Dark Fantasy Guide for the Summoner - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 20.
Wood Revenge I
“Lorang.”
“What is it?”
“Do you truly trust that man?”
Lorang lifted his head at his companion’s words.
“A curious question, Alon.”
“Is it? I find myself rather uneasy about him, you see. This man Kaindel—he’s clearly hiding something.”
“Is that mere intuition?”
“……Well, I suppose so.”
The spirit-speaker Alon shrugged.
“Intuition matters. Especially in a place like this, at a moment like this.”
“Then…….”
“But there’s something far more important in a situation such as this.”
“What would that be?”
“To sense the true heart of your counterpart. In any case, I felt a desperate resolve from Kaindel. The will to survive, if you will.”
Alon let out a short laugh.
“Isn’t that something every living being carries?”
“It is. Which is why what matters is how a cornered man acts. Even here, Kaindel seems quite level-headed. I haven’t sensed the kind of desperation that breeds lies. That’s what led me to judge him trustworthy for now.”
Lorang’s gaze drifted past Alon’s shoulder.
“Is that not so?”
Kazen swallowed hard.
“……That’s right. Kaindel is an exceptional man. He knows the forest well, and his judgments have always been swift and accurate. Had we not had his help, we would surely be――”
“To hear you tell it, one might mistake him for a veteran delver who frequents the deep forest.”
Alon cut across Kazen’s words with a sneer.
“Nothing’s more pathetic than novices stumbling about in the shallows, flattering each other.”
Kazen clenched his teeth.
“……I may be a beginner as a delver, but that doesn’t mean my eye for people is worthless. Kaindel is special.”
“Special? Ha. Those who’ve been at this long know better than to use such words. You simply have no experience with truly special people, which is why you can say such things.”
As he spoke, Alon’s gaze turned toward the white knight.
Lorang understood the weight of that look, yet offered his warning in an even tone.
“That’s enough, Alon.”
“Dear me. Was I too harsh?”
“We shouldn’t dismiss the forest simply because one is new to it. This calamity itself is clearly a crisis unlike anything we’ve faced before.”
“That’s true enough.”
“I would appreciate it if you’d simply respect my decision to ally with them.”
Alon shook his head with exaggerated contrition.
“If that is your will, then forgive me. I seem to have soured the mood needlessly.”
“No. It was necessary.”
Lorang meant it sincerely.
He understood well that unspoken discontent, left to fester in silence, became the most dangerous thing of all.
At least now that Alon had vented his doubts aloud, the unease in the hearts of the others should have eased somewhat.
Whoooosh―
In that instant, wind rushed through the forest—warm air, unseasonably tropical for the time of year.
“…….”
Alon’s eyes blinked as he listened to the whispers of the spirit.
“Lorang.”
“Right.”
The white knight drew his blade at his companion’s signal.
“Everyone, ready for battle.”
* * *
After giving the signal, he sprinted forward. Glancing back, Cria and Seigrena kept pace remarkably well.
For a noblewoman, she runs quite admirably…… The thought flickered through his mind—but was he underestimating her?
Grrrrrk――!
Even as that idle thought crossed his mind, the earth trembled violently, and thick vines erupted from beneath the ground.
“Ah!”
With a heavy thud, Seigrena stumbled. A sprouting vine had caught her leg.
“What—what are you doing? Help me up quickly――!”
“…….”
“Are you listening? Don’t tell me you’re planning to abandon me here…….”
All manner of ridiculous nonsense, and you’re shaking like a leaf.
I hauled Seigrena up by the scruff of her neck as I spoke.
“Why are your clothes so oversized? What’s with the glove? Why are you only wearing one?”
“Lorang gave me this… but why do you care what I wear or how?”
“Don’t you see you’re holding us back? Get up and run, now!”
I dash forward, scythe in hand.
The vines are tough, but not so much that they can’t be cut—they’ve only just burst from the ground and haven’t fully hardened yet.
“H-hey, commoner! Something’s wrong!”
Wrong?
“The v-vines are clinging to my legs like they’re alive! Ugh, ugh. It feels awful…! Get them off me, quickly!”
“Damn it… Handle it yourself!”
We’re wasting too much time on mere vines.
Lorang may have already begun his engagement…
‘The timer’s already running, I should assume.’
Which means ten minutes from now.
Ignoring Seigrena’s whining, we continued our sprint, and at last we reached the Black Tree.
“The tree. Can you climb it?”
I received two different answers.
“How could I do something so crude?”
“I can.”
At least that’s something. I’d actually considered the possibility that neither could, and if so, I’d planned to throw them up.
“Cria. Go to the location I mentioned and find the Blue Branch.”
“The Blue Branch? I don’t really see anything like that…”
“It’s using Camouflage. Its color will show once someone gets close. It’s sensitive to body heat.”
Since Lorang wasn’t here, I gave the information more explicitly.
Fortunately, Cria, who’d grown used to seeing me like this, nodded without much suspicion.
“Got it.”
“I’ll tell you the location. You’ll need to memorize it in one go—can you manage that?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. And as for you…”
I spoke to the dead weight.
“At the base of the tree, check every branch within arm’s reach.”
……
Seigrena gave a reluctant, barely perceptible nod, her expression sour.
Her eyes work fine, so she can manage at least this much.
With no time to verify anything, we climbed the tree at once.
“Sylph.”
A faint whistle.
Correction: I climbed the tree alone. Cria’s body rose into the air, hovering faintly.
I asked, slightly incredulous.
“People can ride you?”
“They couldn’t normally… but since coming to the forest, my bond with Sylph has deepened.”
As her level rose, so did her Skill level.
From the feel of it, Cria’s body weight seems to be about the limit.
“Then I’ll leave the upper section to you. You remember the spots I mentioned earlier, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Hurry.”
At that moment, a faint roar from the Woodman echoed distantly.
‘It’s started.’
How long can Lorang actually hold out?
There’s no point thinking about it now.
Pushing down the anxiety, I rapidly check where the Blue Branch appeared in the game.
‘Not here.’
Any faint hope that fortune might smile and I’d find it in one or two tries vanished in an instant.
I’m not the type to have luck on my side to begin with, and in a crucial moment like this, even less so.
‘The Blue Branch appears in twenty-seven locations total.’
Nine in the upper section Cria’s covering.
Twelve in the middle section I’m covering.
And finally, six in the lower section where Seigrena’s hands can reach.
‘Damn.’
Not here either.
This is already the tenth location, and still no sign of the Blue Branch or the forest’s master.
How much time has passed?
It feels like more than five minutes already. My palms have grown slick with anxiety.
“H-hey, commoner!”
Seigrena’s voice jolted me back to awareness.
“What is it? Did you find something?”
“There’s a fruit hanging at the far end! Could that be the offering?”
……
As if.
Irritation flared in my chest for a moment, but then I realized I’d never explained anything about the fruit to them.
It was related to the sacrificial object, after all.
“I said a branch. Does that look like a branch to you?”
“Well, you never know…… Hey! Don’t ignore me!”
I let Seigrena’s protest wash over me as I thought.
What if I don’t find it until the very last moment……?
That worry solidified into grim certainty after I’d checked every location in the middle section.
‘It’s not here.’
Not in the middle section. The lower area is too narrow—I must have combed through it already. That leaves only one place.
“Cria! Did you find it?”
A quick answer came down from above.
“Doesn’t look like it’s here……?”
“What do you mean? Did you search properly―”
The question rose to my throat—whether she’d actually done a thorough job—but I swallowed it down.
Cria’s work is meticulous. Kazen’s another story, but she’s never struck me as careless with a task. Not once.
‘Could I have missed it?’
That seems impossible……though I can’t claim certainty. But there’s no time to search from the beginning again.
“Commoner!”
That shrill voice cut through once more.
“What now?”
“You, talking to a noble like that? In a kingdom, you wouldn’t even dare look at―”
“Forget it. Just tell me what you actually found. We don’t have time.”
“……Hmph. There’s something strange here too.”
Another one of those “strange things.”
“If you’re about to spout more nonsense―”
“The branch! I found it!”
“What?”
Seigrena reached toward the branch―
In that instant, the branch writhed and its color shifted.
“See! This time it’s right, yes? Not nonsense, is it? The color is a bit different, but it’s clearly a special branch!”
Seigrena tilted her head with exaggerated pride, then asked uncertainly.
“But it doesn’t really look blue to me. How are we supposed to handle this?”
I swallowed hard, studying the branch’s color.
“……An Ashen Branch?”
What is this now?
I racked my brain desperately, but nothing came to mind. Something was happening that I myself didn’t understand.
‘Damn……’
A curse was forming on my tongue.
“What do we do? Should we just cut it? Or……”
“Wait. Hold on.”
“What? Hey! Aren’t you seeing Lorang fighting right now? This isn’t the time to be leisurely!”
I can see it clearly.
I also know that even a white knight won’t last much longer.
‘Less than a minute left, maybe.’
I don’t know. The situation might be even more dire than that.
But rushing judgment because of pressure would be the worst possible move.
“Sigh.”
I exhaled the heat from my mind with a long breath.
The Blue Branch and the Ashen Branch……
What’s the difference? Were there any other clues I missed? Perhaps there’s something I’m overlooking.
‘Damn it.’
I have no idea what it is right now. If it were Lorang, there’d certainly be a clue, but nothing comes to mind.
“Hey! We’re just going to cut this?”
In the middle of my thoughts, Seigrena spoke up again.
Irritation flared as I watched her still struggling to grasp the situation.
“What good does recklessly cutting it do? The color’s completely different.”
“So what if the color’s a little different? You think the effect reverses when we cut it? Besides, at this rate we’re all going to die anyway, so shouldn’t we try something?”
Her words jolted something in me.
Of course, I wasn’t swayed by logic that had no basis—but one word snagged in my mind.
“Reverses?”
As I heard that word, something surfaced.
“At last the Ashen Moon was driven back, and the Frost Sun rose to fill the heavens.”
The opening passage of the ancient text flickered through my mind.
Disconnected and isolated, the kind of detail I’d never bothered to mention to Lorang.
And the text had called the Woodman a Sun Worshiper.
‘Tree and sun…’
I knew this wasn’t the moment for it. But I couldn’t stop the chain of reasoning unspooling in my head.
First, the tree.
What is the sun to a tree?
Obviously the mother of all things, an object of reverence beyond measure. No tree could exist without it.
‘Then, the moon?’
I didn’t need to think about its astronomical properties or ecological effects. In these cryptic ancient texts, what mattered was symbolism.
“The opposite of the sun…”
The Woodman’s nature suddenly became clear to me.
These creatures barely moved at night, but conversely—they could move at times. I’d attributed it to random events from the game’s seed system, but what if it wasn’t?
‘What if they could only move on nights when clouds covered the moon?’
At last the Ashen Moon was driven back, and the Frost Sun rose to fill the heavens.
That wasn’t saying it literally happened. It was probably a metaphor for conflict between worshippers.
In other words—
The text was describing ancient beings that once stood against the Woodman.
‘Could it be?’
A possibility flashed through my mind.
I had no certainty in any of it, but there was no time to deliberate further. Now I had to stake everything on the thinnest thread of evidence.
“Hey! Tell me already! If Lorang gets hurt because of this, what then?! Just smash this stupid branch and—”
“It’s the opposite.”
“What?”
“We don’t destroy it. We protect it.”
The branch was probably an allied object.
Though I couldn’t be certain, perhaps something like a parasite feeding on this massive tree?
‘If so…’
I revised my understanding.
From now on, protecting this branch comes first.
That’s the new strategy for conquering the Wood Revenge.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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