I blink. And I quickly move the branch to cover my family heirloom.
"How dare you!" the tree-lady yells, grabbing the branch from me and slamming me over the head with it. I go flying to the side, my head ringing. Gah… she did that with such a little branch?
"My branches are not for you to cover your stupid human flowers with! We helped you. I helped you! And you thank me by TEARING my BRANCH off!"
"Um, I'm sorry. Ow, my head…"
"Oh, I'M sorry, does your HEAD hurt? You tore my BRANCH off! Sorry doesn't cut it! Look how badly I'm bleeding!"
I crawl over.
"Um, that's a lot of sap."
"That's my BLOOD, genius! You're going to PAY for this! I'm having you executed!"
"What?!"
"You MAIMED me! And I have plenty of witnesses!"
"Wha—witnesses?"
"Look around you," she whispers fiercely. "What was it you said earlier? 'Nothing but trees'?"
I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I turn my head to see dozens of bark-people stepping out of the pine trees all round. They do NOT look happy.
"Look, I'm sorry! I didn't know!"
She scoffs at me. "What do you mean you didn't know!? What didn't you know? That when you maim a person, they don't TAKE IT WELL?"
"I didn't know that you were a person!"
She pauses, and her mouth drops open. She laughs faintly. "Well, of all the RACIST things—"
"No no no no! I didn't mean it like that!"
"Just shut your mouth. Really. Or I might forget about doing it legally and just kill you right now."
Another tree-person steps forward. "Calm down, Meg. That's not like you." This one looks more like a man, with a taller build and short, spiky, hair-like bark jutting out of his head. He glances at me with fury in his eyes, then looks at the tree-woman—Meg—and his eyes soften some. "We'll get justice for you, sister. But not like that."
She lets out a long, shuddering breath, then steps out of her tree completely. Her left hand is gushing sap from where her pinky finger should be. Another tree-woman rushes up to her and puts her arm around her.
I suddenly feel cold, rough bark on my arms, squeezing tightly. I look over my shoulder. Two tree-men are grabbing me by the arms. They haul me roughly to my feet. I wince. They're squeezing so tightly with their rough hands that my arms are beginning to bleed.
"Ow!"
"How do you think Meg feels, huh?" one of the two growls at me.
"Dartmoor, Frank. Take it easy," says the tree-man who calmed Meg down.
"But Gore!"
"I know. He deserves it. But we'll do this the right way. Vengeance belongs to the gods."
The two tree-men loosen up on my arms. Gore looks at Meg. "Are you okay? You can stay here. We'll send someone to treat your wound."
She shakes her head. Clear sap slowly runs down from her eyes like tears, but her face is still just as furious. "I'm seeing this parasite get justice with my own eyes."
Gore nods like he expected that answer, then turns to another tree-woman in the crowd. "Ariane, you're fast. Can you run to a wood mage's house and send them to treat Meg's tree?"
Ariane nods and sprints North.
Gore looks around. "Everyone else, please protect our absent trees and give Meg's tree some first aid. We'll head to the village."
They nod, and Gore starts walking North after Ariane. The two tree-men holding me shove me forward after him, and I stumble. I catch my balance and walk forward with them. What else can I do?
I hear steps behind me, and glance behind. Meg and her friend are bringing up the rear. Meg's furious eyes, still leaking tears, are the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. I whip my head around. I guess she's at the back to keep an eye on me.
I shiver.
As I put one bare foot in front of the other, the wind keeps howling through the trees angrily. God, is it cold. I look at Gore walking ahead of me. At least he has that bark skin to keep him warm. Or does he even need to keep warm? But even if they had clothes, it's not like I could ask for clothes now. How am I going to clear this up?
Let's see. What about: I'm from a foreign land, and there trees really aren't people? No, wait, that's just gonna sound even more racist.
Or: I have amnesia, and I don't know anything about the races of this world? I didn't know that anything that looked different from me had the ability to think? No, still sounds racist.
The amnesia story might work, unless they have real amnesia in this world. If they do, they'll be like, how can you talk properly? And how come you only forgot convenient things? Nah, amnesia's too risky. Oh, there's magic in this world. Maybe a magic curse that made me lose common sense?
No, that's no good. I don't know anything about magic here. For all I know, it's just manipulating the four elements, nothing else.
What about telling the truth?
Wait, that might actually hold up.
Am I allowed to do that? I mean, Mariana-sama didn't say anything about it, but it's sort of an unwritten rule of isekai to keep the reincarnation/transmigration thing a secret, at least from most people.
But it might be my only shot.
But will it make my story less interesting? I remember I always liked the fact that the protagonist kept it a secret from people. Sort of like a hidden trump card. And if my story isn't interesting, Mariana will abandon me and I'll lose my plot armor and probably die.
But if I don't tell the truth, I might die anyway.
And if I tell the truth, will that hurt my chances of promoting Mariana-sama as a goddess? If I hurt her name, she's gonna kill me.
But I'm gonna die before she can kill me.
Wait, that's it! If I tell the truth, but spin her as the merciful Goddess who spared me from my fate of an early death and brought me to live here instead, and then these people kill me anyway, she'll be seen as an incompetent goddess who can't follow through on saving the person she tried to save. She'd hate that. There's a good chance she'd step in. She did say that she would, right? With that plot armor thing.
Or can I just rely on my plot armor without making a plan? Eh, feels risky. Especially since it would definitely make a less interesting story if I only relied on my plot armor all the time. I mean, back in my old life, I still enjoyed some stories like that once in a while, but I usually forgot about them pretty quick.
And it seems these people respect gods. If they learn I have a Goddess backing me, they might ease up on the execution thing. It's a win-win!
Alright. I've got my plan.
Just in time, too. The trees are starting to thin, and the forest is getting brighter. I squint ahead, and I can make out some sort of giant structure over Gore's shoulder.
The tree-men tighten their grip on my arms, making the cuts from earlier bleed more. I bite my lip and don't say anything. Hopefully they'll give me a chance to speak my case before they, you know, execute me. Gore seems like a pretty upright guy, so there's a good chance they'll let me speak. If they don't, of course I'm gonna talk anyway! But for now, I'll wait.
As we walk forward, the pine trees open up into… bigger pine trees. The trees jump in size so dramatically that for a second I get the ridiculous thought that they sculpted skyscrapers to look like giant pine trees. I shake the thought off. This is a fantasy world. Get used to it.
We walk forward between the huge pines. Each one's shadow was quite deep, with all those needles to block the light, but there were big gaps in between them that were flooded with sunlight. My eyes struggled to adjust to the uneven light. Each patch of light hurt to look at, and when I got used to the light, I'd look into a shadowed area under a tree and barely be able to make anything out. I could see people-sized shapes moving to and fro, but couldn't make out any details. It wouldn't have been so bad if we weren't walking in the middle of the path between the giant trees, where the difference between light and dark was so stark.
So besides the fact that the place had giant trees and some people, I couldn't learn much. It was very quiet, except for the muffled sound of footsteps on pine needles.
After walking for about ten minutes, we reach a wide open space. I blink a few times to get used to the sunlight again, and then I see that we're standing on the edge of a large circle of giant pines, the length of several city blocks across. There are a few people walking across the circle, heading to one destination or another, but they're quite sparse.
Our group keeps walking towards the middle of the circle. As we get closer, I see a round platform made of stone in the middle, with a large stone archway on it.
Sitting on the ground around the platform are small groups of people talking. There's also a slow but steady flow of people arriving and people getting up to leave. Gore leads us towards one of the smaller groups of people sitting on the ground. It's a group of three humans—not bark-people—two men and a woman, who appear to be around their fifties.
With a start, I realize that they're elves. Or at least, they have long pointy ears like elves do. I didn't notice at first because they don't have the classic pale green clothes and blonde hair. They're wearing robes, but they're well worn and mostly brown with some deep colors mixed in, and their hair is in various shades of brown. (Well, the elders have some grey hairs as well.) Even their skin is in various shades, not the pale western look I'd expect. Well, I'll still think of them as elves for now.
Gore bows to the group of elves. "Honored elders, I request a trial."
The woman looks surprised. "That's unusual. Oh, I suppose it's for that outsider behind you. Why doesn't he have any clothes on?"
Gore shrugs. "He showed up like that. I hadn't really thought about it."
Yeah, I guess you wouldn't think about it much if you never needed to wear clothes.
One of the men speaks up. "We'll call for a trial. Gore, would you ask around and get him a cloak to cover himself for the trial?" The man looks the oldest of the three. He's the only one with completely grey hair.
Gore bows to him. "Of course." He walks off, and now I'm standing at the front of our group, in full view. I try to move my hands to cover myself, but the tree-men don't let me, tightening their grip on my arms. My face is really starting to heat up.
The woman mercifully turns her face away, and the, uh, the eldest elder says, "Please allow him to cover himself. I'll help restrain him if need be."
The tree-men immediately let go of my arms, and I quickly cover. The elder who hasn't spoken yet, a middle-aged-looking elf with dark hair and a beard, (what kind of elf has a beard?) stands up and walks onto the stone platform. He pulls out an animal horn from his cloak and puts it to his lips. He blows a series of notes, and they echo way farther than a small horn like that should be capable of.
Other people (who I assume are elves) sitting around the stone platform with the arch turn their heads. The elder finishes the call on the horn and sits down cross-legged on the platform. Several elves walk over and sit in front of the platform. The others talk earnestly amongst themselves. I get more than a few glances, and shift uncomfortably. I feel warm with embarrassment and numb with cold at the same time.
Gore appears out of the crowd, with some brown fabric held over one arm. His pine bark skin catches me off guard. I guess I already got used to the more familiar-looking elves in just a few minutes. Fantasy world, this is a fantasy world. Don't gape like a country bumpkin.
He drapes the brown fabric over my shoulders. The cloak has enough fabric to wrap around me twice, and I pull it into place and hold it closed. Finally, some clothes! I shiver. I didn't realize how cold I was till I put something on.
"Thanks," I say.
Gore looks at me funny. Oh yeah. I forgot that I'm here because I tore his sister's finger off. Oops.
Gore seems like a nice guy. It's too bad I alienated him right from the start. I hope he believes my story.
Now that I'm not freezing to death and dying of embarrassment, I pay attention to what the elves are doing. More and more of them are coming to sit in front of the elder who blew the horn. I look around and realize that they're not just coming from around the platform, they're walking towards us across the circular clearing from all directions. There's already around twenty sitting and waiting, and with the amount coming towards us, that number is about to double. Some are still sitting in small groups around the stone platform, doing their own thing. I guess the big group here is everyone who's going to be part of the trial. With this much of an audience, I'm really thankful for this cloak.
The elder on the platform stands up and blows another series of notes on his horn. The people in the audience quiet their voices, but keep talking in whispers. I notice the elves walking towards us quicken their pace. I guess it's about to start.
I swallow. Alright, quick, go over my notes. Let's reveal as little as possible, but as much as necessary. We'll start with, I died in another world. Wait, is that too much? Is transmigration and reincarnation normal here? Will they just think I'm crazy?
Alright, alright, calm down. Focus. We know they respect gods. Focus the story around the Goddess. Paint her as good as possible, and tie up her goodness with the fact that she saved my life. Merciful Mariana. Yeah.
Alright, I'll just give a short story that focuses on her, and leave out most of the details, including the floss. Then if they ask me questions, I'll reveal stuff bit by bit, and spin it as I go. Then I'll be able to only give as much info as they need to let me go.
Hey, speaking of that tooth floss, where did it go? It's not in my hand anymore. Did I leave it back by Meg's tree? Isn't it supposed to return to me?
Under the robe, I hold my right hand palm up. Come here, tooth floss! Come on!
Nothing happens.
That darn goddess…
No! Bad thoughts! We're practicing thinking about her right, remember? Who knows, maybe she can pull me into the spirit realm and read my thoughts whenever she wants! Or maybe she can even read my thoughts right now!
Alright. She said it'd return to me, but she didn't say when or how. I've already flossed my teeth once today, (well, three times actually,) so I won't get that terrible "excruciating pain" debuff for a while yet. If I survive this trial, I can try to go back to Meg's tree and pick up the floss. And the first thing I'm gonna do is test the return function until I know how it works. I know the decompose function works, after all.
Suddenly I hear one clear, long note. I look up again. The elder with the horn is standing up on the stage—well, on the stone platform—in front of a large crowd of elves. Are there sixty? A hundred?
Dang. I should've practiced public speaking more in my last life.
The crowd falls silent, and the remaining small groups of elves around the platform restrain themselves to whispers.
The middle-aged looking elder on the stage clears his throat to speak. He has black hair, even sporting a medium length trim black beard. He has a strong jaw, and lined skin on a tanned olive face. He still has those long pointy elf ears though. This does not fit my image of elves at all.
"Friends!" His voice is clear and strong, like a deep bell. "Thank you for gathering here. Please help us ensure a fair trial with a just outcome. May Alleia of Accord and Jican of Truth watch over this trial."
The crowd responds, "May the gods watch."
Yeah, Mariana, you watching? If you want to become an official goddess, please, help me.
The black-haired elder motions with his hand, and the two other elders we talked to, the woman and the older man, stand up and lead our group towards the stage. I walk forward with the group before they can prompt me. My arms are bruised enough.
Here goes nothing.