12 Chapter 12 Photosynthesizing? Yes.

After considering his thoughts for a moment, Lief finally decided to continue speaking how he was previously, aka normally.

With Silvester's assistance, he spoke in the human language.

"You should leave now. This forest is not a place for humans, especially for those fire users."

The human bowed politely, then quickly helped his other teammates bring the other fallen humans away. As the humans retreated, Lief heard a rustle coming from a bush behind him. He turned and found Krow emerging from the leaves.

"Hello Mister Krow."

Krow nodded, then opened his jaw to drop what he had been holding in his mouth, a large branch.

"Look what I found on the way back to my den."

His head was held up proudly, his tail wagging slightly behind him.

"Are these edible? Can wolves or demon beast wolves eat fruit?"

Lief leaned down to examine the large branch of leaves and tiny dark purple berries with a bit of surprise. They looked like a hybrid of blueberries and blackberries.

Krow nodded.

"These weren't growing in the forest when I first got here, so I wanted to show you. These grew where I used to live, and they are very delicious. Usually Dark Wolves like myself primarily consume meat, though occasionally, or if there isn't enough meat, we'll eat other things as well."

Suddenly a thought came into Lief's mind. Could he eat anything?

He never really felt the need to eat anything. He basically could photosynthesize. As long as his forest was alive, he could continue getting vitality, which meant he didn't need food or any nutrients.

His skull head had a jaw that could open and close, but no tongue to swallow food with even if he tried. When he spoke, his voice just seemed to appear. He didn't even know if he had a throat, let alone vocal cords. It seemed like his speech was all made of some kind of magic...

In fact, his skeletal head seemed more like a mask or exoskeleton that was attached to his actual head, because whenever he looked straight up, shadowy void like skin could be seen in between the gaps of where the jaw of the skull met his neck.

This led to more thoughts about the strangeness of his own anatomy.

First of all, there was his bone armor. The interlocking bones on his chest and torso seemed to be like armor, but he had nothing there to protect. He had no heart, and seemingly no other internal organs that would be important to protect, like a stomach or an intestine based on his lack of needing nutrients via consumption.

Next, there was the lack of sound he made. Besides the part of him that were made of bones, like his tail, the rest of him would not make any sound. He could slam his claw hand against a rock only for it to be completely silent. His footsteps, even when walking on a carpet of dead and crunchy leaves, were just as quiet.

Then there was his eyes. He never needed to blink. They didn't seem to have a physical form. Yet for some reason, he still needed to direct his vision to see, and he couldn't see into the back of his eye sockets. They were just two balls of bright red light.

It was almost like two will-o'-the-wisps came to have a symbiotic relationship with him. They gave him vision and he gave them a safe place to stay.

Although, Lief knew that his eyes weren't actually living creatures, otherwise he'd be able to see their vitality levels.

And finally, though this wasn't about his anatomy, his skills were extremely odd. According to Silvester, all system owners would get skills based on their own attributes.

He felt he was a pretty good person. He was friendly and liked helping people.

Yet all of his skills seemed to be based around dark elements. They seemed to be the kind of magic that would end up being banned for being unethical. He could literally sacrifice the life of one being to save the life of another. Although it wasn't as powerful as a necromancer giving new life to a previously dead entity, it still seemed very dark and like something an evil villain would use to try and take over the world.

Even his quick travel ability was based around shadows and darkness, which in most rpg games was the element given the most evil connotations.

Anyways, Lief turned his attention back to the current situation, not wanting to seem rude to Krow.

"Well, I'm very glad to be seeing new kinds of plants appearing."

As his forest started getting bigger and bigger, more and more flora and fauna seemed to just appear. He didn't know where everything was coming from, though he did suspect that some of the fruit trees and berry bushes were brought over by the birds that were now living in the forest.

When the birds ate fruits and berries from elsewhere, sometimes when they came back they would bring back seeds, either one that were accidentally stuck on their beak or feathers, or ones that they couldn't digest and were left with their waste.

And because his fog indiscriminately added vitality to every plant that wasn't completely full yet, most of the seeds managed to take root and grow.

It's just that he didn't expect the berries to already be grown. His adding vitality to seeds just made sure they were healthy and could grow well. It wasn't as if he could speed up the growth rate of plants.

After showing off the berries he discovered, Krow continued on his way back home.

Lief decided to head to an area where the living trees and the dead trees met. After all, his Dark Fog skill had a limit as to how far it could reach, an approximately circle shaped border with him as the middle.