Chapter 86: Outside the Totem’s Reach

Eren and Emily left at first light.

Rosa wasn’t happy about staying behind but Emily shut it down before she could argue. “You’re Level 3. The things outside the totem area would eat you before you could scream.” She said it with a half-smile that almost looked friendly.

Rosa crossed her arms. “I could scream pretty fast.”

“Stay with Selena. Practice your Elvish. Kill slimes if you get bored.” Eren handed her one of the kobold scimitars and she took it with both hands like it weighed forty pounds. It didn’t but the gesture was enough.

Fury and Rury flanked them as they moved north past the ruins and kept going. Emily set the pace and it was fast. Her katana bounced against her back with each step and her hair was tied tight in a combat knot that showed the sharp line of her jaw.

Even with the pregnancy ban in full effect and morning sickness hitting her every other day, Emily moved through the forest like she’d been born running between these trees. Her boots found roots without looking and she slipped between gaps in the branches without slowing down once.

Nine months of not touching her and she looks like that huh? This is actual torture.

“Stop staring at my back mister.” She didn’t turn around.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. I can feel it.”

He shut up and focused on the trail.

They walked for almost two hours before Eren noticed the change. The trees got bigger. The trunks were wide enough to park a car inside and the canopy was so thick that the ground lived in permanent twilight.

But the weird part was the stuff growing in that twilight.

Mushrooms the size of dinner plates glowed soft blue and green along the base of every tree. Vines with tiny flowers that pulsed with light climbed up the bark like living Christmas decorations.

The air tasted different too, thicker and sweeter, like breathing in a room where someone left a humidifier running all night.

“The energy here is much denser.” Emily said. She stopped walking and turned in a slow circle with her eyes half-closed. “The totem area feels empty compared to this.”

Eren felt it too. His mana regeneration had been steady inside the village but out here it was noticeably faster. Like the difference between phone charging with a regular cable and a fast charger.

Why is it so much richer out here? The totem area should be the strongest spot if the totem is supposed to protect the forest.

Emily was already moving again. She’d spotted something between the massive trees about sixty meters ahead and her hand went to her katana.

“What is-”

“Quiet.” Her voice dropped to the hunter whisper that meant something alive was close.

Then Eren saw it.

A deer stood in a clearing between three enormous tree trunks.

It was beautiful, tall and elegant with silver-white fur and a rack of antlers that weren’t bone but actual translucent crystal that caught the bioluminescent light from the mushrooms and scattered it into tiny rainbows across the dirt floor.

More crystals grew along the deer’s spine like someone had planted quartz along its back.

[So beautiful.] Rury’s voice was barely a whisper in his head. She’d frozen mid-step with her eyes locked on the creature. [Can I eat it and ride it?]

[It’s looking at us and its crystals are glowing brighter.] Fury was crouched low beside Eren.

The deer’s head snapped toward them and the crystals along its spine flared white.

“Down!” Emily grabbed Eren’s collar and yanked him sideways.

Three crystal shards shot through the space where his chest had been a second ago. They hit the tree behind him and punched two inches deep into the bark like bullets.

It shoots?

He rolled to his feet and drew both scimitars.

“Crystal Deer. They use them as projectiles as you already experienced.” Emily already had her katana out and was circling right. “The antlers regrow fast but the spine crystals take a lot of time with stronger and faster versions.”

Eren talked after he saw the main point. “So it has limited ammunition and we need to make it waste shots while evading everything.”

“Avoid the spine crystals at all costs. They are really dangerous if my father didn’t lie.”

This time Eren stopped looking at the alien deer and demanded some answers. He was hearing about the step father Henner in the topic of combat.

But Emily ignored him.

There are some things she didn’t tell me before…

Eren gave up and sprinted left to split the deer’s attention. It tracked him and the spine ridge flared again. He dove behind a root cluster and two more crystal shards shattered against the wood.

Emily came in from the blind side. Her katana caught the deer across its rear flank and the creature screamed which sounded like breaking glass. It spun and fired three more shards at her but she was already gone.

Fury hit it from behind. His jaws closed on the deer’s back leg and he dragged it down for just a second before the creature kicked free with a strength that sent the wolf sliding across the mossy ground.

Rury came in right after and went for the throat. The deer thrashed and one of its crystal antlers caught Rury across the shoulder but she held on.

Eren closed the distance and drove both scimitars into the deer’s ribcage. It shuddered once and collapsed.

[You gained 50% energy of Crystal Deer (Level 24)]

He knelt beside the body and looked at the crystal ridge along its spine. Most of the crystals had been fired but two remained near the tail. He reached out and snapped one free.

It was warm with mana, not body heat but that deeper energy warmth that pulsed gently in his palm like a tiny heartbeat.

“Pure mana crystal.” Emily said. She was already collecting the fired shards from the trees. “These grow naturally here but only a little bit mana they have.”

So outside the totem’s area there are creatures walking around with pure mana crystals growing on their backs. But inside we could barely find a single mana stone in the dungeon even as a reward. How does that make sense?

[Tasty…] Rury was licking the scratch on her shoulder but she sounded satisfied after licking the now dead deer.

[You got hit and it was dangerous.] Fury pointed out.

[Only a scratch. A warrior’s badge!] She puffed up and then immediately winced because puffing up pulled the scratch.

Emily watched Rury with the ghost of a smile. “If she sees another crystal deer I won’t be able to hold her.”

..

They found a very weird place similar to an outpost two hours later.

It was between two of the largest trees Eren had seen yet with walls made of fitted stone and dark timber.

The whole structure was covered in moss and vine growth so thick that from a distance it looked like just another hill but the doorway was still clear with arched stone and carved symbols along the frame that had mostly worn away over time.

“Elf construction.” Emily said quietly. She ran her fingers along the stone. “Very old. Maybe hundreds of years like the other one we found day before you went to your world.”

This was much bigger than that one, but Eren could see similarities.

Inside was a single large room with a collapsed wooden table and shelves that had rotted into piles of brown mush. Rusted metal shapes on the floor that might have been weapons once. And against the far wall three stone tablets covered in carved text.

Emily moved to the tablets and crouched down. Her fingers traced the lines of text slowly.

She squinted and moved her lips silently for a long time. “Stay away from the forest heart. As the heart grows, those who stay shrink.” She looked at Eren. “Or it could be ’become less.’ The word is the same.”

Forest heart. Heart grows. Those who stay become less. What the hell does that mean for the village?

“What else?”

Emily moved to the second tablet. This one had images carved alongside the text. Circles within circles spreading outward from a central point with lines radiating from the center downward like roots.

“This is a map,” Emily said. Her voice changed and he knew she’d figured something out because she got quieter when things became serious instead of louder. “These circles are root paths. This map shows what’s under the area. Or what they believed there is under us. We don’t have to believe every scrap or weird thing from this ruins.”

Eren looked at it. The central point on top was small but the circles spreading outward underneath were massive and the outermost ring extended far beyond any reasonable size for a village totem.

Supposedly, the totem is just the tip. And whatever is underneath is enormous.

“My mother used to come this areas as much as I remember correctly.” Emily stood up and her hands were fisted at her sides. She wasn’t looking at Eren.

Eren asked again that question he did many times before. “How did she die?”

“She died near the totem. They always said it was a normal passing away in a peaceful moment..

..but I never believed them.” Her face didn’t show much pain about her mother. She hated the woman while they were together. And now, nothing changed from the past.

Eren didn’t say anything. He put his hand on her shoulder and she let him keep it there for about five seconds before pulling away and walking back outside. She needed space for this and he understood that.

The walk back was quiet.

Eren carried the collected crystal shards the deer made and some others around the area that other deers left behind probably.

Put them all in his pack and his mind kept circling back to that root map. A massive organism hiding underground with the totem as just its visible tip. The rich energy outside the totem area and the emptiness inside. The warning carved into stone by elves who lived here hundreds of years ago and left.

They knew. The old elves figured it out and they got out. But the village stayed.

Fury stopped walking about twenty minutes from the village border.

His ears went flat and his nose pointed toward the ground, then toward the trees, then back toward the direction they’d come from.

[That tree’s smell is everywhere.] His voice was careful in Eren’s head. [This outpost we visited. The ground. Even the crystal deer. Everything smells like the totem.]

Emily turned around. “What did he say?”

“He says everything out there smells like the totem tree.”

Emily stared at Fury, then looked back the way they’d come, then at the village ahead where the totem’s small branches were barely visible above the treeline.

“What is going on?” she said.

Eren didn’t have an answer and neither did anyone else.

That night Eren sat on the porch cleaning crystal shards while Emily slept inside. Rosa was curled up on her spot in the living room. The wolves were on patrol.

He held one of the mana crystals up to the moonlight and watched it pulse.

The warning inscription. The root map. Fury’s report. His grandmother’s old stories about his grandpa and how trees that walked, talked and bled. Every piece pointed to the same thing and he still didn’t know what to do about it.

He put the crystal down and looked toward the center of the village. He couldn’t see it but if he looked at the totem, it would be cute and innocent looking like always.

Yeah. I’m not buying that anymore.

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