Chapter 2145: More Orcs

Well, regardless of whether or not Althea forgot something, she had a task on hand—that was to say, rescue these orcs and get out safely.

"AHH!"

"Ouch!"

"Son! SON!"

"Don’t close your eyes, BAAA!"

They could see the orcs with thinner skins already growing weak from the blood absorbed from them, while those with thicker skins had already been penetrated. The more they struggled, the denser the branches clustered.

She prioritized rescuing these people first. Anyway, since Garan was cutting them from afar, the plant’s energy would shift more to regeneration and defense, considering the considerable damage Garan was making.

She knew this because of the [Eye]. Before, the wood elements except from the source were relatively consistent throughout. However, as Garan made moves, less energy was distributed further out and would head towards the damaged areas.

Taking advantage of the increased distribution of forces, Althea used her water whip to free up the weakened orcs from the vines. She did this one by one, so whoever was freed would help with the others too. For those who were too weak to fight, Althea would create an earth platform underneath them.

It wasn’t that the branches wouldn’t reach upwards. It was just that there were ready targets right below, so there was no need to exert excess energy, especially with other people causing damage elsewhere. Thus, those at higher elevations would be ignored.

This process was repeated several times until all the struggling orcs were able to move and defend themselves.

At some point, Garan also found the root of the plants, and it shrivelled up on its own. Sol, who arrived who-knew-when, also targeted another root, freeing up the area from any more threats.

The orcs, now free, finally allowed themselves to get a short breather.

The half-animals looked at Althea with bright eyes. "Thank...thank you..."

...

This was the third orc tribe she encountered since coming here. Althea had to say, considering how these tribes might not encounter a member of another in a year, her encountering three in a few weeks was quite impressive.

The orcs went to Althea and Garan to thank them, but they flinched when they saw a large sunflower right behind them.

Due to all the chaos, they did not see it at all before. Now, they shivered, but they were ready to fight despite being spent.

Every sway of one of its petals made them defensive.

Obviously, moving plants have traumatized the poor orcs.

"Watch out! There are monsters behind you!" They yelled, wanting to pull Althea and Garan to their side.

The couple held down a smile. "It’s fine, it’s a friend," she said, raising her hand and coating it with the wood element. Since she had ’awakened’ back in the Valov war, doing this had become increasingly easy.

"This...er..." they had the expression showing their very confused state, unable to wrap their heads around how plants could be ’friends’. In their common sense, this was simply not within the realm of possibility.

"This is the only one that I could turn into an ally. Its name is Sol," she said. "The others are just bloodthirsty; don’t try to befriend them."

Althea herself was still in the process of influencing those wild roots. They don’t really interest her as much as Sol did, but gaining this ability would certainly help their trip deeper in.

They were going around the Hollow Forest blind. How dangerous was that? Deadly. It was dangerous to the degree that even the strongest orc would not dare think of facing it on his own.

So, they didn’t tell this to the orcs, just telling them that they were going around the periphery to feed the plant, lest they befriend something that would 100% try to kill them.

Althea kindly gave them meat to help them recover, both to sate their hunger and also heal their wounds.

When Garan found out about this, he stared at them deep in thought, and she knew that he also wanted to explore this avenue.

While the orcs ate and recovered, Althea chatted with a few who could. Soon, they found out that this dozen orcs had separated from their tribe after a large mob managed to break through. Many orcs died, and they had to run away to survive.

It had been a while since the wind had picked up, and they had been running away this whole time, which indicated that their tribe was quite far away.

Knowing they probably didn’t know where the local tribes were, Althea shared the information. "There are two tribes nearby, probably less than a day of travel from here," she said. Anyway, orcs were simple creatures. They’d appreciate an injection of force rather than be wary of them.

Of course, this kind of thinking was fine only because they were dealing with fellow orcs. She wouldn’t dare carelessly give others’ addresses away if it were anyone else, especially fellow humans.

Althea planned to teach them more about humans’ treacherous nature so they didn’t get scammed in the future.

"I can’t take you, but I can show you."

"Two tribes? That’s amazing!"

Generally speaking, there were only two tribes in a small region. However, the Rocky Tribe had become a semi-sedentary tribe and was located in a place where no other tribe would dare build, so this place was an exception.

The dim hollow forest was difficult to see through. "Sol, can you take us up?"

Garan and Althea stood leisurely at the plant’s receptacle while the orc with the farthest sight hung along with them. He was an avian, but he looked like a chicken who couldn’t fly, not to mention his wing was broken, so he could only get carried upwards.

He never would have thought of using a monster plant to rise above the canopy. He suspected he was still dreaming.

Althea fed the sunflower a lot of concentrated wood power, which it obviously loved, and gave some overripe fruits from the space as snacks, making it very happy.

It climbed to the tallest tree in the vicinity, which was a few meters above the average crown height and then extended a bit more with its own height.

Sol was not small. Its head (including the petals) alone was more than four meters in diameter.

Its body was not like the sunflowers they had in Terran and Alterra, though. Rather than upright to get as much sun, its stalk was a bit more flexible and vine-like.

Of course, it could also carry its own weight and stretch up as if its stalk had always been upright. This was the reason why its lone vine was so thick. It was literally designed to carry its weight, even upright where wind was inevitably strong.

One had to remember how strong the winds here were. While the winds dissipated a lot in Hollow Forest due to the density of the trunks and foliage, there were still many areas with strong winds, and this was especially true above the canopy. Many plants also liked the breeze by instinct, especially Sol, who liked the sun and did hang out in the open air a lot.

Ever heard of ’the tree that grows tallest gets struck by the wind first’? Yeah, Sol was the literal example of that. This allowed this trunk-vine to be very strong.

In Terran the approximate ratio of the stem to its crown was 1 is to 15. It wasn’t as exaggerated here, but it was still quite long.

At its tallest, the height it stretched up the most, Sol could go up 40 to 50 meters high.

Of course, considering the height they currently were, at more than 15 meters from the ground, going too high up was indeed a strain, so Sol went up to about a little over 20 meters, using the rest to support itself around the tree on which it anchored.

That said, this height was not low and went up more than 50 meters in total, combined with the tree they were standing on.

With this and the larger curvature of the planet, their horizon view was very far.

Through this, she gave them direction to both the Feyun and the Rocky tribes, as well as the name of their respective tribe leaders. As for whether they would actually arrive safely there, that was their problem.

"Thank you! Bless your journey!"

She smiled.

She looked at the orc hanging on the back of a bear orc. She looked very, very old.

He had the form of a tortoise, which was really fitting.

She had been looking for old orcs who might have an idea about what the hell urfrukt was. She had a few clues from the Rocky tribe, but she was open to gathering as much info as she could.

It was just that many of the old orcs did not survive whenever a mob breached. While their relatives could protect them, since orcs generally did not have much fortification, it was difficult to truly guard anyone once a breach had been made.

Althea went over and asked what most women would find rude. "Hello, lady. How old are you?"