Chapter 1343 — The "Bodyguard"

The things looked as though they had been unbolted straight from heavy tanks—every rail and rivet brimming with the radiance of "abundant martial virtue."

Belantia stared in astonishment as these "treants"—clad in alloy armor and carrying tank main guns—walked out of the forest and assembled into a legion behind Berna like a silent guard. After a brief moment, all the swaying of branches and scraping sounds stopped at once. The petite Berna stood at the very front of this legion, a brilliant smile on her face, the complex runes on her skin flowing with color.

"This is…" Elaine stared at the scene before her in amazement, and only after a long while managed to speak. "What are these?"

"They're the 'bodyguards' Sister Beiyila told me to bring along when I set out… She said the south wasn't safe and that a girl traveling alone should bring some helpers to protect herself," Berna said with a rather proud smile, though as she spoke she rubbed her hands a little sheepishly. "But I thought her reaction was a bit much… She assigned me almost all the Solin Guards, and she even had me bring a whole magic-crystal artillery shell production line—it's already been broken down, and it's on the backs of the guards who came out last."

"Bodyguards…" Belantia's mouth twitched. She had not even registered the other's final mention of a production line. "As bodyguards, this really is a bit much… but I have to say, we are in urgent need of exactly this!"

"Then I'm glad I could help," Berna said with a laugh. "I command all these guards, but I don't really understand fighting, so you just tell me what to do when the time comes…"

"Good," Belantia said with a nod—but the next moment a somewhat worried look crossed her face. "Still, speaking of it—Solin Guards… as I understand it, these should be the garrison troops of the Solin Great Tree itself? Taking so many guards away at once, will the Solin Great Tree really be all right?"

"Commander Margarita's legion is still guarding the Great Tree, and that's deep in the Cecil interior, far from the front lines. The enemy doesn't really fly, so there shouldn't be any danger," Berna nodded and answered honestly. "And Sister Beiyila said the Solin Guards all grow from her canopy—given enough time they'll regenerate. She also said…"

Here Berna scratched at her hair, as though trying to recall something, and only after a few seconds went on: "She also said it's like lice in your hair—just keep them a while and they'll grow back…"

Hearing the little elf's frank and honest explanation, Elaine's expression could not help but stiffen. Then, with a wooden stare, she raised her eyes to the treants with their heavy armor and heavy firepower.

These were absolutely the biggest "lice" she had ever seen in her life—though, considering the scale of the Solin Great Tree, that did sort of make sense?

No. It was still too weird… Should she look again?

Belantia seemed not to notice Elaine's sudden odd behavior. She merely gazed thoughtfully at the "bodyguards" behind Berna, glanced back at the "wooden door" she had pushed open moments before, and then turned a strange expression on Armaun, who had stood quietly to one side all this while: "I have a question. A force like this… how are we supposed to get them out? We can't very well have them squeeze through that door and walk straight into Fort Fabuti, can we?"

"I'll take them to a forest near Fort Fabuti, and you send people to meet them—tell everyone they're Cecil expeditionary troops that came up from the western front by a secret route," Armaun said, plainly having considered the matter already. "I trust no one will doubt the Silver Empress's word at a time like this—especially since… a great many people have probably grown used to the Cecil Empire's habit of always springing some unexpected 'surprise.'"

"Well, this really is a surprise," Belantia said, her expression somewhat complicated. Then she let out a soft breath and her features relaxed. "In any case… with reinforcements like these, at least the situation on the Highridge defense line won't keep deteriorating because of those mutant legions marching south. We may even consider retaking a few strategic points north of the forest barrier. I still doubt whether the forces on the southern front are sufficient to launch the 'barrier wall' plan, but at least now I have the confidence to bring it up."

"May all go well," Armaun said, once more lowering his head slightly to brush the crowns of Belantia's and Elaine's heads with the tip of his nose. Then he slowly rose. "Well, I have lingered here long enough. Even with a layer of the 'Otherworld' to shield me, I have already begun to be affected by this land. Until we meet again."

"Until we meet again," Belantia said softly with a slight nod. Then she drew Elaine back two steps and watched Armaun slowly turn and stride off into the depths of the dense forest.

"See you in a bit, Empress~~ I'll go wait in the forest east of Fabuti first!" Berna also waved to the Silver Empress and her servant, a brilliant smile on her face. Then she nimbly ran to the nearest treant guard and, using the rail cannon the creature lowered and the armor attachment points all along its trunk, climbed with brisk agility onto the treant's "shoulder."

The ponderous "Solin Guard" let out a string of low grumbling sounds, its wooden structure twisting and turning, and with the whole legion behind it turned about. Then, carrying Berna—its command center—on its shoulders, it followed in the footsteps of Armaun, who had already gone some distance.

……

At the same moment, on the encrypted neural-network consciousness plane.

"So you sent all your own 'guards' to be that little elf's 'bodyguards'?" In a garden ringed by pure white blossoms, Gaoyang sat at a small round table with pale violet patterns, looking with a helpless expression at the green-robed woman seated across from her. "And even packed in an entire weapons production line?"

"The main body of the Thorin Great Tree never really needed that many guardians to begin with—Margarita's legion alone would have sufficed, and even without Margarita's legion it would hardly have mattered much. I have great confidence in my own capacity for self-defense," said the woman in the green dress across the round table with an air of indifference, a cup of steaming tea materializing in her hand out of thin air. She stirred it as she went on, "Those guardians are nothing but little creatures grown from my canopy anyway—like lice in one's hair. Raise them for a while and you'll have swarms of them..."

"...Your wondrous metaphors are growing stranger and stranger," Gao Yang said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "But... all right, your reasoning is sound enough, and it is indeed beneficial to the present situation.

"Now let us return to business. You say... you have sensed once more the life signal of that dark priest called 'Bertram'? And that he is actively drawing closer to your distant root tendrils?"