Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 28: My, what big teeth you have!

Chapter 28: Chapter 28: My, what big teeth you have!

When Aron found the strange candy house, I saw through his eyes that there was a horde of children eating it.

The one on the roof, where the marshmallows were, for some strange reason, was... Anne!

"I don’t understand," Aron said.

Neither did I.

"Aron?" I asked, as I tried to get him to look directly at Anne. "Mind asking that little girl over there what happened to the witch?"

Aron nodded, climbed on the roof, got sticky fingers for his trouble, and then sat by Anne.

"Good evening, Miss," he offered her his hand. "I am hunting a witch. Have you seen her?"

"The organ harvesters aren’t done with her. I’m Anne, by the way! Nice to meet you, Mister!"

Organ... harvesters?

"Aron?" I asked, as Aron shook Anne’s hand. "Is it just me or... did the organ harvesters finally did a good thing?"

Aron just blinked.

"Maybe her heart was something special?" Aron thought to me, for this conversation was not for the ears of a little girl.

"Solas would never stoop to the heart of a witch," I countered. I knew him. If a potato was even slightly brown, he always forked it over to Doran!

Who ate it instead of throwing it away, may he live a very long life.

"No, I don’t think he will," Aron agreed.

"And where are the organ harvesters now?" Aron asked. For these children looked healthy.

That was never a good thing to be, when adults with money in their brain wanted to take away the things which you needed to survive.

"Oh, the nice lady and the blind monks are in the house!" Anne told him in her chirpy voice.

"The house..." Aron began slowly, and I figured out why he stood up as if burned. "Which you are all eating?"

Anne blinked. Logic, finally realized, took its course.

As Aron tried to get from underneath Anne, whose fall he had cushioned, I saw her: the most beautiful woman in the world! A splitting image of that git, Solas!

But... who was she?

"I wouldn’t call her beautiful," Aron grumbled, his mask slipping.

"But would you have called king Solas handsome?" I asked, more to get him into trouble, than anything else.

"I’d call you handsome," he mumbled, then coughed. "I mean, you look better than him."

My ears did their heating up routine, which was becoming the norm for when Aron made a move on me.

Still, a drake was a drake.

"Vampire? Why are you here?" Her voice even sounded like Solas’!

"To kill the witch and rescue the children," Aron said, as he looked at the empty husk which once used to be able to breathe. Darn... was that what the organ harvesters did to people?

I stared at it.

I stared at the blood, the layers of fat which were in a box. At the fact that even the skin was collected.

I was glad that I was not with Aron right now. For, I would have colored his shoes yellow.

Just like I recolored mine.

"Well, she is dead. Her organs, and the organs of many other such creatures, will be helping the war effort," the woman said, as she allowed herself a slight smile. "The king needs a new heart."

I gulped. Well... better some children-eating witch than me.

I guess...

"And what sort of creatures will be sacrificed?" Aron asked because he was a vampire.

Aron chuckled inside my head.

"You will never have to worry about me," he said it so, as if his voice was the summer breeze coming in with the waves. "Because I will turn into dust, keeping your roots nourished."

"Drake!" Nathaniel yelled at the top of his lungs through our mental link.

I cut both links off.

"Oh," I said, as I sat down. Ignoring the humans, who were still drinking from the fountains so, as if that was their last drink. Ignoring my beating heart.

"You know," I heard the voice of my Old Girl in my left ear. "Give it time. Don’t let him sweep you off your feet too quickly."

"Yes," Grumpy Pants said in my right ear. "Built a partnership that lasts a lifetime."

"But I’m old," I whined, not feeling very old.

"Yes, you’re old," Theanore said, giggling. "But life has not given you the chance to grow up, dear Sylvan!"

I snorted.

"Oh, leave him be. He is just a drake," Marinus said, as he ruffled my hair.

And then it hit me.

Marinus ruffled my hair! He was corporal enough to do such a thing! Soon, he would be able to take his human form once more! He would be able to...

Leave the tree.

And then... Theanore will leave the tree as well.

But if that happens, who will be this old tree’s nymph?

That question bothered me for a whole of five minutes. I could not simply stay here. Because, as Doran liked to point out all the time, I have not paid my taxes... ever.

So now I had to keep Solas’ army fed.

But if this tree was not there to give me mana, then how was I supposed to do that?

"You know," Theanore said, as she let out a sigh. "If Mari and I go out in this world, then it will be like last time. The time when we were hunted. Sylvan... you may not be a grown up yet, but that does not mean you can’t take care of yourself."

"Yep! Make the tree bloom already!" Marinus yelled, as he clapped me on the shoulder.

Make the tree... bloom? But it was old! And the bark’s color was all wrong! And the branches could be cut down by tourists!

Oh.

This tree was like me.

It was not that Theanore and Marinus were acting as its nymphs.

I am the nymph of this tree. The new one.

Drake... yes, I am one.

I should have known, as I was chosen to be a dungeon core, that this tree was mine.

"But for it to bloom, you will both have to leave," I whispered, not caring that the humans were looking at me.

For nothing living could thrive while the dead had a hold on it.

"Well, yes," Theanore said in her chirpy voice. "But that won’t be too bad. We’ll be at peace! See our children!"

"Let the tree bloom, or it will be a spanking!" Marinus said, but I could tell it was just his way of teasing me.

When they tugged, I did not try to hold them to the tree.

I let them go.

The tree began to hum. I could feel as the bark turned its lovely brown color. I could feel the buds, which promised to become leaves and fruit.

But I could no longer feel my Old Girl and Grumpy Pants.

I was alone again.