I’m an Alraune, a plant monster girl.
And after defeating the older Dryad sister with fire, I caught the branch that fell from the Divine Tree with one of my vines.


It’s way too suspicious that this one branch fell without burning.
And I could’ve sworn I heard someone’s voice from above just a moment ago. There’s definitely something going on with this branch.


“Caught you.”


I deliberately called out to it, but the branch didn’t respond.
Thinking it might be pretending not to notice, I bit into the branch with my dodder.


“Ow… S-Stop that!”


The older Dryad sister’s voice came from the branch.
I knew it. This branch really was her true body.
The older Dryad sister had made an emergency escape from the Divine Tree and transformed her true body into a branch.


It seemed she didn’t even have enough strength left to manifest her spirit body.
She was probably planning to stick the branch into the ground as a cutting¹ and grow back into a tree.
But I won’t let that happen!
As long as I keep the branch trapped in my vine like this, I can stop her from turning back into a tree.


“You must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself after catching me.”


Still clinging to life after being reduced to a branch… the older Dryad sister really is way too tenacious.
I know I’m not exactly one to talk, but plants really are tough to kill, aren’t they?


As I vented my frustration by biting into the older Dryad’s branch with my dodder, I realized that Lady Dryad had made her way over to me at some point.
With a sorrowful expression on her face, the younger Lady Dryad spoke to her older sister.


“Eschen-onee-sama…”

“Sarige, is that you? I never imagined I would actually lose to the likes of you two.”


Could those be the Dryad sisters’ names?
Just as I was wondering that, Lady Dryad practically shouted a question at her sister.


“Why did you leave the forest and join the Demon King’s army back then? I’ve been waiting for you to come back to the forest all this time…”

“Hmph! You’ve got some nerve saying that after betraying me.”

“You misunderstand! I never betrayed you, Onee-sama!”

“There’s no point in trying to talk your way out of it. I saw what happened back then with my own eyes.”


It sounded like the older Dryad held some kind of grudge against her younger sister.
Just what happened between these sisters fifty years ago?
While pondering that, however, it had seemed I let my guard down.


“I haven’t lost yet. If I make use of the Alraune’s body, I can regain my power!”


The Dryad’s branch suddenly slid forward.
It moved as though gliding, and it plunged straight into my bulb.


“Eek!?”


I could feel something foreign forcing its way inside my body.
Roots began extending from the tip of the branch, invading me as if they were eating their way through my insides. It felt really gross.

The older Dryad sister’s voice echoed from inside my body.


“I always thought my greatest natural enemy was Lord Grüschwanz, the Fire Dragon, but it seems I was wrong. I never expected to have this much trouble against one of my own kind, but now I’ll be the one putting that power of yours to use.”


──Ugh.
She’s pushing deeper and deeper inside me.


“Just like you did to me, princess, I’m going to take over your body!”


The older Dryad sister really doesn’t know when to give up.
Even after everything that’s happened, she’s still trying to kill me. Even being reduced from a Divine Tree to just a branch wasn’t enough to teach her a lesson.


While all that was happening, the older Dryad sister’s branch, which had stabbed into my bulb, completely burrowed its way inside my body.
At the same time, something like the thoughts of another person came flooding into my mind.
The older Dryad sister was attacking me, trying to take over my body.


The branch burrowed even deeper inside.

Now that it’s gotten this far in, it’ll be difficult to pull it out from the outside.
In that case, I’ll just take it out from the inside!


I pushed one of my vines into my lower mouth and stabbed through my own body from the inside.
I grabbed the older Dryad sister’s branch with my vine as it was trying to assimilate with me inside my bulb, then dragged it into my mouth.
As a result, I ended up basically devouring the branch with my lower mouth.


“As if I, a Dryad, would ever allow myself to be eaten by some Alraune!”


I restrained the thrashing Divine Tree branch with my vine and chewed it up with my lower mouth.
Time for some punishment with my digestive fluids.
Would you please just give up already!


“This can’t be happening… I refuse to disappear like thiiiissss!!”


As the older Dryad sister let out one final scream, everything suddenly went quiet.
Before long, the branch was digested.


──It’s over.

But just then, I was struck by the sensation of something exploding inside my body.
It was as though someone invisible was rampaging inside me.


“My sister’s spirit magic is running wild!”


Lady Dryad grabbed hold of my body and desperately tried to keep me under control.
But even then, the convulsions didn’t stop.


“At this rate, Alraune, my sister will take over your body! You must spit her out immediately!”


No way!?
I thought I was smart by digesting the branch, but she was actually trying to assimilate with me!
The older Dryad sister really is terrifying.
Still, I have to admit, I can’t help but respect her sheer determination to survive no matter what.


But how am I supposed to spit her out?
I already dissolved the branch. There’s nothing left for me to do.


“Turn her into a seed and expel her!”


Hearing Lady Dryad’s words, I realized what she meant and immediately got to work.
I forced the swelling spirit magic into a seed.
It would probably be dangerous to release it outside while it still possessed so much power, so I modified it first and siphoned away some of its power.


With practiced movements, I pollinated a small flower I had grown on one of my vines.
Then I expelled the seed, now containing the spirit magic, from my body.


The seed softly fell to the ground.
At the same time, the spirit magic that had been rampaging inside me finally settled down.
Looks like I managed to avoid having my body taken over by the older Dryad sister.


Just as I breathed a sigh of relief, the seed I had only just produced began to sprout.

The seed grew into a short sapling.
Then, as though splitting away from the sapling, the figure of a little spirit emerged.


A little girl appeared, with blue and red vines for hair.
She looked just like how I imagined the older Dryad sister might have looked as a child.

Lady Dryad seemed to notice the resemblance too. She called out to the newly born spirit, asking, “Are you… onee-sama?”


As I stared dumbfounded at the little spirit, the girl suddenly opened her mouth.


“Mother.”

“Mother Alraune!”


Pointing at me, the newborn Dryad called out with a beaming smile on her face.

Hearing those words, completely devoid of her former hostility, I was left stunned in silence.

I mean, even if she has gotten smaller, she’s still the older Dryad sister who used to be my archenemy. And now she’s calling me “Mother.”
How am I supposed to react to that?


Lady Dryad was the first to grasp what had happened.
She calmly explained the situation to me.


“It appears my sister has lost her memories. And through you, Alraune, she has been reborn as a new Dryad.”


Whaaaaaat!?
Does that mean I gave birth to a mini Dryad!?
And on the inside, she’s still the older Dryad sister, right?
I don’t think I’m ready to accept this reality…


The little spirit innocently smiled at me as she called out, “Mother!”
It really does seem like she’s lost all her previous memories.


And sure enough, her hair isn’t only the same blue as the older Dryad sister’s. Parts of it are red too, probably inherited from my flower’s genes.
Maybe when I turned the older Dryad sister into a seed and passed my genes on to her, our minds mixed together and her old self ended up being overwritten as well.



Lady Dryad gently patted the little Dryad on the head as she threw both hands into the air and cheered happily.


“If this is the case, I doubt she shall ever cause trouble again. I intend to raise her properly to make certain that she doesn’t.”


As she said that, Lady Dryad looked a little lonely.
The older sister she had until now was gone, reborn like this as someone new.
Even though she was standing right in front of her, she would never again be able to speak with the sister she once knew.
At least, that was the complicated emotion I thought I could see on her face.


“Perhaps it is fortunate that my sister ended up this way. But Alraune, is your body all right?” Lady Dryad said, peering worriedly into my face.

“I’m… fine.”


I had expelled all of the spirit magic that had been rampaging inside my body earlier.
I can’t sense any trace of the older Dryad sister inside me anymore.
So I don’t think I’ll be able to give birth to another Dryad sapling like that again.

Even so, something resembling the remnants of another person’s memories still lingered within me.



I immediately understood that these memories were something the older Dryad sister could never forget.
These were probably memories from fifty years ago.
Memories of the older Dryad sister being betrayed by the previous Hero, her lover.
However, after seeing those memories for myself, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.


Because the older Dryad had actually experienced those events herself, perhaps being personally involved prevented her from looking at them objectively.
It seemed she had never noticed the peculiar aspects about them.

But I sensed a subtle contradiction in those memories, something only an unrelated third party could see, one she herself had overlooked.


“Lady Dryad… please tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Lady Dryad replied.

“What happened… fifty years ago.”


Lady Dryad paused briefly before quietly answering, “Very well.”

“Though I am ashamed to admit it, fifty years ago, I spent nearly all my time secluded within the barrier. So I only know the details of what happened that day from what one of the Hero’s companions later told me.”

“One of the Hero’s… companions?”

“He is likely the only human alive who knows what happened back then. If you still wish to know, then I shall tell you.”


The remnants of memories I managed to gleam from the older Dryad sister were nothing more than fragmented snapshots, like photographs.
This is only a guess, but I think the reason my body wasn’t taken over by the older Dryad sister was because I didn’t absorb her memories along with her.
And to fill in the gaps left in those memories, I desperately wanted to hear the testimony of someone else who knew what happened.


“Please… tell me.”

“…Very well.”


With that, Lady Dryad slowly began to tell me about the older Dryad sister.


But what she told me wasn’t just some story from the distant past.

To my surprise, the events Lady Dryad described were not completely unrelated to me either.


But at the time, I had no idea that her story would go on to influence my own life.

***

At long last, the long battle against the older Dryad sister has finally reached its conclusion.
What happened fifty years ago, and just who is this companion of the previous Hero?

Next Time: Autobiography; The Novice Sage’s Chronicles of the Continent (Part One)


TL’s Note:

1. A cutting, or plant cutting, is a piece of plant cut from its parent plant in order to grow a genetically identical plant, a process known as striking.