AN: Sorry for the dey, this week's been a bit rough!

  _____

  Despite how much I really didn’t wanna have to go, I couldn’t say no to the kid’s sparkling eyes! In the end, I totally just gave up and let him take me to his grandpa’s house. And as he led me along by the hand through the town, taking me through a whole new path than I’d already been through, I couldn’t help but notice that this was quite the impressive looking town!

  [Hmm? No, I wouldn’t say that that’s particurly the case, child.]

  No? But compared to mom and Fen’s vilge, and even some of the other little vilges that I’ve gone past up ‘til now, this pce is a whole lot better put together, isn’t it?

  [Yes, that’s certainly true, but you have to remember that those were just ‘vilges’. Do you remember how rge and grand of a town the wild-folk made before Cythia destroyed it?]

  Huh? Well, now that you mention it, that was a whole lot bigger than this… Big enough to have separate living districts, and still had a big stone wall around it, too. But that was the animal people! Maybe-

  [No, it’s not just due to their race, Mellily; Didn’t you see a human town that was just as built up as that a long time ago?]

  What? Did I? But I don’t- Oh wait! Yeah! You mean the one with the mine! I remember that one now… Although I wasn’t able to get too close of a look at it since there were soldiers in the way.

  [It’s true that you weren’t able to see a proper view of it, but you must have been able to tell roughly how big of a town they were, correct?]

  Yeahhhh, you’re totally right~. I guess comparing it to mom’s former town and that one, well… Yeah, this town is actually very small, isn’t it. Boooo~… You really can’t just let me give this pce a compliment, can you, Spirit?

  [I’m just making a point to you, child. It’s precisely because there are enough people here to be considered a town and yet it remains so small and unguarded that it was so easy to fall prey to attackers. Were they a smaller vilge, there would be much less that would go unnoticed in their eyes. Case in point, they let you, an unknown suspicious woman, easily enter and stroll through their town, even though it’s clear that you’re an outsider. It’s obvious that they have no guard set up here should you actually be a threat, and there’s no walls to keep anyone in or out. This xness is exactly what led to that boy being stolen away in the first pce!]

  Oh. Wow, now that you put it that way… Yeah, that’s a very very good point! Wow… Should I maybe bring this up with them? I guess they have mom’s people here, so they would be able to grow a few trees to help defend the pce, right…? Or maybe I should do it for them? I mean, having a proper wall would certainly help protect them from bandits, but it wouldn’t really stop them from leaving the pce and getting yoinked like this kid did, would it…

  Hey, uh, you know what? If this pce was on the lower tier of towns anyways, then what exactly were they trying to ransom this boy for exactly? From what I’ve seen, the people here are actually quite generous! If there was anything that those bandits wanted, then it probably would have been a lot less dangerous and a whole lot quicker for them to have just worked out some kind of a deal with them, right?

  [...I cannot say. It’s best if you ask the town’s Chief about this topic.]

  Huh. And here I thought you were just my cheat guide to everything in the forest. Okay, fine! I’m way too curious about it now, so I guess I’ll have to turn up the charm and find out for myself! Town Chief, here I come!!!

  ~~~

  The town Chief’s home looked basically the same as everyone else’s. I guess the only way that I would have ever realized that this old man was the leader of the pce was just because of the sheer amount of camellia flowers he had on him. Not only did he have a cute little pel of one on his chest, but he even had a lei of them hanging around his neck. And when he saw the boy who was dragging me there, he even smiled and put a beautiful flower crown made out of camellias on the kid’s head! Honestly, knowing how crazy this town was for my camellias, this was almost the same as the guy throwing diamond rings and gold chain neckces around the pce!

  Yeah, reeeally makes me curious again what exactly it was that the kidnappers were hoping to ransom away from here…

  “Grandpa! It’s her! I found her!”

  “Settle down Oren my boy, there’s no need to shout for these old ears to hear you.”

  The boy (Oren, I guess?) let go of my hand and dashed over to his grandpa’s waiting arms, hugging him super cutely while still shouting at him.

  “Grandpa, listen! We have to go inside! It’s really really important!”

  “Oh dear… Now what could it be that’s gotten you so-”

  “She’s the one! She’s the monster who-!”

  The Chief immediately cpped his hand over Oren’s mouth, and he squeezed Oren tight against him as he looked at me with almost bulging eyes.

  “A monster…?”

  Feeling his eyes scanning over me in fear like that, was-

  Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t find it super fun, hehe~!

  Makes me wanna strike a pose like a vilin and say an evil line or two, you know?

  I mean, how many times do you get to be in a situation like this?

  [You’ve been in quite a number of them, actually.]

  Hey! Quiet from the peanut gallery! Let me enjoy this!

  Ah, whatever, it’s not like I have the heart to terrorize this poor old man and his kid after giving myself a whole big talk about how I wanted to seriously protect them all.

  =Calm down, I promise I’m not a bad monster at least. In fact, I’m here to help you all!=

  “Grandpa, she’s the one! The one who saved me before!”

  =Mhmm, I’m the one who the Forest Spir- Uh, the Spirit of the Forest sent to you.=

  A total lie! I feel a bit bad for telling it and confirming their false beliefs, but is it really so bad of me to say now that I intend to make it true from now on?

  [But I never truly sent you here-]

  Ahhh, I’m not listening! You basically pointed out the fact that we were near here earlier anyways, so that’s just about the same as you sending me here to help them!

  [I only did that in the hopes of lifting your spirits…]

  And it succeeded! I’m totally pumped now because I wanna help these people! Isn’t that basically what you wanted? Right? Right?

  [...]

  Riiiight?

  [...Whatever suits you, child…]

  Good!

  “Oh my… Forgive me for my rude reaction then, Miss. Please, come inside; It’s best we speak more of this behind closed doors.”

  Feels a bit bad making an old man bend his back and apologize to me… But I’m an official representative of a Spirit! So I guess I should probably do my best to try and act the part, huh?

  ~~~

  Once we made it inside, the Chief offered me a seat and even poured me a cup of water out of a carafe. Let me tell you, sitting with this new body is much easier than trying to sit with my actual one! Sure, it made me move it in ways I wasn’t quite used to moving just yet, and maybe I looked a bit like a freaking alien from the way I fumbled around trying to remember the right way to do it, but sitting was still a heck of a lot more comfortable to do than when I was in my pnt body, that’s for sure!

  No, the real issue was trying to pick up and properly drink the water the Chief left for me.

  Hmmm… Yeah, I could pick up the cup just fine after I practiced folding my fingers around it in just the right way. No, the problem in the situation was just the act of actually drinking it, you see! At first, I just tried to do it naturally, by just pouring it into my mouth. See, my mouth in this form can actually move and open like I’m talking, and I can totally put stuff inside of it! But uh… I guess I can’t really swallow with it…? Seems I completely neglected to make a connection between my ‘for show’ mouth and my actual stomach, so I kinda just dumped a puddle of water into a pocket in my face that had nowhere to go… Idunno, I’m a pnt, so maybe it’d slowly naturally absorb if I just left it there? I mean, that’s kind of how it works, right? But I’m sure it’d look super freaky if I just kept my mouth closed while I talked for this entire meeting with the Chief… Would probably give the kid a few nightmares, too.

  Yeah, it’s probably best to put this water back into the cup!

  “U-um, perhaps… Does our water not agree with you, Miss Pnt?”

  Huh? Oh, right, it probably looks like I’m spitting it out because it’s gross, doesn’t it?! Ugh, I didn’t even think that it might look like that~! I’m being so rude!!!

  =No no, I- I just couldn’t, um… Here, wait, I’ll drink it! I like it, I promise! See?!=

  I opened up my real mouth, the ‘skin’ that I’d created violently ripping apart as the mouth inside of my head hinged open. In my haste, the cup that I’d been holding went flying into my trashcan of a mouth. My hand that had been holding it followed after it, trying to catch it before it was too te, but it was immediately melted by my stomach acid, and no amount of fishing around inside of myself was going to bring it back. I quickly closed everything back up, healing up the tear on my face so that I could give the Chief an apologetic and embarrassed smile for absolutely obliterating his cup.

  =Hey sorry about that, I didn’t intend to-=

  Uh, why do they both look so traumatized all of a sudden…?

  Ohhhh… Oh wait…

  Am… Am I an idiot…?