𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚕 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚌𝚎: 𝚀𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚌𝚔

🅣🅗🅔 🅓🅨🅘🅝🅖 🅣🅡🅔🅔

26. The Dying Tree

『 Jini's POV 』

We were outnumbered. It was quite sad, really. So many different creatures—things we’d only seen in movies, read about in books, or dreamed of.

And they were all ganging up on us.

To make things worse, they surrounded us from all sides, forcing us into that cliché fighting circle. What kind of book were we even writing here?

"Althea! We come in peace!" Drayce’s voice rang out from across the circle.

"Drayce?" A sharp, familiar voice responded.

"In the flesh," he said smoothly.

"What are you doing here?" Althea demanded. "You can't leave the realm without the stone, which means…" Her voice trailed off as realization dawned. "You gave up the stone?"

"Still a genius at deduction, I see," Drayce noted, his voice laced with humor.

"Why?" she pressed. "The old man is going to kill you."

Drayce shrugged. "These people are powerful. They're the first ray of hope I've seen in a long time." His tone softened. "Even Rhys let us go. Can't you do the same?"

"I can't," Althea said. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t."

"Why? You’ve got access to the stone. It's literally in that tree. Give it to us, and we'll leave without causing any trouble," Drayce reasoned.

Althea's voice cracked with frustration. "The tree is dying!"

A beat of silence passed.

She exhaled sharply. "The tree decides who gets the stone. But it's dying. Drayce, just give up. This is a lost cause."

"It can choose who receives the stone?" Sullyoon asked. She stood in her fairy form, catching the attention of the others of her kind, who regarded her with uncertainty.

"Yes," Althea confirmed. "But it will only grant the stone to someone who performs an act that saves and benefits the entire realm." Her gaze swept over us, her expression unreadable. "I doubt any of you can do that, no matter what Drayce says."

"Did she just call us weak?!" Sunoo gasped dramatically.

"And powerless?!" Jiwoo added, equally outraged.

"I'm quite hurt right now," I said, fake-sobbing for dramatic effect.

"Lady, you have no idea what we’re capable of," Ni-ki shot back.

"Yeah, so don’t jump to conclusions," Sunoo huffed.

Most of us were cringing at the theatrics—except for Sullyoon. She had that deep-in-thought look again.

I nudged her. "Hey, what are you thinking about?"

She snapped out of it and turned to me. "I have an idea," she whispered.

"What is it?" Bae asked, her hearing proving unnervingly sharp once again.

"If I can heal the tree, we can get the stone," Sullyoon explained. "That would count as an act that saves the realm."