Side Story: The Dryads

Author's note

You can consider this side story taking place roughly the same time as chapter 611 and 612 so enjoy!

“Ah, welcome back,” Hentath said as she made her rounds, spotting two faces that had trailed behind the rest of their group's return, bringing piles of stuff with them from the looks of it. “And I assume it worked out well for you?”

“It did,” Fontesh nodded, her heart filled with joy to share it. “I was able to awaken my plant magic so I’m ready to help out everyone else as much as I can.”

“Ha, so all the pressure your youngin put on you was worth it in the end then?”

“Mmh, this and that are two different matters,” She sighed, casting an eye to her daughter happily digging through everything she’d been sent back with off to the side while her grandmother went to join her.

“And you then, little flower? Got everything you hoped out of it?”

“And more!” The young dryad told her, with Delair’s eyes sparkling. “It was great! I met the soul mages and Ben got them to help me raise some of my levels and then he invited us back so I could practice with him for a few days and he made he a bunch of stuff and I learned a ton and Sachel still hasn’t learned to cook so Ben kept feeding us and-”

“Haha, one thing at a time little one, one thing at a time,” The older dryad said while rubbing the younger’s hair. “He helped you get some levels too then? I hope you thanked him.”

“I did and now I know a bunch more so I’m all ready to help out around the village!”

“Sweetheart, you don’t need to worry about that so soon. Just work on your magic and practice what you want in your spare time. We aren’t so poor off that we’d need to put a child to work.”

“Mmh, but I want to and I worked so hard so I could.”

“I think it would be good for her to put what she learned into practice, grandmother,” Fontesh said in her daughter’s aid. “The best way to retain something is to use it and she worked extra hard so she could help, there’s no harm in it, is there?”

Seeing her great-granddaughter's hopeful eyes and having her granddaughter on the same page, how could she decline?

“Alright, if her mother is for it then I have no reason to try and stop her. In that case Delair, is there anything you want to do or should I try and find you some things? I’m sure we have some fences that could stand to be touched up or some roads that need to be repaired you could help with, though I can’t imagine either being the most exciting thing in the world for you.”

The younger girl shook her head. “No, I already know what I want to do.”

“And what’s that then?”

“I’m gonna start making everyone sheds!”

---

With Fontesh looking to put her new level of power to the test by joining the few other awakened dryads in growing their significantly expanded grove, Hentath chose instead to follow her great-grandaughter, wanting to both make sure the child would be safe while also looking to gauge her growth as the two went to a different stretch of woods than the one they cared for with equipment in hand to get started.

While other groups across the world may have viewed them entirely as nature lovers if they didn’t personally know any dryads, that wasn’t entirely true. While they enjoyed nature’s bounty and they would take pleasure in growing the varieties of plants the world held, they only truly cared about the protection of their groves, leaving the ax Delair pulled out as nothing more than a tool in their eyes rather than some great blasphemy so long as it wasn’t aimed at the plants of their ancestral home world, even if there were other worries with seeing it.

“Perhaps we should get a few more adults out here to help you, little flower.”

“I’ll be fine grandma. I know what I’m doing.”

Even as she said it, Delair was looking around, examining the trees in the woods for something both big and straight, without many branches to create too much cleanup for her as she marked out her targets before she began on the first to bring down.

Staring by swinging her ax to create a notch in the direction she wanted it to fall, she moved to the other side once that was done and began in earnest, carefully delivering blow after blow with a consistent level of power to slowly cut away at it, working the entire thing with care until it came down with a crack, the last bit of wood holding it together snapping and bringing it to the ground with a loud thud.

Delair looked all the prouder for the success and ran over to clean it up, cutting away the larger branches and either throwing or dragging them to the side depending on how big they were until it was a bare log, giving her exactly what she needed to move on to the next step. In a blink her ax disappeared, replaced by both a hammer and a few wedges while her great-grandmother gave her a confused look.

“Now where did those come from?”

“Um, secret.”

The older dryad gave a look at the younger who gave a distinct impression of being caught before sighing. Hentath may not have known about the magical ring the child had received but she had the sense to tell that however she’d managed it had to do with the girl’s teacher and let the matter pass without another word, with the younger doing her best to distract her from that little observation.

“Anyway grandma, now that I’ve got that down I can start trying to break them down and dry them out so watch this.”

With new tools in hand, Delair looked over the log for a minute, trying to find where she wanted to start before hammering the first wedge into the felled wood, starting a crack that she expanded with the next to go in and the next after from there, continuing on until the entire thing was resting with metal pegs, with faint hints of water vapour coming from then.

“Hmm? What’s happening there then?”

“Oh, they’re pulling water from it so I don’t need to wait for it to dry by itself. By the time I bring down the next tree, I’ll be able to take them out and move it to that one and then I think I’ll do it one more time and finish from there.”

“...And how exactly is it pulling so much water out?”

She didn’t doubt that they’d be good tools but any enchantment required mana to be put into it to power and as much as Delair had grown, both from her practice along with the potions she’d been receiving, she didn’t think she’d be able to give enough to do something like that.

“They’re full of mythril and white mana crystal so they do it themselves,” She said offhand, too focused on bringing down the next tree to see her great-grandmother pinch her brow.

“Next time I see him I really do need to have words with him about how much he’s spoiling you,” She muttered through the sudden headache that was hitting her before speaking up. “Delair, sweetheart? Let’s say those are going to be another one of your secrets along with anything else you may have gotten that’s filled with magic materials, okay?”

“Okay.”

How focused she was on her work didn’t fill Hentath with any confidence she’d remember that promise but let the matter drop to keep from distracting the girl while she was knocking down hundreds of pounds of wood, instead watching as Delair did exactly what she said. Once it was down she moved to the first log, hammering the wedges farther in to split it further and took her ax once more to clear out the fibers holding it together, letting it finally split in two while she moved on to the next one to begin splitting it and letting it dry.

Bringing down another tree after and repeating the process, once the three logs were successfully split she went back to the first from there, treating it with more care as she continued the process.

Trees wanted to split towards their center but what she wanted was to break them into planks for building so as she went on she carefully cut the logs into segments, pulling out a saw from places the elder dryad couldn’t guess at before breaking it down into more manageable parts as she continued, letting her make cuts in places to control the way it would split and using more wedges to help, all while hours passed by until it was late in the evening and the girl was worn out.

With how much she’d done she had every right to be, Hentath couldn’t imagine doing the same thing at such a young age, but it seemed the girl had enjoyed it, smiling brightly even as she laid on the ground in her exhaustion.

“Grandma, I don’t think I’m going to be able to start building today.”

“I’d say not, sweetheart. It’s getting too late. You can start tomorrow if you have the energy.”

“Okay, and grandma?”

“Yes?”

“I’m too tired to move. Can you carry me home?”

“...Consider yourself lucky that my strength grew so much, otherwise you’d be asking a lot of these old bones.”

Stooping down to scoop her up, Hentath carried the girl back home, thinking the entire way that her teacher wasn’t the only one who shouldn’t be spoiling her.

---

When morning came, Hentath couldn’t resist seeing what the young girl would do next. It wasn’t like the dryads of the village weren’t allowed to have their interests beyond just maintaining their grove, there were plenty who had hobbies of their own but she was the only one who was pursuing a general crafting and since it seemed she wanted to help the village, it would be good to know what she could do.

With the most apparent thing being suckering others into helping here. By the time she’d walked over to the girl’s home, she could already see a few others on their way there, all of them carrying some of the planks she’d made the day before while Delair led the way, spotting her as she went.

“Grandma, we were just coming to you!”

“Hmm? Why so early in the morning?”

“Mom already has a shed, I wanted to make you one!”

“...Do as you wish then.”

It seemed there was no need to go off to meet her at all and the fact that the girl had decided to make her something first couldn’t help but bring a smile to the elder’s lips as she waited for the group to reach her, making light chit chat as they went back to her home for the day as materials were dropped off and the others who’d been roped into helping gave their goodbyes, their part to play done.

Leaving the rest of the work for the girl who wanted it. Hentath watched from the side while Delair began, pulling out tools to dig out and level the ground before she got started on the wood, driving some poles into the ground while carefully carving into other planks, keeping nails to a minimum as she instead forced the wood to lock into itself to create strong holds without the need of metal to reinforce it.

While doing things that way did have the effect of lengthening the time it took to work, it also had the benefit of helping her train her skills along with preserving what nails she had without the risk of using them up too soon. She wanted to build for everyone who needed it after all and while she’d been left with plenty to work with, it wasn’t like she had unlimited resources. No matter how much it would draw the project out, working smarter was going to be better for her in the long run if she wanted to still have plenty to play with by the time she was done.

So like that she worked, not noticing the hours passing as wood was joined and built up until another evening came, leaving Delair laying on the ground to stare up at the sky above, feeling the pride of what she’d built beside her, her first finished shed finally complete.

It had taken a total of two days all told but all of her work on the first had left her plenty of wood to use for at least a couple more and while her grandmother brought her something to drink and gave all the compliments she could on the quality of the work, Delair was just looking forward to how much more she’d be able to do.

Author's note

Well, this was the closest poll ever, to the point where I discovered that patreon doesn't seem to have an inbuilt tool to let posters find the exact number of votes given, only the percentages. Luckily it looks like someone else who had this problem made an external solution for figuring it out, with the results being only a difference of four votes. Anyway, hope you got a bit of entertainment out of it and otherwise have a great day!