Volume 6, Chapter 33 – Treant

After proceeding through the forest for a few hours, a scream echoed from the left.

“I-It’s a Treant!”

“W-Waaaaah!”

Apparently, a monster called a Treant had appeared.

“A Treant!?”

Just as I was about to ask Chris-san, Lu-chan reacted.

“Lu-chan, do you know what it is?”

“Yes! Treants are tree monsters. When they appear, they suck all the nutrients out of the forest, causing the trees to wither until the whole forest ends up filled with nothing but Treants! They are the sworn enemies of us Elves!”

Lu-chan spoke as if spitting out the words.

I see. As Forest Folk, it’s no wonder they see them as unforgivable monsters.

“However, Treants are quite troublesome. The main body of that monster is the root buried underground. You must either pull it out and remove the magic stone, or burn the root into charcoal so it cannot regenerate. Otherwise, it’ll simply grow back.”

“Ugh.”

That is troublesome. Do they just grow back endlessly like weeds?

“Furthermore, they have the terrifying habit of scattering sleep-inducing pollen to put people to sleep, and then eating them while they slumber.”

“I see. Shouldn’t we be the ones to handle this?”

“…You’re right. Provided Captain Lazare can give proper orders.”

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No, it seems group cohesion takes priority here as well. Well, the Knights are an army, so I suppose it can’t be helped.

“Waaaaah!”

“Guh!”

But while we were talking, people kept going down one after another.

“It’s an Ogre! Another Ogre has appeared!”

This time, the voice came from the right.

“Surround them!”

Oh, that voice is Alois-san. I see; Alois-san was on the right side.

Still, not being able to tell what’s happening in the forest is incredibly frustrating.

“Onee-sama! There’s a Treant over there!”

As soon as Lu-chan shouted, she asked Mashiro-chan to fire a Wind Blade. The blade struck a tree about 20 to 30 cm in diameter a short distance away, carving a deep wound into its surface.

Then, the tree trembled slightly before snapping its branches like whips, launching an attack at Mashiro-chan!

“Defense Wall.”

I blocked the branches.

“I shall handle this!”

Shizuku-san darted toward the Treant with her trademark speed, cleaved its trunk in a single stroke, then followed up with several more slashes, cutting it into rounds before returning.

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“Do we just need to pull it out now?”

“No.”

Chris-san gave a short denial.

Then, the Treant’s stump began to sprout rapidly, returning to its original form.

“Onee-sama, we have to keep cutting it down until it runs out of the strength to grow back.”

“Ugh.”

What a tedious monster.

“Using powerful Fire Magic to burn it is also effective,” Chris-san added.

At her words, I glanced at Shizuku-san.

“U-Um, I cannot use Foxfire yet…”

“That’s true. Then let’s just keep cutting it down the moment it sprouts back up.”

As Chris-san and Shizuku-san kept hacking it down every time it sprouted from the stump, the time it took to regenerate gradually grew longer.

“Ah, I’m ready, so please step back.”

When I called out, the two of them retreated.

“Barrier. And… here we go.”

I cast the same Barrier I used to trap General Lu Fei around the Treant’s stump, and then I dumped the contents of my pot inside. The contents were the Fiene-Style disinfectant—alcohol—that I had transferred earlier.

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“Now, ignite.”

I used Fire Magic to light the nearly 100% pure alcohol.

The hemispherical Barrier lets things in from the outside, but nothing can get out from the inside.

On top of that, I’ve conveniently made it so air can pass through while heat can’t escape, so it must be ridiculously hot in there by now.

I then proceeded to toss in firewood and oil, one after another, from my Storage.

“I-I see. So that’s the trick.”

“I had forgotten about the existence of this disinfectant until I went to the field hospital.”

The inside of the Barrier… somehow looks ridiculously hot.

After waiting a while, the fire died down. All that remained was a stump turned into pitch-black charcoal.

I picked up a fallen branch and poked the blackened stump.

The surface crumbled and fell away in pieces.

“If it’s been burned this thoroughly, it shouldn’t regenerate for quite a while. Let’s dig it out while we can.”

Saying this, Chris-san sliced the ground several times.

Then she drove her sword into the crack and used it as a lever to forcibly rip the stump out together with the surrounding earth.

“Uwaa.”

I ended up making a weird noise, somewhere between astonishment and disbelief.

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“Fiene-sama, as you can see, the Treant is still alive.”

Tiny roots stuck out from the overturned earth, wriggling in an utterly disgusting way.

“Ugh, gross.”

“Then, I shall finish it.”

With that, Chris-san expertly chopped the Treant’s roots to pieces until the magic stone was finally exposed.

The magic stone was the same color as tree bark and was faintly shrouded in something like a black haze.

“Um, for now, I’ll purify it. Purification!”

As soon as I purified the magic stone, the roots, which had still been twitching slightly, stopped moving completely.

“Huh? Did that just kill it?”

“It would seem so, indeed. Perhaps monsters die when their magic stones are purified.”

“I see. But in situations where the magic stone is visible, most monsters are already dead, aren’t they?”

That is also true, indeed.”

By the time we finished defeating the Treant, it seemed the Ogres on the right and the Treants on the left had also been defeated.

However, before the Treants on the left were taken down, two entire hunter Parties and three knights had been sacrificed.

Because of this, it was judged that further progress was too dangerous, and we were ordered to retreat.