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

Although cheese-creation was super-duper exciting, Rud had a bunch of other stuff to do within the grove. The most exciting thing going on for him today was tending to the tea farm. Now that he had received his class ability, the mana cost for his plant growth spell would dwindle to almost nothing. He ascended the ramp to his farm, clicking his tongue as he looked over what he now considered rudimentary construction.

"Well, this won't do," Rud said, shaking his head.

Some sections of the elevated platform he had created were sagging in parts before he grew his tea plants to full maturity. He reinforced the underside by planting new trees and wrapping them around the base. He allowed the branches of those trees to spill over the edges of the platform, shooting skyward to capture some of the sunlight above. However, it had to be partially exposed so the plants could receive adequate sunlight. When he was done fixing the mistakes he had made before his new ability, the druid grew his garden.

"Where has this ability been all my life?" Rud asked, waving his hand through the air and casting several versions of the spell at once. All plant magic felt as if it were at the end of his fingertips, ready to be called whenever he needed it.

Green magic surged over the farm, transforming stumpy clippings into full-grown tea plants in the blink of an eye. The farm changed from a patch of dirt with sticks poking out of it to a fully formed operation in moments, with plants that were larger and more robust than before. Drips of condensed mana fell from the leaves, turning to mist in the air.

"Now this is a farm I can get behind," Mint said, ascending the ramp in her wolf form and letting out a low growl. "You've really transformed it, haven't you?"

"What do you think?" Rud asked, placing his hands on his hips and looking over the sprawl of greenery with a wide smile on his face. "Working with plants is a lot easier with this new ability."

Mint had nothing to say right away. She walked between the plants, sniffing at different ones until she found the spicy tea leaves. She took a bite of one and turned to him, nodding with satisfaction. "These are extremely aromatic. Far more concentrated than the old version."

"If you shift into your human form and help me collect some, we can stuff it in my drying house. I don't know if the system information will change on the completed tea, but there's only one way to find out."

"A tempting offer," Mint said, humming to herself. "I suppose I could use a break."

Rud showed her how to pick the tea leaves. It really wasn't anything special. They simply had to find the best-looking leaves and pluck them from the plant. The most important part was to find those leaves that had overstayed their welcome and remove them without adding them to the bunch. The ones he was after were those with the right amount of green on the leaf. Not too young, not too old.

"How are things going in the labyrinth?" Rud asked, finding a wide sweet tea leaf and holding it up to the sun. He could see the veins of the leaf spreading from the stem, reaching toward the outer part of the leaf to create an intricate roadmap.

"I'm winding down in the labyrinth," Mint admitted. "It is far deeper than I had anticipated. And worst of all, it has changed recently. Now all that work I did to map it is gone."

"Was it the point to get stronger?" Rud asked.

Mint turned to him, flashing a smile in her human form that always looked a bit too wolf-like. "That's right, and I accomplished that. The monsters on the lower full floors can be incredibly strong, and we'll need to clear them often to ensure they don't overflow. But the rewards are many: magical items, experience, and even dungeon core fragments, which I know you're a fiend for."

"That's perfect," Rud said. "With more buildings to take care of, I need more fragments than ever. It almost seems as though our energy woes are over. Ban is siphoning power from that labyrinth, and I'm sure she'll do the same for the haunted underground city as well."

"Yet you're worried about the other groves," Mint said, nodding as she plucked another leaf. "That's an understandable position. But you've already taken steps to ensure their safety."

"It just seems like everybody's so disjointed," Rud said. "Like, none of the groves thought to come together in their entire history."

Mint let out a sharp breath through her nose. She crossed the distance between them and placed her hand on his shoulder. "You need to understand how special Gladesbale is," she said, shaking her head. "We might seem incompatible, ‌but Bent did everything he could to make us perfect. We are the most powerful combination he has ever put together, and it shows. Our growth is unlike anything he has seen before. Even in his own grove."

Rud put something together in that moment when Bent recently visited Gladesbale. He realized the absolute power and majesty of that sacred beast, but there was an imbalance of power. While he knew nothing about the custodian and sacred tree in the Progenitor Grove, he thought he could piece it together. Bent was too strong, and his two counterparts weren't strong enough. If he compared it to his own grove, he could see that within Gladesbale Grove, there was harmony. Perhaps that counted for far more than the raw power of the Guardian.

"It's just like nature, isn't it?" Rud asked. He thought perhaps he had finally put it all together. "There has to be balance, even with the mortal peoples of the world."

"That's what I'm coming to understand," Mint said, nodding as she smiled to herself. "Perhaps we represent three aspects of the world. Ban is nature. I am the wild, and you are the mortals. But I'm not sure if even Bent recognizes the correlation between those things or if he just lucked out."

That was heady food for thought for such an early hour of the day. Rud didn't really enjoy thinking about that stuff. He turned his attention back to the tea plants and got back to work. Although he told himself he wouldn't think about it any longer, he had a smile on his face as he considered how well he worked together with his cohorts.

"Thanks for the help with the tea," Rud said, plucking another leaf.

"Anytime."

###

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

After setting his tea leaves out to dry, Rud felt something enter his senses in the distance. If it was a group of adventurers approaching from the east, that would be fine. People were always coming from the east. But the druid sensed a familiar presence coming over the western road. His grove-based senses weren't nearly as good as Ban, but this was someone he had met before. A person he had expected to arrive much earlier.

"Dean, I need a hand," Rud said, heading out from his drying house.

Dean was quick to burst from a nearby bush, skidding to a stop and looking around. "Are you in danger?"

"Not yet. A group of adventurers is returning over the road to the west. I'm eager for orcish news."

"Climb aboard. Let's go."

Expeditions to the west were a common occurrence for the settlers in the local town. Rud had seen many of them off during his time as custodian of the grove, and the entire purpose of his road was to provide them with easy passage. Although this made their journey much easier through the grove, it would still take them anywhere from a few days to a week to make it all the way through.

He simply couldn't wait that long to receive a report from them. Perhaps he could help expedite the message to the town.

Dean burst through a bush. Coming to a sudden stop along the road, he was close enough to the western exit of the grove to see the snow-capped mountains far in the distance. Before him was a gaggle of adventurers led by a lionkin named Tuft. Rud drew in a sharp breath, his brow knitting as he looked over the group.

It was bad.

Although the leader of the expedition stood proudly with his armored chest thrust out and his shoulders back, the others in his party were not faring as well. Two adventurers supported another between them, the man they held barely conscious. Others had superficial injuries that would need immediate attention, and even Tuft himself had a large cut across his face, with most of his armor either dented or destroyed.

"Greetings, forest spirit," Tuft said as though we were meeting in the longhouse for a nice cup of tea. "If you're willing, my people require aid."

With no need to be called, Sarya was there in only a moment, dragging behind her the cart they had fashioned to carry the dirt. The adventurers piled in, although there wasn't enough room for Tuft. Instead, Dean offered to carry him. There was no time to exchange words. Rud applied his healing spell to those who needed it the most, triaging only those who wouldn't make it to the center of the grove before sending his companions off.

The time he spent waiting for them to arrive was agonizing. Eventually, the cart thundered down the pathway, and Dean and Sarya arrived, panting with their tongues hanging out the sides of their mouths. Taz and Rud were waiting there with water, food, and makeshift bandages to care for the wounded. They got to work without hesitation.

"What happened?" Rud asked, applying both a healing and purification spell to Tuft. The leader of the expeditionary force's eyes were downcast, his shoulders slumped as he took steady breaths.

"We couldn't have predicted there was such an orcish force out there," Tuft said. It took him a while to gather his thoughts before speaking again. "We were surveying the area when we were ambushed. From there, we fought for about a week without a break, desperately trying to get back to the grove."

"Seriously? I didn't see any orcs," Rud said. "Did they break off or something?"

"They have learned their lesson about attacking the grove, apparently," Tuft said. "They halted their assault miles before we even saw the border."

The leader of the adventuring party recounted their harrowing escape. There were orcish encampments to the west, along with quite a few dungeons. This meant that general monster activity in the area was high, making it difficult to travel more than a few miles a day. They had slogged over the rocky slopes, fighting and killing their way west until they realized they were in too deep. Then it was a mad scramble back to the grove, and they almost lost a few members of their party several times. The druid was pretty sure that if he hadn't applied his healing spells, one member of the party would not have endured the trip to the grove's center.

As Tuft relayed his story, Rud took notes to gather all the information he could. He folded the notes and sealed them in an envelope addressed to Feather. He then requested that Dean deliver it as soon as possible. The spirit wolf was off a moment later, significantly cutting down the time to relay the information.

Just after Dean had finished, Mint appeared in the grove, offering whatever help she could. She might have been late, but it wasn't her job to babysit the mortals. After all, that responsibility fell to Rud.

"Some of them still can't walk," Rud said, gesturing to those still prone on the ground. "If you could shift into your human form and help me carry them to the rest stop, we can get them settled in for the night."

Between Mint, Rud, Taz, and Tuft, they carried all the wounded to the nearest rest stop building. Of course, it wasn't enough to just set them up in a warm house and leave them to their own devices. They also prepared bowls of stew and hot cups of tea to invigorate them. The druid watched with enjoyment as a human man sipped a cup of tea and brightened immediately after the liquid touched his lips. It was a stark contrast, considering he was the one who had a hole punched through his middle.

"That's some strong tea," the man said, holding his cup up in salute to Rud for his efforts.

Tuft smiled as he looked down at Rud. The beastkin jerked his head to the side, inviting the druid to follow alongside. "I hope this isn't disagreeable, but I have something to tell you that you might not like."

"What is it?" Rud asked, having no idea what kind of bombshell was about to be dropped. As if he didn't have enough things to worry about.

"The leaders of this expedition may determine that we must march an army, tough as it is to say. If that were to happen, could that army march over your roads, or does that go against your principles?"

Mint appeared behind the lionkin, slapping him hard enough on the back to make him wince. "Although it is the custodian's decision, I believe we can accommodate you," she said.

"Just so we're clear, the orcs we're talking about are basically monsters," Rud said with a shrug. "Right?"

"Now, that is an excellent question," Mint said, squinting as she thought about it. "They are a kind of beastkin, which means they're derived from monsters."

Rud had to do a bit of mental gymnastics to figure out how this aligned with Bent's mission. He imagined that the stag spirit had a set of criteria for going to war with the sapient race. Even if the orcs were monstrous, they still had their own independent thoughts.

"What do the orcs think about trees?" Rud asked. "Are they clear-cutting or otherwise destroying nature in the mountains?"

"They are the most savage," he said, his voice barely a growl. "They destroy everything they see and have only stuck to the mountains because of the power of the grove."

"Casus belli!" Rud shouted. "We're not directly involved in a war, but I can justify lending you the road for that reason alone."

"Indeed. If the orcs were powerful enough, they would push into the grove," Mint said.

"Not to mention their human allies," Rud grumbled.

"Human allies?" Tuft asked.

"Oh, I suspect there are some naughty humans to the west trying to cause trouble. Ninjas, wizards, or ninja-wizards. We've chased them off before," Rud said.

"That is even more concerning. We encountered no other mortals in the west," Tuft said.

"These humans are settled to the southwest, I think. Along the coastline," Rud said.

Tuft took a deep breath, closing his eyes and allowing the air to drain from his lungs. He growled again. "It would appear things are getting more complicated."

"Yeah, but we made cheese. Want some cheese?" Rud asked.

Tuft raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Note to self. If I want to take over this world, I only need cheese, Rud thought, beckoning for the beastkin to follow him.