AN: Aaaand we're back! Thanks for waitin'!

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  =Um, excuse me?=

  “Huh? Oh! Yes, young dy?”

  Okay, the random older woman I decided to talk to isn’t getting freaked out by me, so that’s good at least. Honestly, I was a little afraid that she might notice all the weird things about me and give me some kind of look… Like how I’m a little bit too tall, or how I’m basically hiding myself inside a cloak, or maybe how despite my best efforts, my voice is still coming out as magic instead of actual air. Idunno, mom seemed to get away with it too when she was in this form, so maybe it’s pretty indistinguishable for most people. Shouldn’t trust it around super magical beings like me, though! Something with a lot of magic would probably notice it in a heartbeat.

  Well, if it’s working out so far, then let’s go ahead and see what this dy is willing to tell me!

  =I’m a wanderer, so I don’t really know very much about this town. Could you maybe tell me why there’s so many cam- so many flowers around here?=

  Ahhh, I almost slipped up! I doubt these people would know what the actual name of the camellia flowers are, right? I mean I basically just kinda grew that bush, made some vague gestures, and then left it there with that kid, so it’s pretty freaking unlikely that he heard my thoughts about the name or anything. Best to avoid any questions that might link me to a bunch of men getting murdered and eaten by a monster.

  “Oh my, you mean these flowers?”

  The woman reached out to a nearby hedge and delicately stroked her hand over the flowers, giving them a pretty darn loving smile while she looked at them.

  “These are our guardian flowers. The Spirit of the Forest gave them to us to signify their protection.”

  …Oh? Is that how it was perceived? I mean… Well yeah, okay, I can totally see how they would have gotten that idea. To be fair, I am something that the Forest Spirit created, so it makes sense if they believe I was just acting on its orders, doing a righteous good deed for the Spirit or whatever.

  Still, it’s best if I get the whole story, right?

  I’m toootally not just going to ask more about it because I want to hear them praising me, okay~?

  ~~~

  Alright, I never would have expected it, but the story goes a little something like this:

  You remember mom’s people who successfully escaped from the town? Well, when nobody came back after a day (because of those animal people killing them while tracking mom), they all panicked and hurried away, tearfully giving up on saving the rest of their people. They wandered for months, living off the nd, until they just couldn’t wander anymore. In the end, they decided to join together with a local community, making it their new home. But the people in this new home didn’t worship the Forest Spirit like they did. Scared of being treated awfully for their religion like they had been in the animal people’s pop-up town, they decided to practice it quietly, not speaking a word about it. Unsurprisingly, after so much hardship and difficulty, many of them lost the green eyes that signified their allegiance to the Forest Spirit, having given up their faith.

  And then a miracle happened!

  Apparently that little boy that I rescued was the vilge chief’s grandson. No wonder there were people trying to ransom him… Although from what I’m told, those guys I ate were just bandits, and not actual members of the town doing something bad, so that’s good. Believe me, I was a bit worried that those guys were gonna turn out to be some of mom’s people who were just disgruntled and trying for radical change or something. I would have felt sooo bad about eating people mom once knew! I mean, I saw a bunch of their faces before in mom’s fshback, so it would’ve made me feel really guilty, you know? I may not agree with mom’s methods, but no matter how much I dislike it, I’m alive right now because of mom! So I’ll respect the people she cared about and worked so hard for when she was still sane, okay? Besides, they worship the Forest Spirit, so as the ‘Spring’ of the Forest Spirit or whatever, they basically worship me too! I would never treat my worshippers badly like-

  Oh, sorry, lemme get back to the story!

  So yeah, the boy was the chief’s grandson, bh bh bah. Even though the kid had just been kidnapped, he kept sneaking out into the forest everyday just to look at and take care of the camellia bush I left behind for him. I guess the kid was just reeeally good at sneaking away, because it took people almost a month before they realized that he was doing it. Kiiiinda makes him a good target for getting kidnapped again in my opinion. Mayyyybe they shoulda kept a better eye on that kid, you know? Makes my new and pretty functioning eyes squint a little bit to hear, but hey, I don’t know these people’s lives. They coulda just been really busy or something. They’re reted to mom’s people, so I’ll try to give them a pass on this one, just this once.

  But yeah, the townsfolk weren’t totally oblivious to the kid running off on his own all the time; Eventually one of mom’s ex-vilgers, who had still maintained the green in their eyes, was tasked to keep a lookout on the boy, and make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble wherever the heck he kept disappearing off to. They followed him in secret so they could figure out what he’d been doing, but when they found him at the bush I first put down, they suddenly shouted out in surprise.

  Apparently they were gifted with magic enough to feel that the bush was created unnaturally!

  …Makes me wonder if people with green eyes can see the same thing about me, you know?

  For the record, the kid had only told everyone that he’d been kidnapped and saved, and absolutely nothing about who the savior was. Even after a lot of questioning he still refused to talk about it, which is honestly a little touching! He knew I was some kind of monster, and he looked out for me by not telling the people around him that I was there~! I’m so gd I met such a good kid! He definitely deserved to keep that bush!!!

  When the green eyed person saw the bush and made the kid go back, he was forced to finally spill the beans and tell them about me being there. Plenty of people living in the forest had heard tales about the pnt-monsters (corpse pnts like me!) who lived in the Forest Spirit’s territory, and it was well known how dangerous they were. But mom’s people, having had contact with the elves and knowing that the corpse pnts were actually direct creations of the Forest Spirit, said that the boy being protected by one of those deadly pnts and receiving a gift from it was a sign! A sign that the Forest Spirit hadn’t abandoned them, and that it would continue to protect them!

  Honestly, that’s kind of reaching a bit, concluding that one kid being protected means that everyone is gonna be protected. But hey, I appreciate their hopefulness, you know? They saw a faint glimmer of hope and they tched onto it as hard as they could. You gotta respect how quickly these folks became super religious like this over one monster handing over a pretty bush, right?

  That is what’s happening by the way; They enshrined my bush and are using it as a symbol to worship the Forest Spirit through. They treat that bush like a freaking god, praying to it and giving it all kinds of offerings. They take its clippings and grow it all over the town and even wear them on themselves, all because of some unproven belief that the Forest Spirit will protect them if it sees them wearing it.

  I won’t lie… I actually really like that they did this!

  It kinda makes me wanna protect them for real, in my official job as the Spring of the Forest!

  This is getting me really fired up right now!!!

  ~~~

  The nice older woman I was talking to took me to the shrine so that I could witness the fabled bush for myself, although I still had to wait in line with all the other people who also wanted to come visit the special special god-bush, so I had plenty of time to observe the people in line and come to a conclusion. And you know what that conclusion is?

  Humans are really really interesting!

  It’s not so easy to tell when you have regur human sight and hearing, but when you’re a freakishly magical pnt like me and can see and hear everything that’s going on around you all at once through your feet, then you can really gain an appreciation for just how interesting and intricate humans and their interactions are. Idunno, maybe I’m just starved for entertainment, but watching these people gossip, mingle, joke, and ugh… I’m really really enjoying it.

  [You understand how we feel, then.]

  Huh… You mean the Spirits? Oh right, this isn’t too far off from why you guys made your own creations, huh?

  [Yes. For the longest time I didn’t have any of my own and had to see only through the humans, so I became quite fond of them.]

  Yeah, I’m starting to understand why… You’re completely right, Spirit.

  Ah, but you know what? This kinda begs a question that I’ve been wondering for a while now! If you like humans so much, then why do you let us corpse pnts eat them? I knew as soon as I saw a human that they were gonna be totally tasty… With how ‘fond’ of them you are and everything, wouldn’t you try to protect them like you did the elves?

  [...]

  …Spirit? Hey, is this thing on? Are you not hearing me right now or something?

  [...]

  Um… Did I maybe ask something wrong again…?