I Can Multiply My Daily Gacha by 100x

Few hours earlier, in the brush.

Yenna dropped out of the dark and landed beside Dante without a sound. A line of blood ran from her nose, and she wiped it on her sleeve.

”I saw it now clearly,” she whispered.

”And?”

”It isn’t the adults.” She swallowed. ”I thought it was the children, but it isn’t them either. Every thread, theirs and the adults’, goes into the tree.”

Esabella’s head came around. ”All of them?”

”All of them. The children’s threads are thicker. They’re like voices. The tree talks through them.” Yenna’s ears shook. ”The adults are only the hands. The tree holds everything.”

”So it’s the Hollow, Not the kids ” Dante said.

”Yes.”

Esabella frowned at the torches. ”Then why are we waiting? Burn it.”

”And the sleepers inside?” Yenna asked.

”That’s why I want to see it move first.”

Esabella stared at him. Then she looked away and let out a slow breath through her nose.

”Alright, But If it touches you,” she said, ”I’m burning all of it.”

”Fine.”

In Present....

”Now we can feed properly,” Cael said.

The clearing was silent. Thirty adults stood there with their torches in their hands. Hessa’s lips moved without a sound. Lira stood in front of Dante with her head tilted, smiling.

”Move,” Dante said quietly.

”Why?”

”I’m going into that tree.”

”You can’t.” Lira’s smile widened. ”She’s awake.”

Suddenly the ground shook.

A deep groan rolled out of the Hollow, and every torch glow at once. The green light inside the split flared white. The roots on walls twitched, then all of them lifted at the same time, like a hand opening.

”Mother,” Cael whispered. His eyes were shining. ”Please.”

Roots burst out of the ground.

They tore up through the ground in a ring around the Hollow. One lashed across the clearing and wrapped around the nearest adult. He didn’t even scream. It pulled him down into the earth like a thread through cloth, and the soil closed over his feet.

”Mother, no!” Hessa shrieked. ”It’s me! I fed you for eleven years!”

A root took her around the waist.

”Cael! Cael, tell her!”

But He didn’t look at her. Dante threw himself sideways. A root the size of a cart wheel slammed into the place where he had stood, and the ground split. He rolled and came up with both daggers in his hands.

”Now, Esabella!”

”Yes my king!” Her whip cracked, and a rope of fire wrapped around a root and burned through it in one stroke. Black sap sprayed. The root dropped, twitching, and a dozen more rose to take its place.

”I can’t burn the whole thing!” she shouted. ”The forest will catch!” She spun and snapped the whip again. A line of flame sliced three roots clean in half. Her fire came out thin, no more than a lash, controlled down to the last inch.

Yenna rose over the clearing with her eyes gone violet.

”There! The big root on the left! The thread goes into the Hollow’s side!”

”Cut it!”

She lifted her hand. Her claws closed on a silver thread no one else could see. The lantern flared, and she dragged her nails down it.

It snapped. A root as thick as a house fell limp across the clearing and crushed an empty torch. Yenna swayed in the air and pressed her hand against her nose.

”One,” she said thickly. ”Two more.”

Miso charged past her with a roar. He caught a root in his jaws and shook it like a rope. It snapped. He slammed into another with his shoulder and sent it sliding across the ground.

Dante ran. He cut a root off at the knee and slid under another. A third lashed at his face, and he caught it on a dagger and twisted. Black sap sprayed across his arm. It burned, cold and sticky. He didn’t slow down.

[Beast slain: Hollow Root.]

[Stats increased: +2 Strength, +2 Vitality.]

’Get to the split.’

Two more roots came at his legs. He jumped. They hit together under his feet. He landed on a third and ran along it, with his daggers drawing a bright line down its length.

The split in the Hollow loomed ahead, huge and pale. Through it, he could see climbers in the walls, motionless, wrapped in green thread.

A dozen roots rose all at once.

They came from every side, a wall of black wood. One dagger stuck in a root and wouldn’t come out. He let go. A root took his shoulder. He tore free and rolled.

He was fighting it, but then something happened. A thin root coiled around his ankle. Another took his knee. A third wrapped his waist, and a fourth his chest. He cut one, and two took its place.

”My king!” Esabella screamed.

She was far away, with three roots wrapped around her whip, hauling against them. Her hair had come loose. Her arms shook.

The roots tightened. His feet left the ground. They lifted him and pulled him backward and down, toward the split. His arms went under. His chest. His shoulders. The wood closed over his skin like a hand over a coin.

Only his eyes and mouth were left.

He lay there, wrapped in black roots from his neck to his feet, and looked up at the clearing. Torchlight glowing. Esabella ran toward him with her hair streaming. Yenna floated overhead, white as paper, with her hands over her mouth.

It didn’t hurt. He noticed that first. There was only a slow pressure, like being held.

And then he smiled.

It was small and tired and honest, and he didn’t know where it had come from. His eyes crinkled. He looked at the two of them, and the roots slid up toward his chin.

’’This feeling,’’ he said quietly. ’’I remember it.after a long time –’’

The roots covered his mouth .

”My king” Esabella screamed and the Aura around her starting to become terifying but before she could anything–

”Lady Esabella!” Yenna’s voice stop her. ”Look!”

A tremor ran through the ground. It started under Dante’s body. The roots around him shook. Then the ground around him began to ripple. The Hollow’s green light glowed, and a long, low groan came from the tree.

Esabella stopped. She stared at the wooden cocoon. His eyes were still open, just visible in a gap between two roots, and they were calm.

And a single word come

”Law of Stillness.”

The whole clearing froze. The roots stopped in mid-lash. and the falling sap stopped in the air. Even the adults, who had been standing frozen already, seemed to freeze deeper. Cael’s smile stopped halfway. Lira and other also stoped.

For three seconds, nothing moved at all. Esabella felt the ground under her knees tremble, harder now. A crack ran through the ground beneath the cocoon. Then she saw his eyes.

They were crinkled at the corners. The mouth under the roots had moved in a way she knew, and she couldn’t hear what he said. But she saw it.

He was smiling. ”Is he...” Esabella’s voice shook. ”Is he laughing?”