Hovering over the corpse, the merchant cursed again and again.
He cursed the boy's stupidity, shaking his head in regret.
"Stupid child… you could've asked me for food, and I would've helped…"
His gaze shifted to the travel bags now painted red.
"These bags don't even carry anything valuable — just some change for the road. Everything important is inside my ring… poor lad."
There was pity in his voice.
There was sympathy.
But sympathy did not undo what was done.
All he could do now was give Willow the dignity any person deserved and bury him where he died.
Better that than letting wildlife devour what remained.
And so he did.
The magus stepped forward and stamped on the ground. Dirt exploded sideways, forming a hole roughly the size of Willow's body.
He was about to crouch and carry the corpse, but when he inspected the bloodied body, his nose scrunched in disgust.
The metallic tang of blood mixed with the faint scent of rot.
He lurched backward, gagging.
Without hesitation, he wove mana into the earth.
The ground beneath the corpse rose like a slow wave, carrying Willow's body toward the hole and dumping him inside.
Then the magus sealed it completely.
With a resigned sigh, he abandoned the bloodstained bags and left in a hurry.
Nocturnal predators would soon be drawn to the scent.
That was how Willow's life ended.
Killed by mistake.
He learned and adapted to be a scavenger animal just to survive — only to die the same way he had lived.
The irony of that moment would have been amusing… if not for the fact that the one it applied to was buried deep underground with a hole through his torso.
But who would care about some unknown boy dying alone by the side of a road?
A road leading to a place he never cared about in the first place.
Who would give a damn that some filthy teenager had vanished?
Maybe someone did.
Or maybe no one cared at all.
That was how life treated both the fortunate and the unfortunate.
In the end, everyone tasted death.
Sooner or later.
Even those who believed themselves immortal were not spared from this universal rule.
But what if death was not the end?
What if death was merely a stepping stone?
Deep inside that dark hole, blood continued to seep from the corpse, still warm against the damp, cold earth.
The ground drank it.
Slowly.
Greedily.
Until nothing remained.
The soil's color shifted from deep brown to a faint crimson.
Then—
Something moved.
Small, thin roots stirred beneath the dirt.
They slithered like snakes around Willow's frail corpse, wrapping around his limbs, his torso, his neck — until he was cocooned completely.
Days passed.
Nothing happened.
The road remained silent.
The world moved on.
Until one afternoon—
A hand twitched inside the grave.
Eyelids fluttered beneath closed lids.
Cocooned within crimson roots, Willow's heart beat once.
Weak.
Then again.
Above the grave, red flowers bloomed across the surface, forming a bed of crimson as if welcoming him back.
At the center of that bed, a seed stirred.
It pushed downward through soil, pierced through the cocoon of roots, tore through dead flesh, and planted itself directly into his lifeless heart.
More roots erupted from the seed, spreading through his veins like a second circulatory system.
White-green sap replaced crimson blood.
It fed from the earth itself.
Above ground, the flowers vibrated with urgency.
Their crimson petals absorbed light — sun, moon, even starlight.
The air thinned around the clearing.
From dozens of meters around the grave, every nutrient was drained.
Grass withered.
Insects shriveled.
Small animals fled.
All for one purpose.
To nourish the body that lay dead beneath the soil.
The process was slow at first.
Days passed before the first sprout broke through the surface.
A small stem.
Unnatural in color.
Beneath it, the seed that once rested inside a heart cemented its presence through every inch of the boy's body.
It rewrote him.
It elevated him.
It abandoned his human nature for something beyond imagination.
His veins bulged as something akin to blood flowed through them — not red, but pale and luminous.
It nourished.
It reshaped.
It rewrote him from the inside out.
Bit by bit, his deathly pale complexion regained a faint trace of life.
Days turned into weeks.
Weeks into months.
A suspiciously reddish tree grew larger by the roadside leading deeper into the territory of the Alliance.
Travelers noticed it.
Some inspected it uneasily, creeped out by its unnatural color and shape.
Others were mesmerized by the bed of crimson flowers that glinted beneath the night sky.
Yet none dared approach it.
Nine months passed since Willow died.
Nine months since the boy took his last breath.
On the thirtieth day of the ninth month, at dawn, golden sunlight reflected against the streaked leaves of the towering tree.
Its canopy — a rich mixture of deep green and crimson — swayed in the chilling morning air.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
The road was empty.
Wildlife had retreated to their lairs, as if bracing for something unseen.
The eerie silence was soothing.
And warning.
Then—
A crack.
Sharp.
Sudden.
The bark of the towering trunk split like an eggshell.
The entire tree trembled from its deepest roots to the last leaf on its crown.
The once vibrant flowers withered instantly, their purpose fulfilled.
A viscous sap-like liquid seeped from the widening crack.
The split widened.
And from within the tree — as if it were giving birth — a shape emerged through the half-splintering, half-melting bark.
A humanoid figure fell to the ground with a wet squelch.
Thin vines trailed from the figure's chest, linking him to the inside of the tree like an umbilical cord between newborn and mother.
Lying in a fetal position, Willow — reborn from the depths of nature itself — drew in a sharp, violent breath.
Air rushed into his lungs.
He gasped like something that had been drowning for months.
His eyes snapped open, blurred by the viscous substance covering his naked body.
He shivered in the cold as thoughts slowly returned.
Confused.
Empty.
The first word that left his mouth was hoarse.
"Th… thirsty…"
A raw, desperate sound.
It didn't last long.
The next second, a tattoo of a white tree shimmered on the back of his hand.
Every vein in his body glowed faint green.
White runes flickered across Willow's irises.
Strange symbols flooded his vision.
And whatever confusion remained—
Was drowned in something far more ancient.