123 Ent

Riku narrowed his eyes before letting off a short shrug. There was no use grilling someone that didn't know what was happening, so he might as well focus on the task at hand.

"Although, I'm pretty sure they're still edible."

But he supposed said task would have to wait until he was done feeding Nyx and her unending appetite again. Although, looking at the corpse of the thing he just killed, how in the world was he supposed to prepare literal wood?

"Nyx, are you sure this thing is edible?" he asked as he crouched down, observing the broken branches and limbs of what was once a living and walking tree. "I'm pretty sure this is just wood."

For a brief second, his goddess blinked, a glint of understanding flashing through her eyes before she gave him a rather curious stare. "Okay, I just got word from Big Brother Ymir. These things are indeed new to his Realm," she explained. "They're called Ents, apparently. Something he borrowed from Big Sis Solis to add spice to his Realm among other things. Or so he says."

Riku raised a brow at her loaded tone. It almost sounded like she doubted her brother's sincerity.

"Honestly, he probably just stole her designs and said sorry afterwards," she shrugged. "Not that he does it often though. For all I know, he really did just ask her to help him."

"I'd think that he did. After all, he asked you, right?"

"Well, he actually didn't, but I didn't really mind since he gave me credit in the end," Nyx smugly smiled. "So in the end, I didn't mind!"

The former assassin didn't know how to respond to that. He was pretty sure that he'd be angry if someone just said that he did something that he had no idea of doing. Then again, this was Nyx, so it was understandable.

"Your call, I suppose," he shrugged before leaning down to grab one of the many branches that he hacked off the newly named ent. "Anyway, I have no idea how to cook this, let alone prepare this with what I have on me right now."

That wasn't to say that he didn't have some idea on what to do with wood-like vegetables. Based on the feel of it alone, he had a feeling that it was similar to bamboo shoots or one of the harder root vegetables that he had worked with before. They often required a bit of work to make them taste good, and unlike the lions and the fish that he got from the previous Realms, ent was certainly not going to be eaten raw.

"Do you need something like what we had on the boat then?" Nyx asked. "I can always make some stuff appear for you whenever you need it."

"And waste valuable time cooking instead of making progress? I'm not sure if that's feasible," he scoffed, making his goddess frown. "Unlike the last Realm, we're traveling on foot, which means we won't have much free time for me to make stuff for you."

"But you make good stuff though," the goddess whined. "How am I supposed to watch you kill your enemies when I don't have something to snack on?"

Rolling his eyes, Riku stood up before quickly throwing the piece of ent toward Nyx's way. The goddess was quick to react as she caught in her hands, her expression one of confusion as she stared at it.

"Eat that then if you want," Riku blandly told her before promptly turning around. "We have a lot of ground to cover, and we still have to find Shizu before we can move forward."

"W-What? But I can't eat this, my Champion!" Nyx loudly grumbled. "It's raw!"

"And so where the lion and some of the fish I prepared for you," he fired back with a smirk. "Unless you want to make yourself useful and point us to where we need to go, then I suggest you grind your teeth on that thing. Either way, you did say it was edible, right?"

"Spoilsport..."

Riku chuckled to himself as he heard his goddess grumbled and mumble out her annoyance to herself. All the while, he did his best to navigate the cave system that was Yggdrasil. The entire place was a maze, one filled with dirt and wood as if he was right underneath a massive tree's root system. Then again, the entire place was named after a mythical tree, so it did make sense as to why that was the case.

Silently, he felled ent after ent, his stats and power increasing at a steady pace as his [Chaotic Tempering] allowed him to scale. It was very much welcomed as well after what he just went through in the previous Realm. He really wanted more defense, so he could only hope that luck was on his side.

For now, however, he had to look for Shizu. She said that she'd wait for him, and knowing her, she was probably somewhere waiting for him to arrive. Maybe by the exit? He wouldn't put it past her.

***

{SHIZU POV}

'Remember your purpose...'

Shizu shook her head as Tyche's words rang inside her head once more. It had already been hours since she last spoke with her god, and even know, his patronizing smile kept flashing in her head along with his foreboding warning to her. Not that she really cared, if she was being honest with herself, but a primal fear within her still flinched whenever she recalled her god standing over her like she was nothing but an ant to be crushed underneath his heel.

"I'm not a tool of the gods," she repeated to herself, her cards flying through the air as she dispatched of another big scarab that tried to attack her. "I'm my own woman, dammit..."

There was no mistaking it now. Despite being her patron god, Tyche didn't give a damn about her well-being. Always talking about Fate as if it was something she couldn't fight... That she would somehow betray Nyx by killing Riku...

No... She wasn't like that. Even if she would be using his own power to fight, she would make sure that the bastard didn't win this Game. His plan for balance be damned. He could've at least not acted or sounded like an asshole to her while explaining about it.