Becoming a Monster

Chapter 618: Chapter 617: My Wings!

After placating Eve enough to move away, Noah finally stood before Pandora’s true body.

Behind him, Ailetta stood with Eve quietly holding her hand, while Arachne remained a short distance away, her attention fixed on both Noah and Pandora.

The little vampire had calmed considerably since earlier.

Even so, Noah could still tell that the previous ordeal had left its mark.

Having to go through a situation where there was a possibility of her losing everything had frightened her far more than she had been willing to admit.

Part of Noah couldn’t help but wonder whether allowing her to follow them in here had been the wrong decision.

The thought only lasted a moment before he dismissed it. If anything, this experience had been necessary.

Eve had always been the one most protected and sheltered among the others. Whether by Noah, Ailetta, Arachne, or even the others, someone had almost always been there to shield her from the harsher parts of life, even in fights.

That wasn’t something Noah truly regretted. She was still mentally a child.

But children couldn’t remain sheltered forever. Not a child like her when threats were hidden all around them.

Eventually, reality would force itself on her, and Noah would rather that lesson be learned while she was surrounded by those who cared about her than while facing it completely alone.

That didn’t make seeing her cry any easier. Nor did it lessen the responsibility he felt.

If moments like this were inevitable, then it was up to him and everyone else to make sure she never had to carry them by herself.

With his resolve made up, Noah finally pushed those thoughts aside.

There would be time to think about them later.

His attention returned to Pandora. Since he had already explained what he intended to do, no one questioned why he was standing before her.

Unlike the other three, whose gazes were filled with curiosity and anticipation, Pandora’s emotions had become almost impossible to conceal.

Her tree form was flickering brightly with barely restrained excitement.

Her concentration had deteriorated so badly that she couldn’t even maintain the illusory body she normally used. The countless roots surrounding her true body shifted restlessly instead.

Out of everyone bound to Noah, Pandora had always felt out of place.

She had eventually realized she was the only one who didn’t share his bloodline.

She had never truly minded it before, but the thought was impossible to dismiss. Deep down, she also wanted to share a closeness to Noah as the others had.

It was only after Gwen’s transformation that Pandora realized she wasn’t destined to remain the only one. But even then, Gwen was still different from her. Noah called her a druid, rather than a dryad. She was still the only dryad, still alone.

But now… Noah was finally about to do it. He was about to obtain her blood and could finally become a dryad like her.

In her mind, she hoped that Noah would be able to experience the world through nature the way she always had.

Someone who could understand why every change within the forest filled her with joy, why every withered tree brought sadness, and possibly understand what it meant to be a dryad.

The stories she heard from Gwen weren’t enough. She knew what other supposedly dryads did, but she didn’t understand why.

Noah smiled faintly as he watched the countless roots subtly shifting around her.

“You’re looking forward to this more than I am.”

—

Outside, the work had continued much as before after everyone returned to digging.

Although several portions of the moat had already become so deep that many of the creatures could no longer climb back out on their own, they would simply move farther down to sections where the excavation wasn’t as deep before continuing their work there.

Had everything continued like this, the moat likely would’ve been finished before the end of the day.

That changed the moment Noah’s mutation reached its conclusion.

Bolas suddenly stiffened at the exact moment.

The drake’s golden eyes gradually widened as he instinctively lowered his head toward his own body.

Something had changed.

As a drake, there were few creatures more sensitive to changes involving mana and bloodlines than he was. Bolas immediately sensed that the way his mana circulated was wrong.

A deep sense of unease quickly spread.

He couldn’t explain why. His instincts just knew that something had happened to his wings.

The possibility made his heart nearly sink.

Even before trying, every instinct was already telling him the same answer.

Something terrible had happened to them, and he wasn’t going to like it.

Bolas refused to believe it.

He immediately poured mana into the familiar ability, desperately trying to manifest the wings he treasured more than anything.

Nothing happened.

Instead, the understanding behind the mutation naturally surfaced within his mind.

The ability itself hadn’t disappeared. It had evolved into an entirely different skill.

“…”

Bolas’ expression became complicated. Only after experimenting with the skill did he understand all that the new skill could do.

But after learning, his complicated expression darkened further.

For anyone else, this would’ve been an unquestionable improvement.

Bolas couldn’t bring himself to care.

He had lost his wings, the most iconic symbol for a dragon.

“…No.” His voice was soft, yet drastic at the same time. It was a sound that no creature would picture him uttering. So much so that it easily aroused the curiosity of anyone near enough to hear.

Bolas couldn’t care to pay attention to their gazes. He tried one last time, exaggeratedly churning all of his mana to manifest his wings.

In that one brief window, he saw hope. Miasma mixed with his mana started to stir. And then suddenly it crumbled. That was the last straw.

“NOOOOO!”

“My wings!”

“My beautiful… magnificent… most precious wings!”

The outburst lasted far longer than anyone expected.

The creatures repeatedly glanced between one another, unsure whether they should continue working or attempt to comfort the drake.

Even Morvyr found himself watching with an increasingly strange expression.

Eventually, Bolas stopped shouting.

Not because he had accepted it.

But because he no longer had the energy to continue arguing with reality.

His shoulders slumped as he slowly turned toward Noah’s lair.

Watching over the others no longer held the slightest interest to him.

If Noah was responsible for taking away the greatest thing he had ever received, then Noah was also responsible for explaining why.

Without another word, the drake made his way toward the entrance before lowering his enormous body directly in front of it.

He wasn’t foolish enough to interrupt Noah, but he wasn’t leaving either.

He would wait as long as necessary.

—

It was only after some time that everyone was able to resume as usual. No one was brave enough to ask the drake what was wrong; the same applied to Morvyr.

So instead, the elf had continued questioning Gwen, and throughout it all, Morvyr found himself at a loss. Gwen wasn’t willing to tell him much about her circumstances.

However, what he did discover was yet another shock to his own understanding.

Gwen, who was originally an elf, was turned into a monster by a dryad!

Never had he heard of that happening before. No, that wasn’t entirely true.

Corrupted dryads possessed a similar ability.

When a dryad succumbed to corruption, it was almost as though the tree instinctively understood that its life had already reached its end.

It would dedicate the rest of its life absorbing and corrupting all life around it, while every bit of it that was absorbed would be concentrated within its body.

Before long, it would begin producing fruits unlike anything an ordinary dryad could create.

Those fruits carried not only the dryad’s own life force, but also the stolen vitality and mana of every living thing it had corrupted.

Their potency was so great that a healthy dryad would need centuries to naturally produce something comparable.

What was worse was that fruits created by corrupted dryads wouldn’t cause the one who ate the fruit to die when the dryad did.

That alone was enough to tempt countless individuals into deliberately seeking out corrupted dryads despite the obvious risks. There were those who even intentionally tried to tempt the dryad’s corruption.

However, there also was a problem that came after.

Any creature transformed through that corruption inevitably paid the price.

Their minds gradually deteriorated, their bodies became increasingly unstable, and regardless of how powerful they became, they eventually descended into madness or perished under the corruption itself. But not before causing mayhem.

There had only ever been one being who hadn’t succumbed to the fruit curse, and that being happened to become one of the Demon King’s Generals.

Disregarding the exception, he looked to Gwen, who stood before him speaking as though nothing was wrong.

Morvyr couldn’t detect even the faintest trace of corruption within her mana or life force. If she truly had been transformed by the dryad residing within this forest, then whatever method had been used bore almost no resemblance to the corruption he knew.

That realization only deepened his desire to meet the dryad responsible.

He had already begun turning away, intending to continue observing Noah’s other creatures instead. After everything Gwen had revealed, he was convinced the same was true of the others.

If he paid close enough attention…

They would reveal far more than they realized.

But as he made it halfway back to the moat, he suddenly was bombarded by another explosion of energy.