The puppet moved the instant he spoke to it, raising its right arm as the wooden roots forming its body trembled.
Rei, watching from close by, had no idea what the gesture meant. But since the puppet had taken action, he figured there had to be some intent behind it, and he stared intently at its movement.
Ready to counterattack at a moment's notice if it struck, Rei watched as the puppet extended its raised right arm toward him.
If it had been a forceful attack, Rei would have countered without hesitation. But the arm reaching toward him carried no aggressive intent that he could sense. If anything, it gave off the impression of seeking something.
The arm was made of wooden roots, and it seemed capable of extending by rearranging those roots without needing to move its body at all.
As the arm stretched toward him, stopping just short of contact, Rei hesitated for a moment. He couldn't sense anything resembling malice—that much was certain. Yet at the same time, this Treant Forest was a dangerous place that had killed countless people. A puppet made of wooden roots, sitting here in the heart of the forest—it was impossible to imagine it had no connection to the Treant Forest itself.
The forest bared naked hostility toward humans, but he sensed none from the puppet before him. Troubled by that contradiction, Rei wavered on what to do, and while he was still hesitating, the root-formed hand touched his body.
"Rei!"
"Gruu!"
Vihera and Set had been certain he would never let the thing touch him. But Rei showed no sign of taking any evasive action, allowing the puppet to make contact. The two of them—one woman, one beast—cried out in alarm, but Rei was in no state to hear them.
He wasn't under attack. But from the point where the puppet touched him, its thoughts came flowing into his mind.
No—calling them thoughts wasn't quite right. It would be more accurate to describe them as something closer to instinct.
"Reproduce. Spread. Stretch forth, endlessly, endlessly. Expand your existence, and make nourishment of all that interferes. Spread, spread, until everything is covered by yourself."
It hadn't come as clear words. Rather, an image had been driven into Rei's mind. But if he were to force it into language, that was roughly what it amounted to.
"!?"
Rei had felt it, seen it, heard it—in any case, he had comprehended what could only be called an image-language. He reflexively leapt backward.
Vihera and Set, who had been watching him, tensed the instant they saw Rei suddenly spring away right after the root puppet's touch.
"Rei, are you okay?!"
"I'm fine. Don't worry. Nothing happened."
Even as he called back, Rei questioned for a split second whether that was really true. But he understood perfectly well that nothing had actually been done to him.
Lowering the Death Scythe and Twilight Spear he'd held at the ready, he turned his gaze back to the root puppet. It stood frozen in place, its arm still extended. It wasn't making any hostile move.
"That just now was..."
Muttering under his breath, Rei approached the puppet once more where it sat on its throne of roots. As if it had been waiting, the puppet extended its hand again. This time, Rei gently touched it.
"Reproduce. Spread. Stretch forth, endlessly, endlessly. Until everything is concealed and absorbed into your own existence."
A slightly different message from before—still image-language—but Rei understood perfectly what he had received.
"...I see."
He murmured, gently released the puppet's hand, and stepped back.
Watching him, Vihera and Set moved closer while keeping watch on their surroundings. Unfortunately for Vihera, the battle against a worthy Treant elite that she had been hoping for never materialized. Right now, she was more concerned about Rei.
If this had turned into a fight against the roots, she wouldn't have given it a second thought—just business as usual. But what had happened wasn't combat. It was nothing more than a brief touch. That was precisely what made it so unsettling.
"Are you okay?"
She had asked that moments ago, and the same words came from her mouth again. Beside her, Set was watching Rei with equal concern.
Rei faced the two of them and spoke.
"I told you not to worry. I'm not hurt. It's just... this root puppet isn't exactly a clear enemy. And for that matter, it doesn't feel like the main body, either."
When the image-language had surged into him, some of the puppet's information had flowed in with it—only a small amount. Most of it was incomprehensible nonsense, but there were things Rei could grasp.
Namely, that the root puppet before him was essentially a terminal of the Treant Forest. And not just it—all the monsters within the Treant Forest were equally terminals, just like this one.
No wonder there were no Magic Stones. The whole Treant Forest is a single monster, and every Treant that's appeared is a terminal... limbs, in a manner of speaking.
Killing a Goblin yielded a Magic Stone from its body. But destroying a Goblin's limbs—or, given the scale of the Treant Forest, something equivalent to body hair or nails—would never produce one. That was exactly what Rei and the other adventurers had been doing. Which was why, despite slaughtering countless Treants and other monsters, no Magic Stones had ever appeared.
"Not the main body? What do you mean?"
Vihera asked, watching Rei as he stared at the puppet. Through this exchange, she could tell he hadn't been attacked, nor had he suffered any mental interference. That was why she could ask now with a somewhat calmer demeanor than moments before, when concern for his safety had driven her words.
"Exactly what I said. The existence that controls... no, the existence that could be called the Treant Forest itself is somewhere else. These roots, all the Treants that have kept showing up—they're all to the Treant Forest what hair and nails are to a person."
"What is that? I've never heard of such a thing."
"Neither have I. But Gilm is the frontier. It wouldn't be strange for something like this to exist out here, don't you think?"
"That's..."
Considering that this was the frontier, it was true that no matter what kind of existence it was, it wouldn't be out of place. Vihera must have been convinced. She looked slightly unsatisfied, but eventually nodded.
"So, did you learn anything else from that touch?"
"Let's see. There was no clear malice toward us."
"...Huh?"
It was clearly the last thing she expected. A dumbfounded sound escaped Vihera's mouth. Given everything the Treant Forest had done, she could only assume it bore malice toward humans—toward Gilm.
"Malice... or rather, it'd be more accurate to call it instinctual behavior in this case. Either way, what I got from the roots is that its primary goal is to expand itself—the forest—and everything else is basically irrelevant."
"...Irrelevant, huh. Well, as an instinct for species preservation, I suppose that's valid enough."
The fact that communication with monsters was possible didn't particularly surprise Vihera, so she didn't comment on that. After all, watching Rei and Set together, the idea didn't seem all that far-fetched. When Rei described the image-language, Vihera showed a flicker of genuine interest.
"But why is this monster heading toward Gilm? If it just wants to spread the forest, it could go in a direction where there aren't any cities."
A natural question. The Treant Forest had been flagged as dangerous in Gilm partly because Thresha's party had been attacked there, but the bigger reason was its direction of expansion—straight toward Gilm.
There were other factors that had drawn attention: the forest's trees being eyed as promising construction material for Gilm's expansion, and the discovery of monsters without Magic Stones. But the expansion toward Gilm remained the single greatest cause for alarm.
Had it expanded in any direction other than toward Gilm, or toward Abuelo—the closest settlement to Gilm—it never would have stirred up such a commotion. Though if the new growth had simply been viewed as additional timber, it would doubtless have been a boon for the woodcutters.
"Ah... good question. I haven't asked about that yet. Should I?"
Since the exchange was image-language, calling it "asking" wasn't quite right. "Feeling" or "receiving" the conversation would be closer to the truth. Puzzling over that distinction, Rei turned his gaze back to the puppet.
It seemed like it would answer if he reached out. But part of him balked at the idea of subjecting himself to that incomprehensible method of communication again. He knew from two previous encounters that it wasn't dangerous. Even so, a lingering doubt remained somewhere in the back of his mind.
He knew it was contradictory, but he couldn't help how he felt. Either way, the risk wasn't going to stop him. This was the avatar of the Treant Forest—the first real contact he'd managed. He naturally wanted to get through to it and prevent any further casualties among the adventurers.
"Can't be helped. I'll give it another try. Keep watch on the surroundings. Honestly, based on what's happened so far, I don't think we need to be that vigilant. But just in case."
"You sure? ...All right. Be careful."
"Gurururu!"
Vihera's words were followed by a rumble from Set—"Leave it to me!" If anything tried to harm Rei, Set would attack without a moment's hesitation. It shot a sharp glance at the surrounding trees.
Rei gave the two of them a small nod and approached the puppet once more.
He reached out his hand. This time, instead of one-sidedly receiving the other's will, he projected an image with strong intent behind it. He wasn't certain this was the correct way to respond to the image-language the puppet used—but he had a hunch it was.
The image he sent was a question: Why expand the forest toward Gilm? Toward where the humans were?
"Magic power. Existence. Nourishment."
Unlike the first message, what came back was just a handful of words strung together. But even from those words alone, Rei understood that whatever controlled this puppet was thinking in deeply troubling terms.
Magic power and existence—those were fine on their own. But the last word, nourishment, was something Rei could never accept.
It sees Gilm as food!?
The realization was shocking and yet, at the same time, made a terrible kind of sense. Gilm was home to many skilled adventurers, and among them, those with vast magic power. Rei himself possessed an enormous reservoir, even if the Ring of the New Moon currently masked his true capacity.
Humans were not food.
He poured everything into sending that image, desperately trying to make them understand...
"No. No. No."
All that came back was absolute denial. No—not even denial. It was more like the other party had never intended to listen in the first place. Such was the force of the rejection.
The image-language exchange repeated several more times...
"Obstacle. Food. Nourishment."
With a will stronger than anything before, the exchange ended. And before he knew it, the root puppet standing before Rei had risen to its feet.
"...Ah, sorry. Looks like persuasion just failed."
Relaying that to Vihera and Set, Rei readied his Death Scythe and Twilight Spear, fixing his gaze on the root puppet before him.