Chapter 9: The Endless Forest (2)

We didn't turn anywhere. At least I didn't think so. We just walked straight into the forest. This was probably just some nihilism bullshit, I thought to myself.

I looked at Maria's face, still thinking everything was fine. She started to pale in the face, and was glistening from sweat.

"Hey Maria… you feeling alright?", I said, growing less concerned for her and more for myself. If she didn't know what to do, I was basically screwed.

"H-hey… uh… where is David?", she barely stuttered.

"I don't know, I think we lost him. Why? Is there anything wrong?", I replied, acting like as if I didn't get the gravity of the situation.

"… No, nothing is, let's just keep on walking.", she said, going back to walking.

"Alright.", I said, walking along with her.

We kept walking straight for 5 minutes, with nothing but trees around us. Then we saw a bright light flash through the clearing.

Maria rushed towards it as fast as she could, and I just ran along with her.

The clang was coming from David, fighting in a clearing, with a… giant tree… It clearly seemed to be this remnant thing everyone was talking about. And it was quite a big one at that.

The tree had a face, that made it look like a ghoul, or a ghost, and it had 4 arms, or branches whatever you want to call them. It seemed to be stuck in place, but I saw it move towards the fighting David, although I didn't know how it did so. It also had a bluish aura surrounding it, similar to the nihilist aura I saw with other people, just blue instead of red.

It kept slashing at David, and he just kept parrying.

Damn, he is pretty good with that sword, I thought to myself. The ground seemed to be covered in blood. And he was getting pushed back. Wait, was David losing?

I looked around, and noticed an arm lying there. I looked back at David, and noticed he was fighting with just one arm.

Oh no.

The branches seemed to be moving faster and faster as time went by. At this rate, David would-

I felt a funny sensation throughout my body. It felt like time itself had slowed down. David was moving so slowly all of a sudden. So was the tree for that matter. What was this?

I watched on in horror, as the tree grabbed his sword with one hand and ripped his head with the other one.

The arm was moving so slowly, why didn't he just dodge it?

I turned around to see Maria. Turning around took longer than I expected. Weird. Why did it feel like time was still slowed down?

Maria grabbed my hand and started to run. Damn, I thought to myself. Why are you running so slowly? I thought to myself, as she led me away from the monster.

After running a decent distance away from the tree thing, we stopped. Everything seemed to be at normal speed now. Maria sat on the ground, seeming exhausted.

"I might be stupid but I am pretty sure this means we are stuck here.", I said, breaking the silence.

"You aren't wrong. We are screwed.", she said, defeatedly. Her face was glistening in sweat, and she was more exhausted than I thought she would be.

"Can you at least explain this mess we are in? That was a remnant back there right?"

"Yeah. Not just any remnant. It seems to be an R-1 remnant."

"Mhm, because I know what that means."

"Remember what I told you about R-2's being able to flatten buildings?"

"Yup"

"An R-1 can flatten entire towns."

"So this was a village once?"

"Seems like it. It also seems like we can't escape this place. Unless we kill that thing", she said, getting up from the ground.

"Then let's kill it.", I said, half sarcastically. Realistically speaking, there was no way we were going to kill it. Just taking one look at David's skills before he died told me that he was top-tier.

"We don't really have another choice. This is going to take a while.", she said, climbing the trees.

"Say what now?", I said, not expecting her to give such a calm response.

"There are no insects or animals here. I guess that's a plus point. We are going to stay here for a while. Gather some firewood before nighttime.", she said, climbing higher and higher up the tree.

Was she being serious right now? She certainly seemed like she was. Just a few minutes ago, she was unable to do anything, panicking the entire way. Now she just takes charge?

I went around to gather firewood.

As I was mindlessly gathering firewood, I had a decent amount of time to myself.

Did Maria even have a plan? I didn't know much about nihilism, but if what she said about remnants only being damaged by nihilism was true, then we were truly screwed.

The maximum she could do was stop two of its hands. Getting to its main body was virtually impossible

Even if for the sake of example, she did reach it, what was she going to do next? It will probably break free eventually, and we would be 6 feet under just like that.

I didn't even know how to use nihilism. I was worse than dead weight.

The more I thought about what just happened, the more I began wondering if she actually had a plan or not.

I kept gathering firewood, until it was dusk. This place had no animals, no fruits, and was basically like a model forest, with only the trees to show for it.

I went back to the place and saw Maria sleeping.

"Hey there, wake up.", I said, dropping the firewood in front of her.

"Huh… what… oh yeah. Thanks.", she said, waking up almost immediately and starting a fire.

The two of us just sat near the flame. No words were needed to elaborate on the trouble we were in.

"What are we going to eat and drink?", I said, trying to break the unnerving silence.

"… I found a river… with no fish in it. On the bright side, we now have water.", she said, staring at the flames.

"But no food huh?"

"For the most part yeah. No animals, no fruits.", she said solemnly.

I thought of eating the tree bark here by boiling them. Then again, there is no reason to do it right now. We aren't that hungry yet. But it was a good backup option.

"Do you know how to get out of here?", she said before I could suggest eating the tree bark.

"Not really. If we could leave this forest, that would be that. But it seems to go on forever."

"You hit the nail right on the coffin. I am not going to bore you with the details, but put simply, we are stuck here, unless we kill that thing."

"… Kill that thing?", I said, in slight disbelief. To be honest, I kind of expected her to say this. There was still a part of me that wanted to believe there was an easier way out.

"Yeah, kill that thing. Retreat is not an option."

"So what is the plan?", I asked, some part of me hopeful that she would come up with something.

"… Sorry to break it to you, but there really is none.", she said.

"You are kidding right?", I said, still in denial.

"We need nihilism to fight it. My talent just isn't fit to fight it. You don't even know how to use nihilism effectively.", she said, still staring at the flames.

"Is there really no other way? We are just stuck here?", I almost shouted.

"Pipe down. You know how we just got to know about this nihilism stuff 50 years ago right?"

"… Kind of. What does that have to do with this?"

"Before we found out about nihilism there was a way to fight low-level remnants."

"And that was?"

"Fire. Not effective against that thing, but it is always an option, for something to damage it, no matter how small it is.", she said, sounding like as if she actually considered fighting that thing head-on.

"Fire is effective against them?", I asked, surprised. This was more than just good news. We were surrounded by a forest. Plenty of fuel. Even if we don't defeat it, we can escape through the remains of the forest.

"Not as effective as nihilism which negates their, healing. Still pretty good. Why?", she said.

"Let's burn up this place.", I said, getting straight to the point.

"That's a painful way to commit suicide.", she said, not even properly considering my idea.

"But…!"

"The forest will go up in flames. What makes you think we will be safe?", she said.

"Then why don't we burn the tree itself? Just throw a bunch of burning sticks at it till it's dead."

"The big tree fellow will burn the surrounding trees, causing the same problem as before. Wait a minute…", she said, like as if she just had a breakthrough.

"What happened? Is something up?", I said.

"Cecilia. How good are you at cutting down trees?", she said, sounding like she had an idea.

"Don't tell me…", I said, suspecting she wanted to cut down the trees surrounding the giant tree.

"Yup. Now let's go. This will take a very long time.", she said, going towards the general direction of the trees near the giant one.