A fierce urge to claim it surged up in Gauss's chest.
He didn't know where the feeling came from, or why. He'd always thought of himself as calm. But now his heart hammered, and it felt like a voice kept prodding him to move.
"Don't rush…"
He pressed a hand to his chest and drew a long breath, forcing himself to cool down.
"Gauss, are you okay?"
Alia, who'd been watching him, thought something was wrong and asked in a hurry.
"I'm fine—no discomfort. Just… excited. It's good news."
"Oh." She nodded, half understanding. Seeing no pain on his face, she relaxed. Classic case of worry making you jumpy. Serandur, by contrast, stayed steady—one glance at Gauss, then back to scanning their surroundings. Maybe it was a healer thing; perhaps he could sense Gauss's condition and wasn't concerned.
"I saw it just now," Gauss said. "In the middle of the grove there's a pool. Floating above it is a giant egg—about a meter tall. But there are three huge treants guarding it, stronger than we can handle right now. Besides that, there's…"
He laid out everything he'd learned.
"An egg? A meter tall?" Alia held her breath. "Could it be the offspring of something… extraordinary?"
"A white egg…"
As a druid with the ability to bond companions, she was naturally sensitive to such things. "Could it be a Sacred Unicorn?" she blurted.
Sacred Unicorns were wondrous forest beings—a powerful branch of the unicorn line. Horse-like, but no meek woodland creature: noble, keen, and tremendously strong, tied to purity, the forest, and kindly divine power.
Folktales were full of them living in harmony with the wild—rabbits, wolves, foxes, fae, all serving the forest's guardian. Adventurers with good hearts might win their aid; the wicked might be driven out or struck down. Legend says when darkness falls, the gods pair a Sacred Unicorn with a righteous hero to smite evil's head.
Thinking of that, she glanced at Gauss. Could the legend be true? He… did have a bit of "hero" about him.
She shook her head. "It could be something else," she corrected herself. This place didn't feel like where a Sacred Unicorn would descend. "A neutral being? An evil one?" Plenty of candidates fit. "Could be a dragon egg?" White dragon was unlikely—they're frost dragons of the poles and high snows and hate heat—but unlikely isn't impossible. Or some drake, or a rare offshoot. Or something stranger.
"Either way, getting it won't be easy," Gauss admitted. He hadn't even figured out how to pluck such a massive egg from a crowd of monsters—never mind reaching it without being seen. Step into the grove and he'd be made.
"Agreed." Alia steadied, thought a moment, and nodded helplessly. She had no plan either. The only reason she was thinking at all was because Gauss outstripped normal Level 3s in power and tricks; otherwise she'd have turned back already.
A frontal assault was suicide. Sneaking in and palming the prize? Unrealistic. It was huge and obviously the focus of every creature there. Fire? In a mana-rich forest it would snuff itself out quickly. Lure them away? At best you'd draw a few Converts and spook the rest.
What then? Leave empty-handed… or act without a plan…
Gauss's pulse climbed; heat rose through him.
…
"Uncle Mo, still nothing?" Locke swung down from his horse. He stared at the mist-wrapped gorge, impatience in his voice. He'd taken a clarity draught that blunted the toxin, but the fog still needled the mind.
"Just a moment, Young Master," Mo Jarl replied with a respectful bow.
Behind and before them, besides the silent, stone-faced adventurers, stood a full troop of cavalry. As a whole, the all-elite (or better) party had prepped with protections and potions; swarms of banshees and undead on the Mist Trail didn't faze them. They weren't exactly on edge. They didn't expect surprises here.
A small, ornate compass appeared in Mo Jarl's hand—clearly no ordinary finder if he was drawing it now. It was a rare magical tool that sniffed out unusual mana auras in a radius—good for early warnings and treasure.
Its needle spun fast. Click—click—click.
Ten-plus seconds, and it didn't slow—faster, if anything, the dial a blur.
"Broken?" Locke glanced, then looked away. Normally it turned, stopped, and pointed. It wasn't supposed to whirl on end.
Before Mo Jarl could decide what to make of that—
A weight like a mountain pressed down from above.
Boom!
The irritating fog blasted apart. Every face turned slack.
"A monster—coming!"
They looked up. With the veil gone, sun shot through the gap. In that gold light, a titan bat drifted down.
Wingspan—nearly fifteen meters. A twisted fusion of giant bat and drake, hide a dark, green-black leather studded with warts and boils. Its head was half-bat, half-dragon, short-muzzled, jaws packed with venomous teeth. Limbs thick; the hindlegs ended in curved, razored talons that flashed cold in the light. Around its eyes swirled a roiling cloud of murky, emerald-black toxin. Each wingbeat shoved the fog away in great gusts.
"The Rotwing Dragonbat!"
A knight blurted it, shaken. You couldn't blame him. The Rotwing Dragonbat was powerful—a captain-beast of the Jade Forest's ruler, the Green Dragon Queen, and a titled vanguard: the "Wart-Tyrant."
What was it doing here?
A few wyverns garrisoning the Wyvern Roost had already been overkill for a single outpost on the forest's fringe. Now a Rotwing Dragonbat—Gods knew why—descended. The cavalry grew uneasy. Most were only Level 1–5. For common folk that's elite; to something like this, they were chaff. A few men shook. Mounts froze. Pressure saturated the air; if you couldn't bear it, your limbs just… stopped. That's what a "top-tier" does to a field.
They weren't leaderless, though. Quiet glances slid toward Mo Jarl in the center. On the white-robed man's face, of all things, flickered a look of of course.
He stared at the beast, weight heavy on his chest. Its pressure outstripped his own. But his mind was on something else. Its appearance confirmed the prophecy. He had the right trail; the legend spoken of by the archmage was on the Mist Trail. Why else would a titled vanguard of the Green Dragon Queen appear?
He turned toward Locke and bellowed: "All units—prepare for battle!"
The roar cracked through the ranks, steadying hearts; the men and mounts found their breath and grit again.
BOOM!
The Rotwing Dragonbat dipped its head at the disturbance, loosing a physically felt roar. Waves of sound and air slammed down.
…
"Rrrraah!!"
Gauss drove the clay Converts closer to the pool—only to have a pure-white Convert riding a giant treant whip out a cloud of catkin-like strikes that swatted them away. It felt less like a kill and more like a warning—keep away. As if letting a "base" Convert near that holy object of communal worship would stain it. Or—maybe the nearer you were, the clearer the pulses from it, the greater the gain; no one wanted to share the take.
Seems hierarchies don't care if it's human city or monster wood.
"Stingy," Gauss muttered.
Just as he was running out of ideas, the placid egg began to move—like a heart waking.
Vmmm—vmmm—vmmm!
Each throb sent a ring of white force racing outward. The wave swept the ground, the glow-moss, the trees, the prostrate Converts, the waiting treants—everything shook.
Rumble-rumble!
The ground trembled. The wave didn't stop, punching through the ring of black trees, past the trio's hiding place, rolling on into the forest beyond.
"Huh?"
A cool, life-bright energy washed through Gauss—spine straightening, body eased. Alia and Serandur shot surprised looks toward the hedge of black trees.
Inside, the grove was flipping on its head. Every Convert and treant—even the three colossi—flared with a frenzy sharp-edged with fear. None of them knew what the relic was doing. They only grew more devout; those already prone went flatter still.
Thoom.
While they knelt, the egg rose.
"Mmm—"
A ripple of shock ran through the monsters. In their world, this evolution-gifting relic did not move. It was unbreakable, immovable—divine. And now—it moved. The world wobbled.
It hovered, turned—and then flew for the edge. Through clay eyes, Gauss realized it was coming straight for him. Paired with that tugging call in his bones, there was no missing it.
A few breaths later, the egg hung above him, shedding a soft, reassuring glow—like meeting an old friend.
Then, without a hint of warning, it dove for him.
Gauss reflexively hopped back—too slow. The egg was faster.
"No—wait—!"
He couldn't dodge. It rammed him square in the chest—
—and something strange happened.
The Omni-Armor that should have triggered… didn't. It rippled across his skin like melt, sank into him, and vanished.
"…"
He blinked, patted his sternum—intact. He exhaled.
"It went into you!" Alia's eyes went wide.
Surprise flickered through Serandur's as well—but he was already on his feet, moving. "We need to go. They're about to riot."
He looked toward the black-tree barrier. Chaos. With the egg gone, the monsters snapped out of awe. The relic flew away. The treants parted the hedge, and the horde poured out.
The three outside had already started running.
Gauss barreled through the forest, the roar of a thousand furious voices chasing him. The Black Forest boiled. The three giant treants at the rear glowed faintly red in their sunken sockets as they pounded forward, the earth groaning under root-knit legs. Not slow, either.
They cut left, then right, again—and the sound stayed on them. They'd been marked—likely by some special means. His money was on the egg. Otherwise, why had everything been fine moments ago, and the instant the egg hid in him it was like he'd murdered their god?
"Alia, Serandur—the egg's on me; we're tagged," Gauss shot through with Message. "Head for the chocobos. Split now. We regroup at Outpost 11." With them at his heels, he couldn't open up. For short bursts, he was faster—even than a buffed Serandur.
"Gauss—!"
Before she could finish, he kicked to full speed and broke the other way. Serandur hesitated a beat. "Alia—we get out first."
He was the cooler head; seeing Gauss's burst, he guessed the plan. Gauss was locked; solo was better. A monster army like this—two elites wouldn't help; a master-tier wouldn't stand and fight. The best help was to leave—and, at the outpost, report to President Ritchie if Gauss didn't show.
"Okay."
She watched his silhouette vanish, dazed for a heartbeat, then ran hard for the mounts.
…
The thunder of pursuit clung to Gauss. He didn't hear it veer toward the others. He breathed out. He'd guessed right. "Stealing" the egg had driven them mad. Even returning it now wouldn't smooth this over.
WHAM!
He flinched aside as the ground beneath him blew apart. A boulder obliterated the spot he'd just vacated, gouging a pit.
BOOM!
Close. The giant treants pounded after him and pitched rocks like trebuchets.
He felt the egg's warmth in his chest and grimaced. Egg, you're killing me here. He'd wanted it, sure—but he wasn't that stubborn. He wasn't going to risk his life for an unknown, purpose-unknown egg. That's why he hadn't made a move—he'd used the clay Converts to probe instead. But the egg… had a mind of its own. He hadn't gone to it—it flew to him.
The noise behind grew. His thighs burned from the effort. He'd thrown just about everything short of [Ghoul Form] at it; every fiber was at one-twenty percent. Still not enough. High-tier Converts flickered into his peripheral vision, pacing him. Ahead, wisps of white danced—cutting him off. Behind: slower, stronger—treants, then giants.
"Ghoul Form?" He weighed the net drawing tight. In Ghoul Form he'd get another sharp jump in speed; he could break away—for a bit. But then? If he didn't shake them for good, they'd run him down again. He'd be spent and helpless.
Poison in a cup—but without it, the walls were closing.
He was about to trigger it when a soothing pulse rose from the egg.
Not words—but he grasped the meaning at once.
"You've got a plan?"
"Then hurry."
He pounded forward. A shadow rose ahead, "growing" out of the ground—brambled "arms" reaching to snare him.
Vmmm—
A ring of white force ripped out of him. It washed over every monster nearby.
In an instant, everything paused. Backs bowed low. If you looked hard, you saw them tremble.
An invisible will blanketed the ground.
Gauss didn't waste it—he ran. In breaths, the pursuit vanished behind him. Only when he was far off did the roars rise again—threaded with something helpless and sad, like worshipers abandoned by their god, like pups spurned by their master. They didn't chase. They stood and stared, lost.
Then the lesser treants started wrecking everything they could reach—mindless rage spilling over. Trees crashed. Dust billowed. Unlucky Converts got swatted like rags. Some treants even turned on each other.
The quiet Black Forest fell into disorder, violence, chaos.
…
Gauss didn't stop until he cleared the black woods and was sure nothing followed. He dropped to the ground and gulped air.
Thank—whatever was listening. The egg still held some sway over those it had fed, enough to freeze them. Without it…
He started stuffing food in his mouth. The sprint had left him ravenous. He chewed jerky after jerky—and still didn't feel full. He frowned and felt inward.
A moment later his brows lifted. "No way. You're still eating my mana? You thief."
He had eaten enough. Normally he'd be recovering—but something was draining him. An inner mana bandit, chewing through his pool. His [Energy Glands] had to kick in—burn food and refill mana fast.
He sighed. The egg had saved him; it wasn't heartless. Fine. Eat.
He felt it "drop the act" once he noticed—boldly sending him a thought.
"Hungry!"
"So hungry!"
"I'm so hungry!"
It felt like a wailing infant in his mind.
"Eat then. I'm not going to starve you."
He kept shoving jerky into his mouth.
"So hungry, so hungry…"
"Yeah, yeah, and I'm eating as fast as I can."
And as he chewed… a thought hit him.
Hold up. Do you think I'm your mother?!
~~~
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