Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 27: Treachery

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Treachery

The human village looked like a refugee camp. Not one in a developed country, but one in the Necromantic Union.

And I, instead of helping my humans, had been cooking for an army which was doomed to fail, and...

"Sylvan," Aron said, as he took a hold of my hand once more. "Did they ask you for help?"

I shook my head.

"Then how could this be your fault?" Aron asked, his voice was kind.

"It’s not," I could have wept when I saw Almira coming from the only building in the village. One with the snake and staff sign of all healers. "And we don’t want his help! If he helps, the king will find out what he is, and he’ll kill him!"

I wanted to run to the old woman and hug her, but Aron did not let go of my hand.

Nathaniel was chanting the word drake. Finally, I snapped, left my illusion body for just a second, and then I was back at the war camp.

Nathaniel’s lava cake ended up on his head.

I ran away back to the safety of Aron’s presence before Nathaniel could eat my eyes.

Or something equally disturbing.

"Did you... teleport?" Almira asked, as she eyed me so, as if I held all of life’s answers.

"Yes, I did!" And wasted the 400 zombies Desmond was lending me for the way home. But some things were worth it.

"Then teleport us to the Garden of Plenty!" She said, hope shining in her eyes. "Rumor has it that Consort Brandon is there! And there is an Apple Nymph dungeon core, who has talked Lexus the Nymph into feeding an army!"

Now that was something I had not expected. Apple Nymph? That was Pan, to be sure! But...

"The garden goes by another name," Aron beat me to it. "Nedrag."

"Oh, and do you think we care?" Almira asked, as she pointed at an empty market stall. "There is nothing left for us! Nothing! We will starve; the festival will be our last real meal! Anne..."

She took in a deep breath, as I finally managed to run to her. It has been only a couple of months since the storm! What could have possibly had happened to the little girl I wanted to turn into my cooking apprentice?

"Where is Anne? What happened to her? Grannie Almira, she is ok, right?" I did not dare to shake the poor woman, not only because that would have been rude of me, but because Anne was her granddaughter.

Almira had more rights to be upset than I.

"We had no choice! We had to give the witch something," Almira’s body began to shake. But she did not cry. Why wasn’t she crying? "We ran out of water two days ago."

"Good God," Aron whispered.

I was more than 5,000 years old. I had seen loss, felt my tree die, felt my second tree get threatened by a storm which would have killed us all, had it not been for the redirection of the mana towards making a new dungeon.

But this... for a woman like Almira to give up her own granddaughter...

"Anne volunteered," Almira continued, as she buried her face in her hands. "And the rest held me! They held me back! As the monster took my Anne away!"

Aron’s hand was gripping my arm. I noticed why seconds later, as I registered the pain.

My nails were turning into claws.

I am not like that.

They held her back!

"Think," Aron whispered in my ear, as he began to place barrier after barrier around me. "If you massacre all of these people, people who do not even have food or water, what will you achieve?"

They

"Do you honestly believe that there weren’t babies in this village? How long do you think one of those can survive without water?" he continued.

Almira gave out a loud wail.

"We gave them as well! All the babies, all the children! The witch lied! She needed a volunteer to cross the holy grounds of the church! She took our children away!"

"Well then," Aron said, finally letting go of me. "It is witch hunting season."

I blinked as he laid a hand over my own and massaged my fingers.

It was comforting.

It was dark.

It was Aron in his natural habitat.

"Stay here. Never dirty your hands. Not for a just cause, not for a crime. You have me," he leaned in, our noses pressing. His eyes were shining red. The red of a sunset. "And you will always have me."

The next second he was off and running. I did not know if he knew where the witch was, but I was not about to just stay there and wait for him like some damsel in distress.

Some of the humans had betrayed me. Had betrayed Anne.

But...

The children were gone. All of them. Even the babies!

I needed to evacuate these people! For even though witches liked to eat children, they were not above eating adults as well.

"We need to get everyone to safety! There is water in my dungeon! And the gnomes are already moving in there!" I hated the fact that I would need to give a safe haven to those who had handed Anne away, but I needed to be fair.

Because, even if I would have never done such a thing to a child, I did stand to the side as my tree, my real tree, was cut down.

"Water? You have water?" Almira did not linger for much longer. She ran, showing me a side of her I had never seen before. In record time, everyone was rounded up.

The halls of my old, nearly dead tree, the one home for my Old Girl, were filled with humans with bags under their eyes and mud under their nails.

The water fountains sprang to life so, as if summoned. There was no stampede, for the older humans yelled at the younger ones, but as I watched how desperately they drank from the water, ignoring the garden with its meager offerings, I knew:

They had not betrayed Anne.

Anne had tried to save them.