28 The Holy Oulvgar State
A couple of hours after Astur began to rally the residents of the forest, Elizabeth is meeting with Taurion, Lester, and the rest of the investigation team near the entrance of the forest. The team consist of a handful of soldiers from the provincial military and a few scientists. Leading the team is General Walfrid Gottfried of the provincial army with Taurion, Lester, and Heinrich serving as aids and advisors.
Wearing a dark camo uniform and sunglasses, General Gottfried stands several heads taller than Elizabeth at 190cm tall. Following right behind Taurion, Elizabeth can see the outline of the General's muscles bulging out from underneath his uniform. He has several wrinkles on his face that stand out more thanks to his bald head.
"General Gottfried, this is our friend Elizabeth. She lives here in the forest and she'll be assisting us today," Taurion says.
With a cold glance, Walfrid scans Elizabeth, who's wearing her hood and coat, and asks, "any reason for the heavy layers?"
"That's…" Taurion looks towards Elizabeth, to which she nods, "because she is one of the Mystic races."
"Very well, I won't pay any mind to it. But I would recommend keeping the hood on, some of my subordinates aren't so open-minded. Anyways, I'll explain what our goals are for this investigation," moving towards the rest of the team the General says, "based on the information that Young Master Taurion brought back, we want to examine the water in the reservoir and bring back samples to a lab in the provincial capital. Our other goals include the capture of a few monsters for research and to run some tests on the soil and flora. Now let's get moving!"
As the group moves through the forest, Elizabeth whispers, "I can't say I agree with kidnapping the monsters for research. At this point, they can hardly be considered monsters and are more akin to someone like me or Astur."
"Having spoken to them myself, I agree with you. But General Walfrid's received orders that come from beyond the provincial level to capture them, so it's beyond my control. The best we can hope for is that the capture attempts fail," Taurion says.
"I've had limited exposure to them but I agree that they can't really be called monsters if they're caple of communicating with us. By definition, a monster is a living being with high combat capability that's incapable of communication and has low intelligence," Lester says.
"You three! Pick up the pace!" Walfrid yells.
"We're coming!" Taurion says.
After a couple of hours, the investigation team has only gotten some samples from some flora the scientist suspect to have undergone a mutation due to recent changes in the forest and some samples from the soil where Astur once spilt her potions. But after all this time, with the exception of Elizabeth, the investigation team has yet to encounter any of the forest's residents. At most, they've found some traces, but it's as if the monsters have all vanished from the periphery and the forest depths.
As the investigation team makes their way to the ends of the depths and begin to approach the central area, they begin to hear what sounds like a crowd cheering. But before they can leave the dense depths, the team is suddenly stopped as someone approaches.
*ROAR!*
With a loud warcry, Sir Bearington walks forward preventing the team from going any further.
"By the decree of Lady Astur, going any further is currently prohibited for any non-residents of the Sea of Trees!"
"They bear! It spoke!" Yells one of the scientists.
"Damn that's a big bear!" Calls out one of the soldiers.
"Stay calm and prepare for battle, although it's larger than normal, our opponent is a Gigas Ursus!" Walfrid says.
"Wait, we don't need to fight! We can hold a civil conversation and sort things out!" Lester shouts, unwilling to engage in combat with something he feels is several times stronger than him.
"Everyone calm down and listen to Lester on this one. Fighting him isn't a good idea!" Taurion says.
As the heated situation begins to calm, Elizabeth breathes a sigh of relief since they managed to avoid a fight.
The soldiers all relax their muscles, but they make sure to keep their weapons at the ready in the event a fight does break out.
"So the report was true, you monsters can talk. I honestly didn't believe it when I first heard about it. Bear, you are obstructing an operation of the Kingdom of Virpal, stand aside and let us through," Walfrid demands.
"You trespass on our land. Our forest is under the protection of the Divine, without permission, I can not allow you to pass," Sir Bearington says.
The two lock eyes and stare each other down, sizing the other up. With his rich combat experience, Walfrid has built up a keen sense when it comes to gauging an opponent. He knows that a battle with the giant bear would come with heavy losses. While Walfrid doesn't believe he and his team will lose, he isn't sure if it's worth risking at least 70% of the soldier with him.
Just like the man in front of him, Sir Bearington is also rather adept when it comes to gauging the strength of his enemy, having built up this skill from surviving and climbing his way to the top of the Sea of Trees food chain as an apex predator. If it was before, Sir Bearington believes he would have lost if things broke down into a fight. But after he received the Elixir from Astur, not only has his physical abilities been strengthened, but he received three special abilities derived from Astur. The first is that Sir Bearington simply heals faster. The second is that he can lock space around him, preventing people from withdrawing items from a spatial storage item like a storage ring. But his strongest ability is his ability to shift his body into a half-astral form, this rendered all attacks from the physical world half as effective. Although he rarely fights and has little experience actually using his new abilities, Sir Bearington is still confident he can beat the entire investigation team.
The two continue to stare each other down, refusing to let go of their positions until Elizabeth moves forward.
"Can I pass?" she asks.
At first, Sir Bearington doesn't recognise Elizabeth due to her hood, but after briefly sniffing the air around her, he says, "as a resident of the forest, you have the ability to go where you please. No one will stop you from moving further, so long as it's you alone."
"Alight," Elizabeth says before turning back to Walfrid. "How about this, I go and get the water samples you want while you wait here. This way a fight is avoided and you still get to achieve one of your goals."
Thinking for a moment, Walfrid considers his options. While agreeing would result in the failure of capturing some specimen for study, he doesn't think it's worth the lives of his men and quickly agrees to Elizabeth's proposal.
"I can just tell the higher-ups that we were under-equipped to handle the situation," Walfrid thinks as he watches Elizabeth walk past Sir Bearington.
At the same time at the reservoir, Astur had gathered up nearly the entire population of the forest, with several thousands of monsters filling up the central area of the forest around the reservoir.
Standing atop a large dirt platform made by the monsters, Astur has been giving them a speech for the past hour. Most of her words are nonsense and bullshit, solely meant to excite the listeners. She is talking herself up to be the saviour of the forest who will bring forth a new age, but in reality, she just wants a bunch of servants to do stuff for her while making her house and the area around it more convenient.
"The Humans and the Beastfolk that live beyond the forest call you monsters, beings that lack intelligence and can't communicate! But you are monsters no more! I have given you knowledge! I have given you the ability to speak! And I have given you strength! From henceforth the people beyond the forest will call you monsters no more! From now on you are Oulvgar! In the ancient tongue of the Demons, this means Intelligent Beast, for this is what you are now, Intelligent! Monsters no more!"
"Monsters no more! We are Oulvgar! Monsters no more! We are Oulvgar! Monsters no more! We are Oulvgar!"
Astur gives the former monsters, now Oulvgar, a moment to embrace their new identity as they go on chanting before continuing.
"It is here I declare the formation of the Holy Oulvgar State!"
It is at this moment that Elizabeth made her way to the central area, hearing the last bit of Astur's speech.
"What the hell is this!?"
