“.……”


  Looking at the message left several centuries behind by his ancestor on the crown of the ancient treant, Roel found himself utterly bewildered. He reached out to touch the carvings, which shimmered a faint, dark golden luminescence from time to time, as he pondered over the significance of this message.

  Do not trust the Ackermanns…… What does he mean by this?

  Naturally, Roel knew who the Ackermanns were—how could he possibly not know the imperial family of the Austine Empire? But the message to not trust the Ackermanns was extremely perplexing as it meant that the Ascart House, at least in Ro’s generation, was in contact with the Ackermanns.

  This was rather inconceivable since the Ascart Fiefdom was geographically distant from the Austine Empire, and Ro should have barely reached maturity when he left these words behind. It was a little hard to believe that a young adult of a foreign noble house would be able to come into contact with Austine’s imperial family.

  From the fact that Ro was able to find Karon Forest from tracing Winstor’s trails, it should be safe to say that he was a meticulous person. It didn’t seem likely that a meticulous person would make a hasty judgment and even go to the extent of leaving a warning behind for the later generations without concrete evidence. If so, the most likely possibility should be……

  “Is it from a snippet of history?” murmured Roel as his eyes turned sharp.

  He could make guesses on what Ro had managed to uncover, but there were too few clues at the moment to form a complete picture. In any case, it was good that he had received a lead from his ancestors to know where he should work on next.

  Roel leaped his way back down to the ground and took some time to organize his thoughts. He hadn’t met anyone from the Ackermanns yet thus far, but he knew that their paths would soon intersect at the academy. Meanwhile, Kayde continued gulping down the other vats of alcohol when a thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.

  “Speaking of which, are you related to the girl who came by a while back?”


  “Huh? What girl?”


  Roel raised his head and asked. The treant received his answer from the confused look on his face and nodded contemplatively.

  “I see. It seems like she isn’t your companion.”


  “May I ask what happened?”


  “It was around a month ago……”


  A month ago, on a crescent moon night, a girl dressed in full armor arrived at the Karon Forest. Kayde initially thought nothing of the matter, but to his astonishment, the other party managed to track down his whereabouts and soon stood before his presence.

  Clearly, the girl had visited the Karon Forest with a goal in mind—Kayde. Before the ancient treant could say anything, the other party had already conveyed her message in a clear and concise manner.

  ‘Be careful, they might have already found this place.’


  Leaving this message behind, she turned around and left before Kayde could even snap out of his daze.

  “She’s likely to be a descendant of an ex-member of the Assembly, or else she wouldn’t have been able to find me easily. I’m also not too sure who ‘they’ referred to. The Assembly has simply made far too many enemies over the course of its history,” said Kayde helplessly.

  A deep frown formed on Roel’s face. The knowledge that the descendants of the Assembly’s members were still around and active was relieving, but he was more concerned about the enemies that had been mentioned, as well as the safety of the ancient treant before him.

  “Kayde, what do you intend to do then? You don’t seem to have made any move over the past month.”


  “You’re right, but I’m stumped here. I’d only become more conspicuous once I’m out of the forest,” sighed Kayde.

  At least he wouldn’t appear too out-of-place amidst the other trees in the depths of the forest, but once he left the mountain valley, he would immediately stick out like a sore thumb. He could also try to head over to the neighboring Land of Chaos too, but the soil over there wasn’t suited for his subsistence. He wouldn’t be able to last long there.

  With nowhere to escape, he could only try to reinforce his current position, which was why he reached out to the other demonic creatures in the valley and organized them over the past month. That was also the reason why he was able to swiftly rally an army together when Roel walked in earlier.

  He was frustrated about his current predicament, but there was nothing much he could do here. On the other hand, a glint flashed across Roel’s eyes when he heard about the quandary the ancient treant was in.

  Indeed, an ancient treant like Kayde would be exposed as soon as he walks out of the Karon Forest…… but what if a human were to ship him out instead?

  A tree walking on its own accord was a sight to behold, but a human shipping a tree off wouldn’t be anything to make a fuss over……

  The southern mountainous area of the Ascart Fiefdom has nothing but trees. If I could migrate Kayde and his army over there, wouldn’t the military prowess of the Ascart Fiefdom rise by another notch?

  “Kayde, if you trust me, what do you think about moving to my fiefdom?”


  Roel took some time to carefully contemplate the matter, and he eventually concluded that it was something that could be feasibly pulled off. So, he voiced his idea to Kayde, but the latter appeared a little hesitant.

  “But what about the cursed werewolves……”


  “As long as you’re able to keep them in line, we can move them over too. The same goes for the demonic creatures too.”


  “Still, the risks would be……”


  “Five vats of Conti wine every day!”


  “That’s a treerific idea! When are we setting off?”


  “.……”


  The sudden change in attitude by the ancient treant left Roel a little speechless. He blinked his eyes blankly for a moment before gesturing for Cynthia and the others to come over and meet Kayde. Of course, the most important person that Kayde had to meet was still Alicia. She would be the only decisionmaker in the Ascart Fiefdom once he left for the academy, so it would be best if the two of them could get on good terms with one another.

  Unexpectedly, before Roel could even introduce them to one another, the ancient treant suddenly put down his wine and lowered his trunk before Alicia.

  “Shiver my timbers! What amazing life force you possess!”


  Kayde quickly lowered his body to the astonished silver-haired girl as a gesture of respect. Like most ancient treants, he revered the Lifetree and viewed it to be the mother of all plants. Thus, he viewed Alicia, who possessed a humongous amount of life force too, to be an equally divine existence.

  To put it in other words, Alicia had won the ancient treant’s goodwill easily. Roel was still worried about the two of them might start off on the wrong foot, but it seemed like he was worrying over nothing. In any case, it was good that they were getting along well.

  After careful negotiation, Roel decided to get the matter done as quickly as possible. For one, they had no idea who or when the enemies were coming, so it would be best to make haste.

  First and foremost, they had to request help from Rosa so that they could send a huge procession of merchant convoys over to smuggle humongous Kayde and his army of werewolves and demonic creatures out.

  Once the merchant convoys reach Rosa, they would swiftly swap Kayde out for a real oak tree so as to cover up the trail. Cynthia would discreetly lead the real Kayde and his army to traverse across the Worun Mountain Range to enter the Ascart Fiefdom while the merchant convoys would ship the oak tree all around Rosa to sell it.

  Of course, this entire matter would probably still appear suspicious to the enemies looking for Kayde—there was no way they wouldn’t link Kayde’s disappearance with this sudden shipping of an oak tree—but as long as they cleaned it up well, the enemies shouldn’t be able to link this matter to the Ascart Fiefdom.

  After all, Rosa was the commercial hub of the Sia Continent, where all kinds of goods were constantly changing hands. It was far too easy to falsify all kinds of transaction records and throw the enemies off their tail there.

  After coming up with a plan, Roel and the others immediately began making preparations. Of course, he hadn’t forgotten about his initial goal either. He was here to obtain the token of the Twilight Sages Assembly, and the ancient treant didn’t hesitate to hand it over.

  Kayde ran his branches through his crown to search through his leaves. At the same time, a faint shimmer of light trailed through his veins and diffused into the surroundings as little specks of mana. A while later, a tiny bundle of light that appeared insignificant to his humongous body began to manifest at the tip of his branch.

  “This is a product I created by infusing my resin with mana. Despite its light weight, it’s incredibly compact and resilient, which is why I named it ‘adamantine amber’. It’s a medicine that calms the soul, and it used to be one of the tokens used by the Assembly,” explained Kayde as he passed a transparent resin piece that was around the size of a fingernail over to Roel.

  The black-haired boy carefully received the item. Upon contact with it, he suddenly felt an inexplicable feeling of reinvigoration, alleviating his mental fatigue.

  “So this is the token……” murmured Roel as he tightened his grip around the adamantine amber.

  After a moment of silence, he bade farewell to Kayde for the time being to make further arrangements for the shipping.

  Under the orange glow of the setting sun, the convoy slowly retreated from the mountain valley. Roel held Alicia’s hand as he watched as the humongous tree close his eyes and return to rest.

  It should have just been a simple trip to acquire a token, but he unexpectedly managed to unearth so many new pieces of information. While he had gained a greater understanding of the past, he found himself burdened with even more mysteries. What was different this time around, however, was that he wasn’t as clueless as before since he had a clear direction to work toward.

  Staring at the resin in his hands, Roel’s gaze gradually grew firm. Be it the matter concerning the Twilight Sages Assembly or Ro Ascart, they were all pointing toward a single thing—the academy.

  “The Country of Scholars, huh? Looks like I’m about to get busy very soon.”


  Roel looked up at the orange sky with conviction in his eyes.