demons! I can’t level up anymore, but still, it’s awesome! I love fighting!”

I didn’t realise I created a combat maniac in Horns.

“Master, perhaps more Artificial Souls will help with the reclamation of the corrupted lands. We do produce some mana, or if some of us are dedicated mana-producing trees...”

I have been drawing mana from all the normal trees anyway, but they are not as effective against the demonic corruption as my own. I’m guessing that’s because my mana has anti-demonic properties.

What I do need, is a massive mana cauldron. I pulled the mana to my main body, and attempted to mix it. Maybe I could infuse the anti-demon qualities into the mana generated by normal trees. It was sufficient, previously, because I had the advantage. With the demon walkers, with Alexis, I could constantly draw on more trees to overwhelm whatever creature.

But the changed terrain limited the number of trees, and cut off my connection to the volcano and the leyline, two of my bigger sources of mana. Now, I need to squeeze a bit more efficiency and performance out of every drop of mana. To do more, with less. Thankfully, I’ve also been able to get my soul forge back online, now that the surrounding area has been cleared of demonic corruption and replaced with a thick forest.

And so, I experimented with mana in my main body, just like how I used to do it with my soul forge. I added star mana to the mix too. I still only have 300 star mana, but mixing star mana, my own mana and the mana produced by the normal trees, the effectiveness of pushing back the demonic energy increased by a few multiples. Good enough to keep the expansion going.

We have not heard anything from the group that left, but it’s fine. I think it’ll be years before we get news from them.

Food-wise, as the forest starts to reclaim the land, the gods started to work their magic and regular monsters and animals started appearing again. I mean, it’s really just divine spawning ability.

And with regular monsters and animals, meat started to return to the survivors’ diet. A welcome relief, really, and the remaining survivors now look a lot better.

Although I felt sad that so many decided that they had enough of being here for 20+ years, I suppose I should then focus on those who remained instead. After all, although 400 left, 3,000 still remained!

That’s a big amount of people who decided to stick with me rather than go away.

With meat, proper lodging, and a bit more space and time for activities, the survivors are of course, much happier.

“Well... why didn’t you leave, Laufen? Go with your daughter?” I asked Laufen one day.

“Nah. I’m too old for that.”

“As an elf, you still look really young. Elven agelessness is amazing. You should be able to go.”

“I’ll just hold Lausanne back from her adventure. It’s her coming-of-age moment, me as her mom, I should just stay out of her way. She’ll hate me if I tagged along. Besides, I am really quite content being protected and safe!”

“Really?”

“It’s better for her that I stay here, where I am safe. It’ll put her at ease that her mom is under your protection. She wouldn’t have made the decision to go if you weren’t around.”

Hmm, true. I suppose I’ve become the safe harbour for her to come back to.

There are few children among the survivors. The young that grew up didn’t think of having kids, not in this hostile environment. Some did, of course. Perhaps an accident, or perhaps they didn’t care, but the more rational of them chose not to. It’s a tough choice. I imagine it’s like, well, how would you even know if you and your family would even have food, or proper shelter. But I guess that’s also partly due to elves, centaurs being more rational than humans, who would just fuck and get pregnant regardless of the situation. It’s more draining on their body, perhaps?

Many are now finally considering it, convinced by the recent 3 years of safety, comfort, stability, and many approached me for advice on whether they should have kids.

I have yet to study the effects of pregnancy between different types of species. Would I then be the first pregnancy doctor? I mean, surely the effects of childbirth of different species are worth studying, and there’s probably no world-wide compilation of various herbal and traditional remedies and therapies.

I digressed.

But I said sure. I would support and feed their young should they fail to.

It’s not much anyway.

-

“Are you here to gloat?” The two heroes asked.

“Not really. I came to talk, as usual. With the demon, if possible.”

“WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT?” They instantly turned to the demonic voice.

“Tell me something. What would make you stop coming to our world?”

“GOD. MOTHER. PLANET. STOP. THEM.”

“Stop the gods. Kill the gods. Sounds impossible to me.” I shrugged. And I’m a tree, killing the gods doesn't sound like something I can do. “Then why do you come every 10 years?”

“ANCIENT. MAGIC. RULES.”

Oh. Okay. There’s a magical rule behind it?

Well, I don’t even know whether the words of this demon can be trusted. It could’ve lied to me.

I mean, we must assume a demon or evil creature has no incentive to tell the truth, but let’s consider that if it spoke the truths, there are some key points.

There’s an ancient magical rule that clearly whatever god or thing that controls these demons have to follow. I could therefore surmise that this ancient magic exists above the gods, and so, the gods of this world are not entirely omnipotent or omniscient, and it may actually be possible to stop them.

Next, is that they conflate the god with mother, and planet. Their homeworld’s god is probably some kind of earth-god, then? Something like a nativist conscience like the will of a groupmind like Alpha Centauri again? Or perhaps, it is a tree mind taken to the extreme? A global network of trees that function as a planetary scale neural network and brain?

Or are those spires some kind of artificial intelligence and they are collectively a super-AI, and the demon kings sent to us are their version of Terminators?

Or more fantasy-aligned, just an evil sleeping god and the demons are it’s worshippers?

“What rules?”

“ANCIENT.”

“Why? Who?”

“ANCIENT.”

“Who is GOD?”

“GOD. MOTHER. PLANET.”

If I had the power, I really should catch a demon king and try to talk to it. I feel like I’m talking to some rudimentary chatbot from the earlier years of my life. I’m stuck in some kind of conversation loop despite trying to ask more. This is probably the lowest level answer they can give.

With that, the demonic voice fades and the two of the trapped heroes return.

“Well, did you learn anything?” The two heroes looked quite annoyed. “We didn’t, and honestly, it really does sound like some kind of computer program. It’s really simplistic in it’s logic, once you get it.”

“So you understand the demon, now?” I asked the hero.

“To some extent. It just wants to grow, and build, and do whatever it’s mother asked of it.”

“Mother, not god?”

“It feels like a mother, rather than a god. It nagged.”

I smiled, and probably would’ve chuckled if I could.

“You’re not going to help free us?” Simone asked.

“...maybe?” I thought long and hard about this, even though I rejected the divine mission. I didn’t want the gods to start having influence over me. But should I still help them, then? “I probably can’t free you.”

“Oh.”

I probably could guide the few surviving heroes to them, to help free them. But I chose not to reveal this to them. The demon is always listening, and I wonder what it would do with such knowledge.

Yeah. I probably could get the other heroes to free them, rather than me doing it personally. They are mobile and would have the right skills for it. The heroes have everyone reason to help their fellow friends, don’t they?

-

As the year approached its end, I had a small breakthrough with my demonic tree research.

[Skill : Hybrid-botany]

[Able to communicate and cultivate hybrid trees]

Hell yeah.

And I tried it out. Even though it’s supposed to be winter, the localised effects caused by the demonic trees meant it’s an exceptionally warm winter. So warm that it’s probably like spring.

Well, all I got was spam.

It’s nostalgic. Like when I had [rootnet] for the first time and all the grass and trees started giving me weird shit. It’ll take some time before I understand these demonic trees.

-

“Is our combat ability significantly impacted by Lausanne’s departure?”

“With you back... no.” Jura said. “Lausanne is strong, but there are a lot of us who are level 80. Me, Nero, one of the captains, there’s easily 15 people left who are now level 75 to level 80 who can play her role to a lesser degree. Her key advantage is that her special familiar has a lesser version of your power, so without you, her aura was key in reducing our casualties.”

Hmm...

“Everyone’s replaceable, I suppose.” Jura laughed out of nowhere. “I mean, that’s how it always has been, right? That’s why so many kings raise so many different children. You never know which one turns out a little crazy.”

It’s risk management not to put all your eggs in one basket. But even for people?

“I suppose if you could give your special familiar to more of us, that would really help us. I guess the Valthorns were a step in that direction, until that day came.”

You know, maybe the Kings had the right idea. I focused too much on developing Lausanne, and I lost track that Lausanne was also partly meant to be my first try at doing this at a larger scale.

I’m a tree, and my domain is nature. Grow, strengthen, cultivate. I should now use what I’ve learned from all these years to massively expand that programme.

If I am to rebuild, I should do some things differently, and some things, bigger and better. I had Jura, Lausanne and a few others as my ‘elite’ then. In hindsight, I should’ve thought on a larger scale.

Like any nation or even a large company, talent scouting, hiring, development and retention is an ongoing affair, constantly expanding to meet future needs. I somehow got sucked into the minutiae and messed up on the bigger picture. I need a proper process for this, and on a larger scale, some dropouts and loss like Lausanne’s departure is just part of the natural attrition of any large body of people.

Scale. What else should I do on a larger scale?