Off-Tangent Story : Another Tree in Another World (Patreon)

An Extra Story In Another World

Humanity was cancer. No, society was a cancer. It was a conclusion Lajim arrived at when he was a young child living in the jungles. He watched the bulldozers, and those armed with guns and chainsaws came to his village, and they pretty much held the village chief at gunpoint. Workers, who looked like slaves, cut down the trees around the village. Their village had been there for hundreds of generations, and it was the modern society that levelled their village.

Logging and plantations cleared the land of the ancient trees, and not a single mature tree was left, except those not worth the effort.

Lajim wept, the tree that he loved to play in was gone. It’s tall, twisty branches that he climbed so many times, gone. What was left was the stump, with its hundreds of faint rings. A small bird landed next to him, and it seemed the bird too, shared his loss. The bird now no longer had a home.

Humanity was a corrupt, capitalist piece of shit. No. Society that could not and did not exist comfortably with nature had to be exterminated. The greed of modern society knew no bounds, and the corruption of nobility was incurable.

It was not the only disaster. After the illegal loggers, came the miners. Beautiful streams and rivers turned yellow and muddy from their uncontrolled logging, and Lajim felt his already bleeding heart tense up. If only there was something he could do...

-

Life was strange, as Lajim found himself in a strange new world, and a stranger form. No longer human, he was now a tree of magic and blood, one that could move slowly, his roots wriggled out of the ground like little tentacles.

Oh how beautiful it was. Trees everywhere and nature. It was the jungle that he had in his childhood, and even more. The trees were older, the jungle was denser, and not a single man. He was Rootwalking Tree, and he moved a little bit like how an octopus wriggled through a wet floor.

A form that he had soon loved. Free, he was no longer a member of that vile, immoral race known as man. A tree. Without the chains of society and economy, he was free of trades, free of school, free of chores.

It was glorious. The streams were natural, untouched by pollution. The world seemed like a place suspended in time, a time before man.

Here, in the endless jungle, he had the time to admire the beautiful flowers, the way each of the trees grew, the animals that walked, crawled and snuck about as they hunted their prey. The way the man held his axe-

Wait. Was that a man?

Lajim’s black-eyes zoomed in. It was a man and he had an axe!

Lajim howled as hatred burned through his body, and he wriggled close. Quietly. Mankind was crafty and the man could have tools. A tree like any other except for the wriggling roots, he moved rather quietly, with only the rustling and shuffling of dirt that blended to the background.

The man had an axe. He disliked that tool. No. He hated and abhorred it with his very soul.

He was EVIL! He was another of those corrupt, forest-clearing scum. Was he going to target a tree? Lajim moved close. Closer. No, he volunteered as tribute.

Strike any tree down, man, and I will have my roots go through you.

The man didn’t care. He was too lost in his thoughts to notice Lajim. He looked at Lajim’s form. “Huh, this tree looks pretty thick.”

He got in position, and then got ready to swing his axe-

The roots grabbed him, and then it twisted around his arms, his legs like a hundred pythons swarming. The roots twisted and crushed, and two small roots wriggled through his mouth, and another through his eyes. The man struggled, and he was physically strong.

He struggled, his arms and muscles twisted. He attempted to break free of the roots. But Lajim crushed, his suppressed anger and hatred for the destruction of his home forests overwhelmed his ability to think rationally.

His roots crushed the bones of the axeman, and he was dead.

Yet Lajim did not feel guilt. Man was the cause of all of this. This was their payback.

No. He wasn’t going to let society destroy the verdant glory of this world.

No way. Now that he has the power to protect the forest, he would kill every single intruder.

[You’ve leveled up. You’re now Level 14!]

[You gained the skills : Greater Disguise]

[You gained the skills : Root-Memory Thief]

[You gained the skills : Root-Body Possession and animation]

[You gained the Skills : Parasite form]

[You gained the Skills : Body of a Thousand Edges]

His roots snuck and leeched the memories of the dead man, and he gained his memories of the wider world. Lajim’s body convulsed in anger and hatred as he saw images and visions of the man’s memories. Cities that was built from the clearing of once beautiful forests. Towns made of wood.

No no no. This was his paradise, and he wasn’t going to let what happened to his home back on earth happen again. The hell with humanity and their stupidity. The hell with it all.

He was a tree, but this time, he would fight back.

[ Author's Note : This is a Short Story about an "Evil" murderhobo Tree. Because I can. ]