I’m an Alraune, a giant plant monster girl.
And the older Dryad sister found out that I used to be a saint.


Now that the cat was out of the bag, there wasn’t much point in trying to hide it.
But judging by her reaction to this shocking revelation, the older Dryad sister seemed to have never even considered the possibility that Saint Iris could have become an Alraune.


“I never thought I’d end up fighting the ghost of Saint Iris, who was supposed to be dead…”


Calling me a ghost is rather rude.
I’m perfectly alive, you know. As a plant, that is.


“But now it all makes sense. Despite being just a monster, you possessed power resembling that of a spirit. If you were originally a saint, then you were never an ordinary plant to begin with, so I suppose that’s how something like this was even possible.”


Muttering about how she’d like to perform all sorts of experiments on me, the older Dryad sister’s probing gaze crawled over my face, scrutinizing every detail.
This must be her mad scientist instincts starting to kick in.
But with the Divine Tree still restrained right now, this is my chance.


And I think I’ve come up with a pretty good idea too.
I destroyed the Goddess’s Tower in the town with my vine, but I’m still holding onto it.
There’s no undoing the fact that I already broke it.
And since the tower is already on fire, I might as well put it to good use.


Using the burning tower like a spear, I attacked the shriveled bud.
But for some reason, I couldn’t leave so much as a scratch on it.


With a sinister chuckle, the older Dryad sister called out to me, smiling.


“Too bad. Those flames aren’t strong enough to burn the bud. Besides, I’ve already taken precautions against attacks from the outside.”


It seemed she had already prepared countermeasures against her weakness to fire.
Seeing how that didn’t work, I tried something else. I used the burning tower like a spear and drove it into the Divine Tree’s trunk.

The instant it struck, the tower shattered apart.
However, it managed to leave a small scratch in the bark.
I guess that in order to protect the bud, being so important, she had lowered the defenses of the Divine Tree’s outer bark a little.


“A little scratch like that won’t make a difference. Now that I’ve become a Divine Tree, I won’t burn so easily.”


Just as she said, the flames from the tower weren’t enough to set the older Dryad sister’s main body on fire.
Attacks from the outside were practically useless.
Then, I wonder what would happen if I attacked her from the inside?


I inserted a dodder into the small wound left behind by the tower.


“Are you trying to parasitize me again?”


No, not this time.
Say, Lady Feagismeinnicht, have you ever heard of grafting?

With grafting, you can artificially join two plants together and make them into a single plant.

Normally, to graft, you have to cut the tree that will serve as the rootstock, then attach a branch from another tree onto the top of the cut portion.
But instead of doing that, I sent my dodder inside the Divine Tree, then used Plant Generation to transform the dodder into a tree branch.
And with that, I forcibly connected my body to the Divine Tree from the inside.


Divine Tree or not, it was originally just a normal tree.
So it isn’t impossible for me to alter my body to have similar properties.
Right now, I’m fully joined to the older Dryad sister’s main body. It feels like the two of us are sharing a single body.


“This sensation of something foreign entering me… don’t tell me you’ve actually connected your body to mine, princess?”

“I didn’t… really want to… but yes.”


A Dryad is, by nature, a spirit born from an ancient tree.
It isn’t the ancient tree itself that possesses all those powers. Rather, the various abilities are bestowed upon the Dryad that manifests as a spirit.
As such, I figured I should be able to parasitize the ancient tree, her true body, or even forcibly fuse our bodies together using the same principle as grafting.
And just as I planned, I somehow managed to make it work.


“It seems you’re trying to take over my body like this, but too bad, princess. As a spirit, I’ll take control of your body before you can take control of mine.”


Oh, you shouldn’t misunderstand.
I didn’t graft myself onto the Divine Tree because I wanted to take it over.


There’s a reason I joined our bodies together.
If attacks from the outside don’t work, then all I have to do is attack from the inside.


“Spirit Princess… do you know… the name of the flower… I ate earlier?”

“You mean that big flower? That would be—”

“No… not that one.”


There were two plants my little junior, the Treant, brought me earlier.
Before devouring the Rafflesia, I ate a certain small flower first.
And now, I’m about to use that flower’s ability.


The flower I ate first is called the rockrose.
Because of its unusual properties, it is feared and known by names like the “suicide flower” and the “psychopath of the plant kingdom.”

When temperatures rise above roughly thirty-five degrees Celsius, the rockrose has the unusual trait of releasing a highly flammable organic compound, causing it to spontaneously combust.
After burning the surrounding area to the ground, it sprouts there again and spreads throughout the newly cleared area.


In floriography, the flower’s meaning is, “I will die tomorrow.”

But you know, Lady Feagismeinnicht?
You won’t be dying tomorrow. You’ll be dying today.


To use the rockrose’s ability, I need to raise my body temperature.
But thanks to the self-heating ability of my modified skunk cabbage, I can raise my own body to a high temperature.
And if I combine that with the properties of the eucalyptus, I should be able to become even more flammable.


Using the rockrose’s ability, I transformed my body until it was covered in highly flammable organic compounds.
Because I had also grafted myself onto the older Dryad sister and fused our bodies together, the Divine Tree was now drenched in oil.


The older Dryad sister finally seemed to notice that I was altering the Divine Tree’s body using the rockrose.


“The Divine Tree’s body is being rewritten…! Princess, what the hell did you do to me!?”


In response to the older Dryad sister’s question, I simply smiled silently.


Since I’m already here, why don’t I put on a little performance as befit the psychopath of the plant kingdom?


Good day to you, Lady Feagismeinnicht.

At last, you and I have become one.
I’m so delighted.
After all, I can finally be connected with you in both body and soul.


And so… would you care to burn together with me?


“I’ll burn you… and I’ll burn too.”


The Divine Tree might be resistant to attacks from the outside, but burning it from within should work just fine, right?

With the combined abilities of the skunk cabbage and rockrose, the Divine Tree began to catch fire.
The flames spread upward from the roots, climbing higher and higher into the sky.


“This fire from the inside… what have you done to my bodyyyyyy!!?”


The older Dryad sister swung one of her gigantic branches at me.
I caught the branch with my Rafflesia flower, then wrapped myself around the Divine Tree as though embracing it.


And then, the Rafflesia self-destructed.
Fire burst from the Rafflesia, sending a torrent of air all around itself.
The Divine Tree, which had already been changed to become highly flammable, began burning with an even higher intensity.


But if this kept up, it’s obvious that I’d die along with her.
That’s why I prepared for this from the very beginning.


This Rafflesia was a flower I created by transforming the ends of my roots.
In other words, if I sever those roots from my bulb, the rest of my body can escape from the flames.
To keep myself from getting caught in the fire, I used the lithops’ molting ability to do just that.

Emergency escape!
This is exactly why I kept everything above my bulb at its original size, so that I could escape like this.


I tumbled down, rolling across the surface of the Rafflesia flower.
Meanwhile, my little junior, the Amazon Treant, who had been waiting nearby, sprinted towards me at full speed.

Just as I was about to hit the ground, the Treant caught me.
She was carrying me like a princess.


W-What should I do?
She may be my little junior, but she looks so cool!
I think I might be falling for a dead tree.

Come to think of it, back when I was all alone in the previous forest, I think there was a time when I had something resembling romantic feelings for this Treant.
Now that I’m so close, there’s something stylish about that face of hers. She’s rather ruggedly handsome.


As I stared intently at my little junior’s face, I heard the older Dryad sister screaming from above.
Looking up at the Divine Tree, I saw that it was completely engulfed in flames.
The Divine Tree burned furiously. The fire raged as sparks scattered everywhere.


For something called a Divine Tree, that was a pretty anticlimactic end.

But with this, the flower bud has burned to ashes too.
Nina and the others are now safe.
I did it! I saved everyone!


All that’s left now is to wait for the older Dryad sister to burn away.
I do feel sorry for her, but after everything she did to the town and the forest, she brought this upon herself.

Besides, if I let her live, she’d probably try to wipe out humanity again. I didn’t have any other choice.


I watched as the older Dryad sister’s body was slowly reduced to ash in the flames.


Feagismeinnicht, Spirit Princess of the Four Heavenly Kings.
Ever since I arrived in the Forest of Dryades, you have attacked me again and again, both directly and indirectly.
But that all ends today.
May you find peace in heaven.


Pretending that I was a saint again, I offered a prayer to the burning Divine Tree.


Then, I heard the sound of what I thought to be someone’s voice coming from somewhere.
I looked up and noticed a small branch falling through the air.


“Wait… could that be…?”


I immediately told my little junior to move directly beneath the falling branch.

Still being carried like a princess, I rode in the Treant’s arms as she took off at a brisk run, bringing us under the falling branch.

I extended a vine towards the object falling from the Divine Tree.


And with that, I caught the small branch that had been growing from the Dryad’s true body.

***

Author’s Note:

Rockrose (Cistus): A member of the Cistaceae family. It is found throughout Mediterranean Europe, North Africa, Western Asia, and other surrounding regions. Its seeds are fire-resistant, allowing them to survive even when a fire breaks out.

Next Time: The Spirit’s Branch


TL’s Note:

Many Rockrose species produce aromatic resins and essential oils, which can contribute to their flammability. While this does make it easier for it to catch fire, unlike as the story suggests, no, the plant will not spontaneously combust. An external push in the form of lightning, sparks, or human activity is still necessary for these plants to catch fire.