Chapter 289 Surprises underground
"You are finally adjusting, I thought it would take you a century or so to stop feeling sorry for the dead humans. Should I be impressed or worried?" Severus asked her this as he blinked and returned them to the cliff.
"Why have you brought us here instead of blinking back to the blue star? Should I return on my own?" She thought that with their mission here accomplished, she could naturally return to where she came from.
"There is something underground, but that's not the issue, answer me first. Have you adjusted your mentality or turned off part of your emotions?" He answered. "Oh, follow me to that thing underground, you will like it."
She followed him into a thicket of dry bushes that seemed to be prickly. If she had been weaving her way between them with a human body, she would end up covered in wounds.
"Won't you answer me?" He asked.
"Right, the question, you told me yourself that death is not the end. It's a transition from one life to the next. Some of them have suffered greatly in this life and they can get the chance to be reborn into happier lives. Or they don't get to be reborn and simply die and their suffering ends. Whichever way it is, I have convinced myself that death, ultimately is not a thing to be dreaded. It's the methodology of death that one is to be weary of perhaps. Nobody wants to die a violent death, we would all rather go unknowingly in the night while we sleep. But that's not always the case, like these men. I bet they knew that they were dying and they were terrified. But now it's over and the terror is gone. So no, I do not pity the humans anymore when it comes to death."
"Hmmm." Severus replied.
She had been expecting more but he did not give it to her so she shrugged and continued walking.
In reaper form, she never felt tired or thirsty and she could move for months without stopping. But knowing that she had another meeting in fifteen minutes made her want to end this walk sooner.
"Do you smell that?" Severus asked her.
"What she asked him?" And she sniffed the air, drawing in long deep breaths as if she was doing breathing exercises. The air smelt sweet here, so sweet that she could practically taste it on her tongue which was abnormal so she observed the environment. There were tall trees with only a handful of leaves left after a brutal winter. The trees stood over a tiny stream which flowed through a rocky cave that went deep underground. There were small fresh sprouts of grass on the ground, tiny and unnoticeable. But the grass itself was weird because it had yellow tips.
She squatted down and plucked a small blade.
"What's this?" She asked Severus.
"A honey grass flower, it's not from this world. A few seeds must have somehow made their way here with a bee. I smelled it when I came over to check on those whose names I had, the ones who were going to die soon. Take a peek underground in the cave and tell me what you see."
She used her vision and hearing to look inside and first, she had a loud terrible buzzing which she attributed to bees, hundreds, thousands or millions of them. And then, she gasped and looked deeper, to see colonies after colonies lined up in a long underground tunnel that was obviously dug by humans because of it's structure. There was a single tree down there but it spread so wide and had branches long and thick vines that had spread out for miles. She followed the upward movement of the tree upwards through an opening in the cave and Severus suddenly blinked, bringing her directly to the tree above ground.
Tall, thick and proud it stood, with healthy leaves that had not withered. It's roots were firmly lodged in the ground and she could hardly see how deep they run.
"What is this?" She asked Severus. "What kind of tree is this?"
"One that fed on fire soul stones for years, do you feel that?" He asked.
The wind around the tree was different, it was filled with energy and warmth. When she touched the tree itself, it felt hot as if there was a fire burning inside of the tree.
"There are remnants of weapons, plants, stones, crystals and things from the underworld and other heavenly realms on every world. The worlds may change and entire populations might be wiped out by deities but the ground remains the same. Things are just buried and new humans build over the surface, rarely looking deep to find out what's buried. Unless they are searching for remains of their ancestors. Occasionally a human will find an item that does not belong to their realm and either they are blessed with incredible fortune or misfortune. In the end, most of them go mad and often possessed by evil. So we step in called upon and whatever they find is either retrieved by the gatekeepers, an exorcist or a hound."
"So, the tree grew up on something from the underworld."
"Yes, that's why I was attracted to it in the first place. It has been transformed into a spiritual plant over the years, five hundred or so I guess. It's flowers are inedible to humans and it bears on fruit." he replied.
"So how did the bees find it? It's like this is their territory." she spoke in wonder.
"The flowers," he said and then paused, "Maybe one of the bees came from that crack we saw in the space. Those bees down there are red and green with long pincers and I have only seen them on one world, Nord, a galaxy far away from this one. Or it could be one of the many species that originally lived on this world and somehow survived whatever cleansing was done by whichever deity did the cleansing. But the bees have been surviving on the tree for years, they are a special breed now,"
"So is there honey." she gasped and said, "Look at all that honey down there, I bet this will be something unique in the underworld."
"In this world too." Severus reminded her.
"I need to start harvesting, oh my God! this is incredible. Wait, are the bees dangerous? Does their sting kill?" She had many thoughts, ideas and questions.
"You should calm down first Scarlet and remember that we are not standing on the blue star, this is not your planet."
"You are right, this is not my planet. That means I must get the honey in grim reaper form." she said with a smile as if she had just thought of the most brilliant idea.
"And what happens if the citizens of the grey star, guild hunters, or anybody else destroys this ecology? What if they decide to cut down the tree? This is why I brought you over, the honey might be good for your cultivation so we need to secure the spiritual tree." he emphasized his last words.
"Should we uproot it?" she asked him.
"No, the bees might scatter." he said.
"Then what?" she asked him. "Short of claiming ownership....oh my God, that's it!" she exclaimed. "I have to buy the land on which the trees and the cave and the tunnels sit."