Chapter 2: Just a walk in the woods, right?
I looked at her so surprised that she giggled coyly as if I should have known better. I blinked a couple times. "Is she flirting?" I thought. "What do you mean by 'I died'?" I said almost just to break the silence. "you died. What's there not to understand?" the dryad asked, puzzled.
"how about the fact that you are only supposed to die once" i said with a calm angry tone. Surprisingly the dryad stepped back defensively. "sorry. I didn't mean to come over as mean or angry…." I said, trying to de-escalate the situation. "You know. I don't know your name? I'm called Ellinoir Lightweaver, you?" "Certree" she said while looking away trying to hide a blush. "So she was flirting." I thought. "So what is the problem? Why are you here?" I asked curious. "to see if you still have a….. A soul. " she said with her head hanging at the last part out of shame. "oke. I think I still have a soul. How would I know anyway?" I asked out of curiosity. "Well we wouldn't be able to talk like this for starters." she said, looking slightly happier. "How about this? I have a question. Can you lead me to Rimaru city? Or at least give me directions?" I asked since it would confirm that I was in the world of Rimaru. "I don't know that place but there is a settlement being led by someone named Rimaru. Is that okay instead?" "yes that is the city I meant anyway" I said waving at her to signal it was fine. "That's right. It will only be named that in the following week or so" I thought to myself. It would take us 3 days to get to the city on foot. The first day was fairly uneventful. But I did notice that Certree has a sweet tooth. Constantly getting honey from what looked like everywhere. Then in the evening she suddenly fell to the ground. I panicked until I realized that she was sleeping. I looked up and saw that the sun had just set. "She must have not realized it." I sighed and picked Certree up. I looked around quickly and decided that it was a pretty good spot to set up a camp. I had used primrose for lugging the stuff Certree let me borrow. It contained a tent and two sleeping bags. After I set up the tent(I placed Certree leaning against a tree to sleep) I rolled out the two bags and picked up my travel companion. For the first time I had time to get a proper look at her without her disappearing in front of me and reappearing behind. She had similar clothes for any dryad but had a little stick with a little pinkish flower on her left shoulder holding it together. She had long pink white-ish hair something akin to rose gold. She had a little too perfect hourglass shaped body shape. I knew her left eye was silver. Her right eye always had hair in front of it so I could never get close enough to find out. "She is all in all a nice looking woman." I thought when out of nowhere I got jealous. I looked at myself and then at her. I sighed. "Nothing I can do about it right now anyway" I muttered. I went to sleep for the night assuming that being with a dryad would scare away most monsters. The second day I woke up to the feeling of eyes on me. When I opened my eyes I saw Certree looking closely. Close enough to see her right eye was golden in color. "morning. " I said, still half asleep. "morning,..." she said with a pause until "and thank you" "For what?" I asked "for sticking with me and not doing anything….. Well…. Weird….." she said with a head so red, that it looked like a tomato had eaten it. "No problem" I said back, rather cheerful. "Here" she said while looking away. I looked and saw something wrapped in what looked like giant leaves. I took it gently and unwrapped it. It was what looked like a fruit bar but instead it was about twenty by twenty centimeters. I looked up at an embarrassed Certree. I looked at where the sun was and guessed that it should be around 10am. She let me sleep in and made me breakfast. "thank you" I said out of the bottom of my heart. Not even after half a second later my stomach made enough sound, I was afraid it would wake the whole forest. She made a short giggle and said softly "your welcome". After we left we walked for about half the day, until we came across a merchant. A SLAVE merchant. My blood instantly boiled at the sight of it and Certree first tried to calm me down until she saw why. She then whispered quietly "I'm fine if you want to free the slaves but I can't let you kill the merchant." I finally calmed down and thought for a moment on what to do. I finally decided to just go and talk with the merchant about why he would enslave anyone. While I approached, I looked what the slaves where there were a couple of elves, two dwarfs and about three dozen harpies. I built up the courage and asked, knowing he would get mad "excuse me but you look like a merchant but where are your goods?". To my surprise he actually didn't and simply said calmly "I'm not a merchant, just a courier." I quickly asked what he was moving and to my surprise he actually was asked to discreetly move these people and this was the easiest way. He was waiting for a mage of some kind that would simply teleport them to a 'nearby village that housed multiple monsters' he then finished his story with the warning "There is a war brewing. I can feel it in my bones." "should i tell him that he's right? No, I would simply be looked at as a crazy doomsayer. And did he mean Rimaru's little city?" I thought, but before I could ask Certree came and asked "Is the town about one and half day's walk from here, by chance?" "Yes, why?" the 'merchant' said. "We are going there as well." I quickly said hoping on a lift. Then I noticed Certree's sudden stiffness and turned around. The supposed mage was none other than Treyni. "Hello everyone." Treyni said calmly. Certree almost fainted on the spot when Treyni looked at her with a, what could only be described as, odd look. Half curious, half disappointed. She then turned to me. I could only blick once before she went from 3 meters away to a mere half. She looked me up and down a couple of times. And then smiled. Then she turned back to Certree and nodded as if signaling a job well done. "Thank you Certree. You can, if you want, go home again." Treyni must have expected a different answer because when Certree stayed for longer than a second. She looked puzzled. "Certree is there something still wrong here?" Treyni asked. "Not really,..." Certree answered. "I just promised that I would take him to that city." Treyni looked surprised but that vanished quickly, giving way for happiness. "mymy " she said "I suppose I owe you a thank you" as Treyni turned to me. "I would like that lift actually. Or a direction so that I can fly there." Certree had a flash of anger when she realised I could just fly to the city, but it quickly went to embarrassment when she figured that I walked that distance for some other reason "please don't think i like you like a lover… please….. I liked the walking and the talking. but pleeeeeease don't, don't go there. I really don't want to break anyone's heart" I thought and I sighed and focused on Treyni who just smiled as if figuring something out "dammit! Not you too!" I thought. I gave a gentle cough drawing Treyni out of her daydream. "Right! Just go that way and you should see it within a couple minutes." I thanked her. Then I turned to Certree to give the loaned tent and such back. "Here." I said. "These are yours, right?" "You can keep them if I can visit sometimes." she mumbled. Treyni tapped on her sister's shoulder and said tauntingly"I don't think he could hear you, little sis." "You can keep them if I can visit sometimes." she said, almost shouting, but embarrassed to the point that she could only look at her own feet. Treyni nodded gently at me as if signalling for a certain response. "WHY, TREYNI, WHY! I know she likes me, but you put me in an impossible position right now. Let's think of a way out of this before I get into a relationship. Because they NEVER ended well before when I'm involved. And Certree should have the best boy- or girlfriend she could get. In other words, NOT ME!" Treyni waited patiently for my response. I opened my mouth and only stupidity came out. "Okay, you can come visit anytime. but I don't really have a permanent home anywhere so that would be a problem." "Really, brain?! That's the absolute best you could come up with! The pity card! And it's not even a problem for long since I wanted a home in tempest. Ugh this is going to come back to bite me." I thought, annoyed at myself. I then looked at Certree, who looked so happy a rainbow appeared around her head. "I mean, she is nice. she is kind and compassionate and… no, NO! Not going there. There is only pain at the end of that tunnel." trying not to think those thoughts only made them stronger, making me blush slightly. Treyni noticed, Certree didn't. Treyni clapped in her hands and said as if before a class "Well, that's enough talk. Let's get to work" she then turned to me "I will see you when you arrive. I will ask so that you can stay there for a while." "Thank you, again. Both of you." I said to a smiling Treyni and a Certree on cloud 9. I then proceeded to fly towards Tempest's capital city.
Rimaru pov
Running a Country proved way harder than I thought it would. The mountains of paperwork I had to read of the million (persenal) requests. While some were simple. Such as 'What can I plant in my garden? Are there any that are forbidden?' Some were annoying simply because the person or persons had filled the request multiple times over the course of the last 3 or so days. I was most happy with 'his no sleep needed' body for then I could just work all night while visiting the town during the day. Then Soue popped out of nowhere as usual. "Something wrong?" I asked. "No my lord. I Simply wanted to say that Treyni has arrived with the refugees." Soue stated almost monotone. "She also wanted to request a favor from you.". "A favor, huh."I said out loud "let her in please." "at once." and with that Soue was simply gone. About 2 seconds later Treyni Appeared and asked the supposed favor "I would like you to know that a certain person is coming here and I would like to ask you to house her. For reference she is right now roughly as strong as you were just before the orc lord." "Okay I'll hou…." I said as that last sentence sunk in. "Wait, WHAT?! Then she is almost as strong as I am right now!" Rimaru said, sweating slimebullets. "Yes, but she is of good and calm nature. So I doubt she will cause any trouble." Rimaru let out a nonexistent sigh. "Hey great sage, can you detect her right now?" [answer yes she is currently flying towards tempest at high speed.] "How strong is she?" [answer she is actually right now stronger than you are but only in theory.]"what… what do you mean?" [answer she has skills she cannot use due to her psychical limit attempting to use them will kill her] "ah thank you great sage" [no problem. I'm here when you'll need me. Also she will be here within 20 seconds. Thought you should know.] "Okay. Theyni, I will house her but I'll have to talk to her first. While you are here there is a pile of files with botanical queries for you to sort and answer." I said "as you wish" Treyni said with a bow before disappearing along with the files. I went outside just as what I could only describe as a fairy landed on the square. Then proceeded to walk toward me. Time seemed to stop as I looked at her beautiful black wings with what looked like different colors of light, ranging from white, yellow, gold and here and there a single rose red itself on the inside of the black. Her figure was one you could only find in magazines. Her hair was long reaching halfway her back. Her hair color was ravenblack. Which was complementing the shining black of her wings. This was somehow combined by a nice curved body with slightly bigger than average breasts. Her hips were normal in shape but the clothing she wore amplified the visibility. She was wearing a stark white dress which when described began at the side of the shoulders leaving the upper shoulder bare she had what looked like flower petals as a trim. Leaving just enough cleavage to see. The legs could move freely because the lower half were 5 loose pieces. when combined, they looked like a snowdrop. Only the color was different. It began as the same stark white but halfway down the tight it first became yellow turning into orange. When it hit the knee it then slowly bled into a red and by her ankles it became deep blue with what looked like stars. When I tried to sum up how her dress looked, the best description I could give anyone was the most beautiful sunset.
