20 The Forest Depths
Walking through the lush forest, Elizabeth tries to pry some more answers out of Astur, but she doesn't get much more than Astur claiming that she has found a solution. And she neither explains nor says anything more as to what the solution or the problem is. This back and forth eventually forces Elizabeth to give up on trying to receive a substantial answer.
Moving aside a think vine, Astur says, "we should be approaching the forest depths now. Fittingly, it's becoming harder and harder to move smoothly. If I can find a nice spot near a water source, I might consider moving into the depths."
"I didn't expect you to want to do something as troublesome as moving. Wouldn't making a new house and creating a new barrier be a lot of work?" Elizabeth asks, swatting a fly away.
"Nonsense, it's as easy as breathing. All I need is a bit of luck and some drugs. What…" Before Astur can continue, she moves one hand to her mouth and the other in front of Elizabeth to tell her to stay quiet and stop moving. "I've spotted what will become my second experiment subject," she says looking at her next would be test subject.
In a standoff, only a few dozen metres from where Astur and Elizabeth are hiding behind the thick vegetation, are appear to be two giant armadillos. They both stand at about one and a half metres tall, while in length, they are roughly three metres long. The armour on their backs looks to be far thicker and stronger than the armadillos Astur has seen on Earth. But unlike armadillos, these two beasts have a large spiked tail that resembles a mace.
"Those are… Armourdillos, I've never seen one in person before. And shouldn't this be the first, not second?" Elizabeth asks in a hushed tone.
"No, the first was a big bird I found eating a fish from the river. Has a total wingspan of six metres and sharp talons, light brown feathers, I think it was a Terror Birdie or something like that. Whatever the case, that was experiment subject number one, I fed it one of the enhanced potions before you came back with those friends of yours."
"Do you mean a Terror Hawk? You mean to say the strong hawk me and the others fought while on the way to your house was your fault? Why are you feeding monsters the strengthening potion?" Elizabeth says as she struggles to keep her voice low.
"If the bird looked particularly annoyed then it was probably because of me, but that's not important. I know you have a way to immobilise them, do it. Once they're stuck, I'll force one of my special potions down their throats."
Before Elizabeth can formulate a response, Astur picks her up by the arms and throws Elizabeth right between the two megafaunas. With their fight interrupted, the two Armourdillos stare down at the comparatively small Elizabeth.
"Don't worry, they aren't that much stronger than you, I made sure to check! It's not that dangerous, they're only like, two levels above you!" Astur yells as she prepares two of the potions made from her heart.
"Why are you treating this like a game!" Elizabeth shouts.
As Astur said, Elizabeth's situation isn't as dangerous as it looks at first glance, she still has time to retort after all. Although the beasts are large and can certainly hurt, their mobility is lacking, giving Elizabeth time to use her Piercing Crimson Eyes to stun the two monsters. What Elizabeth used was the same ability that Astur received from the Summon Card, but since she had the source right next to her, Astur figured it's better to just let Elizabeth do it rather than wasting a use on her Summon Card.
Astur knows the stun won't last long, so as soon as she notices Elizabeth use her ability, Astur moves in with a potion in each hand. Forcing the two Armourdillos to drink her potion, they begin to tremble as Astur activates her Scholar's Eye of Insight to check on them.
Looking over the two Armourdillos, other than the slight side effect of them losing health, the levels of the two are raising rapidly.
"They were originally at level 13 and 14 but now they've passed level 30, Not bad, but if these two weren't specialised tanks they might have died from taking the potion. I'll need to rethink the way I do this," Astur thinks as she drags Elizabeth away with her, leaving the scene.
Unbeknownst to Astur, the Armourdillos received more than just a boost in their level. Of course, she has no way of knowing this. With her Scholar's Eye of Insight, Astur can see the level and stats of others that are a maximum of twenty levels higher than her and past that, the level and stats are listed as question marks. If Astur had a way to see their abilities, she'd have noticed that the two Armoudillos received the innate ability of the Demon races to comprehend any language. Additionally, they both received the ability to conjure illusions.
In the eyes of the Armourdillos, a mysterious person came along and gave them a large boon before suddenly disappearing into the forest. They of course knew that the potion also caused their health to drop, but with a total HP comparable to Astur, the loss of HP wasn't too much of a problem for them. The two monsters whose level of intelligence has been elevated from a simple beast to that of an intelligent species such as Humans or the Beastfolk. With the mysterious gift giver gone, the Armourdillos return to their staredown before they both simultaneously back down and retreat with a similar thought in mind. After a brief discussion with their newfound speech abilities, they decide it's being better to put aside their petty squabbles and work together. Thus marking the beginning of the first monster tribe of the Sea of Trees.
Meanwhile, Astur and Elizabeth continue their travels through the forest depths. But this time, Elizabeth can't stop her questioning.
"Why in the world are you wasting such a precious potion on monsters!?"
"This was my plan from the beginning. Were you not paying attention to the name of the plan? We are here to make the monsters stronger and that's where my potions come in. But look, isn't the setting sun such a nice sight from beneath the canopies," Astur says, looking up.
"Forget the setting sun, we can't even see anything with how thick the treetops are. It's been dark here for a while now because of that. And why are you making the monsters stronger, that doesn't make any sense? It just makes the forest even more dangerous than it already is."
Tilting her head to the side, Astur sports a confused expression as she says, "but that's the point," as if there is nothing wrong with her reasoning.
"Don't give me that look, there's plenty of problems with making the monsters stronger. For starters, it becomes more difficult for us to move around through the forest. It also makes it more difficult for people like Taurion who are lacking in combat abilities to come and visit us," Elizabeth explains.
"Hmm… I still don't see a problem."
Elizabeth facepalms after hearing her. Having forgotten that Astur both generally dislike leaving the house and doesn't really care much for other people's well-being. Understanding that she won't be able to get her point across to the lunatic before her, Elizabeth drops the subject while silently lamenting the loss of precious materials to mere monsters.
In the midst of the twilight, Astur and Elizabeth finally approach the centre and absolute deepest area of the Sea of Trees. Coming out to an open area with far less tree cover, they find a massive reservoir with a small island located in the centre of it. After a bit of looking around, Astur can't see any part of this reservoir that looks like it connects to the river that passes by her house and from what she can tell the reservoir is completely isolated from the river. Much like the rest of the forest, there is thick vegetation spread out with grazed grass all over the ground, but unlike the rest of the forest, the trees and their roots aren't as clustered, giving far more space to manoeuvre around.
The fauna in the area consists mostly of monsters that Astur has already seen, such as leopards and various large birds of prey. There is also some megafauna like the Armourdillo and what appears to be a giant ground sloth. Several hundreds of metres from where Astur is observing, there's a massive white stag drinking from the reservoir, while on the opposite side is giant bear swimming in the water.
Seeing the diverse fauna, Astur comes to one conclusion and walks over to the edge of the water and she then dumps her potions into the water.
"What are you doing!?" Elizabeth yells.
"Oh, don't worry, these aren't the special potions made from my heart. I'm just dumping the regular enhanced potions."
"That's not the point!"
"Well, I figured that this reservoir is probably the main source of water for the monsters around here, so if I dump the potions into it then the monsters would naturally get stronger over time. I'm saving the special ones for the big guys like that bear or the white stag," Astur says, moving on to a new location to restart her illegal dumping again.
"Also, let's check out that island, I think it would make for a nice spot to move to," Astur says, lighting up a cigarette.
