He tilted his head slightly and whispered a few words to a young Lizardman attendant. The message was quickly relayed to Turk at the head of the caravan.
"Turk, Lord Shazak said he just received a revelation from ’Nature’ during his meditation."
"The revelation said... that on our way to the Royal Capital, we will encounter an envoy of nature. Lord Shazak wants you to be on the lookout."
"An envoy of nature?" Turk’s face grew stern, his relaxed expression vanishing as he became serious.
Although the Elder Shaman, Shazak, was old and his physical strength was not what it used to be, his ability to communicate with nature and receive revelations was highly revered throughout the entire Rot Moss Tribe.
Turk didn’t dare to take his words lightly.
"Go back and tell Shaman Shazak that I’ll be on the lookout."
After the Lizardman returned with the message, the nearby King Mu bounced slightly and said, "His Majesty. The Forest Sage. The Gel network. They did not say an envoy was visiting."
Turk found it strange as well. If an envoy of nature were truly visiting the Kingdom, the Gel network, which covered the entire Kingdom, should have spread the news long ago.
As he was pondering this, Salaman, who was beside him, slapped him on the shoulder and pointed with a thick finger to the side of the road up ahead.
"Turk, look! Is that him?"
Turk quickly looked up.
There, next to a large, dead tree that had fallen by the roadside, lay something that looked sickly.
It looked like a thick tree stump, but the faint outline of a wrinkled human face was visible on its surface. Atop the stump, a few small, bare branches remained.
The face on the stump had its mouth slightly agape. It was using a small, withered branch to weakly wave toward the caravan, its voice faint:
"Kind children, please... save this poor old man. I’m not going to make it..."
Turk, having absolute faith in the Elder Shaman’s words, immediately signaled for the caravan to halt. He and Salaman leaped from their beast-drawn cart and cautiously approached the "tree stump."
Up close, they could see more clearly that the stump’s surface was cracked and coarse, looking as if it had been deprived of water for a long time.
"What’s wrong, old sir?" Turk asked cautiously, squatting down.
"Water... I need water, and... a little fertile soil..." the elderly stump said weakly.
Turk hesitated no longer. He and Salaman carefully lifted the heavy stump and moved it onto a lightly loaded beast-drawn cart. Following its request, they poured fresh water from their waterskins, slowly drenching the stump’s cracked roots. Then, they brought handfuls of moist swamp mud and packed it around the base.
Hearing that Turk had rescued a "talking tree stump," the Lizardmen and Slimes curiously gathered around the cart, chattering amongst themselves.
"Thank you... thank you, you kind children." After being nourished by the water, the wrinkled face on the stump seemed to relax a bit. Some light returned to its eyes, and while its voice was still ancient, it was no longer as weak.
"I feel... much better."
Turk signaled for everyone to be quiet, then politely asked, "Old sir, why were you lying here all alone? Did you run into some kind of trouble?"
The stump elder sighed, his small branches swaying. "You may call me... Oldes. It is a name from the language of the tree spirits."
"I once lived in an ancient forest, but not long ago, a terrible fire swept through it. My home was burned to the ground, and many old friends... sigh. I was lucky to have escaped the inferno."
"I heard that my niece, Violet, had established a new Tree Spirit Territory in the swamp, so I thought I would come to her for shelter and see if I could be of any help... After all, having lived for so long, I know a thing or two about the forest and nature."
"But I never expected the paths through the swamp to be so treacherous. I’m unfamiliar with the terrain, and I foolishly got lost... If you kind children hadn’t found me, I’m afraid I would have withered away right here."
"Violet?" Turk, Salaman, and the surrounding Lizardmen exchanged glances, unfamiliar with the name.
King Mu, however, hopped over and interjected, "Lady Violet. Ally of His Majesty. Leader of the Tree Spirit Territory. Southwest of the Royal Capital. A bit far."
’His Majesty has tree spirit allies?’ Turk was intrigued. This also made him believe "Mr. Oldes" a bit more. If he was the relative of an ally, then helping him was only natural.
"Mr. Oldes, since you’re a relative of Lady Violet, there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Why don’t you travel with our caravan back to the Royal Capital? His Majesty will certainly make proper arrangements for you. Once you’ve recovered, we can either take you to the Tree Spirit Territory to reunite with your family, or you can stay and live in the Royal Capital."
When Oldes heard the words "Royal Capital," a look of confusion crossed his face. "Royal Capital? What Royal Capital? There’s a city in this swamp?"
Although he had heard from Violet before he came that the entire East Swamp and part of the West Swamp had been unified into a power called the "Slime Kingdom," he simply couldn’t connect the word "Slime" with concepts like "Royal Capital" or "city."
It made him, a wise and worldly Forest Sage from Golden Glow Valley, look like a country bumpkin who had never seen the world—and in front of a bunch of Lizardmen and Slimes, no less.