Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 726 - 670: Paradise
"My name is Wall Monster, as you can see, I guard the paradise," the large face in front of Lyle quickly introduced itself, its ivy-like eyebrows arching high, leaving Lyle unable to determine whether it was excitement or anger.
Paradise?
Lyle nodded, the breeding ground for Transformer Monsters, calling it a paradise wasn’t too much of a stretch. It was just that this ’paradise’ happened to be established in Posuwa, Posuwa’s paradise, which sounded completely different.
"I am Lyle, a traveler who has lost his way," Lyle said with a squinting smile. The lie was a bit far-fetched, but if it was a Transformer Monster thinking about replicating and replacing him, it probably wouldn’t turn him away.
Wall Monster quickly accepted the lie, and he laughed, the rabbit hole-like mouth stretching to the sides into crescent-shaped cracks, several chunks of stone falling from his unsupported upper lip. Ghastly and terrifying. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
"Ah ha, it must have been tough, in this forest where no difference can be seen. Your wisdom must have played an important role in finding me amidst being lost. Ah, don’t worry, my dear, you no longer need to fret about hunger or thirst, for you have come to paradise. We will help you, just like we would treat a father."
Lyle kept smiling on the surface, while tendrils began to crawl out from under his cloak. This guy didn’t expose the lie but followed it straightforwardly, inviting me into the paradise under the guise of offering help. Speaking sweet words of assistance, would a traveler who could endure the twelve-hour journey really need your help, you poor actor? Except for Lyle himself, of course.
Wall Monster shook his body, as if warming up after a long period of immobility, his torso arching up, the very top rising by two inches. "Dear traveler, I will let you in, but first..."
A black-grey palm rose from the top of the wall, stretching upward, Lyle on high alert, yet the hand didn’t come at him as expected, instead continuing to reach straight up to a branch covered with green leaves. The frail branch swayed in the light breeze, burdened with a greenish-red apple.
Just a little more and it would have reached, Wall Monster laughed.
"But first, to praise your sharp observation, I want to give you a welcome gift... this one, dear."
An apple? Why? A poisoned apple? Lyle’s imaginings went on, but things progressed beyond expectations. As Wall Monster was about to pluck the apple, the apple tree dodged. The segment of the branch bearing the apple noticeably moved aside and didn’t return to its original position. Wall Monster grasped at nothing, his hand clutching the air a couple more times.
A few seconds of silence.
Wall Monster’s eyes shifted upward, his eyebrows drooping, his flat body tilting back slightly to reveal the odd apple tree.
"Mumu, I’m entertaining a guest..."
The apple tree twisted around, its crown as agile as serpentine vines, the changing bark forming a woman’s face, Mumu towering over her companion with her natural height.
"Wall Monster, you can’t use my fruit as a gift for your guest, that’s impolite!"
The reprimanded Transformer Monster looked a bit aggrieved, its smile shrinking as it muttered softly, "But he would surely prefer an apple over moss or mushrooms, and my beard was gnawed on by insects just a few days ago..."
Mumu’s voice softened a tad, her drooping branches gently patting the bald top of Wall Monster’s head, "What’s important is not the gift, but the sentiment behind it."
"...Alright then," Wall Monster sighed, reaching for a corner of his beard, pulling down a milk-white porcini mushroom. The jagged beard made Wall Monster’s rough face appear comical, further diminishing his already low attractiveness. "Please accept this unhandsome gift, my guest."
Lyle silently took Wall Monster’s gift, eyeing the pockmarked mushroom head, he felt something was off.
"Thank you."
"Welcome to Paradise, dear one," the Wall Monster’s face began to collapse as if unrolling to either side, revealing the paradise behind it. The first thing Lyle saw was the sunlit courtyard, with a winding pebble path at its center, a garden of low shrubs to the left, and to the right a stream that flowed from the deep valleys of green mountains, dividing the paradise in two. Two Red Deer were drinking at the stream, seemingly undisturbed in their leisurely activity. Lyle also spotted a Stonehenge-like circle of rocks piled up, at the foot of the mountain right beside the isolated red spire of a tower.
As the body of the Wall Monster in front of him moved aside, Lyle was able to sense that for a moment, Paradise stood still, as if even the wind had stopped. One of the Red Deer raised its head to look at Lyle, its small ears flapping up and down. Lyle locked eyes with its dark gaze for two seconds. It lowered its head back down to drink, as if Lyle were no more than an ordinary tree.
Lyle stepped into Paradise. The surroundings were peaceful and beautiful, but he could feel gazes upon him, many pairs of eyes hidden in the dark watching him. The secret scrutiny made the hairs on his back stand up.
Next to him, two branches drooped down. The living apple tree, named Mumu, was standing beside him. It was slenderer than an average tree, its branches closer to the thickness of a human arm, covered in green leaves, each branch bearing only one or two fruits.
The branch swayed in front of Lyle, as if to greet him, with a bright red, plump apple hanging on it like a large gemstone, even more tempting than the one he had seen outside the wall before. As it swayed, the red apple seemed on the brink of falling. Lyle instinctively reached out to catch it, and just as he did so, the stem detached.
The tree in the guise of an apple, named Mumu, chuckled lightly. "Wall Monster is not a fruit tree; he cannot tell which are ripe or unripe. This one is the perfect gift for you, a famished traveler. Welcome to Paradise, you are the first guest to arrive here."
"Thank you," Lyle said, feeling the heavy fruit in his hand, his mindset shifted a bit, but he was still on alert.
"Nia." Black tentacles crawled out of his chest, and amid Mumu’s astonishment, Nia crunched down the mushrooms and the apple, her constitution able to withstand any toxin.
"Yummy!" exclaimed Nia, calling out joyfully next to Lyle’s ear before shrinking back into his clothes.
It seemed the Transformer Monsters here bore no malice. Perhaps he had been worried over nothing.
But he couldn’t let his guard down, Lyle thought, just as he was about to continue conversing with Mumu.
A subtle pulling sensation appeared at Lyle’s feet, and from the grass he was standing on, a hand emerged.
"What is that? Is it one of our comrades, come from outside Paradise?" a little person made of grass ropes and flower garlands crawled out of the ground, lifting Lyle’s trouser leg, wanting to bend down to look inside.
"Yingying, that’s very rude."
The grassland fairy-like creature bounced up, she let go of the trouser leg and bowed to Lyle, then scurried to hide behind Mumu.
"I was just a bit curious about that black... "
Revealing Nia’s presence was part of Lyle’s plan, a way to subtly inform the Transformer Monsters that he wasn’t alone. To make them hesitate, to make them wonder, to make them curious.
Transformer Monsters are creatures of immense curiosity; they hide in the shadows, and it is only the new and novel that can disrupt their deceptive transformations, causing them to inadvertently reveal themselves during the mimicry.
Lyle needed to know the number of Transformer Monsters here; if there were more than fifteen, he would immediately scale the wall and run, then call the academy’s authorities for assistance.
Lyle, the Star of Andrey, would always act within his capabilities.
In the paradise, the juvenile Evil God stretched its tentacles, displaying a blend of divine beauty and terror before the struck-dumb tribe of Transformer Monsters.
