'Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it! Damm it!'
As Samiel cursed in his mind the situation over and over again, it was apparent that the Treant's appearance was basically the beginning of the whole shitshow. As he sensed the level of the Treants, the majority were at the Bronze-Tier Level 50, and some of them were even at the Silver-Tier, which made the situation even more complicated.
The first one to take off was Nefertari, who flapped the ship and abandoned the three of them, but what would one expect from the Cat such as Nefertari? She was scared for her own life because there were at least fifteen Treants incoming at their position, from which three were Silver-Tier, so she took her chances to fly away.
In truth, seeing his Familiar escaping as the first one, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this, because he hoped that Nefertari would remain here for a bit longer, not just escape as the first from this mess. But what should he have awaited from the Elder Wampus Cat? He knew that she would return after everything was safe and probably tell him that she went scout the situation ahead.
Samiel was able to see the first Treant after they had started running, but it was a lot different from what he had seen before because he had already seen a lot of them before he saw this one. In Zephystrand City, there were hundreds of Treants, so Samiel was very well familiar with them.
Normally, the Treants had face-like features on their bark, a division between their trunk that formed legs, and long branches that served as arms. Their wood appeared to be solid like stone, but it was actually filled with tubes that carried water from its roots to the areas where it was needed.
As opposed to the healthy green-brown color of the Treant, the ones that were created in the Cursed Forest were characterized by a grayish-black color, which clearly indicates the corruption caused by the environment in which they were birthed and the effects of the cursed forest.
Due to the fact that these corrupted Treants were often prone to various types of diseases and technically genetic instability, they could spontaneously start decomposing and falling apart at any given moment, thus greatly increasing their aggressiveness and combat at the expense of their stability.
But that didn't make them any less dangerous; on the contrary, it made them even more fearsome than average Treants. And Samiel had to admit that even the ordinary Treants he saw were very dangerous, and he didn't really want to fight the Silver-Tier ones.
When Samiel saw the first Bronze-Tier Treant, he immediately sent at it several 3rd Level Spells from the Void Magic, the Void Strikes, as they hit the Treant all around its surface, causing pieces of wood to fly away in countless chips high in the air.
Interestingly to Samiel's deep surprise, it didn't kill the Treant, but that could be expected considering where they were fighting. One thing about fighting Treants in forests where they were created was the fact they were night impossible to kill.
That was especially the truth with the things like semi-sentient forests or those fully sentient ones, just like this one, the Cursed Forest, where they were located. The Cursed Forest itself was directly connected to the Treants, and it was constantly regenerating and repairing them, so unless Samiel could destroy the whole Treant entirely in one hit, then his efforts would be futile.
But on the good side of things, the purpose was not to destroy them but rather to slow them down because he already felt that they were closing to the exit of the Cursed Forest. When Nefertari flew away, she was constantly sending him images through their telepathic connection, which way he should go.
Due to this, Samiel, as their group leader, was deciding on the direction, and thanks to cat air support, they were approaching the exit relatively fast. The coordination between the three of them was almost perfect, with Samiel leading the way and Ashimer with Yvraine disposing of the thorny vines or other attempts of the Cursed Forest to slow them down or kill them.
They ran through the forest, with Samiel occasionally spamming some Void Strikes that proved to be destructive enough against the Treants to buy them enough time when they approached them closely. Fortunately, the Void Magic never let him down, as its power and destructive capabilities proved themselves to be useful even at this moment.
After ten minutes or so, they finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel when Samiel saw the light penetrating through the crowns of the trees, signifying that they were on the outskirts of the Cursed Forest.
"We are already safe."
Samiel stated as he stepped outside of the Cursed Forest with his foot. The one thing he learned about the Treants was the fact, was that the farther they were from their forest, the weaker they got, in some cases, it would easily result in death.
Now that they were on some kind of plateau, with high brown grass sprouting from the ground, pretty much complementing the entire looks of the Cursed Forest, with that weird and gloomy appearance.
"Okey, Yv?"
Samiel looked at Yvraine, who panted for breath; clearly the entire stay in the Cursed Forest took some heavy toll on her, but that was not surprising for him to see. She at first into the effects of the Cursed in that dammed place and was even poisoned.
Fortunately, he was able to purge it out completely; if not for that, then the consequences would be direr than just some fatigue and headache. Normally the people who were Apostles of Gods should be immune to the curses like this, but shockingly the curse of the Cursed Forest was able to bypass it.
This only affirmed Samiel's assumptions that the Cursed Forest that they had the honor to enter was a very powerful one, to the point where even someone like Yvraine felt a heavy toll on her as the Curses had a certain degree on her.
"I am okay... just need some time to regain my strength... I feel very tired."
Samiel could see that she was very close to falling asleep. Considering that they would need to walk for several days straight because this was apparently one of the more inhabited areas of the Demon Continent... how surprising, the place where the Cursed Forest was located wouldn't be a top destination for living.
Not even Demons would be living there, and of course, they didn't care that either somebody created a Cursed Forest or it grew naturally on its own through some twists of fate. Normally, any sane ruler would at least send some powerful Magician to check that place out and destroy it if possible.
Only Demons were negligent enough of not to care about the consequences of leaving the Cursed Forest to thrive here. Samiel read that some of the Cursed Forests could develop to the point of devouring the entire world; though such occasions were relatively rare and happened mostly in the Lower Worlds, there were several such cases that were recorded.
Nevertheless, Samiel then contemplated on what to do before he took sleepy Yvraine on his back as she held her arms around his neck, with him carrying her piggyback. He could see that she was dead tired because she didn't even protest against him doing this; normally, she would have a lecture that it was not befitting and it would be disgraceful to her reputation begin carried like a sack of potatoes.
Samiel then ordered Ashimer to guard him; in any case, if there were trouble, he could just summon his Undeads and let them take care of everything. Not talking about the cat air support that was flying high above their heads, surveying the area for potential threats.
Samiel went together with Ashimer for more than twelve hours with Yvraine on his back without any stop; they finally found some abandoned house that looked like it had been in that state for several decades already, but that should be enough for now.
When they arrived at the abandoned house, he realized that it looked better inside than it looked from the outside. It was a typical farmer's house, so basically a very crappy home, but Samiel immediately summoned his Undeads and divided them into three groups.
The first one was tasked with guard duty and would secure the perimeter in case they were attacked by Magical Beasts, bandits, or some other unscrupulous individuals, not to mention the possibility of the humans attacking them, because this was one of the more turbulent areas of the Demon Continent.
The second group of Undeads was tasked with repairing the farmer's house, so it could be suitable to spend a night because they would be spending several days here. From the symptoms Yvraine had, she would require several days of rest, before she could return back to her full power.
And finally, the third group was tasked with hunting and bringing back some magical beasts that he would turn into some good food, preferably steaks, as he was in the mood for some good and thick piece of meat.
Especially thick... like papa loves.
Samiel was then very satisfied with his clever usage of Undeads because they proved to be very helpful aside from combat and dealing with annoying enemies. Ever since he was on Earth, he was constantly using them to do things he didn't wish or others activities that would take a lot of time for him to do.
After three hours of working on the farmer's shack, it was finally repaired to an acceptable degree. The roof was fixed so nothing would leak in when it started raining, for example, and the walls were too fixed and insulated to prevent warmth leakage.
Groups of Undeads he released onto the wilds soon returned with some freshly hunted magical beasts, and even piles of wood, that he ordered them to chop down. Meanwhile, Samiel was coordinating the Undeads and commanding them on what to do and what not to do; Yvraine was sleeping on the bed that had been constructed for the purpose.
Though not only good news but also the bad ones, and the biggest one was that all the magical beasts that his Undeaqds managed to procure were only some species of rabbits. Even though they Iron-Tier around Level 10, they didn't have a lot of meat on them and evidently, there were not any other kinds of magical beasts in their vicinity.
So Samiel was forced to cook the stew out of them. Personally, he didn't like the rabbits and cooking them. The taste was weird, not like it was bad, but it was very lean meat and was not for everybody. Also, rabbits didn't have much meat on them, mainly because their bigger size was attributed to their thick fur, and the entire meat was filled with tendons, which made the meat hard to process.
Still, he made some good stew out of the rabbit meat available, together with some potatoes, root vegetables such as carrots, celery and root parsley, which added to it some earthly flavor, and he finished it with some chilly and peppercorn.
Even though it was not something he would typically cook and eat, it was way better than anything. As he was going to let the thing cook, he looked outside the window and noticed that the sun was already setting and it was getting relatively cold outside.
Fortunately, because he was cooking all this time inside the farmer's house, it was all nice warm here. Though Samiel didn't have any problem with coldness, he still enjoyed these cozy moments; it stemmed from his time on Earth; this was his favorite weather.
Around the entire house, around 200 Undeads were patrolling under Ashimer's leadership, so there was no way they would be ambushed or anything. Of course, this area was rather dangerous because there were a lot of Magical Beasts lurking here and there.
As he looked outside the window, he took another wood log and threw it to embers. The fire cracked nicely, as the place was getting warmer, and Samiel enjoyed looking at the flaming fire and burning wood.
He could see that Yvraine was getting better, the rabbit stew was simmering and would require around one hour to cook properly, or an hour and a half, depending on how it would taste and how the meat and vegetables would be done.
Thus he took one of the Grimoires at his disposal, sat on the wooden armchair, and started reading the book; that was all he was doing in his free time. After thirty minutes he spent studying the Necromancy Arts, right now he was reading about various aspects of the basic curses and their alternative usage, he noticed that Yvraine was slowly waking up.
When she opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that she was not already in the forest, but in some kind of house, if it could be called such, because it was in a terrible state, though it probably served the purpose.
When she turned her around, she noticed Samiel, who was sitting on a chair, engrossed in some magic tome, as always, but she felt very weak. It was clear that even though Samiel managed to disperse the curses and purge the poison out of her body, her organism still felt very weak due to that.
She was covered in several furs from high-tiered Magical Beasts, so she was warm, while the fire was providing further warmth to the place. Interestingly, the windows were already having some freeze burns over them, as the Demon Continent was apparently extremely cold during the nights, something which Samiel didn't really expect.
When Yvraine attempted to sit on her bed, she noticed that something heavy was on her chest, only to see Samiel's familiar Nefertari curled up in the ball was sleeping on Yvraine, as if it was protecting the mate of her hooman.
It was pretty cute, though.
"Slowly, slowly... the side effects of the curses and poison of the Cursed Forest was more severe than I predicted. Initially, I thought that my spell would be enough to deal with that, but clearly, some medical approach was required to do so, and I am in no way any healer or doctor."
Samiel stated in rather an apologetic way with a smile.
"Don't worry about that... I feel just tired, but thank you for carrying and taking care of me."
Yvraine said gently as she leaned over to her man, initiating a kiss, which he returned with equal passion. Ironically, she knew that Samiel was someone who had no prior romantical experiences aside from some kind of traumas that he didn't talk about, so she never pressed him into anything.
But after some time, he started being more natural with her and not so close to himself. Samiel Zentaur was pretty much a person who kept much to himself; he wasn't a very social person and preferred solace and silence compared to other things.
"Better now?"
He asked with a grin as their lips separated and he sat down on the bed next to Yvraine while hugging her close to him. It was indescribable what he was feeling, but one could say he wished for this moment never to end.
Like he finally found the peace he so much wished for but it never came.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel