Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 993 - 108 The Legend of the Tree People

Chapter 993: Chapter 108 The Legend of the Tree People

"It really seems like that," Catherine cautiously touched the wall. Although smooth, the wooden wall felt uneven, similar to natural tree growth. However, the girls could hardly fathom how the interior of a tree could transform into a house or even sprout features like stairs. So Catherine couldn’t help asking, "Did you design the room layout before the tree grew, and then have them grow according to your design? Wouldn’t that mean you’d have to wait decades or even centuries to have a house?"

"No, even Elves with their long lives wouldn’t want to wait a century to have a house. And you are underestimating this tree. Its age is almost as old as my mother, definitely older than the history of your Neutral Land," Flare shook her head. "Building a house is actually simple for us. We find a tree like this in the forest, then negotiate with it to see if it wants to live together in the future. If it agrees, we take it to the place we want to reside, let it take root again, and then we tell it the layout we want. It then changes its internal structure according to our needs on its own."

"Wait, wait, I think my mind is a bit confused," Catherine interrupted Flare as she exchanged looks with her teammates. Still unable to clear her thoughts, she could only smile wryly and ask, "First, I just want to confirm, did you just say, negotiate? With a tree?"

"Of course, they too are life forms, they too are children of the Mother God. Living together with them certainly requires asking for their agreement first," Flare asserted as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Perhaps you humans have some misunderstandings about how Elves control plants. We never act against the will of the plants. Whether it’s to make them bloom or bear fruit, we always negotiate and request, never command."

"So, plants have their own will too," Vivian excitedly took out her notebook, rapidly jotting down notes as she spoke. "This is a noteworthy topic for study. If plants have their own thoughts, might there be some particularly intelligent individuals among them, like Jack the Hydra in the swamps? If they do think, what might they be thinking? And if part of them is cut off and regrows, is it still them? Oh, if only we could experiment with this, maybe..."

"Don’t even think about it," Flare said with a laugh, "They are our partners, not research subjects, I really don’t understand what you Mages think. Thankfully, none of the Forest Mages among Elves would do such things. Give up; no Elf will agree to help you with such experiments."

"That’s truly a pity," Vivian continued absorbed in her own world, paying no further attention to the treehouse.

"Sorry," Catherine awkwardly apologized. "Vivian can be quite obsessed at times, but we are also quite curious. Do plants really possess their own will?"

"Actually, the will of plants is quite vague, it is mostly simple emotions like joy, anger, or pain, without any concrete volition, hence, our communication with them is also quite basic. But they can clearly understand our requests and respond quickly, even though we don’t understand how they think. But it is indeed a fact," Flare nodded, leaned against the wall, pressed her body against the tree, closed her eyes, and after a moment of silence said, "Look, I was just inquiring about its current state. It has lost a partner it has lived with for many years, and feels very lonely and sad. I promised it that I would arrange for someone to take it back to the deep forest, and it was very happy."

"It’s lonely?" Pannis peered outside the room, unsure how he determined the location, but accurately identified the owner of the room they were in. "This tree, I remember it being old man Lays’s home. I remember him loving to argue with people. Last time I was here, I even debated with him about the use of Aggression in sculpting. He preferred the linear method, while I think the punctual method is more useful. Neither of us could convince the other, and it was only because I had to leave that we put our dispute on hold. So, his house being lonely means he is no longer here?"

"Yes, it has been about two decades since you left, and his life came to an end," Flare nodded. "He lived for over nineteen hundred years. The day had to come. He is buried in the cemetery outside the King’s Court. Want to pay him a visit?"

"Forget it, I’m afraid he’d come out to continue arguing with me," Pannis chuckled, shaking his head, seemingly recalling something, then sighed and said, "Life is such, even for Elves, the call of death is inescapable, not to mention for humans."

"Separation is always inevitable, just a matter of sooner or later," Flare glanced at the girls leisurely and said, "But later is always better than too soon. Spending a thousand years together is much more worth looking forward to than just a hundred, don’t you think?"

"Actually, I still have another question," Catherine quickly interjected, "Earlier when you spoke about finding someone to take it to settle in the depths of the forest. Do you mean to dig it out and transport it there? That would be too great an undertaking, unless there’s another way. It can’t possibly walk there on its own, can it?"

Flare, not annoyed by Catherine’s interruption, continued looking at her with a half-smiling demeanor until the knight felt uncomfortable, then said in a deep, magnetic voice, "What else do you think?"

"No way," Lina immediately jumped in front of Catherine, her face filled with curiosity, "Does it really walk there on its own?"

"Of course, it does," Flare nodded with a smile. "Haven’t you heard of the legend of the Tree People?"

"The Tree People legend is real?" Lina couldn’t help but take off her backpack, rummaged through it, and finally found a book to flip through as she said, "Such beings with bodies like trees, whose roots can turn into legs and walk on the ground, and branches into arms? I always thought that was just a metaphor written for children. So, it’s real?"

"Actually, Tree People don’t exist," Flare, satisfied with her little prank, smiled with her eyes narrowed, then explained, "But it’s not far off. What you call Tree People is just something someone created from their imagination after occasionally seeing us move trees."