The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

Something kept getting caught on my feet. The clanging sound was a soda can, and what was being stepped on softly was a clump of dust. The inside of the apartment was more of a sewer than its outward appearance.

It didn’t look like anyone had been in or out recently. Footprints, hair, fingerprints… when a person moves around, traces are inevitably left behind. None of those things were visible.

Usually, places like this become the hideouts of gangs or thugs, but it meant that even they didn’t come in or out. Well, they were people too. They would want a place that was easy to use and run away from, with few outsiders and a good atmosphere, not a property that needed to be cleaned from the start.

‘Should I see it as them taking advantage of that blind spot?’

If the only goal was to hide, it was a perfect place. Even the poor people of District 7 would avoid it, so who would think that someone lived in a place like this?

Thinking that, I went up the stairs that seemed about to collapse. After a while, a reaction came.

「The World Tree feels a familiar signal.」

I arrived at a place, using the wriggling stem of the World Tree on the wall as a landmark. The door, with its hinges fallen off, swayed with a metallic scraping sound on the floor. It was open as if to welcome anyone, but the pitch-black darkness beyond the entrance blocked people’s access.

I entered without hesitation. The World Tree, which had been trembling in fear, had entered first, so it must be a safe place.

Was it a space used as a kind of warehouse? The location next to the emergency exit, and the silhouette full of shelves reflected in my dark-adapted vision.

“Beta, what’s the power supply status of this building?”

[Officially, it’s a district where the power supply has been cut off.]

“So unofficially, it’s being supplied.”

Stealing electricity was something even gangs did when they were bored, so it wasn’t surprising. On the contrary, the possibility that a Greenwood member was residing here had greatly increased.

“Turn on the lights.”

The fluorescent lights in the room turned on at the same time as a dull noise echoed. There was another door inside the packed shelves. The sound came from there.

“……”

Did I wait for about a minute? I thought someone would come out, but there was no news. I had no choice but to go myself.

“Ugeugeuk!”

“……?”

The revealed scene was shocking. Under the desk connected to several monitors. A person was dying.

“Lucien?”

It was the Greenwood member I was looking for.

***

Lucien Beauport. According to the personal information I had received, he was a man of average build, although he was a bit short. His hair was shaggy, and he had a gloomy impression, but he still looked like a person.

“Heueo.”

But the Lucien I met in person did not look like a person. It wasn’t a bad word, but his appearance was just that, to put it plainly.

His hair had grown shaggy and covered his face, and his clothes were so worn out that they were comparable to a rag. His limbs were so gaunt that I thought he was a corpse revived by a black mage.

“Heueu, I’m saved. I’m saved.”

Lucien, who had devoured the emergency food I was carrying, said. It was more of a mumble than a statement. The volume was so low that I would have been unsure if he had spoken at all if I hadn’t been listening closely.

“Your name is Lucien Beauport, right?”

“Hup, yes, yes.”

I asked just in case. I thought I had spoken in a kind voice, but Lucien was so startled that he choked and patted his chest.

This was another unique type of person. Following Elliot and Katarina, now Lucien. Did Greenwood deliberately gather only unusual people? Or did such people gather in Greenwood? It was a mystery.

“Uh, but how do you know my name?”

“How do you think I know?”

“That, uh, well…”

I grinned and teased him lightly. Lucien’s answer was a masterpiece.

“Are you from the Public Security Bureau?”

“……?”

“Or the Viper Legion? Phantom Code? Biker Nomad?”

Except for the Public Security Bureau, they were all the names of famous criminal organizations. In that sense, to infer, the Public Security Bureau would also mean someone who had come to catch him, so it was not a good meaning.

He looked like he couldn’t even kill an ant, so why were the names he brought up all like that? As I glared at him with narrowed eyes, Lucien let out a hissing sound.

He wasn’t a sunfish, but I wondered if he would die of a heart attack at this rate. I revealed the answer without dragging it out.

“It’s Greenwood.”

“Oh, Greenwood? You’re a rookie? I haven’t seen your face before.”

As soon as he heard the name Greenwood, Lucien’s atmosphere brightened. His bent back straightened, and he dropped the honorifics. Yes, he had become arrogant.

This also made me feel bad, so I immediately added.

“I’m not a member of Greenwood. I came here after being introduced by Katarina.”

“Ah, I see. Ahem, ahem.”

He coughed repeatedly, as if embarrassed. He quickly became sullen again, but having experienced his brief moment of arrogance, this was much better.

“What the hell happened to Greenwood that you’re hiding in a garbage dump like this?”

That’s enough of the small talk. Now it was time to clear up my questions.

‘It’s not like Greenwood is a group without money.’

An elf princess. The wealth of the head of Greenwood could be guessed just by the villa in District 2 where Elliot had resided.

When they put out a request at the contractor’s office, they always paid the request fee faithfully. Katarina, a member of the organization, was even from a noble family in Brahms.

It was clearly strange that Lucien, a fellow member, was living in a haunted house like this.

‘Is it related to the sudden stop of Greenwood’s activities?’

The news of the elf princess had been cut off, and the circumstances that he had to hide in a place like this. Considering the names of the organizations that Lucien had blurted out…

“A garbage dump. It’s my house. You’re being harsh… sir.”

The imagination that had been branching out was reduced to a delusion by Lucien’s answer. He was so upset that his voice had grown by a tiny bit.

At the end, he had shrunk back again.

“Your house?”

“Yes.”

It was a sharp answer.

“There are no people, there’s electricity, no one is chasing me, I don’t have to clean, I don’t have to pay rent… it’s a good property, isn’t it?”

Dozens of rebuttals came to mind, but I just swallowed them. He must be saying it with all his heart.

Was he suffering from a disease like anthropophobia? Katarina was also a very unique person, but Lucien was even more so.

“Okay, let’s say that’s the house. Is it also not a big deal that you were about to die?”

“Ah, that’s…”

“Why did you stop talking?”

Lucien seemed to be glancing at me, and then he suddenly became wary.

“You said you were introduced by Katarina, but what’s your business? You’re asking too many questions, it’s suspicious.”

“You’re asking that now?”

“No, well, you suddenly started talking to me, so I was flustered…”

I hadn’t received a token from Katarina like Elliot had. It wasn’t necessary.

“I’m the druid you guys were looking for. This should be enough proof, right?”

“Ah! You can’t do that!”

The World Tree took out a box from the corner of the shelf. I stopped Lucien, who was frantically reaching out, and took out the contents.

「The spirit’s cocoon is stimulated by the World Tree and hatches!」

As the spirit’s cocoon hatched, a warm breeze swept through the room. Although it was just a moss colony, the plants sprouted, and the halo of the spirit danced.

“Wow.”

Witnessing that scene head-on, he could not doubt my identity.

“A real druid.”

Lucien, who had been muttering blankly, was startled and flustered.

“A, a druid? Uh, I have to contact the princess, no, come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in touch. What, what should I do first…”

“Calm down and just answer my questions one by one, will you?”

If I didn’t organize the traffic here, it seemed that a proper conversation would not be possible. As if he had admitted it himself, Lucien abandoned his ego and answered my questions obediently.

***

“You’re here?”

When I returned home, Sage came out to the entrance to greet me. It was a different feeling, so I couldn’t go inside right away and flinched.

Until now, I had only seen Bell or Beta’s face when I went to the living room. It was a strange feeling to have someone greet me at the entrance.

“Did things go well?”

“So-so.”

If I were to give myself a score, it would be a passing grade. I had figured out the internal situation of the Brotherhood, and I had also resolved my questions through a conversation with Lucien.

I had achieved all my goals.

“It’s going to be noisy for a while. The commotion of the Brotherhood doesn’t seem to be ending in a day or two.”

But in reality, nothing had been resolved. The dispute between Shadowfang and the Blood Alliance was all I had received as a request, and I had to wait for the next contact to see how to resolve it.

As for Lucien’s case, his storytelling was so disastrous that it needed time to be organized.

“You don’t have to worry. I’ll protect this place.”

Sage had already proven her capabilities in Brahms. She was a talent I could trust and leave things to.

“……”

Bell’s gloomy expression caught my eye, but I ignored it. How much could Sage push him around?

In the first place, Bell was being treated like a slave by me because of his own fault. It was a welcome thing if he started working more diligently, not something I should feel guilty about.

“Rest.”

It was late. I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of the door closing, and organized my thoughts. It was the content of my conversation with Lucien.

‘In the end, Lucien didn’t know for sure why the elf princess had disappeared.’

It was just as Katarina had said. But it wasn’t a wasted trip, and fortunately, I was able to get some information from Lucien that I could guess from.

‘It’s certain that Lucien was the last member to contact the elf princess in terms of timing.’

Lucien was a hacker. His pale skin, the multiple monitors set up on his desk, and his tendency to avoid people.

It all stemmed from his profession. He was a very talented person, contrary to his appearance of being unable to speak properly and being intimidated.

He had even managed to steal information from the city government’s database. The disk that Elliot had delivered to me was Lucien’s work.

The very disk that had been encrypted and entrusted to Beta.

‘He said he was caught by the person in charge of the city government’s database during the operation.’

That was the reason the disk was encrypted. Fortunately, he had succeeded in getting the information out, but he said his tail had been stepped on.

The elf princess had taken the disk, saying that she would take care of it, when he was about to dispose of it. However, Lucien, who was naturally timid, could not be reassured by that and had been living in seclusion, trembling.

That in itself was not a problem. It seemed that Greenwood had originally used Lucien’s residence as a place to store the spirit’s cocoons.

Since Lucien rarely went out and there was no one coming in or out of the building, it was a perfect place to store important items. Lucien guarded his home, and a Greenwood member would stop by once in a while to supply him with daily necessities, so it was a contract that was beneficial to both of them.

But Greenwood had suddenly stopped its activities. And Lucien had not moved a single step from the building, afraid that the city government would chase him.

That was the reason he had become so thin that he was on the verge of death.

‘If the city government had chased the culprit, it’s understandable that Greenwood’s activities had stopped.’

An elf, the last remaining royal bloodline of the pointy-eared nobles. The city government would not have been able to easily hold them responsible.

However, the elf side would have felt self-conscious about just washing their hands of it. They couldn’t just let it go that they had used a private organization to steal information from the city government.

Perhaps they had been put on probation or something.

‘It’s just a guess.’

It was something I couldn’t know unless I met them in person.

‘In the end, is the answer to solve the request of the Blood Alliance?’

Not only for the security of my residence, but also because I would be able to obtain a status to legally contact the elf princess through it. I calmly waited for a contact.