Oyuun had been the Chief of the town for many years, more than most of the remaining residents could remember. He’d been alive long enough to live through the time when the Spirit of the Forest protected them, sending its living pnts to protect the humans of the forest. He’d watched with his own eyes as the pnts saved them from the fiery threats that attempted to pgue them, and he’d also seen with his own eyes how the pnts changed one day, no longer behaving as the friendly protectors they’d once been, but instead becoming the ferocious and feared monsters that they now were today.

  And so, when his grandson was saved and returned to him, he truly thanked the Spirit of the Forest from the bottom of his heart.

  But he didn’t, for a moment, really believe that the monster had been trying to save him.

  When the refugees they’d taken in had kicked up a fuss, saying that it was the Spirit of the Forest protecting them, he simply smiled and allowed them to believe what they wanted to. It was true that his grandson had somehow procured a special bush from somewhere, and it was true that the bush held the magic of the forest within it. However, he simply let himself think that the monster had only spared his grandson precisely because of the bush’s existence; Unlike what everyone else thought, Oyuun believed that the bush was a monster repellent. He believed that so long as they kept a flower from the bush, the Spirit of the Forest’s monsters would turn a blind eye to them.

  Even if he didn’t put such stock into the bush, Oyuun would have pyed along with the refugee’s obsession with it anyways. Their town was in desperate need of protectors, and so long as no one wandered off like his grandson had, the refugees had promised to use their Spirit-given powers to fend off the enemies that had been pguing them. If keeping one special bush was enough to ensure that they stuck around, then Oyuun was prepared to worship it until the day he died, all in the name of the safety of his people. He would py along just as well as anyone else, if not more so.

  But he’d never expected the very pnt that had saved his grandson’s life to return one day.

  And he’d especially never expected it to look so human.

  His grandson had given him a vague description of what the pnt had looked like when the true events of his rescuing had come to light. From what he’d been told a year ago, the monster had resembled a small young girl, naked and pink, with the same flower as the one that grew from the bush, pnted onto her head. His grandson had stressed to him that the monster’s ‘skin’ had obviously been inhuman, and that it had long, snake-like vines instead of arms. But now, only a year ter, this monster that his grandson had brought to their home was practically indistinguishable from a human, showing no trace of its pnt-like nature in its regur, if not beautiful, form.

  Perhaps she was a bit tall for a woman, standing even taller than he, but that was no reason to suspect someone of being inhuman…

  Yes, if his grandson hadn’t procimed her to be a monster, Oyuun would have never believed it.

  And if the very same words hadn’t come out of her mouth confirming what he’d said, then maybe he would have just thought that his grandson, although wise, had somehow misunderstood.

  Oyuun did his best to be polite, trying to get to the bottom of things. If it was true that the woman in front of him was a monster, then he wouldn’t want to upset it; And if it was truly a representative of the Spirit of the Forest, then all the moreso! And even if it turned out that this was all some kind of a ruse or trick, it was better that he not frazzle someone so dangerous or idiotic to say such things directly to the town’s chief in the first pce.

  His doubts of any kind of misunderstanding easily came to an end, however.

  The woman had sipped on his water just fine, but dribbled it all out of her mouth and back into the cup a moment ter, concerning him. Though confused, Oyuun did his best to courteously question the woman, although it seemed that his words only served to fluster her. And then, she did something that Oyuun had never imagined he would ever see, not even in his nightmares.

  Her face pulled itself apart, the skin between her nose and mouth ripping away with a chorus of snapping sounds as her head opened up, cleanly revealing some sort of hole inside of it without an ounce of blood being spilled. The cup she’d been holding was flung into the now revealed hole, causing a spshing sound like a bucket being dropped into a well, and an acrid, toxic odor began to fill the room. The woman’s hand followed after the cup, as if seeking it out, and it was truly bizarre to watch as her arm went down the hole in the woman's head, all the way down to the elbow, causing more spshing sounds to occur.

  However, it was even odder still to watch the woman’s body knit itself back together, as if her head had never split, or her skin had never torn.

  Her hand, which had come out from the hole singed and degraded, had also rapidly healed itself back into a fwless appearance, mimicking a human’s.

  As the woman’s head came back into pce, the hood that she’d been wearing fell off revealing a beautiful flower crown atop her head, sat perfectly and unmussed, not showing a single sign of sliding off like her hood had. Every flower in the crown was something strange and never before seen by Oyuun. …Every flower except for one, that is.

  Truly, Oyuun felt like a fool for ever having doubted his grandson’s words.

  As the monster began to talk, Oyuun shook himself from the daze he’d been in, grabbing hold of his equally stunned grandson and pulling him close as if to protect him. He made the both of them kneel in reverence, even as he fought against the way his body was breaking out into shivers.

  “Pl-please, Miss Pnt! Please inform us of your purpose here!”

  Oyuun’s mind flooded with thoughts and calcutions. The refugees who the town had taken in, the only true fighters that the town had, wouldn’t dare to raise a finger against one of their beloved Spirit’s creations; Should this monster for whatever reason turn on them, then they would have absolutely no way to defend themselves. How many of its people would he have to sacrifice for it to not devour the entire town? Who would he be willing to give away to ensure everyone else’s safety. Would it be better if he had one of the refugees talk to the monster instead? Would the pnt be willing to eat the refugees who worshiped the Spirit first? Would they be willing to make the sacrifice for their Spirit? Would the Spirit even allow such a thing to occur? But the town still needed protection from the refugees, so-

  =Ah wait, hold on! Why are you guys suddenly kneeling like that???=

  The monster reached out, ignoring the way Oyuun flinched at her touch, and easily pulled the both of them up almost to the ceiling before pcing them back down onto their feet.

  =Woops, sorry, didn’t mean to make you almost bonk your head like that! I don’t know my own strength sometimes~!=

  Oyuun stared at the monster wide eyed. If it could so easily and carelessly lift the both of them up like that, then he hesitated to guess how much strength was truly hidden inside of those slender, womanly-looking arms.

  “I… It’s… It’s no worry, Miss…”

  =Oh, hey, by the way! I don’t mind you calling me ‘Miss Pnt’, but I’d prefer if you called me by name instead, honestly.=

  “By… By name?”

  =Yeah! My name! It’s Mellily! What’s yours?”

  “Mel… lily?”

  =Mhmm! Yeah, it’s a combination of 'camellia' and 'lily'! Til gave it to me! Super clever, right?=

  Oyuun did his best to not make a face. Only half of the words that the monster had just said to him having made sense. He’d never expected a monster to try and exchange names with him, or even thought that a monster would even have a name to exchange with him in the first pce.

  As he sat there with his mind reeling, his grandson, who had been quiet all this time, suddenly spoke up.

  “...Camellia? Lily? Til? What’re those?”

  =Ah, right! I’m gd you asked! Look!=

  The monster knelt down to the boy’s height, looking like a giant with how much she was forced to curl and bend to match him, and showed the top of her head while pointing at various flowers inside of her crown.

  =This one’s a lily, and this one that you guys have been growing is a camellia! It’s the first flower that I ever grew! Same one that turned into that bush you guys worship now!=

  “Oh wow…! So it’s called a camellia...”

  =Yup! Have you guys been calling it something else, maybe?=

  “Yeah, we call it the Guardian flower!”

  =O-of course you do…=

  The way that the monster’s face slightly frowned worried Oyuun greatly. With his mind racing over all the various reasons why it could have been, he couldn’t help but ask.

  “Is there perhaps… something wrong, Miss?”

  =Huh? Oh! Uh, well… I was just thinking about how odd it is that you guys wear my camellias for protection. I mean, it doesn’t really do that, you know?=

  “...What?”

  Oyuun’s gaze dragged down to the flowers that currently wreathed his neck, and over to the crown of the very same flowers that he’d pced onto his grandson’s head.

  “...What is it that they do, then?”

  =Well I’m pretty sure my magic shouldn’t be activated in them right now, but if it was then they’d probably be summoning a bunch of crazy animals to attack you guys right now!=

  Oyuun’s eyes shook wildly, his mind taking a moment to process what the monster had just said to him.

  Before he even knew what he was doing, he immediately snatched the flower crown off of his grandson’s head.