The morning after the final bandit raid, Chris walked across 'the battlefield', if it could even be considered that. It wasn't out of some sense of sentimentality or to come to terms with what had happened, but rather to scavenge. The old man had taught him that much: nothing was to go to waste in the Barrens, and you took whatever you could to survive.
He moved slowly, methodically, the way the old man had shown him. Checking each body. Salvaging what could be used from the bits that hadn't been torn to shreds. Letting out a small chuckle as he realized once more how much he had changed. The old him would never have even touched a body, and now he was looting the scattered remains like it was just another chore. He barely noticed that the sun had climbed high into the sky, beating down relentlessly. His muscles ached from the night's fighting, even if he hadn't done much. He figured it was probably just an aftereffect of adrenaline, or maybe the tension of command took more out of a person than swinging a blade ever could.
He found that his head still faintly throbbed whenever he got too close to the screaming flowers. He'd thought they had gotten over their fear of him, but their reactions proved otherwise. Unless one of the originals calmed them or spoke for him, they still gave him a warning pulse in his mind, and he didn't want to risk any of them screaming at him again.
When he was done clearing away and looting what he could from the common bandits, finding little of worth but taking the steel weapons that were still in good enough condition, he returned to the village, walking slowly towards the bandit leader's body. The man's body lay still under one of the ancient ent's risen roots, his limbs visibly broken from when the roots restrained him, along with puncture wounds from the bamboo stabbing through him clearly visible. And yet his face wasn't twisted in rage or fear. For a brief moment Chris saw an overlay of the old man's own face over it, making him slap his cheeks to snap out of it. The bandit leader actually looked almost peaceful now. Like a soldier who'd finally stopped fighting and earned the rest they always wanted. And yet his last words still rang through his mind, along with the way he'd looked at the stars instead of his killer.
"The strong make the rules in this world. The weak can only follow." Chris said softly, looking away from the body and towards the distance instead. "I can't really argue with that," he quietly added. "You were strong. And I can confidently say you had far more experience than me when it comes to this world." He paused. "You no doubt did a lot of awful things as well, but it was probably just to survive this hell. And in the end, you just ended up on the wrong side."
Shaking his head, he focused on the task at hand, carefully stripping the body—not for loot, but rather to prepare it for its final rest. The armor was ruined, so he set it aside, planning to find some use for it later. He knew others might say he should leave the rest to the beasts, that it was what a bandit deserved. But he couldn't. He had tossed the previous, arrogant bandit and Walter into a shallow ditch, and beasts had dug them up. He couldn't do that to this man. He could have fled but instead stayed strong. He stood till the end. That made Chris feel he deserved at least a modicum of respect.
As he cleaned and looked across the body, he chose to first try looking for the dungeon core, only to find nothing. Just a worn coin pouch with a few copper coins, a handle with a small piece of broken blade still in it and clearly worn by time, and a tarnished silver locket with a faded engraving on the front he couldn't quite make out.
Lightly running his finger across the edge caused it to flip open. A woman's face stared back at him. She looked quite young, and her smile was not the kind you wore for a painting. Rather, it was the kind you wore when you were looking at someone you loved. She had dark hair, light green eyes, and a small mole above her smiling lips. He couldn't help but feel she looked like someone's wife, someone's mother, or even just someone's reason to fight.
He didn't know how to feel about it, unsure if it was one of the bandit leader's spoils or a personal memento. Refusing to think further, he tucked the locket into his own pocket. The chances of encountering its owner were slim, but should it happen, they might want it back.
It made him remember the leader of the previous bandit attack. There had been nothing on him besides a beaten-up weapon and awful armor, along with that laugh which still bothered him even now. Chris remembered the way the man had grinned while the vines stabbed into him, remembered the satisfaction he'd felt watching it happen. He couldn't help but feel that some people died with nothing because they'd left nothing of worth behind. He wasn't sure where the thought had come from, or if it was even his own, but it felt fitting.
Taking the body, he carried it over to the pitcher plant that sat near the edge of the village, one of the few plants that didn't move, its massive bulb gleaming faintly in the evening light. The plant sensed his approach and gurgled softly, extending its stem toward him happily, greeting him in his mind with its gurgling voice. He didn't even need to ask. It already knew what he wanted. When he had ordered the body to be brought in that night, it had already poured out its old honey-like fluid to begin preparing the amber he would need.
"I really did want to taste your honey sap, but, well, it'll have to wait," Chris said quietly with a weak smile. "So could you give me the same as before for him?"
The pitcher plant gurgled happily, swooshing its body around before tipping out the amber-like fluid, filling the space Chris had cleared near its base. The fluid smelling far sweeter this time, almost cloying, but he didn't comment. Rather just laying the bandit leader into it, arranging his limbs with care before watching as the amber rapidly hardened. The flow stopped as soon as the body was entirely covered, its top closing back up with a wet, sucking pop.
Chris stood there for a long moment, staring at the smooth golden surface before instructing the ancient ent to drag it down. Another grave. Another name he'd never know. But unlike the old man's grave that sat nearby, marked by the flowers that sang at dusk, the second grave would have no marker at all. Just amber and earth, along with the memory of a man who'd died with dignity even though he'd lived without any.
Once the amber-coated body had been entirely pulled under, he found himself wandering over to the shallow grave he had dumped the first group's leader and Walter's body, finding a rough hole where he had originally buried them. At the time he had buried them in a rush, unable to stomach the sight that then continued to haunt him for days afterwards. Now he found nothing but a torn-open pit, and from the scratch marks and dust, they had been dug up quite a while ago. The culprit easy to figure out by the beast tracks littered around.
"Can't say I'm that surprised," Chris said calmly before frowning. "Ugh, I don't know if it's this place grinding me down or if I'm just getting used to it, but I sure as hell don't remember being this detached. Maybe it's just the lack of human contact getting to me. Too many hostiles and not enough actually good people like the old man." His plants tried to voice their support, but he only rolled his eyes at it. He knew they were trying to help, but they just wouldn't understand.
Shaking his head, he looked toward the dungeon. Its damned core was out there somewhere. He'd never searched Walter properly that day—too sick, the guilt still raw, and too busy throwing up to do so. The core could have been on him, but he doubted it. And if it had been on him, it would have been taken by beasts when they dug up and dragged away his body. The damn thing Walter had bragged about could be anywhere, if he was being honest.
"Well, no point worrying about that now," Chris muttered. "Hopefully it causes issues wherever it ended up and takes the damn dungeon's focus off my home."
As he continued to wander about, doing inspections and checks on the ents and the bamboos, he noticed the strangle vines watching him, their flower tips raised high into the air. He gave them a small wave and a smile. They were quiet for once, and he wasn't sure if he felt happy or not that they weren't asking to be fed. He knew they had eaten some of the bandits—he'd seen the broken bodies dragged toward them—and that was no doubt why they'd stayed silent. As if picking up on his thoughts, they began speaking of what they had eaten and going into far too much detail about what they had done to the bodies, how they hoped they still hurt while feeding them. He felt their satisfaction as a warm, purring sensation in his mind that made his skin crawl.
As the day slowly came to an end, Chris sat beneath the cloud tree, letting its mist cool his skin and his mind finally catch up with all that happened. Enjoying the moment of peace to finally relax a little bit now that one of the larger threats had been dealt with. The fig tree and yam tree stood nearby, both still growing, having a hushed conversation with the cloud tree that he chose to block out. The fig tree's sweet milk steadily dripping from its leaves and pooling in a small bowl he'd placed to catch it. The small taste he'd had that morning had all but hooked him to it. He considered going over and drinking what had collected, but decided against it. Choosing to have it later, after a full meal, as a deserved dessert and treat.
He soon found himself pulling the locket out again. The woman's face smiled up at him. Young. Hopeful. Unaware that the man who carried her image was dead and buried in amber in a village where the empires dumped their unwanted, taken from the body of a bandit leader.
As he rested that night, the plants made short work of the beasts that attacked as they did each night. But the root of the little world tree, resting on his pillow next to him, began to twitch violently before going still. The little tree felt something cold pass through it, similar to the night the old man had died, but it was unsure what it was or what it meant before deciding it wasn't important and was just a phantom feeling, an echo from the battle they had the previous night. It told itself it was nothing, just a dream or a memory of fear like it had back then.
It was not nothing, though, and it would be weeks before it understood why.