The Forest Without Life
Escort missions came up more often than most people realized. Getting the dwarves out of the kobold cave had been one, in its own way. The problem here was that I had no idea what I was supposed to protect. At the very least, I wanted to know whether it was a living thing or an object.
If it was an object, the mission would be over quickly. If it was a life, I couldn't use my footwork recklessly, and things would drag on.
"Ranged Detection."
I activated the skill and swept my surroundings. Nothing registered. No other creatures, no other objects. Just trees and grass.
Something's wrong, I thought.
Where I stood now was a forest, and a forest is supposed to hold life within it — the vital energy that sustains the trees, that lets a forest grow and thrive. That is what life force is. And I couldn't feel a trace of it from these trees. Trees without life force meant the forest was dead.
Except this forest looked perfectly healthy. If anything, it looked overflowing with vitality.
"What in the world is wrong with this forest…?"
"Kyaaah!"
A scream rang out from somewhere. I immediately stepped into my footwork. The basic form: Sok, speed. I ran full tilt toward the source of the scream. That cry was the only clue I had on the sixth floor.
There — as I ran farther, black-iron armor began to appear through the trees. The suits gave off no presence. Presence is a kind of wave that living beings produce as they move, but with the undead, the equation changes. The dead have no presence at all.
Death Knights!
It had been a long time since I'd seen high-tier undead like Death Knights moving in a pack like this. The last time, I was almost certain, was when I fought the lich that appeared in China. If they were operating as a group, something had to be commanding them.
As I studied the Death Knights, I noticed something odd.
They're guarding something, I realized. Their formation was a ring. That was the shape you used to protect the interior of a circle.
"Ranged Detection."
I used the skill at once and scanned inside the formation. There, bound at the center, was a woman.
Found her. The scream had come from her, no question about it. With the objective located, there was no reason to sit still.
The basic form: Am, darkness.
I stepped into the footwork and slid slowly into the formation. The undead have no eyes; they read the waves of living things. And Am could conceal even those waves — though it burned through mana at a corresponding rate.
Well, I'm inside. I advanced slowly, staying alert on every side. This was the enemy's center of gravity; carelessness here would cost me everything.
"Is someone there?"
The woman murmured the words to herself. I hadn't released the footwork yet, and still she had sensed me.
"Don't tell me — a dryad?"
A dryad is a spirit of the trees. True to that nature, a dryad could wield life force freely.
"I never expected to lay eyes on a dryad."
"And I never expected to see a human."
The dryad's voice carried a tangle of emotions — regret, resignation, and something like joy.
I can't read her, I thought, and moved closer.
"How did you end up caught?"
"That is…."
A dryad was a high-tier spirit. The Death Knights were high-tier undead, sure, but they stood on an entirely different level from her. There was no way they could beat a dryad at this strength. A rough count put the Death Knights at ten. Ten of them couldn't so much as scratch her, let alone win.
"Then let's get out of here."
"I'm sorry, what?"
I said it and lifted the dryad into my arms, then immediately stepped into the footwork again. Am, darkness. Now I had to hide her presence as well as mine, and my mana drained faster than I'd expected. I threaded my way out between the Death Knights as fast as I could manage.
Fortunately, no alarm rang out behind us. Just before we slipped away, she had the presence of mind to leave her own life force sitting in her place as a decoy.
"All right. Now we can talk at our leisure."
"Yes."
The reason I'd rescued her was simple: she was the one I was meant to escort. A forest drained of life. An army of undead. And a dryad. With that much information, I could piece together the actual objective of the sixth floor. The undead had been strangling the forest's life force, and to solve the problem, I had to see the dryad in front of me to safety.
"So — can you explain how the forest ended up like this?"
"A Doom Knight appeared."
"A Doom Knight, huh."
A Doom Knight was a top-tier undead monster. It would take at least five S-ranks at level 300 ganging up on it just to scrape out a win. It was on par with the dryad before me — possibly stronger.
No chance in hell I could beat it, I thought. I was level 9. I'd need to hit at least level 100 before I could even hope to survive against a Doom Knight.
"The Doom Knight tried to devour all of the forest's life force. As a stopgap, I hid every last trace of it inside my own body, but…."
"It found out."
"Yes…."
Listening to her, I felt a headache coming on. To restore the forest's life force, the Doom Knight had to be driven out of it. The problem was that neither she nor I could manage that. Then it hit me — wait. Did we actually have to drive it out? My mission was to move the protection target to a designated point. That alone meant no fight with the Doom Knight was required.
"Dryad, is there any way to drive the Doom Knight out?"
"Please call me Moran, not dryad. And there is a way, but…."
Moran's voice trailed off. In situations like this, it was always one of two things: the solution had already been destroyed, or it was sitting right where the Doom Knight was.
"There's a magic circle in the heart of the forest that can activate a barrier of apotropaic magic."
"The center of the forest, of course."
The Doom Knight would be there. It couldn't be anywhere else.
"The Doom Knight has occupied that spot, so…."
"Haah."
This Tower of Trials really did love its clichés. It never once failed to live down to expectations. If all I had to do was reach that place while dodging the Doom Knight, there was no problem at all. The only worry was that the mission would come with a rider like protect the dryad until the barrier activates.
Something tells me that's exactly what the mission will be, I thought. From a tower that loved clichés, it was entirely plausible. Honestly, Tower of Clichés suited the place better than Tower of Trials.
"Then let's move."
I hoisted Moran onto my back. She didn't react at all — just settled onto me obediently. That alone made me wonder whether she was really a living being. Anyone else would have flinched or gasped at being scooped up without warning. Moran gave no response whatsoever.
"Hold on tight."
"Yes."
The basic form: Sok, speed. This time I didn't bother hiding my presence. I let it out, in fact. Am at my current level couldn't fool a Doom Knight anyway. Right now, mobility mattered most.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Just a little farther and we'll reach the heart of the forest."
Moran called out after we'd been running for about ten minutes. I could feel it without her saying a word — the aura of the Doom Knight. It really is powerful. Its aura alone had goosebumps crawling up my whole body. But my goal wasn't to fight the thing. It was to deliver my protection target to the goal point safely. Avoid the fight as long as possible, I told myself.
I ran a little farther, and the Doom Knight came into view. It looked a good two times my size.
"There it is!"
Moran pointed at the cave the Doom Knight stood with its back to. I pushed my speed even harder. It had already noticed us. Any more delay and we were dead.
Clang!
The Doom Knight heaved its greatsword above its head. The intent behind the motion was unmistakable: it meant to cut me and Moran in two with a single stroke. But I didn't stop. I ran straight at it.
"Hu-human?! Stop! Do you want to die?!"
Moran panicked and grabbed at me to hold me back. I ignored her. Avoidance had stopped being an option the moment I committed. Live or die. Fifty-fifty odds were all that remained.
The greatsword moved. A line drew itself from above, downward. Boom! The ground where it landed shattered into fragments, and I twisted my body just enough to slip past the blade.
"Gah!"
Moran wasn't so lucky. Her left arm was gone. She hit the ground screaming, rolling across the dirt.
Just as I expected, I thought.
The instant the greatsword had moved, Moran had fallen from my back — or rather, she had shoved me away. And in that same instant, I had brushed the blade ever so slightly, angling it toward her.
"Gaaaah!"
Her screams didn't stop. No woman — no dryad, no spirit — should have been able to make a sound like that.
"You piece of junk! How dare you attack me!"
And at last, the magic came undone. Transformation magic — the kind assassins and black mages favored. The thing had been using it to impersonate Moran.
"How did you see through me?"
"Honestly, if you're going to act, you should act better."
The black mage trembled with rage at my jab. I'd caught on for certain the moment I carried "her" on my back. Weigh her reactions, ask whether any real dryad could have sat that calmly in the middle of a Death Knight formation, and the answer was obvious. Moran was not a dryad. Her appearance and her aura matched a dryad perfectly — but my instincts said no, and decisively, my necklace had reacted.
The Siren's Necklace is resisting a mental attack.
It had come late, but thanks to the necklace my head had cleared. And that raised the question: what was my actual objective? The destination was probably the same for both of us — but the target was not. The one I was supposed to deliver to that point was the real Moran.
"This is right, isn't it? Moran is sealed inside this thing."
The black mage had played Moran. But it had played her far too well. To pull off acting that convincing, it needed a model — and that model had to be the dryad Moran, sealed inside this necklace.
"Hand it over!"
Seeing its treasured necklace in my hand, the black mage hurled itself at me — Doom Knight and all. But I had already thrown the necklace toward the magic circle.
"Goal."
The necklace arced through the air in a clean parabola and landed squarely on the circle. Then the system message appeared.
The seal on the high dryad Moran is being released.