"We hope Your Lordship can take this child to the outside world to broaden its horizons, so that it does not have to be trapped in a prison by the innate shackles we carry."
The old tree spirit said slowly.
Its branch, like a giant hand, carefully cradled the little wooden person hidden in its roots within its palm, and then handed it over to Asakura.
The little wooden person turned its head to look at the old tree spirit, its old man-like face filled with affection and hope: "No need to be sad, do not fear separation."
It said: "The world is far vaster than this forest, and more complex. There will be wind and rain, losing one's way, and loneliness, but because of this, it is worth seeing with your own eyes and walking with your own feet. I hope you can remember the warmth of the roots, but do not fear traveling far; I hope when you see a brand new sky and land, you can also hold onto your initial kindness; I hope you can grow, and when necessary, become a strong and solid reliance that can protect those close to you, yet without binding the footsteps of others. If one day you feel weary, remember there is still a place in the world waiting for your return."
The little wooden person looked at the old tree spirit and nodded gently, then first glanced at Tsurumi Rumi who was watching it expectantly, and immediately after, looked at Asakura.
Asakura rubbed his chin and asked with some perplexity: "For the sake of this child, you caused such a massive uproar, clearly placing great importance on it. So why are you handing it over to me now?"
"We value this child because it is the only descendant in the entire five hundred years since we birthed our ignorant sentience who does not have to be trapped and guard the earth like us." The old tree spirit said in a deep but somewhat gentle tone: "We receive the nourishment of the earth, and its blessings protect our growth, but it has also become our shackles and our cage. Precisely because of this, this child is our race's first, and currently only, hope that can lead to the future."
"So that's how it is."
Asakura roughly understood the old tree spirit's thoughts.
As plant-type spirits, they do not need to worry about things like foraging for food like animals do, and they have more time to comprehend their own sentience. However, the downside is that from beginning to end, they are trapped in one spot by the natural traits of plants, unable to move.
Clearly, the old tree spirit was relatively pessimistic about the future, believing that under these circumstances, even if it had spread its branches and scattered its leaves for five hundred years, their group would still have no future as long as they could not break free from the confinement of the earth.
In this light, it made sense that the little wooden person who could move freely would become its hope, and that it would even risk confronting him—who was viewed as a terrifying taboo—because the little wooden person had gone missing.
As for the little wooden person itself...
After examining it for a moment, Asakura asked curiously: "Does this fellow not have a name?"
"Names have no meaning to us. If Your Lordship wishes, you may bestow upon it its initial name right here."
The old tree spirit maintained its hand-extending posture, waiting for Asakura's final decision, showing absolutely no sign of impatience.
In a certain sense, compared to moving around continuously, perhaps maintaining one single posture is actually easier for a plant?
"Very well, then from today onward, you shall be called Groot." Asakura nodded and said.
"No, no matter how you look at it, this child is quite different from the one in the movie..."
Tsurumi Rumi could not help but complain in a small voice.
Hearing her say this, Asakura also felt that it did indeed seem quite different.
Groot was the type of small tree that looked thick and sturdy, whereas the little wooden person in front of him looked slender and long, just like a stick insect, and even had a flower bud sitting on its head.
So after pondering for a short moment, Asakura changed his words: "Then let's just call it Bowtruckle."
"That feels even more incomprehensible..."
The little girl muttered.
However, Asakura did not plan on changing it again.
He extended his palm, and the little wooden person took a lingering glance at the old tree spirit, then turned around and hopped right into Asakura's palm.
Asakura weighed it slightly and felt that the little wooden person was quite light. Although it looked fairly large, its actual weight was roughly similar to that of a chicken egg.
No wonder Tsurumi Rumi was able to run for such a long time carrying this fellow just now.
The Bowtruckle waved toward the girl... well, roughly the part where its hand would be.
Consequently, the expression on the face of the little one, who had still been somewhat unhappy a moment ago, relaxed significantly.
The old tree spirit retracted its hand-like branch and lightly shook its canopy once more.
After a short moment, two massive spherical objects hung down from above the canopy.
If one looked closely, they would discover a face exposed on the outside of each cocoon; it was precisely the missing Tobe and Miura.
They were both bound tightly by vines, looking just like cocoons.
"These two humans, I shall now transfer over to Your Lordship. As for their memories..."
The old tree spirit grew somewhat hesitant.
Evidently, it did not possess convenient and omnipotent spellcasting abilities like the fox aberration; it was merely a stat monster capable of controlling a patch of forest.
"It doesn't matter. Leave their memories to me."
Asakura did not particularly mind.
The expression on his face could even be considered pleasant.
The reason was very simple—
[Mission Completed. Obtained 'Three Pages of the Half-Blood Prince's Potions Notes']
It appeared that the little wooden person had been recognized as his pet by the nameless magical grimoire.
It really hadn't been easy. Originally, Asakura had already made plans that if he still couldn't complete this mission by the end of the summer vacation, he would just go to a pet shop and buy any random cat or dog, and then give it away to any random member of the Ministry of Magic after obtaining the mission reward.
——Except for Yanami; he always felt that if he gave a pet to her, it would probably look forward to being starved for nine meals every three days, and there was no telling when it would just be gone.
Being able to complete this mission now could be considered an unexpected joy.
"Do you need help transporting them out, Your Lordship? Though there might be a few slight bumps along the way..."
The old tree spirit asked considerately.
Only then did Asakura notice that there were indeed many bruises on Tobe's body; it seemed he had been bumped around quite severely.
In comparison, Miura was in a much better state, though some minor abrasions could still be seen.
Well, after all, they had been brought to such a distant place by a bunch of plants, so one couldn't exactly demand too much from their logistics.
"No need."
Asakura shook his head, not planning on increasing unnecessary damage.
"Then they shall be handed over to Your Lordship right here."
As the old tree spirit spoke, it placed the two 'cocoons' in front of Asakura.
Tsurumi Rumi looked at Asakura with a mixture of perplexity and a bit of anticipation, probably wanting to see him carrying those two massive lumps with one in each hand.
However, Asakura had no intention of doing so.
After all, his physical fitness was only slightly better than that of an ordinary person; let alone carrying two, even carrying just one would make it very difficult to walk back to the campsite.
An unconscious person is very heavy.
He looked toward Tsurumi Rumi.
"You shall be the one to carry them back."
"Me?" The little girl pointed at herself, her eyes wide and perfectly round, her gaze filled with an expression of utter disbelief.
"You didn't actually think that after doing something like sneaking out of the campsite alone at night and running into the woods, there wouldn't be a single bit of punishment at the end, did you?"
Asakura said as if it were a matter of course.
Tsurumi Rumi was instantly rendered speechless.
Oh right, I committed a mistake too and got caught red-handed by him...
"When Hiratsuka-sensei found out someone was missing, she was so anxious she almost cried." Asakura fabricated with an air of seriousness.
Even though Hiratsuka-sensei had indeed been very anxious.
"B-but... I can't carry them at all, can I?"
Tsurumi Rumi did not throw a tantrum or roll on the ground like typical bratty kids trying to shirk their responsibility; she merely spoke with great difficulty.
"It doesn't matter, you will be able to carry them very soon."
Asakura lightly snapped his fingers: "[Snake]"
The little girl instinctively looked toward those two people wrapped up like cocoons.
The first things to change were the limbs.
The arms and legs wrapped within gradually lost their original length and structure; the bones seemed to dissolve, quietly pulling inward and rearranging as the muscles receded toward the torso.
The vines loosened accordingly, draping down naturally layer by layer, having already lost the targets they originally needed to bind.
Immediately following that, their bodies as a whole became slender and soft, the rising and falling of their chests vanished, their spines were straightened and elongated, and they couldn't even maintain their human forms as they fell apart.
The original muscle texture gradually lost its warmth, a fine luster surfaced on the skin, and scales manifested piece by piece from underneath like newly rearranged patterns.
The contours of their heads shrank, their facial features were quietly erased within the shadows of the vines, leaving behind only the slightly primitive and ferocious appearance of reptilian creatures relative to humans.
The moment the curse was completed, the tree vines completely lost their purpose of support and slid to the ground one after another.
Two snakes, their body sizes visibly reduced, slithered silently out from between the loosened vines, moving forward flush against the ground, and under Asakura's silent command, they wound and crawled toward Tsurumi Rumi.
Combined with the peculiar sense of mystery and horror unique to the woods at night, this excessively Lovecraftian scene caused Tsurumi Rumi to break out in goosebumps; the girl's sanity level had clearly taken quite a hit.
Fortunately, she had already encountered too many supernatural phenomena today, so she was not driven out of her mind with fright by this scene.
It was only at this exact moment that the little one suddenly understood why the old tree spirit would refer to the other party as a 'terrifying taboo'.
In addition, the way the other two brightly colored, mottled large snakes slithered toward her was still quite hair-raising; the little one subconsciously took a few steps back. Looking at how things were, once the snakes closed in to a certain distance, she would probably be scared into fleeing straight away.
Seeing this, Asakura smiled gently and comforted her.
"Keke, take them along—you wouldn't want to wake up one day and find that you've turned into a snake too, would you?"
"Wahhh..."
Tsurumi Rumi's body instantly froze up, leaving her to look helplessly at the old tree spirit.
The old tree spirit put on a look as if this old man were very busy, lifting its head to gaze at the sky, seeing that the moon was smiling.
Probably because Asakura's threat was far too specific and terrifying, in the end, the little girl could only let the two snakes crawl onto her body with her entire frame completely rigid, letting them wrap around her head and shoulder areas like a wooden rack.
"Then we shall take our leave," Asakura said to the old tree spirit. "Be a bit careful in the future; not everyone is as easy to talk to as I am."
"We understand. Before the world undergoes a strange alteration, we ought to continue hiding within this domain and will not go outside at will," the old tree spirit guaranteed.
Asakura nodded, and then led the soul-shattered Tsurumi Rumi away from the tree spirit's domain.
At the exact instant of returning to reality, the original dense sense of mist that carried a bit of warmth vanished all at once, leaving behind only the coldness and darkness that the forest at this time of night ought to have.
Asakura looked around in all directions for a moment, finding that the surroundings looked exactly the same.
Thereupon, he stomped his feet: "Lead the way for us."
In an instant, a river of fireflies similar to the one that had guided them over here earlier reappeared, only its scale looked quite a bit smaller.
"Let's go," Asakura said.
Following that, he discovered that the Bowtruckle standing on his shoulder was glancing from time to time at Tsurumi Rumi, who was wrapped up by the snakes; it seemed their relationship was quite good.
"Speaking of which, how did you and this fellow get to know each other?" Asakura poked the Bowtruckle on his shoulder and asked Tsurumi Rumi, who was still murmuring "Eek, so cold, so slippery" with a vacant look in her eyes.
"...Met it in the wooden cabin before," the little girl said gloomily. "It suddenly fell down from the ceiling, and I even got quite a fright."
At the very beginning, she had even thought that whatever fell from the sky was some kind of bug—in fact, the little wooden person did look a lot like a stick insect—but after the initial fright passed, the girl very quickly discovered that the other party was not a bug, but rather a wondrous creature she had never seen before.
She tried to interact with the other party without any particularly special behavior, yet she could also feel the goodwill transmitting over from the other party's side.
Tsurumi Rumi was a very lonely child.
Her expressions were a bit fewer than ordinary people's; it wasn't that she was deliberately acting cold and proud, but simply that she was born this way naturally.
Therefore, she did not have friends. Although in her life there would also be people like teachers who would take a little care of her, that kind of care from adults toward children was clearly not the equal friendship the girl was pursuing.
Yet this kind of feeling, which she had never experienced from other people, was unexpectedly felt from this little wooden person.
The other party was pure, and... well, that appearance couldn't be considered cute, but at least it could be counted as ugly-cute; in short, as long as one held goodwill toward it, it was very easy to receive a return of goodwill.
It was merely a single afternoon.
Even now, the girl could still recall the scene from that time—
The light outside the window tilted slowly; the little girl suddenly realized that she hadn't felt this relaxed in a very long time.
She looked at that little wooden person and revealed a tiny smile.
The other party also copied her manner, tilting its body.
At this exact moment, the little wooden person was no longer just a strange thing that fell from the ceiling, but became the first friend in her memory who truly accompanied her side.
And when this friend begged her for help, wanting to return to its home, Tsurumi Rumi made her decision with almost no hesitation at all.
"The one I met in the wooden cabin was already my friend, so even if it means taking a bit of a risk, I still want to help it out..."
"You didn't meet it in the wooden cabin," Asakura suddenly said.
"Huh?" Tsurumi Rumi was taken aback.
"Though I'm not entirely clear on the specific details, actually you guys encountered each other before that," Asakura said. "That's what the Bowtruckle said."
"Before that... Ah!" Tsurumi Rumi suddenly revealed an astonished expression. "Could it be the one in the field...?"
"Yeah, the 'spider' you encountered at that time was this fellow. As a spirit of the trees, it's impossible for a situation like 'falling from a wooden ceiling' to happen; at that time, it was because it found out it had scared you in the field, so it deliberately went over to apologize to you."
Asakura translated for his new pet: "The affinity between you and it happened even earlier than you initially thought, you know."