I logged back to the game and I found myself seated inside of the Chief of the Squirrel-kin's house and there was also Acorn napping over a small bed made of hay. He had almost a dozen flasks filled with a green liquid sitting at a table at his side. He seemed to have taken a nap seeing how I wasn't coming back yet, I was so sorry! I also took a nap, and I was quite tired…
I then looked into the current quest and saw that we still needed a bunch of materials, although at the very least we got the mushroom part done for.
[Dark Essence]: 1/10
[Black Core]: 1/10
[Morning Flower Dew]: 0/5
[Spiky Purple Mushroom]: 5/5
[Leaf of Youth]: 0/5
[Golden Sap]: 0/5
Damn it… At the very least we got to get something of this bunch today! I knew that Acorn was the only one aware of the way to all these materials, so I had to sadly wake him up. The big squirrel boy looked so cute sleeping, I ended caressing him for a bit. His fur was so soft, I wanted to adopt him! But he was an NPC friend, not a pet that I could just go around petting! So with that in mind, I stopped having these weird thoughts where I wanted to make Acorn my little pet and slowly attempted to wake him up by shaking him a little bit.
"Acorn, wake up… I am back," I said. "Dear, wake up…"
"Hmm…" He muttered. "F-Five more minutes, grandma…"
Aw… I guess his grandma used to wake him up early in the morning? He must miss her a lot… Was his grandma like his mother? I haven't seen him talking about his parents at all, were they alive? Well, it would be rude to ask, so I have not asked those types of things that might be hurtful.
"Hmngh… Oh? Ah!"
Acorn finally woke up after I caressed his head with a bit more intensity. He jumped out of the bed made of hay as he realized I was standing there looking down at him. He quickly regained his composure as he licked his tiny hands and washed his face with them… I guess that was how squirrels do it.
"Phew… Sorry for that, I was taking a nap to regain some energies! I think there's still time to go look for some stuff, right?" He checked out his window and saw that the sun was still in the sky, just slowly going down.
"Yeah, it still should be enough time, so what should we go pick now?" I asked. "Anything closer to here aside from the mushrooms?"
"I think we almost extinguished all the mushrooms from that area…" He sighed. "Mushroom monsters come from an underground cave or something, but they take a long time growing up into adults and then sprouting out of the ground, so I guess we are mostly free from those guys for a while."
"Eeeh? No more mushrooms? Oh well, I got a lot of dropped items from them, enough mushrooms to cook for a month or more," I said with a smile.
"Well that's good," said Acorn. "Anyways, the closest item we got is the Golden Sap, it is the sap of a specific tree named Ash Tree of Life, it is a small tree said to have grown from a small branch of the Yggdrasil Tree. Just like the Tree of Beginnings! There is a small family of Ash Trees of Life to the northwest, so let's go there, it should be a short trip if we go on top of Belle!"
"Meee!"
Belle was right at our side, as she was also napping with Acorn. Loki was seemingly sleeping too as she remained quiet near Belle… I didn't know if plants slept or not, but I think they do? Well, Loki was a monster plant so normal rules don't exactly apply to her as we know it. Nonetheless, with that said, we decided to move out. I took a peek at each citizen before we went out. Most of them were back to sleep, but looking at their status, they seemed healthier, so that soothed my heart. I guess they'd be able to endure it more.
Just wait for us, we'll surely find the materials and create a cure!
We moved down the tree into the grassy forest floor below, and we mounted our fierce steed. Belle was strong enough to carry all three of us (including Loki) without any apparent problems, she quickly marched towards the destination that Acorn told me. I was able to indicate Belle where to run by clicking into a certain point in the mini map.
The sound of her legs crushing branches and the grass below was heard everywhere as we moved forward, but it seemed that monsters were not near so we were kind of safe… and Belle would crush anything that got in the way anyways. For around twenty minutes, we simply moved as fast as possible towards our location. The beautiful forest was getting a bit darker now, but I was willing to work at night to get what we wanted.
"Here we are!"
After half an hour, we arrived at our destination and we found ourselves in a small patch of grass in the forest, which was separated from the rest of the forest for some reason. In the middle of this patch of grass, this small area, there were a few dozen small Ash Trees, with gray-colored branches with green leaves, emanating a mysterious aura from within.
"We are here! It seems that there were no monsters, that's nice to know," said Acorn, as he jumped into the forest at first and began to move towards the Ash Trees at a fast speed. As he moved, I decided to follow him with Belle and Loki at my side. I looked around but it seemed that there was nothing dangerous so it would be a nice and safe trip, that's nice—Eh?
However, before my eyes, a creeping and large shadow was slowly lurking right at the side of Acorn, coming directly from the depths of the forest, and then, it jumped right towards us!
"Watch out, Acorn!" I cried, as I extended my hands and suddenly shaped them as vines, grabbing Acorn and pulling him back before the enormous creature was to crush him!
BOOOOMMM!!!
The creature was so heavy it made the entire ground tremble, and it blew us away with ease. I ended up falling over my own butt, which was rather big thankfully, and I caught Acorn on my arms. I lost some HP, but it was regenerating automatically.
"GYU!"
The angered and… cute (?) voice of a creature was heard. I looked at the entity made of darkness… that was definitely a Dark Beast! But what kind of Dark Beast is that? It had the shape of… a mushroom?! When I looked at the beast information, something intriguing showed up…
[Dark Beast Mushroom King: Lv7 (ELITE)]
A powerful Dark Beast formed from the leftover negative energy and miasma contained from dozens of Walking Mushrooms that were indiscriminately massacred all at once. It is filled with resentment and will chase down those that killed the mushrooms that gave birth to it at all costs. It possesses a deadly venomous pore that can paralyze and inflict poison on a target, which will lower their HP over time, it can also jump very high and crush an enemy with its big weight.
What? It was the mushroom we killed yesterday?! No way, is this all my fault? Uagh! It was because I summoned Belle and she just killed everybody… I am sorry, mushrooms! Have they come to haunt me now that we assassinated them?! Ugh… And its HP bar was so big! It was definitely a Boss Monster! What kind of game was this where they make a Boss Monster chase you down? It was as if the game just wanted you to die for once…
"T-That's a big Dark Beast! And a mushroom?!" asked Acorn.
"I can sense it, Acorn, this Dark Beast was born from the miasma that the mushrooms we killed yesterday had…" I sighed. "It is all my fault!"
"N-No, don't think about those things, please!" he said. "W-We have to kill it now, if we run away, it will chase us down into the village and if this thing can jump so high, it could even destroy all the houses in the trees—Uwah! It's coming again!"
"GYUUU!"
The giant Dark Beast Mushroom King suddenly gathered a large quantity of energy in the form of darkness within its body. The energy concentrated within its tiny legs and then the mushroom jumped high into the skies once more with an explosion of this dark matter, leaving a lot of dark smoke behind!
FLAAAASH!
"It is falling, run!" I cried, grabbing Acorn as Belle and Loki followed me from behind and then, the giant mushroom fell right over the place we were just a few seconds ago!
BOOOOOOMMM!!!
The enormous tremor it provoked was very loud and strong, and it even cracked the dirt and stones behind, leaving a large crater where the Mushroom had to crawl out of it for a bit—Wait, that's it! Was this… a Boss Pattern? So even in this game they got something like that? Every time it fell, it created a small pit that it had to crawl outside from, giving us time to hit it!
"Acorn, hit it with everything you got!" I said. I quickly decided to attack myself. I didn't have many attack skills or anything of the sort, Green Magic seems purely defensive or supportive, but that's enough! I used the Buffing Spells Accelerated Growth, and Verdant Recovery Light, which both gave a slight buff to a target, and I conjured it on both of us and Belle and Loki! After that, I slowly shaped my hand into a large and sharp spear made out of wood, hardening the wood was hard and it took a chunk of MP, but I didn't have much of an option now! Controlling the trees was unrealistic because they were far away and would cost too much MP.
"Okay! I prepared these explosive potions just for the occasion!" he said.
"E-Explosive potions?!" I asked.
Acorn took out a small red flask from his pocket, containing a strange red liquid that glowed very brightly. It seemed to emanate the aura of fire and combustion! This was definitely not a potion! Was this a Molotov bomb but in a fantasy world?!
"I made them out of a special herb that has a sap that combusts when it touches another specific sap, this black one! This is Fiery Sap and this is Oil!" said Acorn.
"Acorn that's not a sap—Well, whatever, try it out then!" I said.
"Okay!"
As we moved around, Acorn quickly throwed both of the flasks over the head of the angered Dark Best Mushroom King, as the flasks shattered into pieces over its head. The black oil mixed with the "fiery sap" and then, a combustion effect happened, an explosion of fire, actually!
BOOOM!!!
"W-Wow, it worked! Hahah!" Laughed Acorn. "This is the first time I try this out!"
"GYUUUUU…!"
The giant mushroom began to burn, constantly taking damage on its HP, as it now gained the Status of "Burning" and was taking constant damage! Nice! Although the damage by itself was not as big, as it lowered around 7% of its HP, it was a good chunk nonetheless!
"GYU! GYU!"
However, the mushroom only grew angrier at our attempt at damaging it, as it finally jumped into the skies once more! It began to quickly fall towards our exact direction with amazing precision. I quickly jumped over Belle once I grabbed Acorn, as Loki followed next, and then Belle moved us away in time.
BOOOOOMMM!!!
Another tremor happened, but the Mushroom not only just jumped this time—instead it angrily released a purple-colored smoke all around its body! These were the poisonous spores!
