Is this really a Game?!

“Hmmm…” Reign stared at the screen in front of him as he went into deep thinking. If he wanted to find the spy simply by using the tree’s power, it would take him tens of days since the territory now had over 500 people. He could of course live a couple of them out of the screening process, but most of the people that were here would need to be checked and that presented a huge issue for Reign.

‘I should first remove all the people that arrived here after troubles started happening, whoever the spy, or perhaps spies are, they were definitely here before it all happened, at least one of them was.’ Reign thought to himself before removing all the people that came later from the list.

‘Although I can’t be certain, but if a spy indeed did come here, it was probably after I conquered the territory, if I remove everybody that was here before that, I’m left with only about 126 people.’ Reign said as he continued looking at the screen. Even with such an amount, it would take Reign exactly 42 days to check everybody, of course, he might get lucky and find the spy early, but it was still not really encouraging news.

‘I’ll have to browse through the list and check their records, I can safely assume that whoever is the rat isn’t fighting, even though I might be wrong, but it would be risky to do that since a spy is supposed to be spying at all times, being outside the territory and risking death would be a dumb thing to do.’

‘Removing those that went to the elves and castle often should also be fine, even though the spy might have gone there, he would probably only go once or twice before coming back here to continue his task.’ As Reign thought about all of that, he continued crossing off people from the list. Suddenly the list went down to 70 people, a bit above half of the original number.

‘That still means I would be checking them for over 20 days, how can I improve this?’ Reign thought before his eyes suddenly widened.

‘If I can’t remove more of them, then perhaps increasing the number of times I can use the power or improving the power of the tree might help!’ Reign remembered the branch of Yggdrasil the party had stumbled upon in the Black Forest long ago. If he could take the tree back here, he might be able to improve the power of his own, no, he would definitely be able to do that as he remembered Eldar telling him so.

‘But how can I just take such a huge tree and bring it back here?’ Reign again fell into deep thoughts, there was no way he and Greenie could actually transport such a thing back here. But since Eldar had told them to do so, there might be a way, perhaps there was something special with the tree?

“Let’s go Greenie.” Reign suddenly stood up and went towards the door, a confused Greenie followed after him.

“Go where?”

“To get us a new tree.” Reign smiled as Greenie looked at him with even greater confusion.

‘Did master go crazy?’ Greenie thought as he scratched the back of his head and followed Reign out. The two slowly walked toward the two teleport gates and went to the castle, before Jack and Eldar could even come out to greet them, Reign and Greenie had already left for the forest, leaving the two men confused by their behavior.

“Did something happen?” Jack asked as he stared at the now-closed gate.

“No, if they’re going that way, that means they’ll be going to the black forest, he probably wants to get the other branch of Yggdrasil and take it back with him,” said Eldar as he shook his head before turning around, “He should’ve talked to me first though, I could’ve given him some tips on how to do that.”

…

“So that’s what we’re here to do,” Greenie exclaimed as Reign explained what he was trying to do. He was there with Reign and the others when they came across the weird tree and he remembered it vividly. The tree gave him a dangerous vibe, but after they had managed to go through the first evolution, nothing here should be able to endanger them.

“Let’s be careful, last time we got the necromancer quest early and it became more difficult as time passed, I’m not 100% sure, but the branch will definitely have some good defense around it, maybe even something as powerful as that ape.” Reign said as he passed through the Deep Forest with Greenie, with just a little bit of mana leaking from him, the whole forest was silent as not even field bosses dared to cause trouble for them. ｂ𝚍ｎｏｖ𝚕．ｃｏｍ

As Reign and Greenie entered the Black Forest the same continued happening. Reign’s immense mana pressure made it difficult for the monsters nearby to breathe and none dared to even move in his presence. The cursed trees, shadows, and wood folk that used to give the party a lot of trouble before were now as weak as ants compared to Reign.

It didn’t take Reign and Greenie long to find the branch, after walking around for about 10 minutes the two found themselves in front of a giant tree. The tree had undergone a small change as it was a bit bigger and there were even more branches that covered the sky above Reign and Greenie. The roots of the tree as well could be seen sticking out of the ground at some places while there were a couple of Wood folk in front of it, they were down on their knees and seemingly praying.

Reign and Greenie simply watched them as Reign suppressed his mana inside of him, even though he was leaking mana before, the 5 Wood folk in front of him didn’t react at all, it was as if they were in some sort of a trance. Suddenly Reign and Greenie could see the soil move at 8 places near the tree. As some time passed they were able to see what was moving the soil, it was a pair of hands.

‘They got revived huh?’ Reign remembered that the tree could potentially revive beings that had a high affinity to nature and wood, it seemed that these 8 Wood folk were revived thanks to its powers.

As Reign and Greenie approached the tree, however, the Wood Folk looked at them apprehensively. Even though there was no mana leaking out from either one of them, the Wood Folk could feel an invisible pressure coming down on them, they could feel that the two people in front of them were many times stronger than they were.

Still, the wood folk didn’t leave, all 13 of them stood their ground against Reign and Greenie while more suddenly arrived. Reign and Greenie didn’t move or do anything, they simply waited and let more of the Wood Folk gather. In a mere 5 minutes, hundreds of Wood Folk gathered around the tree, surrounding Greenie and Reign completely.

Just from his basic estimate, Reign could see that there were over 500 Wood Folk currently here, with more arriving with each passing second. He, however, simply scoffed at this, when they were weaker such a huge number of Wood Folk would be able to make them retreat in a hurry, just like they were forced to do the first time they came here, but with the power, he had now, even if there were over a thousand of them they would still find it impossible to win against him.

Reign simply released a large portion of his mana and the situation changed completely. The wood folk who were previously looking at them with arrogant expressions and were shouting were now staring at them in fear. There was complete silence in the forest as even the branch of Yggdrasil started shaking a bit, that was just how powerful Reign’s mana pressure was.

“Fuck Off!” Reign suddenly shouted as the wood folk scrambled to run away, even though there were so many of them, they knew that they would only die if they stayed. The branch of Yggdrasil was something holy for them, but they knew that there was nothing that they could do to save it, even the most powerful beings in the forest were still below Reign in power.

“So, what will you do?” Reign said as he walked toward the giant tree that was shaking more violently with each passing second. Why it was shaking exactly, Reign didn’t know, it could be anger, fear, or perhaps even excitement.

Suddenly the tree started opening, its thick and powerful body opened up as a wooden person walked out of it. The being that came out didn’t look like a human though, it was clear that it was created entirely from wood, but it looked similar to a knight in medieval times. The knight looked at Reign before a wooden sword was created in his hand, with the sword in hand the knight suddenly charged at Reign with incredible speed.