The trees in the Night Shed Forest made zero sense.
By the time Sam dragged his battered body up the thick vine, his lungs were on fire. The branches alone were as wide as a two-lane road. They finally reached a massive fork about sixty feet in the air. It was a natural, flat platform hidden completely under the glowing canopy.
Sam collapsed onto the rough bark. He couldn't breathe. He gathered a few giant fallen leaves and pushed them into a pathetic pile to soften the hard wood.
'Look at me,' Sam thought, letting out a dry, exhausted laugh. 'A giant, pathetic bird making a nest.'
He lay down on his makeshift bed, staring up at the glowing leaves.
Beside him stood the Sovereign of the Silver Veil. Or, as Sam decided to call her in his head, Lumi.
She did not look like a Sovereign right now. Her fancy blue silk dress was stained with mud and snagged on thorns. Her platinum hair was a tangled mess. But she still managed to look down at him with pure annoyance.
"This is unacceptable," Lumi said, her voice cold. "I am done with this joke. Send me back to my domain right now, mortal."
Sam rubbed his forehead. A headache pounded behind his eyes. "I just learned magic was real yesterday. How do I send you back? Is there a return button I missed?"
She crossed her arms, her single glowing amber eye narrowing. "Figure it out. Reverse the pact. I will not spend another second in this dirt."
She was really getting on his nerves.
"System," Sam muttered. "How do I send a summon back?"
[Ding!]
A blue screen popped up right over his face, lighting up the dark branch.
[Query Acknowledged.]
[Answer: Standard entities summoned via the Celestial Gacha can be dismissed at will. However, the entity 'Lumielle' is classified as a Celestial Angel. Her forced entry into the restricted DreamScape domain caused a catastrophic collapse of her original authority. Her rank has been forcibly reduced to the mortal baseline (Bronze Rank).]
[Condition: To return to her original domain, the entity must cultivate her power back to its original threshold. Dismissal is currently impossible.]
Sam stared at the blue text.
'So she can't go back until she gets her power back?' he thought. 'And she's at the absolute bottom right now. We're both stuck.'
"Well?" Lumi tapped her foot. "What did your oracle say?"
Sam sat up. He gave her a look of pure pity. "It says... you're stuck."
Lumi froze. "Excuse me?"
"Because you came into this mana-less nightmare, you lost your power," Sam said slowly, waiting for the explosion. "You're a mortal now. The System says you can't go back until you get all your strength back."
All the color drained from her face. Her royal posture crumbled.
"No..." she whispered. "Decades. I spent decades refining my power... and now... I am a mortal?"
She looked at her shaking hands. She wasn't a god anymore. She was just a girl in a dirty dress.
Sam didn't say anything. He watched her sink to her knees on the hard wood. He felt bad, he really did, but he was too tired to care. He closed his eyes and passed out instantly.
The next morning, the glowing light of the forest got a little brighter.
Sam woke up shivering. The damp air cut right through his torn jacket. He blinked, trying to move his right arm. He couldn't.
He looked down and almost choked.
Lumi was clinging to him like a lifeline. Sometime in the freezing night, the untouchable Sovereign had crawled over to steal his body heat. Her arms were wrapped tight around his chest. Her face was buried in his neck. She was softly snoring.
Sam lay perfectly still. His heart hammered against his ribs.
'Well,' Sam thought, a slow smirk creeping up his face. 'So much for hating my filthy mortal guts.'
He moved like a bomb expert, carefully peeling her arms off him. She mumbled something and rolled over, hugging a pile of leaves instead.
Sam stood up and stretched his sore muscles. He crawled to the edge and looked down. No chattering slimes. No bone monsters. Just quiet.
His stomach let out a loud, painful rumble. He needed food, and he had zero SP to buy it.
He climbed down the thick vine, his boots hitting the moss without a sound. He stuck close to the massive trunks, keeping an eye on the shadows. He found a cluster of strange trees nearby and Climb up the first one, reaching for a glowing purple fruit.
[Ding!]
[Item: Nightshade Plum]
[Description: Highly poisonous. Consumption will result in internal liquefaction within three minutes.]
"Nope," Sam muttered. He scrambled down the trunk like the bark was on fire.
He checked the next tree, and the next, until he found some lumpy, ugly brown berries that looked like dried mud.
[Ding!]
[Item: Bitterroot Berry]
[Description: Edible. Tastes like disappointment, but provides baseline nutritional sustainability.]
"Disappointment it is," Sam sighed. At least they wouldn't melt his organs.
He started shoving handfuls of the ugly berries into his pockets.
[Notice: The Host may utilize the System Inventory to store non-living items. Would you like to store the Bitterroot Berries?]
Sam stopped. "You have an inventory? Why didn't you say that yesterday?!"
[The Host did not ask...]
Sam gritted his teeth. He mentally dragged the berries into the invisible storage. It worked perfectly. He gathered a big pile and headed back.
When he climbed back up to the giant branch, Lumi was awake.
She sat with her legs crossed and her back straight. Even covered in dirt, she looked like a queen waiting for a servant.
Sam sat across from her. He opened his hand and let a pile of ugly brown berries fall onto the bark between them.
Lumi stared at the pile. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "What is that?"
"Breakfast," Sam said. He popped one in his mouth and chewed. It was insanely bitter. It tasted like dirt and old coffee, but it was food. "Bitterroot Berries. They taste awful, but they'll keep us alive."
"I refuse," Lumi said, turning her head away. "I do not eat dirt."
"Suit yourself," Sam shrugged. He kept eating.
A few minutes passed. Sam chewed. Lumi stared at the trees.
*Grrrrr...*
Her stomach let out a loud, angry growl. Lumi stiffened. She threw a quick glance at the berries, then looked away when Sam looked up. A minute later, she did it again.
Finally, she couldn't take it. She slowly reached her hand out.
Sam stopped chewing. He looked at her hand, then at her red face. He felt a wave of amusement. "What do you want, Lumi?"
Her face turned bright red. She pulled her hand back into a fist. "Give me that disgusting thing," she hissed.
Sam laughed. He dropped a handful of berries into her hand before she could explode. She glared at him, then put a berry in her mouth. Her face scrunched up at the bitter taste, but she forced herself to swallow it down. Hunger always won.
Sam wiped his mouth. "Alright," he said, picking up his remaining wooden spear. "That was just a snack. If we want real food, we have to hunt."
Lumi crossed her arms. "Fine. Go hunt, mortal. Bring me something suitable by noon."
Sam stared at her for a few seconds..."System," he whispered. "Who summoned who?"
[Host is the Summoner. Entity 'Lumielle' is the Summon.]
Sam sighed. He looked back at Lumi. "Listen to me. I'm not giving you anything if you don't help. You saw my aim yesterday. It sucks. I need to kill things to get points to buy real food. Or do you want to eat dirt berries for a month?"
Lumi looked at the brown stains on her hands. The thought of eating that garbage again broke her pride.
"Fine," she sighed. "I will help you, since your throwing skills are pathetic."
They climbed down and moved quietly through the glowing bushes. Sam found heavy paw prints in the mud. They followed them to a small stream.
Below them was a massive wolf. It was the size of a car. Its fur looked like sharp, rusty wire.
Sam swallowed hard. He gripped the wooden stick and pulled his arm back.
Lumi stepped up right behind him. She moved without a sound. The faint smell of flowers hit his nose. She put her soft hand over his, fixing his grip. She moved his elbow.
"Breathe," she whispered in his ear. A weird shiver ran down his spine. "Don't force it. Let your intent guide the throw."
*Thwack!*
With her speed and force behind him, the spear shot forward like a bullet.
It hit, but the wolf jerked at the last second. The stick buried itself in the monster's back leg instead of its chest. The wolf screamed, stumbling into the water. It didn't turn to fight. It scrambled up the bank and tried to run.
"It's getting away!" Sam hissed.
"Focus!" Lumi ordered.
Sam pulled out his second spear. Lumi stepped into his space again, holding his arm. Even while the beast was running through the trees, her amber eye tracked it perfectly. She adjusted for the speed.
"Now!"
They pushed forward together. The spear flew in a perfect arc.
*CRUNCH!*
The wood smashed right into the side of the wolf's head, piercing its skull. The massive beast crashed into the dirt and stopped moving.
[Ding!]
[Monster Defeated: Iron-Bristle Wolf]
[Reward: 25 SP]
Sam pumped his fist. "Yes! Twenty-five SP!"
But his cheering didn't last.
Two more massive wolves stepped out of the bushes. Their eyes glowed red. They smelled the blood. They locked their eyes right on Sam and Lumi.
"Climb!" Sam yelled.
They scrambled up the nearest giant tree. They pulled themselves onto a branch just as the two wolves slammed into the trunk, snapping their jaws at the bark.
Sam didn't panic. He was getting used to this. He started breaking thin branches off the tree. He used his rock to sharpen them as fast as he could.
"Alright, Lumi," Sam breathed heavily. He lined up the new spears on the edge of the branch. He looked down at the snarling monsters, then back at his summon. A fierce grin spread across his face. "Let's get rich."
For the next hour, the forest echoed with snapping wood and dying monsters. With Lumi aiming and Sam providing the ammo, they rained death from above.
When the last wolf dropped dead and turned into blue light, Sam slumped against the trunk. He was exhausted but smiling.
He opened the System Shop. He scrolled past the water and cheap bread.
"System," Sam grinned. "Buy the hot roasted chicken."
A second later, a steaming, perfectly roasted chicken on a silver plate appeared on the branch. The rich smell of real meat filled the air.
Lumi stared at the food. Her amber eye was wide. For once, she didn't complain about the dirt or his manners. She just looked at him, and a genuine, beautiful smile touched her lips.
'Maybe,' Sam thought, tearing off a warm piece of meat, 'she's not so useless after all.'