Chapter 96

They rushed straight north as fast as they could, using System as a pseudo-compass to make sure they didn’t get too close to the absolutely massive cluster of hundreds-foot tall trees jutting up out of the forest like some great wooden mountain. Luke had taken the time to climb up to the top of one of the nearby normal trees to get a good look at them, and what he’d seen was not encouraging.

Not only were they tool users, the squirrels had built rudimentary homes in the boughs of their tree-top city. They were smart and organized, a civilization in their own right, and one that was extremely aggressive towards trespassers. Luke couldn’t much blame them for that, considering just about everything they’d encountered out in the wilderness had done its best to kill them. Attacking on sight was a good policy for the squirrels.

Well, maybe not good, but he could see the merits. Running away on sight might have been a better policy for some of the wimpier ones. Then again, the regular squirrels were apparently some sort of lesser servant race, so Luke supposed they might be doing exactly what they’d been told. Perhaps some asshole boss squirrel was fine with throwing their lives away by the bucketful if it meant they killed a few trespassers in squirrel folk territory.

Which was all sorts of fucked up, but not Luke’s problem, except for the fact that they did not stop coming. He would have lost track of how many he’d killed hours ago if nto for the system helpfully reminding him of his running kill count every time he swatted another one out of the air.

So far, the run had been more annoying than scary. Luke was more than fast enough to keep circling around Zea while she focused on moving in as straight a line as possible, and his perception was high enough that none of attackers had managed to get the drop on them. He’d even been able to point out a few to Zea, who’d taken to poking them with her magic stick so she could claim some XP too.

Two squirrels leaped out of the trees at the same time, which was a first. Worse, one of them was the weirdly humanoid variety, and it was armed with a spear. Really, it was more of a sharpened stick, but still, it was that it had a weapon at all that was concerning. They were far enough apart that Luke wasn’t going to be able to get both, but still close enough that he could choose. Based on the angles of approach, he expected the bigger, smarter squirrel thought its animal friend was going to take all of Luke’s attention while it got the chump shot in on him.

[Tactical Foresight] was having none of that. Luke had already mapped out how the entire fight was going to go before either of them were halfway to the ground. Pivoting smoothly, he brought the mace up over his head and smacked the squirrel folk like it was a pinata that owed him money. Blood and gore splattered across the nearby trees, but he didn’t stop to watch.

The other squirrel would be hitting the ground now, no longer close enough to land on him since he’d pivoted, and he gave it even odds whether it went for Zea or him. If he was lucky, it would be right about chest level when he turned back to it, flinging its whole body at his face. If so, it would be easy enough to bring the mace around in a parry then knocked it back and left it dazed while he finished it off.

If he wasn’t lucky, well, he trusted Zea. She lacked his agility-related combat skills like [Twitch Reflexes], but her agility was 27. That should be enough to help her react to the lightning-quick attack, which would give him enough time to attack it from behind. Either way, that squirrel had about three seconds of life left in it.

Luke finished his spin, saw the squirrel coming for him just like he’d hoped, and brought the mace up to divert its aerial charge. He flicked his wrist when it impacted the metal, just to rotate the mace and put a bit of spin on the squirrel while it tumbled away. Before it could recover, he took one large step forward and smacked the monster hard enough to drive its body into the ground.

[You have slain 2 creatures between levels 6-21. 495 XP awarded.]

“That’s the first time it’s been two at once,” Luke said.

“We’re about even with the home tree now, I think. As long as we keep moving, we shouldn’t encounter more like that.”

“Let’s hope,” he said grimly. “If we’re lucky, the attacks are getting more frequent just because we’re closer, and not because they’re closing in on us.”

They started moving again, but were quickly blocked by a dense wall of underbrush. It was so thick that even with his strength, Luke decided it would be faster to go around than to punch through. Unfortunately for them, it appeared that the wall extended quite some ways to the west, perhaps all the way to the home tree itself. It also curved around to block them from going east or north, and since they definitely weren’t going that far out of their way, their only remaining option was to go up and over.

With Zea clinging to him, Luke leaped straight up and started climbing into the branches. The trees were so massive and wild here that their branches were twined around each other, making it difficult for someone of his size to break through. Zea actually had an easier time than he did.

“Do you think the squirrels did this on purpose?” she said as she squeezed through a knot of crooked branches all growing around each other. “I mean, what are the chances of this giant tangle going on and on like this?”

They were directly over top it now, and Luke couldn’t see the end. If it was less than a hundred feet thick, he’d be surprised. He’d certainly never seen anything like it, but Aros was full of things he’d never even imagined, let alone encountered. He supposed it could have been natural, or maybe the squirrels had grown it that way on purpose. It would hardly be an obstacle for them, since they used the tree branches themselves to travel around.

“Maybe. The big ones are smart. I don’t know how exactly they’d do it, but it’s possible.”

Luke grunted as a branch from the bunch he’d been holding slipped and smacked against his face. Trying to push through this mess while keeping one hand on his mace was a pain in the ass, but he was managing. “If they did grow this, then we should be watching for another ambush. The terrain couldn’t really favor them better than it does here.”

If it came down to it, he thought he could bull through the branches. They’d probably shred his clothes, but he would be okay. Still, the tight confines would give the squirrels the advantage, especially the normal-sized ones. Those were all low level though, so he was less worried about them as anything other than a distraction. Zea would be able to fight one of those off, one-on-one. Hopefully, she’d do it without getting hurt.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to do it at all.

Luke was leaving a trail of broken branches a blind squirrel could follow behind him, which made it easier for Zea to stick close. She kept an eye out behind for squirrels coming at them while he did the same from the front, and they were at the halfway point of the giant tangle of underbrush now. He could see an end, just barely. More importantly, he couldn’t see any squirrels.

“It’s going to suck if there’s another wall like this,” he said. “This is slowing us way the fuck down.”

“Yeah,” Zea agreed unhappily. “On the other hand, we don’t know that we wouldn’t have encountered these underbrush tangles farther east either.”

Luke just grunted, not having a reply. He’d been against cutting straight through the squirrels’ territory, and every single fight or detour that slowed them down defeated the main draw of taking the shortcut. At the rate they were going, if they had to crawl over another wall of underbrush, it would be dawn well before they got away from the home tree.

At least the walls weren’t manned, so to speak. They reached the far end without encountering any hostile elements, which was a better outcome than Luke had been expecting. He dropped down into an open spot between two trees, a feat which he only accomplished by kicking out five different branches that were in his way, then made space for Zea to land right after him.

“Whew,” she said. “Thank the gods I spent that AP on agility. There is no way I’d have been able to do that two months ago.”

“Not the only thing you couldn’t do two months ago,” Luke said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“Seriously? You want to do this right now?”

“What can I say? The danger excites me. Gets the heart pumping.”

“You’re terrible,” she said. “Just terrible. But…”

“Hah. You’re just as bad.”

“Oh shut up.”

Luke could see Zea’s face turning red, and he chuckled as he tried to reorient them in the right direction again. Truthfully, he doubted there’d be time for anything like that today, or even tomorrow. Things were getting more dangerous the farther north they went. Every twenty or thirty miles, it seemed like they encountered something new. Sometimes that wasn’t a problem, especially since there were only so many varieties of big, dumb, and slow he could deal with before it all started to blend together.

Other times, like the squirrels, he got a bit concerned. Luke did not like fighting smart enemies. He was afraid they’d outsmart him. More than that, he was afraid they’d use Zea against him. That was the real reason he wanted to get the hell away from the home tree as soon as he could.

He’d spent the last few hours worrying about that, about her, not that she would appreciate the concern. He could practically see her face twisted up into a scowl while she told him off. She’d put her hands on her hips and glower at him in a way that he couldn’t help but find adorable.

“What are you smiling about?” Zea asked a few minutes later.

“Hmm? Nothing.”

“Oh please. I know exactly what you’re smiling about. Dumb boys always thinking with their dicks instead of their brains.”

“What? No! It’s nothing like that.”

“Yeah, bullshit. Keep walking, you hornball.”

“I’m serious, I wasn’t eve- GET DOWN!”

A branch whipped down from overhead, long and flexible as it slashed the air where Zea had been standing. She’d started to dive as soon as Luke had yelled, and even then, the only reason it hadn’t reached her was because he’d jumped in between them. The branch struck his raised hand, scoring a bloody gash across his palm, and retracted.

He saw small thorns covered in his blood studding the limb, and only that one limb. Those definitely hadn’t been there a minute ago. He’d been paying attention to the boughs above them for hours now, and he would have noticed an anomaly like that.

He reached for his [Analyze] ability, expecting it to come back and tell him they’d encountered some sort of sentient tree monster. It would probably be easier to just leave the area and get out of its range than to actually fight it, assuming it couldn’t uproot itself and chase after them. Luke didn’t see how that would even be possible with the forest as densely packed as it was.

It didn’t matter though, because [Analyze] came back blank. Whatever that tree was, it wasn’t alive, or didn’t have XP, or whatever the criteria was for the skill to work. Luke blinked up at it, confused. If it wasn’t a monster, he didn’t know what had caused it to weaponize one of its branches and try to attack them.

But he was betting the reason was under two feet tall and had a long, fluffy tail.