Chapter 170: A Garden Patch

Year 188

The North was in a frenzy, after a rumor that the missing hero was in the North. Strangely enough, I found him before anyone else did. Once Lumoof was back in the North, my trees continued to spread. My trees soon covered most of the largest island in the North, and I started to spawn subsidiary trees in the unpopulated places in the North.

The North, being a colder place, had most of its populations concentrated on the coastlines and along key rivers. That meant there were large pockets of uninhabited pine and spruce forests. There were also some parts where they were considered ‘taigas’ or snow forests or boreal forests, where I could expand my roots and connect to more trees with little need for holding back. 

There's a lot of hidden things in the North. Within a month of expanding I discovered so many hidden dungeons buried under snow and ice, and even more buried cities and towns hidden under no more than a few feet of dirt. The harsh cold and winters seem to deter adventurers, and in the cold environment spawns monsters of quite a high tier, generally level 40s to 60s. Some were familiar, like the dire wolves and snow foxes I've seen during the great blizzard spell. 

Snow. 

Ice giants were common in the hilly, ice-covered peaks, like those we’ve seen on Aria’s island. 

“Your presence seems to fluctuate a bit.”

“Oh.” Sensing the presence of others is a hard thing. Like the heroes, I couldn’t sense their presence until they were close to my main body. I concluded that ‘domain-presence’ was something that only the main body possessed. Ice. Forests. An entirely new continent. I wondered what other secrets are buried beneath these dirt. No, more than that, could there be submerged continents?

Are there the equivalents of Atlantis in this world? If so, could I find them with my roots? Right now, my roots still could not cross the oceans. If there was any Atlantis-equivalents, they would be in the vast oceans of the world, submerged by some grand magic.

Thus, I asked my mages and Valthorns to perform research on long lost cities and submerged civilisations. Ah, back to the North again, I’ve gone off tangent.

My trees spied on the cities, and the villages. It was a lot easier to spy on villages that were surrounded by trees and forests, but these were places where nothing much happened. Usually.

Then I found the missing hero in one of these quiet villages, deep in the mountains. We did not recognise him at first, after all, he just seemed like a regular person who hunted in the woods, collecting snakes and lizards.

It was a magical orb that appeared one day that gave him away, it appeared suddenly from the aether, like an invisibility spell was dispelled, and it floated in a wooden lodge. “Ken, are you there?” Ken was a plain, somewhat handsome man, and my allocated minds were listening when the conversation happened. There were many clues in hindsight, because in this village, everything seemed new. The lodges were surprisingly well built, and the facilities were strangely modern. There was also a huge wall, and a very large stone building that I couldn’t look through. 

Ken was not alone. 

“Your friend’s calling you again.” A half-elf girl responded. Ken smiled and just patted her head. 

“Thanks.” He went to the room and sat down. “Chung. What is it?”

“Where are you?”

“I told you, I’m not saying a thing.”

“Look, right now, all the temples are looking for you secretly, and there’s even the nasty guys out there. The hero-hunters, the wannabe hero-friends, some secret spy and assassin guilds. There’s a lot of people on your tail. They are already on the fake trail I left in the South, but they’ll figure it out soon.”

“I know, but I’m close to my breakthrough. Just give me a bit more.” 

“Dude. I can’t keep doing this without you telling me what the fuck is going on, alright.”

Ken took a deep breath. “I’m going to give up my hero-class.”

“...wait. How?” Chung on the other side sounded pissed.

“I’m going to commit heresy, of course.”

“Heresy?” Chung’s voice sounded uncomfortable.

“The former hero, Astra, used blood magic. That was enough for him to be excommunicated. I plan to do the same.”

“Wait, Ken. Are you sure? Is this really worth it? Remember that I told you about how Astra was marked? No, Ken. Don’t do this.”

“Look, my friend. This whole thing is a scam. The journals you’ve seen already hinted at it to you. We’re not heroes. We’re just tools. I am not planning to let myself be sucked into some stupid overarching system of the gods. Not now, not ever. I’m quitting.”

“Ken, the demons will come anyway. Why not just be a hero and defeat the demon king?”

“And what? We have 10 years and then the next one. No. I’m calling it off.”

“It doesn’t work like that. Not with Astra either.”

“I’ll figure out how to deal with the demon king once I’m not a hero. I’m sure after I do this, the Gods will meddle with your mind and make you look for me as an enemy. I want you to resist that. Can you do that?”

“Ken, this is insane! What if I can't resist them, and I’ll be forced to hunt you down? No, don’t do this-”

Ken pressed something on the Orb, and it went poof. He got out, and looked at the others with him. I could now detect the faint presence of blood magic, masked under layers. It was then, a strange magical creature appeared from his shadow. A small spirit-snake.

“Was it a good idea to lie to him like that?” The spirit snake asked. “I thought you two were good friends.”

“He is, but it wasn’t a total lie. We don’t know what the Gods will do.” Ken answered with a sigh. “Come. It’s time to summon the rest.”

The snake coughed. He took out a small red-knife that glowed in my spirit vision. Ken withdrew multiple other items that were all hidden in his spatial pocket, and placed them around the village. All of these items were strange, with markings I have not seen before. I quickly mentally noted them down. 

At that point, I noticed something strange with all the other ‘villagers’. They all had a spirit snake companion of some kind, and they were all behaving unnaturally. It took a bit more effort, I increased the number of trees present to improve my resolution, and then I noticed it. 

Ken’s shadow was linked to all of them, a faint magic. The villagers were all possessed. They moved perfectly, they seemed to know where to put everything without requiring instruction. Some of them were mages, and they muttered something under their breath. The stone structure in the middle opened up to reveal thousands of snakes and lizards. 

They all moved into position, and Ken walked close to the snakes. With his red knife, his beheaded all of them, one by one, as the villagers started chanting. All of the earlier items all glowed and then, as he slaughtered the snakes, I saw strange snake-like and lizard-like shadows run around, but never able to leave that small area. The ritual lasted three hours, and Ken’s red knife was soon drenched in the blood of all the lizards and snakes. During that entire time, the possessed villagers chanted. 

Then, he lifted up the red knife, muttered a few words, and then, I saw all the shadows drain away and sucked into the red knife. Then, all the blood and remains of the snakes and lizards melted into a reddish paste, then swirled into the knife. 

In a quick but practiced motion, Ken then stabbed himself in the heart with the blob. 

At that moment, I felt like I had a stinging migraine, and I felt my mind-

[Domain Preventing Mental Attack]

Then, I saw Ken’s body glow red. The knife glowed and I thought I saw the shadows of the thousands of snakes and lizards. If this was blood magic, this was a very strange one. I tried to use more powerful surveillance visions then, and changed one of the trees to a subsidiary tree.

I now saw fragments of spirits and souls, all in that red knife. I tried to [identify] the knife. 

[Blood Knife of Sacrifice - A knife used for sacrifices. Collects fragment of souls, spirits and essences]

Well, thanks, but it didn’t tell me what exactly was happening. No, if it collected fragments of souls, what was it trying to do?

A massive red snake made of blood then surged out of his body, in its fangs were a big white marble block. It rolled and coiled, and the white block seemed to attempt to move. But the red liquid blood snake wrestled with the white block, they tossed and spun and rolled, the snake’s body smashed into the structures in the village. 

Then, Ken’s body glowed again, but then, this time, a massive shadow with thousands of snake-heads popped out of his body, and it smashed into the white marble block. The white marble block’s outer layer melted, and what’s left was a white spherical core. Ken moved, and with a swift, well practiced slash, the red knife slammed into the spherical core. The knife hit the white core head on, and then, the white core shook violently. 

[Warning- The Hero Ken- Error. Status unclear.]

I saw the red snake swirl around the white core, it shrunk, and formed a red cube around the white core. The multi-headed snake shadow followed next, it shrunk into the size of a small lizard, and then melted into that red cube. It instantly changed the bright red cube to darker red. The knife shattered, and then instantly melted.

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All the villagers collapsed at the same time, like puppets whose strings were cut. 

Ken’s body stopped glowing, and he stood as the molten red liquid from the knife swirled around his body, and coated his skin and flesh. His wounds healed. 

He didn’t move for a good 10 minutes, somehow he managed not to fall. Perhaps it was magic, though that’s probably the least of the things I should think about. His eyes opened, and he looked around. He briefly closed his eyes again, and then when he opened, the snake appeared once more from his shadow. 

“The Ritual was a success. Though I feel we have... company.”

Ken looked around. “Really? I don’t see anyone.” 

The snake looked around too. “It’s... never mind.” 

“Great. Now I can live in peace.” He seemed to activate a skill, and in an instant, his hair grew long, and his facial features changed slightly. His skin turned more scalish. 

The magical orb immediately started vibrating, but Ken did not respond. “Ken? Ken? Are you there? What happened?” 

He looked at it, tapped it. “I did something, I’ll let you know in two to three months whether it’s successful. But if it fails, I think you’ll get a notification.” The orb sent a magical arrow that flew up into the air, and then disappeared. Ken tapped the orb again, and this time, the orb vanished into some kind of pocket space. The villagers were still unconscious, and Ken left the village that day. 

The shapeshifted Ken did not say a word since then, as he wandered from town to town, never stopping for more than a week. The villagers who regained consciousness did not seem to remember why they were there, and what they did at all. 

“This hero probably possessed some kind of mind-control or possession ability through those snake-shadows.”

“What are those snake shadows?” I had no idea. As a tree that lived so long and seen so much, it absolutely annoyed me that there’s still so many new things I’ve never seen. I suspect whatever that ritual was, it was otherworldly in origin, because it was able to remove or tamper with a hero class.

That said, I still kept watch. Could he be a threat? After all, he was able to tamper with a hero class.

What did he do then? I saw the fragment of souls... no.

I had an epiphany then.

I had been trying to ‘remove’ the hero class by force and magical power. This was when I developed a speculative theory, that  he absorbed more soul fragments, and some kind of essences, and those essences flooded and merged with his hero class in his soul spring. He wasn’t removing the hero class. He was corrupting it so that he could be free of its influence! Using the soul-ish qualities of blood magic to ‘enhance’ and ‘corrupt’ his own soul such that he was free of the heroes?

The other idea was that they somehow used the soul-fragments as some kind of ‘abrasive’ or ‘removal-agent’. Like using soap to bind to the hero-class and then pull it out. 

“We’ll need to find a volunteer to try it.” Patreeck. “But it’ll have to be a hero. Looking at it, it would probably kill anyone else who tried to do it.”

I agree, that ritual looked really complex, but I had enough data to attempt to replicate it. But how did Ken get the people necessary to do so? I also have other questions. Like, who was that snake-spirit?

I tried to follow Ken as he moved through the cities. There were parts I couldn’t see him, here in the Northern Islands, my network of eyes and ears are full of holes. 

What did he do?

Thankfully, he dropped his guard about two months after the incident, as he was taking a break. The snake spirit curled out and sat on the log. “How are you feeling?”

“Not as bad as what you described, I think I’m ready. We got lucky, I think, that the [hero] class was relatively low level.” Ken sat as he munched on a loaf of bread. It’s hard.

“Alright, hit me with it. What’s next?” Ken said as he finished his loaf of bread. 

“Great. Now we need to prepare for our next step of the bargain. We need to send the swallowed class to my world. That’ll be a lot harder. A lot, a lot harder. Well, for one, I do not have a foolproof way of sending something back home.” The snake confessed.

Ken paused, “Wait. You do have an idea, then? Is this the ‘so-crazy-enough-to-work-idea’? Because if it is, then we should use it.”

“I do, but it involves you dying. That’s not what we agreed on, and I wouldn’t do it because I’m stuck with you.”

Ken laughed. “Then tell me the alternatives, but still tell me that idea that involves me dying. Because I need to know. Just in case.” 

“Never mind. I still don’t get where you have all these strange concepts...”

“There’s this website called tvtropes...” Ken said. “Where they explain the common story paths and events.”

“Is this website an oracle?”

“Well, not really, but it’s more like a...”

“An astrologist’s predictions?”

“Something like that.” Ken sat. “Anyway, I feel much more clear-headed now that the demons aren’t always appearing in my dreams. It’s safe for me to speak with Chung, right?”

The snake shrugged. “Yes. But later. First, we must investigate that presence we felt last year. I must know whether it is the Gods.”

Ken frowned. “Seriously, why do you care? Why get involved in their schemes again, after all you’ve said about their plots? After all you said about how they’ve surrendered your worlds.”

The snake remained silent. 

“I want to live peacefully, find a place somewhere where I can raise a family, and watch my kids grow up. Maybe work as an enchanter or an artificer.” Ken said. “All these plots, in the end, are just the games these powers play. Now that I'm out, I have no intention of getting back in.”

“We don’t have to, but... but I just want to know. I want to send word home, if we ever find the gods.”

“I met the gods when I reincarnated.”

“Those are different.”

“Fine, I’ll just ask for news once we get to town. If we can use your abilities to ‘control’ some people in the towns, that’ll help.” 

“I used up quite a lot of my magic when I performed the ritual. I’ll need more time to recharge, it takes longer for me to replenish my magical energies in this pathetic spiritual form. You’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”

“Alright, alright. Just pray I don’t trigger some stupid town-gathering quest chain. I’m not jumping from one hero-storyline to another type of storyline.”

This Ken seemed... genre-aware. That’s strange, I suppose I’m looking at a hero who has some light-novel knowledge and he’s applying it to get himself out of trouble? 

They left and headed to town. Sadly, the town they were in was all cobbled up with stone and rocks, and I couldn’t follow them all the way. 

-

The three Triumvirs returned to their respective cities, and the peace treaty was formally announced. Our growing network of spies revealed that the other temples were quite relieved that it was nothing more than just a peace treaty, and some small trade-ish agreements. 

The status quo held, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. 

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