Chapter 8: A Night in the Living Copse

Two spears thrust forward. I dodged both. Another dart shot past me, almost grazing my neck.

I didn't want to burn the jungle. With [Waterflow(Journeyman)] , I raised a wall of water and splashed the two lizards, pinning them on the ground.

"Knock ‘em, Amea!"

Amea stood up and formed a fireball overhead.

"No, not fire!"

The three lizards saw the glowing fireball. They fled immediately, hopping across the river.

"Snuff it!"

"I can't!” she said. Her face grimaced in pain as veins all over her body visibly glowed. “It hurts!”

"Throw it on the river!”

She didn't hesitate and cast the fireball into the river. It exploded, producing a huge splash that sent water in all directions. A crater was produced on the riverbed, quickly filled by the strong torrent. Amea fell on her knees, panting.

The lizardwomen weren't done yet. Darts shot at Amea. Before I could grab her, several more shot at me. I splashed them with water again and dashed to grab Amea, sprinting back to where we came from.

Amea plucked the dart off her arm. "I feel dizzy."

"Yeah you're most likely poisoned."

The lizardwomen continued pursuit. As they closed in, I raised a wall of earth, slamming one of them. The remaining two caught in our tails and a spear flew past. I activated [Ironskin(Journeyman)] and broke my sprint. The second lizard crashed against my iron body with a loud thud. She got knocked out immediately.

As for the last one, she didn't waste time and dove her spearhead at me. I raised another wall and she crashed hard on it.

The three were unconscious. I quickly dropped Amea, who had passed out, and searched for any antidotes in their bodies. They had all sorts of plants and I had no goddamn clue which one was supposed to be the antidote.

“How the hell am I supposed to cure her?”

I checked Amea again. She was snoring. Her heart was slow, but not dangerously so. If it was poison, she should’ve been shaking or her mouth foaming. I was prepared to wake one of the lizards and ask for antidote, but I guess I didn’t have to.

I camped between large boulders away from the spiders and tied the three lizards. While I stoked the fire, I gazed at them. They sure were humanoid. They had scales as hard – if not harder – than iron, but some parts transitioned into softer skin like the breast, belly, and crotch areas.

Maybe I should take the chance to acquire their traits and skills?

I shook my head. “I’m not a fucking rapist.”

But I was curious of their attributes and skills. They were fast and silent, traits perfect for an assassin. I’d love to be an assassin.

I monitored Amea's status. Yeah it was just a sleeping dart. She woke up looking pretty hammered, though.

"Any pain?"

Amea stretched her neck. "I feel exhausted."

It didn't take long before the three lizards woke up. They were all bound together by vines I collected hanging from the trees.

“I guess I gotta thank you for not using poison darts."

One of them with a lighter scale and yellow eyes hissed. Her other distinct feature were small thorns lining across her brow ridge.

"I intended to have you both tortured in front of everyone," the lizardwoman said.

"What the hell did we even do? Is this place sacred?"

Amea nudged me. "She mistook us for adventurers, probably."

"Look, we’re not adventurers or whatever. In fact we are— we were slaves and we just escaped.”

"It doesn’t matter. Your kind is the same.”

I sighed. The South Americans during the early colonization were friendlier than this.

"Okay, we're just gonna get out of here. We'll take a different route away from your jungle. I’ll set you free, but don't chase us again."

They didn't say a thing. I lightly slashed the vines so it wouldn't break out right away. It should give us enough time to widen our distance. We left as soon as we could, but I had to carry Amea again.

We traced our way back by following the river. It was a quiet journey, and I’d grown to like it. Not like I had a choice anyway – I’d rather shut up and maintain my alertness.

Along the way, Amea would stop to pick plants. She checked for wild plants with long, wavy, dark-green leaves. She poked the roots with a stick before carefully yanking it out. The plant revealed thick roots with clusters of bulbous seeds the size of a marble. It reminded me of a ginger, but round.

"What are those for?"

"You'll see."

The night was about to fall. Amea followed the elevation of the land, leading us to a slope. Then we continued north where the jungle transitioned back to the rain forest. Thank goodness.

We spent the night in a hollowed tree we found by luck. But I couldn’t really sleep. Monstrous roars woke me up every hour, so I skipped sleep and carved spoons ‘til dawn.

Fortunately no one in the cult followed us. A day was spent mostly by walking in silence. Sometimes we talked about our environment and I learned a few things about this world’s flora while avoiding any creatures.

We arrived at the foot of the mountains and followed it.

"I thought we should avoid the foot of the mountains?”

"See those trees?"

She pointed to a weird part of the forest. The trees looked suspiciously gnarly as if it had faces carved on it. Branches sprouting out were crooked, and the leaves were a shade darker. With a light mist that exclusively shrouded that area, anyone would think it was haunted. I had a feeling that section was alive.

"That’s a living copse."

I knew it.

“Living corpse?”

“Copse. Living copse.”

She handed me the same bulbous seeds she'd been picking since the other day.

"If a nymph appeared, use these seeds to negotiate with them. Give them too much and they'll view your generosity a weakness."

Well, that was awfully scary. Sure I might be able to fight them but that place had a word “living” in it for a reason. What if the whole copse decided I was a menace? I’d end up burning the whole wilderness.

There was a subtle shift between the copse and the rest of the forest. It wasn’t the trees or the insects. A pressure lightly pressed on my flesh, and something ethereal constricted my veins. The further we went in, the bluer the hue became. I had to rub my eyes a few times to make sure it wasn’t just me seeing things. It was still blue.

"Are we drugged?" I asked. It felt like a weird kind of high.

The hue strengthened until it wrapped the whole copse in a blue glow. The source was a small pool of glowing water, producing azure bubbles that floated up to the canopies before popping, raining crystalline droplets. It looked like it had its own cloudless rain.

A tree person morphed from one of the trees. So that was a nymph. A humanoid tree bark-skinned creature. It was unusually sexy and petite like Amea, but it didn't have a face. It was more of a mannequin.

Amea approached the entity and interacted with her, or it. After a minute, she gave her three seeds and beckoned to me.

"Negotiate for a bath and a safe stay for the night."

I swallowed. This nymph was really sexy.

"I'm a man so I can protect myself. Two seeds for the pool and a safe stay for the night, and also a different service—"

Amea elbowed me.

"What?"

"You want to have sex with a nymph?"

"I can't?"

She sighed. "A nymph is a part of a tree. You’ll be having sex with a tree.”

“I had sex with a snake.”

She opened her mouth, but then shut it. Fight fire with fire!

I bet the nymph was confused. Either way, she declined my offer. So I excluded the pool bath and only negotiated for the night stay. I'd already bathed anyway and I wasn't really keen on dipping my body in that suspicious shimmering water.

"You could've just raised it to three seeds," she said as she brushed her hair with her fingers.

"I'll just sleep as much as I can so we can walk for long tomorrow."

And I did just that. I slept beneath a tree, on top of a soft, mattress-like moss. It was the best sleep so far, especially with the thick canopy that served as a roof. The pressure-like feeling earlier vanished and I was overcome with tranquility. Maybe it was thanks to the nymph.

I woke up to a splash in the dead of night. The whole copse glowed in pure blue, and I immediately traced a fine petite woman washing her hair in the pool.

I approached the pool to see a better view. Was it the nymph? Upon closer look, it had the same slim body except it wasn't gnarly. A normal human. When she turned around it was Amea and boy she was gorgeous.

The slimness of her body was emphasized thanks to the perfect play of light and shadow. Her skin looked so supple. From this view, she was almost glowing, especially her eyes tainted with blue when we she looked my way. I never thought I'd like tiny women with barely any tits and asses. Not like it would matter to such a gorgeous woman like her.

Amea smiled at me seductively. She raised her chin and slowly ran her hand from her chest down to her hips, where the water hid her pussy.

My dick pitched a tent on my loose pants. I was gonna fuck this girl. I removed my clothes and tossed my sandals, preparing to cannon ball towards her.

"I wouldn't do that if I still cared about my life."

"What now? Don’t you wanna have fun?"

She giggled. "You didn't pay for the pool, remember?"

A growl emanated from the tree. The nymph emerged half of its body, emitting a quiet hostile presence. It was waiting for me to jump so it can beat the shit outta me. Even the trees felt angry.

"You are a nasty person," I said.

She just laughed.

Wait, was that the reason why she wanted me to negotiate for a pool entrance? Oh, fuck! I just missed an opportunity!

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