In truth, I had a secret strategy prepared for Bear-papa.
But before I put that into motion, I decided to handle the preliminaries. The guest's entertainment was only just beginning, after all. Since the tea party had concluded, it was time for the dance to commence.
The ball was officially underway.
"Bear-papa, would you care for this dance?"
As if responding with an "Of course, milady," Bear-papa lumbered forward.
Oh dear, Bear-papa wasn't wearing a tailcoat. I wondered if he was quite alright in such attire? He was stark naked, but perhaps that was acceptable in this setting. Then again, I didn't own an evening dress either. I only had my own vines to work with.
Furthermore, I was essentially half-naked myself, so in a sense, we were a well-matched pair. Since nudity was the established standard for a forest creature's evening wear, I decided to let it slide.
It was a Forest Ball of the Naked and Half-naked. If the scene felt a bit perverted, I told myself it was surely just my imagination. Between a bear and a plant, there were no such moral quandaries.
Bear-papa cast a brief glance at Bear-mama before charging toward me with a thunderous roar. I wondered if he was so eager to dance with me that he was willing to ignore his own wife. If he became too enamored with another woman, Madam was sure to give him the cold shoulder.
In fact, the Madam was already lying there with her eyes rolled back. She was so incensed she was literally foaming at the mouth.
Bear-papa, seemingly more interested in dancing with me than checking on his wife, stared at me fixedly, his jaw dripping with drool. It was embarrassing to be the subject of such a heated gaze, but I supposed it couldn't be helped.
"Bear-papa, will you grant me this dance?"
I manifested poisonous briars from the earth as a formal dance invitation. I knew it was a breach of etiquette to ask, and it was a pity I wasn't being properly escorted by a gentleman, but I understood it was difficult for Bear-papa to make the first move with his wife right there. I hoped he appreciated my consideration.
I ensnared not just Bear-papa's paws, but his entire body with countless briars. I used a briar net to support his frame firmly.
"Now then, let us find our rhythm and find our step."
Since I couldn't walk, I would have Bear-papa dance in my stead.
A Waltz with a Bear.
However, Bear-papa seemed dissatisfied with my inability to dance. He tore through the briars I used to hold him. He ripped the vines from his body as if rejecting the very idea of a dance with me.
Wait, was I just rejected?
Honestly, it was quite a shock to have a dance I went out of my way to offer be turned down so rudely. As a former Saint and a Duke's daughter, such treatment was a stain upon my dignity.
Very well. I would simply have Bear-papa follow after his wife.
The ball was over. Play time ended here.
Now, it was battle time.
Bear-papa should have been gripping the briars, yet he didn't show the slightest hint of pain. On the contrary, though his entire body should have been riddled with briar thorns, he appeared completely unscathed.
Yes, Bear-papa was different from the enemies I had faced until now. My thorns simply wouldn't pierce him. His skin was so thick and resilient that the thorns were repelled without ever breaking the surface.
My briar attacks were ineffective. That alone proved he was in a different league than the previous monsters. As expected, Bear-papa was stronger than anyone I had encountered so far.
He was my greatest enemy.
Even the anaconda known as Wahnschlange, the battle-hungry Kriegtiger, and even the Madam herself, Bear-mama, had fallen easily to the poison of the briar thorns. They had all effectively offered up their bodies to become my nutrition.
And yet, my briars were not a viable option against Bear-papa. My sure-kill attack, which had been undefeated until now, had been neutralized.
Truly impressive. The thorns wouldn't pierce him. Bear-papa was the first opponent to ever render my sure-win method useless.
You were quite something, Bear-papa. You truly were the Lord of the Forest I acknowledged, the strongest bear.
To be honest, the fact that my attacks couldn't damage him was enough to make me want to surrender then and there. It felt utterly hopeless. I was destined to endure that licking hell once more.
Certainly, if I fought him conventionally, I couldn't win. But I hadn't spent the last month simply treating the forest like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I had carefully devised tactics specifically for this rematch.
All right. I would proceed exactly as planned.
I decided to produce the item I had been saving specifically for the Anti-Bear-papa Operation. If the outside was impenetrable, I simply had to attack from the inside.
"Bear-papa, do you know what this is?"
It was an apple. In this world, they were often called Lingals.
Red, juicy apples were delicious, weren't they? And these were apples I had produced from my own body. I hoped Bear-papa would find them to his liking. Plant Generation was truly convenient; I could cultivate fruit whenever the need arose.
I used my vines to retrieve the apples I had harvested in advance and threw them toward him.
"Bear-papa, you must be hungry, right?"
If he had been hunkered down in his den receiving nutrition solely from my nectar balls, he must have been subsisting on the bare minimum. The nectar was so sweet that one naturally lost their appetite for other food. The boy who ate the nectar ball had said the same thing when he left me—that he didn't need anything else. I suspected Bear-papa felt the same way.
Therefore, he had to be starving by now. When an apple came flying toward a hungry bear, the instinct to eat was impossible to resist.
Bear-papa snapped at the apple, crunching it down in a single bite.
Those apples were laced with my nectar. I could personally guarantee their flavor. If he wanted more, there were plenty of refills.
"Come on, say 'ah'!"
I threw the apples one after another. Bear-papa devoured them all as if he had been waiting for this exact moment.
However, after he had consumed thirteen apples, his movements suddenly ceased. He ignored the next apple I threw and simply stared up at the sky with his mouth agape.
Ah, it seemed the effects were finally starting to kick in.
To tell you the truth, Bear-papa, those apples were poisoned. They were poison apples. By mixing a little toxin into the apples as they grew via Plant Generation, I had created a delicious but deadly treat. My usual strategy was to have an animal eat them and collapse, after which I would collect them for consumption.
But Bear-papa was truly something else. A smaller monster would have succumbed to a single apple, yet he had eaten thirteen and was still standing.
Bear-papa turned his gaze toward me. His eyes were glazed and fixed. Perhaps he was angry? Had he realized they were poisoned? He was quite clever for a bear.
The poison apples had been infused with my nectar, making them incredibly sweet and delicious. I wondered what Bear-papa thought as the flavor of that nectar flooded his senses. He was likely consumed by the greedy desire to make me his as soon as possible.
The agony of the poison and the craving for the nectar—both of those conflicting feelings were now directed at me.
Bear-papa charged on all fours. I manipulated the briars I had pre-deployed underground to form a briar wall, but it was useless against him. He smashed through my briar shield with ease. My thorns were meaningless against his overwhelming defense. Since they couldn't pierce him, they couldn't deliver a finishing blow.
As expected of the Lord of the Forest. He was the first to survive this far.
I unleashed a cloud of poison pollen toward him, but the wind pressure from his charge dissipated it instantly.
I had exhausted all my primary attacks. I had fed him the poison apples. And yet, Bear-papa refused to fall. Even with all the strength I had gained, I couldn't win a head-on confrontation with the Lord of the Forest. I had been defeated again.
Bear-papa reached me in an instant. Standing over ten meters tall, his presence was truly overwhelming. Even though the poison must have been causing him agony, his desire for nectar clearly outweighed the pain. That was the look on his face.
He had really taken a liking to me. It made sense, given how much he had toyed with me before.
Bear-papa moved to lick me. The memory of the first time he had done so flashed through my mind. Back then, I had been helpless. And now, once again, I sat defenseless as his tongue prepared to sweep across me.
A sticky, wet tongue made contact with my face.
It was a squelching, disgusting sensation. The feeling of the nectar on my face being licked away was revolting. Just like that day, I was being humiliated.
The feeling of despair and the word 'humiliation' loomed over me.
However, this time, they didn't dominate my thoughts.
I hated being licked. I never wanted to experience that 'licking hell' ever again. I never wanted to feel that shame. But those feelings alone weren't enough to satisfy my grudge.
So, I made my resolve.
Accepting that I would be licked, I would strike back. To that end, I stared Bear-papa straight in the eye.
His tongue moved frantically as he tried to savor me. Even as I was being trampled and my face was being licked, a smirk played across my lips.
"My nectar is delicious, isn't it?"
He had been so obsessed with it before, after all.
"Fine then. You can lick me all you want, Bear-papa."
At this stage, I wouldn't try to stop him anymore.
"Go on, Bear-papa. Do your worst."
I had been preparing for this since the moment he arrived. I would give him a gift of the highest-grade nectar, something quite different from my usual stock. It was a special sweet nectar I had formulated as my ultimate secret strategy.
It was so delicious it would make him feel like he was ascending to heaven. Because, you see, this nectar was laced with poison. I had finally succeeded in creating a poison-filled nectar.
"I wonder if this will be to your liking as well? Heh..."
And so, Bear-papa... this is goodbye.