Terrarium Adventure

At his words, Mesquite became deep in thought.

“Daisy is also an enhanced species!”

I suddenly had that thought after he said he was an enhanced species. However, Elder shook his head and explained that it seemed to have a different meaning.

“Little Daisy is indeed an enhanced species, but the fact that she was born from the fruit of the World Tree makes it highly likely for her to be a modified species through grafting with other plants. The Daisy breed was formed after many generations of grafting.”

“What’s so different about him?”

“I’m saying that most enhanced species like Daisy are from nature. After all, it uses the genetic information of flowers in the World Tree.”

“That is why he did not immediately recognize Jay. I understand now.”

Mesquite said, affirming Elder’s words.

“They did something forbidden in the Alchemy Tower. By combining the helmet flower and alchemy, they twisted the gene to create an enhanced species. Since that child was born from human hands, there will be no information on his mother’s flower in the World Tree. Recognizing a small World Tree is like an instinct inscribed in the souls of the dryads who are born from the World Tree. It seems that he accidentally became a dryad, so if he dies and goes back to the arms of the World Tree, new information will be written over his genes.”

“The existence of that kid is like violating the power of the World Tree. All plants are born and grown in a land where the blessings of the World Tree reach, and they must learn how nature works. That’s how dryads are taught to socialize and communicate. If there happens to be a lot of guys like that, they will dare to attack anyone, even druids, because they don’t know how to recognize them. That’s not a dryad. Let’s kill it and send it back to the World Tree. I think that’s what the World Tree would want us to do.”

So, death is the conclusion after all? Why did they take so long to talk about him then? I thought artificial enhancement was common, but now that a fantasy component like alchemy gets into it, it’s suddenly “banned” and a “violation”?

Mesquite raised her lance as if she agreed with Elder.

At the 26th terrarium… we thought twice about killing dryads because they were from the World Tree. So, you guys are saying that you don’t even think of him as a dryad since he only received pollen from the World Tree, huh.

I was uncomfortable about killing the dryad since he was a child who looked around Daisy’s age. The only sin he has is… being born into this world. I heard he attacked me without even knowing anything. To be precise, he must have acted instinctively because he was terrified.

Does the World Tree really want us to return him?

At that moment, my terrarium artifacts lit up and vibrated. When I raised my left hand to look, my head started ringing and I felt dizzy. I could not see anything as if I had lost my sight.

I was mesmerized by a shining white light in the darkness I was pitched into. It was a round glass bead. No, more like a transparent fruit. My left hand reached out on its own and touched the fruit. I could feel ice-cold energy.

Suddenly, I remembered the fruit that the black branch I had seen in my dream gave me. It was the same thing.

“Jay?”

“What’s going on?”

The darkness disappeared and my view was completely restored as warm hands settled on my shoulders and shook me. My eyes met Mesquite’s anxious gaze.

I also saw the transparent fruit held in my left hand. Everyone was surprised to see such a sight.

Um… why is this… what… Oh god, it probably looks like I’ve borne fruit with my hand. 

Through the transparent fruit, I could see a distorted ground, Mesquite’s black armor, and the face of the bunny-eyed dryad. His crying and swollen face looked funnier when I saw it through the transparent fruit.

“Don’t get me wrong. I can spew out diamonds with my hands, but I can’t bear fruit. I mean even if I’m a small World Tree, I’m only human!”

Daisy’s eyes looking at the fruit shone like twinkling stars. … Should I pretend to be showing magic? Voila!

“That’s…”

I stretched out my hand and aligned the fruit with Mesquite’s eye level for her to see it closely. She still had to crouch down due to her tall height.

As her sandy hair poured down over my hand, a strong smoke scent came from her. It made the damp smell of this place fade away at once.

“It’s definitely not fruit for nutrients.”

Yup, because the inside is not white.

“It’s also not a dryad fruit, but it is from the World Tree.”

A dryad fruit would have been filled with gold color. Nevertheless, it was still some fruit from the World Tree. Precisely, it looked like a raw fruit freshly picked from the branches of the World Tree before being put on the dryad port. It was a fruit in a mysterious state; it could either contain a dryad or nutrients.

“I don’t feel any life from it, but I feel the blessing… Yes. It’s an unripe fruit.”

Huh? This is an underripe fruit? Ah well, since it’s from a branch, there must be a process of ripening. But the fruit that I saw in my dream was an unripe fruit? Why?

Wait a minute! If you’re going to give me something, you should have given me a ripe one! That way, I can use it as a nutrient or a dryad! Ugh, to think that the World Tree would give me something as useless as an unripe fruit! 

The cold fruit was starting to become warmer from my body temperature.

“Then why did it give me something that was unripe?”

“Give? When and who gave this to you, Jay?”

“It’s a bit ambiguous to say when, but I was given this in a dream a long time before we came here… and the first time I touched it in real life is right now. Ah, the branches of the World Tree gave it to me. A black branch appeared in my dream, and this was hanging on its end. It was right in front of my eyes as if it were telling me to pick it out.”

Mesquite and Elder’s expressions became serious.

Wait! What if it wasn’t telling me to, but I just did it anyway…? Then I would be a thief! Come to think of it, the branch didn’t really tell me to take it. Ugh, bad Jaehee! Jaehee the Thief!

I didn’t live a perfect life, but I have pretty good morals… Can I pay you back with diamonds? I mean, your 28th branch is sucking up my diamonds like a black hole, so will that be a good reason for me to take your fruit?

“Unripe fruits are usually not picked from branches. It’s considered something bad. A long time ago, it was said that when the world ended, unripe fruits from the branches of the World Tree would fall like rain.”

Oh my god. What the hell did you give me? No, what the hell did I do?!

“Of course, it’s just a rumor. My master, Jay. Little Elder’s words are a horror story that grown-ups used to tell to scare young seedlings. No need to worry. Still, it’s not the right thing to pick unripe fruit. You don’t know what kind of dryad could bloom from there.”

“Does that mean I trampled on a fruit’s dream of blooming into a dryad…?”

It seems like I’ve done something nastier than just stealing a fruit…

“There’s no need to feel so down since there was no life there in the first place. It’s only a fruit before a dryad’s information is assigned. Maybe it could have been a nutrient fruit.”

Mesquite soothed me, touching my cheeks tenderly. Looking at her kind eyes, I was convinced that it really wasn’t a big deal.

“Unripe fruits are the fruits grown at the very tip of the branches of the World Tree. Dryad information flows from the inside of the tree to the outside. As a result, the growth rate is the fastest on the inside and slowest at the end of the branches. Fruit that ripens without receiving dryad information becomes a nutrient fruit.”

I looked at the fruit in my hand. The size is no different from the ripe fruits I’ve picked. It’s not like it looks different like underripe apples… It was transparent enough to see my palm through it.

“The horror story that Elder told us is correct in a way… since they pick unripe fruit in the orchards. Because their ripening speed is slow, the fruits that have missed their ripening season cannot be used. Dryads that cannot bloom will return to the arms of the World Tree when the power of the blessing contained in the fruit disappears.”

Like rotten fruit…? No, it’s a bit bizarre to express it like that.

“But if the price is lowered or these unripe fruits are distributed for free, everyone will go to the orchard after the ripening season instead. So, before it ripens and the dryad’s information is included, it is harvested.”

“Then where do they go?”

“Unripe fruits may seem useless at first glance, but it is still born from the World Tree and contains its power and blessings. It is used for soul connection with a wild dryad. They are sold separately to druids who want it.”

Mesquite spoke, looking down at the monkshood dryad with dry eyes. At her glance, the dryad jumped up in surprise.

“The World Tree… knew about the seedling’s existence.”

She sighed and closed her eyes for a long time, then slowly reopened them.

“And even if it was born in violation of the power of the World Tree… I guess it has decided to embrace it and appeared in my master’s dream to ask you to do so. Why would the World Tree be willing to take care of an existence that put my little master in danger?”

“Refuse it. It’s an arbitrary decision made by the World Tree anyway. There is no need for you to follow it.”

Elder said bluntly, then reached out his hand.

“Give that fruit to me if you don’t want to connect with that thing. I’ll break it. If you’re hesitating to kill that because it’s so small, just leave it as it is. When the blessings of the World Tree die out in him, he will eventually return to its arms.”

Wait, isn’t the World Tree a great being for you, dryads? I thought this was supposed to be like a revelation from god. How can you say that so easily?

However, I knew the answer without having to ask. Mesquite did not look surprised anymore compared to when she found the fruit in my hand. She had an expression that something was unpleasant.

Elder looked displeased as well. Daisy was quiet, listening to our conversation as she made her usual face.

It’s because I… the small World Tree… am more important than the World Tree to them.

“It’s fine. I mean, it’s good to have a debuff dryad! It will help the team!”

“Jay…”

Mesquite called me as if she were asking me to reconsider.

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“Well, I don’t have such grand intentions to fulfill the will of the World Tree. It’s just that he was born this way, right? He didn’t choose to be born like that.”

As if there are no dryads born by choosing a lower grade. There was something I had in mind when I came here. Something I decided when I first met Daisy.

Even if Daisy was born with the lowest grade, it did not limit her abilities. I thought that no one should look down on her just because she was a normal grade dryad.

Even the monkshood dryad, who is associated with the words ‘forbidden’ and ‘violated’, should not be condemned for it. Even our first meeting was a bit unpleasant, I did not want to leave him to live his whole life like this.

For me, the background of the monkshood dryad did not matter at all.