A New Power

By the time we had gathered people from one village after another, the number of those following us had grown to nearly fifty.

We continued northward.

Ideally, it would have been better to settle closer to Tree Village for easier travel, but the priority was to put as much distance as possible.

Reducing contact between them and the kingdom was one reason.

But the more pressing reason was something else—an astonishing truth I had learned from Wheel-san.

Apparently, Simurg-san could not create a new Sanctuary unless we went outside the range of his current one.

“If you don’t leave that bird’s Sanctuary, you can’t create another one. Basically, two Divine Beasts can’t guard the same place.”

It seemed that creating another Sanctuary within the range of an existing one was impossible due to issues of faith.

And the problem was that Simurg’s Sanctuary range was enormous.

Even the areas where I had stretched Sanctuary Roads to bring in Jinga-san’s villagers counted as part of that range.

Which meant we had to go far out, to some remote place where no villages existed at all, before a new Sanctuary could be established.

From what I heard, Simurg was among the stronger class of Divine Beasts.

I had certainly heard legends of Divine Birds before, but not of Divine Rats.

If Simurg’s range was this vast, then Wheel-san being able to stand against him (though I hadn’t seen it firsthand) made me wonder just what kind of being he really was.

Oh—my level had increased.

All the planting I had done along the way had paid off.

Between Auto Harvest and the Harvest Bag, I had enough fruit for everyone, but I still made a point of planting trees regularly as we traveled.

In fact, near Tree Village itself there was almost no room left for planting except around where Simurg lived.

To be honest, I’d been stockpiling smile points with nothing to spend them on.

So I had been planting fruit trees for the future villagers while also aiming to raise my level.

That was why I had leveled up.

But then—

“W-what is this!?”

I clutched my head at the newly gained ability.

“What’s wrong, Woody?”

“I just got a new skill.”

“I see…”

Nadja simply nodded, looking at me with a kind of pained expression.

“What kind of cheat ability did you get this time?”

Most of the new skills I’d acquired so far were outrageous.

But still, Aira—did you have to put it like that? That stings. My heart is fragile, you know.

“This time it’s called Tree-to-Tree Transfer.”

“Tree-to-Tree Transfer…”

“If the function matches the name, I can guess how it works… but can that really be possible?”

Nadja was right.

If it did what the name implied, the consequences would be insane.

“Let me try it out.”

I thought the words Tree-to-Tree Transfer in my head.

Suddenly, a map appeared in my mind!

Unlike Tree Arrangement, which had shown a three-dimensional miniature of Tree Village, this was a flat map, just like the kind everyone imagined.

“Do you see anything, Nadja?”

“No, nothing.”

“If it weren’t you, Woody-sama, I’d think you were delirious. I see absolutely nothing.”

So unlike Tree Arrangement, this one didn’t allow me to share information with others.

Probably because the transfer applied to me alone.

I refocused on the map.

Points of light scattered across Tree Village.

These were unmistakably the trees I had planted using my aptitude.

But there was a difference from Tree Arrangement:

This map didn’t only show Tree Village. It showed every place I had been in the desert.

The areas I had visited were sketched in with terrain, while those I hadn’t were filled in black.

And scattered across the drawn terrain were more points of light.

These were the fruit trees, World Trees, and others I had left planted along the way.

I had thought they would wither quickly, but most of them still seemed to be alive.

I’d have to recover them eventually—I didn’t want them attracting people or monsters. But first things first.

I selected one of the trees in Tree Village.

At that instant, my vision went completely black—