Gladesbale Grove [druid, litrpg, town building, slice of life, cozy]

While everything going on with the ritual magic was interesting enough, Rud had to turn his attention to caring for the grove for the rest of that day. But as the new day dawned, he gathered before the sacred tree, trying to get her attention. Since the labyrinth had appeared, she had been busy attempting to probe it for some unknown tree-related reason. However, he felt her attention shift back to him.

"While I'm sure you're concerned about what you saw underground, I assure you it isn't a problem," Ban said, her voice filling Rud with a sense of deep comfort.

"Are you sure about that?" Rud asked, placing his hands on his hips as he stared at the bark of the tree. "A giant city underground doesn't seem like a normal thing, even for the grove."

"I've been aware of it for some time, but I didn't want to worry the other residents," Ban said. "Which is why you could teleport from down there using thicket travel. I've already begun expanding my influence into the caverns."

"You see, I was going to ask you that. Rud said. "It was kind of weird that we could travel so deep. I just figured the grove didn't have an up-and-down limitation."

Ban's giggle entered his mind. "If we didn't have an up and down limitation, doesn't that mean we could teleport to the other side of the planet?"

"Oh, I'm sorry for not assuming you people have already discovered the round planet theory. I thought we were still on flat planes around here."

"For right now, I want you to avoid going back down there," Ban said, completely ignoring his previous comment. "I'll have that energy under control very soon. But I'm getting close with the labyrinth. You've figured the whole picture out, right?"

"Yep," Rud said. "Do you have a plan for the buildings and upgrades you're going to need?"

"Yes, after I get the labyrinth under control, I'll have to enter a slumber for a few weeks to build everything we'll need."

That was the part Rud didn't like. Whenever she created a new building or underwent a rank change, she had to slumber for a while to process everything. She was going to be away for several weeks. That meant that the things she was building would be expansive. He would figure out how he felt about that later. But for now, he would just roll with it. There were plenty of things for him to do in the Grove to pass the time.

The biggest thing Rud needed to accomplish right now was leveling up his subclass, which had stagnated at level 6. This was likely because he spent most of his time doing nothing related to those skills. Taz had taken over the blacksmith shop and the mine, making his Mining, Smelting, and Smithing skills all useless. That left only three skills for him to work on: Farseeing, Animal Husbandry, and Custodianship.

Farseeing was a skill that was easy enough to level up. Just this morning, he had seen it reach level 7 when he completed his daily report for the town. Animal husbandry was more difficult, but only because he didn't have many animals to care for. If he took charge of the goats, that would help him level up swiftly. Last, there was Custodianship, which he had found to be shockingly easy to level, thanks to his constant interaction with the mortals.

"I have some big projects of my own," Rud said, striking a pose in an attempt to impress the sacred tree. "I hope you've seen my new tea farm."

"Your new tea farm with no tea in it?" Ban asked with a laugh. "I've seen it, and I am indeed very impressed."

"Taking your advice, I plan to grind some levels for my subclass," Rud said. "Since Taz took over all my work, it's almost like starting over again."

"I know you can do it," Ban said. "As long as you work hard, you can do whatever you put your mind to."

"Thanks, Mom," Rud said, shifting into his squirrel form and bounding away. The truth was, he had plans to take advantage of one building the tree had created for him. He found a spot atop his observatory and invoked the animal tracking upgrade on the barn. Since that building was connected to the observatory, he could use it from either location. Although he could use it from anywhere in the grove, it simply wasn't as powerful otherwise.

As if responding with the curious nature of the owl he was, Nulsa alighted on the banister of the observatory and released a quizzical hoot. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for some animals to capture," Rud said, squinting as he used his extrasensory perception of animals within the grove to catalog each one. "We've got some deer, badgers, and squirrels. Well, I see a couple of rogue wolves in the north… What is that?"

"I cannot see what you are seeing." Nulsa said, slightly annoyed. "What is it?"

"Ah, the system interface isn't identifying the animals because I haven't seen them before. But there are some cows in the south… ten of them."

"Cows?" Nulsa asked with a snort. "I don't recall cows entering the grove."

"Yeah, great big black and white spotty ones," Rud said. "They're grazing in a field right now. They're all eating nuts."

"We should investigate."

Rud absolutely didn't disagree with that. He jumped from the observatory and sailed into the nearest bush. Nulsa was close behind him as they used Thicket Travel to reach the site of the cows. They soared over the landscape. It was an open field, a clearing in the dense forest where at least ten black-and-white spotted cows grazed on the ground. But there was something strange about them. They didn't move like cows. They hopped and frolicked through the fields, stopping and turning their heads skyward to release a strange, lowing sound that the druid with certain normal cows wouldn't make.

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It all made a little more sense when he saw one cow attempting to climb a tree. When Rud activated his Clear Communication upgrade, the pieces fell into place.

"Hawk!" one cow exclaimed, mooing skyward.

"Maybe a hawk, but nuts!" another cow said, munching on a pile of unshelled hazelnuts.

"Oh no," Nulsa said, groaning as he peered down at the cows. "I think something terrible has happened here."

"Cursed object, maybe?" Rud asked, using his limited magical senses to check the creatures out. He could tell just about nothing; they seemed like normal cows to him.

"Yes. I can sense the object nearby, but the cows themselves hold absolutely no residual magical energy. This means the transformation was absolute."

"Here's the plan," Rud said, sailing towards the ground and shifting back to his true form. "Grab the things I need for the ritual. We'll dig up the object and purify it, and I'll round these guys up."

"This is a task I don't envy," Nolsa said, flapping his powerful wings a few times before sailing off into the nearest bush. Rud turned his attention to the cows, which flicked their tails and made strange, mooing, squeaking sounds at him. It wasn't the most disconcerting thing he had ever seen, but it was pretty high up there.

"Greetings, friends," Rud said, holding his arms wide and forcing a smile onto his face.

"It is the green man with the nuts!" one cow exclaimed. It came dancing over the field, flicking its tail and chittering the whole way.

"Nut man!"

"Nuts! Nuts! Nuts!'

"Well, this is disturbing," Rud said, running his hand through his hair. He rolled his shoulders. This was his job as a custodian. No matter how weird things got, he had to keep his cool and make sure everything went smoothly. "I know you guys have been faithful to the Grove since the start. You've helped me find many things and have been stalwart allies. That's why I am now offering you a chance to retire in a palatial estate."

"What does palatial mean?" one cow asked.

"Big!" another said. "With lots of nuts? Maybe?"

"As many nuts as you can eat," Rud confirmed. "But you need to come with me. How many of you are there?"

"At least two."

As always, they were absolutely useless. It took Rud longer than he cared to admit to get them to follow him. Of course, the same old trick that had worked before worked this time. All he had to do was have a large bag of hazelnuts at his side, and they would follow him. He didn't even have to give them a reward for following him. They were just so trained to continuously go after him when he had those nuts that they followed him through the forest.

The druid tried to get them to tell him about what had happened, but their memories were so scattered that they couldn't recall anything. Instead, they told him about the delicious kinds of nuts they had been eating since the transformation. Each one had found the same cursed object and, with no sense of self-preservation, mistaken it for a nut. This meant they touched it and underwent a change that nobody seemed eager to stop.

"Those certainly don't look like squirrels," Dean said as he emerged from a bush.

"No. Instead, I've got ten milk cows," Rud said, shaking his head. "Two of them broke off from the group. Could you please round them up? Just treat them like squirrels."

"Wolf!" one cow shouted.

"Oh, that's the nice wolf. False alarm, guys."

Rud endured the antics of the squirrel-cows all the way to the goat pen. He had made it larger than necessary, so adding ten more animals to the flock would not have been a problem. Still, he planned to expand it so they could have more room to graze. However, since the cows still had their squirrel instincts, they would likely try to eat mostly nuts. The druid watched from the other side of the fence, leaning over it as he observed the strange behavior of the creatures.

"Major, are you busy?" Rud asked, allowing his mind to connect to the magical power that wove them all together. A moment later, the massive bear emerged from the nearest bush. His face was covered in grease. "I see you're eating something, so that means you're not busy. Well, when you get a minute, could you collect as many nuts as you can?"

"Why are there cows in the goat pen?" Major asked, tilting his head as he looked into the pen.

"They all stepped on a cursed object that turns animals into cows," Rud explained, "which is an oddly specific thing for a cursed object to do. Which reminds me, don't step on random cursed objects."

"A fact duly noted," Major said, turning and nodding towards the forest. "Where should I deposit the nuts?"

"Bring them back to my place," Rud said. "I want to try to get them eating grass, but they still have quite a lot of squirrel instincts."

Rud felt a twinge in his chest as he cared for both the cows and the goats. He noticed his animal husbandry skill increase. A moment later, he saw the system message confirming it was now level 3. With access to both cow and goat milk, it would be a shame not to try to make cheese. He had absolutely no idea how cheese worked, but he was certain there was somebody in town who could explain it to him. For now, he had a cursed object to get rid of.

Nulsa was great at his job. Not only did he gather the materials required to seal the cursed object, but he also brought a shovel and scouted a site to erect the sealing tree. Rud had no trouble digging the object up and transferring it to the logging site. He created a new prison from a nearby tree, and although the loggers weren't there today, he knew they had more sense than to mess around with it.

"Why is this the most dangerous object you've ever sealed?" Major asked, watching as Rud performed the ritual on the object.

The object wasn't ocular enough. If he were honest, he would admit it did look like a small metal acorn. Perhaps it was too large for any intelligent person to mistake, but the squirrels were excitable. They would have easily mistaken it for a delicious nut and attempted to eat it, only to then be turned into cows.

"That's the problem with cursed objects," Rud said, finishing up his ritual and using his Shape Plant spell to seal it away. "We can never know the extent of what this thing does because we can't test it. The object could do much more than just turn wild animals into domesticated creatures. However, to test that, we would need to force an animal to touch it."

"Well, that makes sense to me," Major said, releasing a low growl. "We should quarantine the others, even if you don't have time to purify them."

"My original thought was that they had gone undisturbed for so long. What was the point in digging them all up?" Rud asked. "Now I'm thinking you may be right about this."

But that was a monumental task. If he could tackle the problem, it wasn't just about collecting each cursed object. He couldn't perform the rituals very often, and storing them all together was even more dangerous than leaving them in the wild. It was a situation he couldn't find an easy way out of, and he didn't know if he planned to.

"The current plans are to just leave them where they are. Unfortunately," Rud said, "I can't risk putting them all together, and I don't have enough power to seal them all, so we just have to deal with it for now. Besides, I've always wanted a milk cow."

"Ah, there it is. The selfish reason why you're not jumping to fix the problem," Major teased. "I see how your mind works now, druid."

"Be careful, Major," Rud said, giving him a devious look. "Or I might just turn you into a milk cow."

The bear looked upon him with a mix of emotions, but eventually cracked a haunting smile. "I'd like to see you try, little man."