Chapter 234: Black Forest
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
In a land far, far away, there was a thorny forest within an ancient kingdom. The enchanted magical thorns there were as scary as demons, and blocked all attempts at seeing through what laid behind this forest. Nobody, however, knew that in the middle of that silent forest was an ancient, historical castle, and in the highest level of the castle, that there lay a beautiful sleeping princess.
That pitiful princess was born as such a pretty girl, yet was cursed by a vicious witch to fall into an eternal sleep during her youth, the time of her life when she would be the most beautiful. Only a prince from a distant land would be able to wake her up with a kiss containing true love.
She waited and waited for several decades, without a single prince ever arriving. Only after several hundred years passed did the tardy prince finally arrive, after getting lost…
“Harloys, if you keep messing around by telling stories, I’m going to hang you up on the wall for your terrible narration! I’m capable of doing it!”
The venom-tongued witch was jumping and hopping about in the dark, black forest while gathering precious plant ingredients into her bag. She was just like a mushroom-picking little girl. However, the additional narration coming from my side made me speechless.
“I didn’t say anything wrong! Just look at this forest; isn’t it the exact same as the one from the fairy tale? Amelia was a former princess as well, and you are indeed a prince; it’s basically like the fairy tale came to life, with the heroic prince slicing through thorny plants in order to save the girl! It’s the childhood dream of every young girl!”
“You are Prince Roland!
“She is Princess Amelia Milan!”
“This is the thorny kingdom from the fairy tale!”
“I’m the kind fairy that guides the prince!”
The young (fake) loli held an ice flower in her hands and revealed a mesmerized expression. She had even created tiny fairy wings for herself, skipping and dancing around swiftly in midair, with a smile that seemed like she had gone nuts. She was just like a girl in the prime of her youth who had a lowered intelligence as a result of falling in love… I seem to have accidentally insulted a certain group of people—cough—cough—I apologize; don’t mind me.
She was having lots of fun, while I only felt a headache, heartache, and stomachache. This magical pet of mine was acting too casually. Although she was much livelier after partially letting go of her hatred, and the gears of time, which had stalled for so long on her, were finally turning again, the past Banshee Queen now mysteriously gave the feeling as if she was a mischievousness little girl. But, if you were the one she was toying with, perhaps you wouldn’t be happy about things, either.
Right now, no matter how much she acted pure and innocent, I didn’t even need to look at that sly look in her eyes or her constantly shaking tail. The emotions in her heart were transmitted to me through our soul connection, and I was well aware that from start to finish, she fully intended to watch me make a fool out of myself.
“Of course it’s the same! The culprit behind that thorny forest, the antagonist evil witch of that Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, is right before us… right, there’s something different compared to other fairy tales. The antagonist boss wasn’t defeated even at the end; was it because nobody could do anything to Amelia? That was why they finished with the prince and princess’s blissful life together as the ending, yep, what a terrible ending. It seems that I’ve been wise yet again, discovering the truth without even realizing it. Please call me the perceptive Roland.” [1] 1
“You’re still as shameless as always…”
The “little fairy” was unable to keep up her act anymore as she landed on my shoulder. However, I tightly gripped the white sword of ice in my hand. If Harloys wasn’t playing around anymore, it could only mean that there was new trouble looking for us.
“What is it this time?”
“You don’t want to know. Fine, you already know.”
“How can I possibly not know!? How can it possibly be this big! Did Amelia steal an ancient Tree of Life from the elves?”
Normal treants [2] 2 were quite large, but they were still only from four to ten meters tall. They could only be said to be on par with a giant’s size, but now, the tremendous treant before us was so tall that I couldn’t see more than its feet—even when I stood on tiptoe. It was likely that this treant was taller than even a Titan. At the very least, it seemed to be on the same threat level to me as a certain yellow duck.
The gigantic treant strode in our direction. With every step it took, the ground trembled mightily. All the magic plants ran for their lives, and when it finally got closer and I could see it more clearly, I accidentally dropped my sword on the ground as I stared in disbelief at the giant tree before us.
“Hahaha! Look at its face! It looks exactly like you!”
Alright then, that silly cat was actually laughing and rolling around on my shoulder as I helplessly gazed at the tall treant. Its carved wooden features just happened to match mine exactly?
“Hahahaha! And it’s even naked! It looks like all of Karo’s getting to see your naked body—this is so funny! This is so funny!”
That’s right, the treant was naked. When I took a closer look, I discovered that its body shape was proportional to mine, only with extra tree bark on top. Perhaps, if you looked at it from a distance, it really would seem just like me in person.
“Amelia, you bastard! What are you thinking!”
I picked up my sword and furiously shouted as I rushed in the direction of the giant treat and towards my death… cough, I take that back. I turned around and ran off when I was halfway through my charge.
“This enemy is too dangerous! Let’s retreat!”
“Ha… I can’t even breathe anymore from how funny this all is. Let me rest a little—why are you running? Kill that treant; do you want everybody to see you naked?”
“I’m not even as tall as its little toe, and one slice from my sword will likely be nothing more than a mosquito bite. Have you ever heard of a mosquito defeating an elephant? It’s not even a competition.”
“Roland!”
There wasn’t much reaction from the treant before I started running, but after I did, that treant actually began to chase after me. As it ran, it even shouted my name loudly like an angry housewife, causing a tremendous gust to arise.
I was running for my life while the “little fairy” on my shoulder kept snickering.
“A Soul World is the reflection of one’s inner mind. See just how important she views you! You’re definitely the most ‘important’ person in her heart of all.”
Important? Me? Sneaking a quick glance at the astonishingly huge tree chasing after me, Harloys was right in her own way.
I grit my teeth and suddenly caught the “little fairy” who was still rambling on and on, braked, turned around, and tossed her as if she was a javelin.
“I choose you, Harloys! Go! Big tree, take a look at my loli shield!” [3] 3
Alright then, the system notification was quite accurate. Harloys was indeed an excellent tank, but the prerequisite was that she was obedient.
Halfway to the treant, Harloys transformed into a crow in midair and flew back towards me, using that crow beak of hers to peck at my head. I now had an extra enemy to deal with…
This was only the beginning of my nightmare. I wasn’t able to find the end of this forest.
“Those tower-like dandelions have opened up their flowers—so many bones! So beautiful!”
“The hell its beautiful! Those are magical explosives! Those are distributed cluster bombs; hurry up and run!”
Those beautiful silver dandelions sent out their winged seeds with the help of the wind. However, the second one landed, there would be a mushroom cloud and a huge hole in the ground.
“…Nice rose? What’s this? It changed its form, and is now tossing its flower petals at us? These petals actually split open tree bark; are they knives? This smells so sweet, what is it?”
“Rose Executioners. Their instant explosive power is greater than even a Gold-ranked archer’s, and they even have a certain amount of melee combat strength as well. Don’t ask about that sweet scent… forget it, since we didn’t die immediately from inhaling it, it means that this level of poison can’t affect us.”
The fresh red rose garden seemed enough to cover any plains region, and the sweet scent filling the air was actually a toxic poison that was sufficient to instantly kill even a SemiDragon. Since we were fine and didn’t even feel anything from it, it could only mean that our biological systems no longer counted as human.
“What is that? An apple bomb?”
“Don’t get close to them! They eat humans! They love eating human organs the most!”
“Those humming ‘little apples’ were actually massive red apples that jumped up and down according to some playing music. Not only was this the scariest mental pollution of all, if you touched them accidentally, they’d even shriek ‘Don’t touch me, I’m really expensive! You can’t afford me,’ attacking their enemies both physically and mentally.”
“Roland, this definitely has to be one of your original disgusting designs.”
“…I don’t deny it.”
“A field of sunflowers? So pretty!”
“Duck! It’s a sunflower laser cannon formation. Those who have used it know how effective it can be!”
These magical sunflowers’ only method of attack was to absorb sunlight, store energy, and shoot it out with their magical crystal cores.
If there was only one sunflower, then that would probably be nothing more than a light burn. However, there was now an endless field of sunflowers before us, and their heat rays were extremely suited for stacking on top of each other and increasing their power. Getting hit would definitely be a pitiful experience.
“Damn it! What other things are there!”
All those abnormal plants had originally only been plans and designs, but they had all now come to life. After arriving in this garden, I was now getting somewhat worried about Amelia. These plants seemed like they were beyond her power level. Unless she suddenly had a large increase in her power level, she, too, was having problems.
There would always be a price to pay for using power above what one could handle. No matter how many aces Amelia had, this Soul World of hers was just far too much. Amelia’s current situation seemed unusual.
“I hope that she’s alright.” I silently increased my pace.
The slow journey finally neared its end, but when we reached our destination, I was stunned with my mouth wide agape once again.
“In the deepest part of the thorny forest, there is an ancient castle of white jade, with a white jade staircase leading to the top of the tower. The prince that finally made it through so many difficulties is now starting to hesitate…”
That silly cat started yet another narration, and I didn’t even know how to stop her anymore. After all, right before us was exactly such a fairy-tale-style castle.
As we approached, just like what was written in the fairy tale, the black thorns that sealed off the castle automatically retreated and created a path for us.
“Let’s go! What are we waiting for?”
“Let me sit down for a little while and mentally prepare myself. I think the upcoming developments will be a bit too much for me to handle. At the very least, I need to prepare for my worldview to be turned upside-down.”
Everything that happened along the way here was ridiculous enough as it was, and if it weren’t for the fact that the return path would be nothing more than the same ridiculousness, I would have long since turned around and left.
“You still need to say that? Is there anything related to you that’s not ridiculous?”
[System Notification: You should go now. The King of all Gentlemen is currently observing you.]
Okay then, just what should I comment about? Harloys who hit me in my weak spot, or the System that always managed to sprinkle salt on my wounds and add fuel to the fire?
“Why can’t I have normal people around me?!”
“That’s because you yourself are as far from normal as can be!”
While I was in the midst of agonizing whether or not I should turn around, the main mage headquarters in Karo City was in a busy uproar.
There would be no city leader anywhere that would be able to accept a forest suddenly popping up in their own city, especially since none of the city’s residents were ever seen alive again after entering that forest.
Luckily, the highest-ranked person in command, Kaid, guessed what had happened after seeing a forest pop up in the Earth Elemental Plane. He did his best to stabilize the situation.
“The higher-ups have long since reached their limit on tolerating Teacher Amelia’s actions. If she gets caught conducting some forbidden experiments or causing some huge incident, perhaps, at the very minimum she’ll lose her status as a teacher.”
Kaid did his best to suppress any information from leaking after taking into consideration the fact that they were old acquaintances. He only told others that this was a special experiment. However, dimensional connections were going to be reestablished soon, and the Mage Country was certain to send a special envoy to understand more about the situation over here. If that abnormal forest was still there when the envoy arrived, there would be no way possible to conceal it.
“There’s still no news about Teacher Amelia? What about the result of the divination magic? Is there still no result yet? Is she currently stuck in her own Soul World?”
Divination for a certain person or object’s location was one of the few reliable types of divination magic of this highly unreliable branch.
However, Kaid’s two students Atadia and Soranto awkwardly exchanged glances with each other, not knowing how to reply. Finally, Atadia furrowed his eyebrows while telling Kaid about the vastly unexpected divination result.
“Our divination result shows us that Teacher Amelia isn’t actually within that forest.”
This divination result could only give answers like “Yes” or “No,” but this answer obviously surprised Kaid as well. It was the most basic knowledge that Soul Worlds couldn’t be separated from their masters, so could this forest not be a Soul World as well?
“But the strange part is, when we used Divination Magic to find out if Teacher Amelia was still within Karo City, the answer was a yes.”
“Finally, we decreased the radius of our search parameters for the Divination Magic, and the end result still pointed us to that forest.”
“In the end, we finally came up with only one possibility. The divination result also supports our completely inexplicable conclusion.”
Upon hearing this, large beads of sweat began forming on Kaid’s forehead. He had already guessed the possibility.
“You’re saying that this entire forest is…”
And in the deepest part of the forest, I had come to the exact same conclusion.
“This entire forest is Amelia herself! All of these countless magical plants are part of her body. This entire black forest is her complete form.”
“She’s literally insane! Is a human body supposed to be modified like this?”
“You dare to speak of her? Aren’t we the same?! We stopped being human long ago.”
Note:
1. This is Harloys speaking.
2. In EFT’s translations, the term ‘dendroid’ was used. However, from now on, we are changing ‘dendroid’ to ‘treant’ or ‘tree warrior,’ where both are interchangeable. The previous occurrences of ‘dendroid’ will be changed to ‘treant’/’tree warrior’ for consistency in the near future.
3. Another reference to Pokémon!