Li stepped back into the cottage and watched from the windows as the procession moved onwards.

“Well, what is it, lad?” asked Old Thane. His voice came out a little muffled from behind his room’s door. He had insisted on keeping himself quarantined so as to not give Li his sickness.

Li took another glance at the decree and placed it on the dinner table. “Nothing much. Lord Lys gathered up a company of his knights and a whole crowd of adventurers to kill a monster in the Winterwoods.”

“Is it serious?”

“Will it hurt our farm any? Not in the near future. But the road will be blocked until the monster’s been dealt with.” Li leaned against the table and looked up. Habit it was, he did this when thinking. “I’m going to be going out for a bit, that okay?”

Old Thane was silent for a bit. “Of course, lad. You’ve done an excellent job with everything already. You deserve a break.”

As Li made sure his hood was secure over his head, Old Thane called out again.

“Li, I do have a favor to ask, if you’ll honor it.”

“Want me to bring some chicken? We could get a soup going for your cold.”

“That would help too, but no, it may be selfish of me, but could you make sure that the adventurers do not die?”

Li nodded.

They hadn’t talked about what Li had done to those bandits in the forest, but Old Thane was no fool. The old man knew that Li was incredibly powerful, but he honored his word in not treating Li any differently. He never asked questions either or made reference to Li’s strength.

Old Thane, sharp as he was, knew that Li was going to do something about this situation. The fact that he was willing to just say it out in the open like this spoke volumes of how much he wanted to keep those adventurers, people he still considered comrades and brothers in arms, safe.

“I can’t guarantee anything,” said Li. “But I’ll try my best.”

“Thank you, young lad. You’ve been a great help to me, far more than I deserve, truly.” Old Thane’s voice lightened up. “And don’t forget the chicken.”

_____

Li followed far behind the procession. It was unfortunate, but he didn’t have spells related to stealth. Elden World’s balance separated what classes could do quite well, and stealth was strictly in the domain of the Assassin class. All the spells he learned had been focused on combat, shapeshifting, and summoning.

Li sort of regretted being such a tryhard in Elden World and only having shapeshifting spells that turned him into terrifying monsters. Although, if he assumed his true form, he did possess a passive called [Spectral Form] that allowed him to turn invisible in forests, but he couldn’t just turn into some godlike being in the middle of the road.

He would have to wait until they entered the forest and then follow behind.

While the noisy procession made its way to the Winterwoods, Li got a general sense of their strength. The knights all ranged from level 25-30, with a few of them being just above 30. This seemed to be the standard of strength for the average professionally trained fighter in this world.

Coincidentally, it lined up well with game mechanics. At level 10, Elden World characters could choose their primary class and at 20, they could gain their first specialization or subclass.

It was apparent that these knights had chosen to be warriors for their primary classes and specialized as knights at level 20, making them incredibly balanced fighters who struck a fine balance between the durability of barbarians and the deadly lethality of duelists.

The adventurers, on the other hand, were significantly stronger. The ones with bronze medallions were at minimum level 30, which was to be expected. From Old Thane’s stories about his past adventuring life, Li knew that adventurers stood at the high end of what humanity could achieve.

Which made sense, considering that they had to put their lives on the line against fierce beasts whose raw strength far eclipsed theirs. Every single adventurer had to take rigorous training in guilds for at least five years before even going on their first hunt, honing not only their bodies and magic, but also drilling into their heads every countermeasure for every known type of monster.

They were specialists through and through, highly respected, well-paid, and short-lived.

What caught Li’s attention in particular was the presence of three silver-ranked adventurers. They each headed one of the three parties and individually ranged from levels 40 to 45. He knew that to graduate from bronze to silver was no simple task. It involved successfully finishing hunts that saved entire villages or cities. The glory involved with such feats made them celebrities.

Even more reason to ensure the adventurers didn’t die. If the silvers died, it would draw massive amounts of unwanted attention. He knew he had to get back the Myrmeke – it was his responsibility, after all, having created the creature – but he had to do it in a way that preferably nobody died.

Well, nobody important at least.

It took a good half hour for the procession to make their way into the forest, slowed down as they were by the ballista. By the time they had went deep enough into the woods that the forests swallowed them up, deafening their ruckus, it was mid-afternoon, the sun hanging sleepily in the sky, ready to turn amber and sink in an hour or two.

Li mentally made a note that it would be time to water his herbs when the sun set, when it was cool and the bright rays wouldn’t evaporate the water, before he stepped up to the edge of the forest and shed his mortal skin.

There was nobody around to see him – everyone in the city or surrounding villages had holed up in their houses, having received the decree and gotten terrified at the mere idea that a monster powerful enough to draw such a hefty force existed nearby.

Li walked into the forest, and it welcomed him. He could feel the trees bowing their leaves to him. Little plants sprouted beneath his oaken legs as he traversed the woods.

Every so often, small game such as rabbits or songbirds would nuzzle at his feet or flutter about his ear, offering their worship to the Elder Leshen, the greatest of forest spirits, an Old One beyond gods and demons, before scampering away.

His form flickered, hovering between the ethereal and the physical. Parts of him alternated between being solid or see-through at random. [Spectral Form] in Elden World granted him increased dodge chance at the cost of lowering the effectiveness of worn armor as well as out of combat invisibility in forests, but here, it seemed that the nature could still perceive him.

It was a pleasant feeling, being the object of such reverence. Li could feel that when he entered the forest in this form, he became its heart, the nucleus upon which countless threads of life all intersected. If he focused, though faint, he could feel the beating hearts of every single forest creature and plant no matter how small or large.

And it was through this sense that he located the Myrmeke.

______

Li stood concealed amidst the trees that formed a great ring around the lake that his [Fist of Ymir] had formed. He peered out to see the Myrmeke sleeping in front of the lake, its tawny head tucked among its front legs. It must have decided to guard the lake because it recognized the spell as Li’s.

Li’s [Forestborn Sense] told him that the adventurers were lying in wait at the other side of the clearing, across the lake and in front of the Myrmeke, hidden amidst the trees and shrubbery. The ballista and the knights stood much further back, likely to prevent the Myrmeke from hearing the loud approach of such a clumsy and large contraption.

Li weighed his options. He couldn’t send direct commands to the Myrmeke from this far a distance, mimicking a game mechanic that mobile summoned creatures above level 50 couldn’t be controlled outside a certain distance from the player.

In the game, it prevented groups of summoners from just spamming summons and sending them to harass other players from the other side of the map or arena.

However, here, it was a nuisance.

The Myrmeke was far out enough where to communicate with it, Li had to step out of his forest cover and then cross the lake by hovering over it like some deathly ghost, and if he did that, he had no illusion that they would try and attack him or run in terror.

Either way, it meant that they would have to report that there was an incomprehensibly powerful existence in the forest that could even control a level 60 monster.

Unless Li just killed all of them to prevent witnesses, but that was off the table too if he could help it. An extreme response like that would probably bring entire armies down to the forest, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Potentially, as an Eldritch Druid, he could cast curses on them to ward them away, but all his curses were A-ranked, meant for use by those level 70 and above. Most, if not all of his curses would permanently cripple or flat out kill these humans.

Another option was to remotely summon plants to ward off the humans, but the plant summons that Li could cast over long distances were autonomous and highly specialized for dealing damage.

One Vilespore or Mantrap would drive these humans back for sure, but there was no way of limiting the damage they would do, potentially causing unwanted deaths and spreading more panic that the Winterwoods had become a deathtrap, probably halting any movement in and out of it while warranting even more adventurers and knights to come along.

It was like he was living in a world of glass. Everything was just so fragile.

Li did manage to think of a rudimentary plan, but before he could work the kinks out of it, the adventurers attacked, rushing out of the woods with their weapons drawn and their staffs glowing with mystical energy.

The absolute and utter fools. Did they not understand that the Myrmeke outleveled them? At the very least, half of them were happily charging into their deaths.

Li palmed his face with his leafy hand before he too sprung into action.