Chapter 93: Chapter 89: Izumi

Rose gave a huge yawn as she awoke, turning over to find her wife snoozing peacefully beside her. She snuggled up closer to Lia, and was about to go back to sleep when she realized that the bed wasn’t their bed at home, it was much softer and far more comfortable. Right, she had just planted her other body, and had collapsed out of exhaustion. Begrudgingly, she got up, feeling the odd sensation of her feet impacting her own body as she touched the floor.

Yeah, that had to go. She could vaguely feel the other parts of herself, people milling about, the wind on her trunk, the sun shining down on her leaves…it was distracting. Fortunately, blocking those sensations from her consciousness was as simple as closing her eyes, and she was, blessedly, back to only having her main body’s senses.

Even so, her connection to her tree-body was as strong as ever. Out of curiosity, she tried to form a simple chair out of her wood, and marveled as it obediently rose out of the floor, taking only a small amount of her Mana in her process. She admired it for a moment, then removed it, and stealthily began to make her way towards the door, very carefully trying to avoid waking her sleeping wife.

As she walked, though, she realized a paper was stuck to the door, one which read “wake me up when you get up”. So, Rose obediently returned to her bed, and began to gently shake her wife awake.

Lia woke quickly, smiling in relief as she saw Rose’s face. “Oh thank goodness.” She said. “I was getting worried, but since you took us to this bed, I figured you were probably fine? What happened?”

Rose began to think back to what had happened after she had planted the seed of…herself? And, as she thought back, she relayed her experiences to Lia, who listened patiently until the end.

“I see.” Lia said. “Amelia did check out some of the tree while you were asleep, made sure everyone was safe, scoped out our location, but we didn’t take too deep a look into anything. We wanted to make sure you were okay, first.”

“Did you figure out where we are?” Rose asked. “I couldn’t see much outside my trunk, but I’m pretty sure we’re not in a dungeon anymore.”

“We’re not.” Lia said. “We’re right on top of where the portal used to be, but the area has turned into a valley of sorts so the top of the tree…err, your body, is as high as the mountains nearby. There are a few steep paths out into the Spine proper dotted around, so we’re not totally cut off, but…yeah, your body is that giant beacon showing our position I was sort of afraid of, but hopefully we can handle whatever comes looking for us.”

“Let’s just call my tree body Yggdrios.” Rose said. “It’ll be less confusing that way, and it’s not like I’m particularly attached to the tree or anything.”

“You sure?” Lia said doubtfully. “The way you’ve been talking about it, it seems like another arm or something, and I’d feel weird giving my arm a name. We can just call it “your tree” or something.”

Rose paused, thinking on that. Lia had a point; Rose wouldn’t have suggested the name if the system hadn’t stated that her tree was called that, but…she didn’t really have to listen to the system for everything, did she? “Yeah, you’re right.” Rose said. “If it becomes a problem we can revisit it, but ‘your tree’ works just as well for now.

“But, back on topic, I’m sure we’ll be capable enough if any monsters come knocking. Between our more capable fighters, we could probably handle any one threat. And…speaking of capable fighters, have you started Yamamoto’s conversion yet?”

“No.” Lia said, shaking her head. “We didn’t want to try and cut any branches or anything in case it would hurt you.”

“That’s sweet, but it’s fine.” Rose said, conjuring a flowery spear and forcing it into the wall. “See? Perfectly okay, no pain whatsoever. I don’t think my tree can feel pain.” She withdrew her spear and healed the wall back up before growing a branch out of the floor and snapping it off.

“Here you go.” She said, putting the branch in a cocoon and handing it to Lia. “I’m guessing we don’t want to convert him here, right?”

Lia accepted the cocoon, placing it into her dimensional storage. “Yeah. I was planning to find Meg and Neph and have them watch over him until he finished converting. Want to go give him to them and then check on everyone else, maybe let them know that we’re dating Amelia now?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Rose replied.

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Ichiro woke with a start, heaving a sigh of relief as she realized that she had simply been having a bad dream. After all, there was no way she would lose to the Queen, and the idea of someone being able to steal a spell as powerful as Garden of the World Tree was ludicrous. It was –

Ichiro froze. She…she had just thought of Lia as “the Queen”, and was thinking of herself as a woman. It had felt so natural, so right that she hadn’t even questioned it. Shaking slightly, she looked down and found that she was…different.

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Aside from the obvious fact that she was now a woman, her skin tone had changed dramatically, moving from a somewhat pale hue to a deep tan, as if she had spent her entire life working in the sun. She was wearing a traditional shrine maiden’s outfit, though for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why she was wearing one.

Hesitantly, she opened her status.

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