Chapter 469: More News from Beyond
“We’re a travelling clan of wandering village-bearing beasts,” said the mayor of our current town. “We happened upon this battle while we were travelling, and our ember veered towards the battlefield of its own accord. After that, as you can see, we joined the battle against… whatever these things were.”
The man looked at our entire village, and for a moment, I had the strange feeling that no matter where the man’s eyes settled, they were firmly locked onto me.
<Did he notice something? I feel like he’s staring at me,> I said.
<I also get that feeling,> said Sallia. <I can’t detect any essence fluctuations, though. I can’t figure out why it feels like he’s staring at me so intently.>
<Do you think he noticed our connection to the Market?> asked Felix. His words sent icy tendrils drilling through my veins. <The Market has been destroyed for a very long time, so normally I would think nobody would still be on the lookout for transmigrators… but I have heard that levels can extend lifespan in this world to some extent. He’s obviously very powerful. If he survived since the destruction of the Market, he might have some way of recognizing that we come from outside of this dimensional cluster. He might even have witnessed the excesses of the crazier members of the Market, such as the ones who would bring worlds to extinction in order to farm more Achievement.>
I shivered at the thought. If someone had somehow lived long enough to witness the actions of the crazier members of the Market and associated us with them, we might die without even getting a chance to object to our treatment. That would mean the end of our time in this world - and perhaps an end to our chances of surviving the fight for more lives.
The next words spoken by the man surprised me.
“Has anyone in your clan been in contact with any strange plants recently, especially vines or other forms of vegetation? If they are hard to remove, please let me know.”
The mayor of one of the six towns froze.
“Yes, two of our warriors had a rather annoying time dealing with some vines that crept into their house while they were fighting on the front lines last time we stopped. They lit the vines on fire with the help of a few [Fire Mage] friends of theirs, but the vines didn’t die even when they set them on fire. We tried blasting the vines with a few other kinds of magic, feats, and other ways to get rid of them, but nothing worked. Eventually, we decided it must be some kind of really durable, difficult to detect monster that does not react to its environment. We used some magic assistance to uproot the house from the back of our village-bearing-beast, and then hurled the house off of the beast as we moved.”
The man’s face grew grim. “I see. Did anyone else notice similar vines?”
The other mayors shook their heads, while I tried to remember any encounters with unusual vines. I had noticed that the rocs we had fought also had rather unusual vine tendrils attached to their bodies. A new suspicion began to sprout in my mind…
“Would those warriors please step forward?” asked the extraplanar warrior. “Those vines are a rather unusual type of parasitical monster. They can burrow into your body and eventually seize control of your actions, much like a @#$()@# controlling a @#(&*$ . Wait, do you have @#$()@# in this tundra? If not… just understand that the vines are hostile monsters that lurk within your flesh. If you let them grow for long enough, they will take control of your actions.” The man paused again, before he shook his head. “They’re quite dangerous.”
Several warriors shuddered in horror, before they came forward and allowed the man to inspect them more closely. A moment later, a surge of essence radiated out from the extraplanar warrior’s body, before he cleaved off one of our warrior’s legs.
I heard a few gasps of horror from our surroundings. Before I could react, I saw green growths squirm out of the severed leg, almost as if a snake had been residing inside of our warrior’s leg without him noticing. The extraplanar warrior swung his sword again, and the leg collapsed into a burnt charcoal a moment later.
“Dealt with.” The extraplanar warrior glanced at the rest of the warriors standing in line, before he relaxed. “I don’t see any other parasitic vines. If you see them in the future, you should try to use electricity against them - it’s the best way to handle these things. Overwhelming force also works, of course.” Then, he waved his hand, and I saw our warrior’s leg start to regrow. Within a few seconds, the bone, flesh, and tendons that he had destroyed returned to our warrior’s leg. The extraplanar warrior sighed. “Apart from that, be careful. On to more important matters - does your village have any warriors with grade 6 or above skills, or level 121 or higher?”
I froze. Hadn’t the original man we had encountered also asked about this question, before he had given up and left due to our low power and population count? At the time, it had sounded like the first extraplanar warrior we met was looking for recruits, but gave up due to how low our overall population was. Would this man give up, just like the previous extraplanar warrior?
I saw our mayor, as well as a few other adults, raise their hands under the cold eyes of the extraplanar warrior. His cold eyes bored into the people of our clan for a few more moments, before he sighed.
“Normally, I would avoid recruiting from a clan as small as yours. We don’t have the choice anymore. The enemy has had a few too many successes recently, and things are slipping past us. While people who are only Tier 6 or Tier 7 in a skill can’t help on the main battlefield, most of the powerful combatants on weaker battlefields have been pulled to the more important fronts. If we don’t recruit everyone we can, then perhaps this entire plane will fall soon.”
I frowned. The man’s words contained a lot of information.
First of all, it was evident that our dimensional cluster’s war against a multiverse-level civilization was not going well. That wasn’t good news for us. In this life, the four of us weren’t hoping to accomplish anything outstanding, nor were we hoping to get the kind of Achievement we could acquire from saving a civilization. We had been hoping to lean into Felix’s crafting and prop up his efforts.
Unfortunately, it was starting to look like we might not have a choice. If a multiverse-level civilization was attacking our plane, we had no real way to flee. None of us had a good way to enter or exit dimensions under our own power, and we had zero connections that would make other people help us if we needed to escape. If this world was on the verge of destruction due to a multiverse-level threat, we would need to fight back or die.
“Are things truly that desperate on the front lines?” asked the mayor of our town.
The man rubbed his forehead, and then nodded.
“A month ago, a great tree root invaded one of the greater planes. Nearly a tenth of that plane has already been consumed, and the warriors protecting the root are both stronger and more numerous than we can handle.”
I frowned. A root attacking a world was quite interesting. Tree roots being mentioned made me think of a multiverse-level civilization that the four of us were already aware of - the Universal tree. We had encountered information about the Universal Tree multiple times while in the Market, and we were holding on to a splinter of its wood for crafting purposes via Felix right now.
Our mayor’s eyes widened, and his complexion became ashen as he heard the man’s words. “That is not the news I hoped to hear,” he said.
“That’s not the news I wish I had to share, either.”
“Our clan has a few people with Tier 6 and Tier 7 skills, but not many. We’ll bring a list of those who have combat-related skills after we tally our losses from this battle.”
The man hesitated, then sighed. “Very well.” He pointed at our Ember, and our idiotic and foolish ember finally stopped charging towards the other, half-dead Ember in the distance. It slowed down, until finally, it stopped.
“I’ll make your Ember stop moving for now. I’ll return in four hours.”
With that, the man disappeared, leaving the clan with only the heavy news the man had left behind.