Chapter 56: Ch 56. Living Grove Part 2

It's true that the treant's initial drop was quite terrifying... if I was a normal person I'd probably be dead right now, even with the armor. It hit me straight on after all, the sheer force it could exert after falling that far was demonstrated by our one casualty. A poor soldier near me getting his leg crushed, even despite moving mostly out of the way.  

It knocked the wind out of me but aside from that I was fine, my body now being sturdy enough to take such a blow without much issue. Honestly, the most dangerous thing to me were those spears. My face was completely unguarded earlier when it attacked and despite my skin becoming quite durable, having personally verified that with my dismantling knife, I really didn't want to test that out with my eyes or other exposed areas of my face. 

Seeing me on the ground, trying to raise myself unsteadily, my brother came over to help me up. A little fearful that I could have died that easily.

"You alright?" he asked me anxiously. "We'd all be in trouble if something were to happen to you... to be honest Keaton... this isn't a very safe place."

I knew it wasn't safe, but I had little desire to shelter myself like how most nobility lived. I had a power that could grow as much as I fed it, feeling the greed for power and authority driving me on.

The guards were all eager to leave, unsettled by the incident that could very well have killed me, but I waved off their concern. I was fine, even if I was somewhat shaken by the sudden attack. Starting to pay a little more attention to what was overhead, and more than a little animosity towards one knight in particular.

Two soldiers and a knight broke off from our group, taking their injured comrade out of the forest.  He would be normally be safest with the group, but with his leg looking as it did, that was impossible if I wanted to continue. He couldn't stay here either, anybody or any group we left by themselves were at risk as long as they stayed in the forest. Leaving us with our best option, sending the injured man off with a small escort so that they could return with him to town. Given that we weren't very deep yet, as long as they could make it to the grasslands they'd probably be fine. 

It was unnerving to not know where the next monster would pop out from, probably more so for these ordinary soldiers. Get a bit unlucky and they'd end up like their friend or worse. But soldiers were cheap, with the amount we'd get from this expedition we could arm, armor, and train dozens to take their place.

Knights were a bit more difficult to replace, but even then they were nothing compared to a mage. Which brought my attention back to a certain someone. Even now I couldn't discern what his intentions were, but that was a stunt that could have very well killed me. It looked like he was just selfishly prioritizing his own life over mine in a moment of danger, but I had some suspicions. He said he was interested in me, but he abandoned his basic duty at the first sign of danger. I couldn't tell if he was just a coward, or if he had more sinister aims. And that was something that I was determined to suss out.

New soldiers took their place at the front, ready to clear the way before I stopped them. I had enough of this supposedly skilled knight hanging back with me like he was a VIP, ordering him to the front to see how he would react. Gawn didn't complain like I thought he might, just shrugging nonchalantly as he took up the vanguard position nobody else wanted. Other soldiers following his lead.

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The treants blending in to their environment in the tree tops. Near identical to the thick upper branches, and hard for us to tell them apart at this distance. Making the only way for us to detect them being for us to manually trigger their vine traps. Cutting their vines apart and jumping out of the way to avoid being killed. 

Gawn's attitude wasn't great, but it seems like he indeed had the skills to back it up. I studied with interest as he triggered the vines intentionally, dancing around to avoid entanglement from the snaking attacks, and avoiding the treants fall without an issue as he just rolled to the side unharmed. With the treants back on the ground, it allowed the rest of us hack the beast to death with relative safety.

The group began to proceed again, wary of the vine ridden path, but confident in the process we were using. Letting Gawn take most of the danger as we cleared through the forest.

There weren't any more accidents now that we had someone experienced leading the way. Each treant wailing in pain with a deep creaking voice as we hacked their sharpened limbs off, leaving it defenseless as we dismantled it alive. Blood-like sap leaking out of the hewn lumber-like wounds.

I was curious about what these treants had to offer, given the size of their body, they had a lot to inspect, and being out in the field like this there wasn't an opportunity to dig too deeply. But from the first time I inspected these monsters I was already intrigued by the possibilities they contained. Their blood seeming to have some sort of wisdom enhancing effect, but I wasn't sure how widely known this was. If I could find uses for previously unknown monster parts I could get quite a good profit from it. Clearly the bodies were known to be valuable, the guild wouldn't buy them otherwise, but did they know every useful part about them? Just another reason for me to collaborate with Cal.

Picking up one of the hewn off branches, I tried chewing at the end, tasting the red-sap coming out of the severed limb. Floral and slightly sweet, but very mild overall. Spitting out the bark, and tossing the branch into my inventory for later.

Cutting through another path of vines and lurking treants, we came upon another change in the flora. The jungle of vines hanging between trees gave way, with another sight taking their place. Rows of large pitcher plants affixed to the trunks of trees, almost at ground level. 

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