Jason wakes up in game just in time to take over Courtney and decant his oil. Because he wasn’t like a locust upon the land, there was less today. Enough though that the jar was filled to his satisfaction. If anything, his previous night’s harvest would have overfilled it. That finished there isn’t anything left to do, so he settles down to watch and the night passes peacefully.

Next day the group gathers around the campfire and despite Rosha’s protest they talk about the undead watchers. Courtney is sure, “we need to be careful when leaving this area. If there are watchers on this side then the other side will have a similar setup. If not the undead, then whatever lives there. This could be a natural barrier to them and whatever is over there has a keen interest in what comes out of it.”

Jason has a similar view on it, but he arrives at a different opinion. “The undead had hidden watchers. That implies to me that there is no other side to them. This is where the buck stops. I have been on the lookout for the roses and besides the ones that are flowering another thing has caught my eye. There are a ton of roses in the detritus.”

“From how I understand it when the roses bloom into a monster the actual plant dies from dumping all of its resources into the new slug. If it wasn’t for thorns composting faster than the rest of the plant. Likely because it stores a lot of the anti-undead magic there as a defense. We would need thicker boots to deal with all the thorns under us.”

Courtney shakes her head, “That doesn’t mean there aren’t more undead on the other side or another faction trying to keep watch.”

Jason laughs, “I think it does. The undead aren’t defending an incursion. Instead, they are keeping an eye on a border. That line in the sand means something has stabilized the situation. The undead aren’t coming in here so as to not rile up whatever is here and the slug's territory has stopped expanding. Sure the most basic undead still rise up here but that is going to happen no matter what happens. You would need some purification focused clerical type with a few hundred levels under the belt to come out here and cast spells for days to clear it up.”

“You’re not the only one that has done a little research. Mind you, I haven’t done more than a little research, but I looked into why other major battlefields don’t end up like this. Normally a battle happens and after it’s done everyone pitches in and cleans up the battlefield. In fact, anyone who doesn’t allow for that gets dogpiled even by close allies.”

“What happened here was the land reached up and pulled the combatants under. Even the ocean doesn’t have this trouble despite the difficulty of body recovery because there are monsters that eat the bodies wholesale. Here? Plants don’t actually eat them, they use the bodies as fertilizer. I am actually surprised we have seen so many zombie style undead. Everything should be skeletons because the plants would have taken the flesh.”

“There will be skeletons at the very least rising from this land for hundreds of years. Maybe even longer as I am willing to bet the non-sapient undead are all newer. Those ghouls we beat up? They came from the vegpocalypse. The zombies and skeletons? Who knows? In fact, that would be a good reason there are so many zombies.”

“All the heavy hitting plants have already retreated to the forest’s core because to be honest? This area isn’t energy rich enough to support them. Give this land a few decades more and we might see some liches rising up from the depths. All the casters that came along for the fun had to go somewhere.”

Courtney laughs, “To be organized enough to have a line of hidden sentries would mean there already is at least one lich out and about. A lich wouldn’t let something like a slug stop them. The only reason the forest isn’t full of dead trees should be because of the core suppressing any miasma.”

Rosha had been listening to this for a while now and finally had to interrupt. “You’re assuming there is a large coordinated effort to monitor this area. What if those sentries are just put in place along a small section by the local undead leader? There doesn’t have to be any bigger agenda. No liches need to be hiding in the shadows. Just some ghoul lords scheming against one another or even a necromancer of some flavor using the place as a source of fodder.”

“We’ve finished breakfast and can head out now. If you want to find out more. Well, Courtney, you have the contacts to find it out if you really want too. Jason? You’re just arguing to argue at this point. I can respect that you enjoy the act of debating but drop it. Go find a forum thread about the place if you want to continue.”

Both Courtney and Jason freeze with their mouths hanging open. Jason recovers first and nods, “yeah, sorry about that. I have a bad habit of getting stuck in an argument and enjoying it for the act itself. If it ever happens again, please bring it up to me or maybe just smack me upside the head.”

Courtney sighs and leans back to stare up at the clouds. “Honestly? I don’t really care all that much either. We can just deal with whatever happens later when it happens. There isn’t any reason to look into this deeper. This is not our problem to solve or even figure out. The surrounding kingdoms know this is here and so will deal with it how they deal with it.”

Rosha smiles and nods, “Good! We should get a move on then because this has eaten more of our morning than it should have. We’re not exactly on a timeline here, but I don’t plan to stay in this forest for the rest of my life.”

Akhier

Thank you for reading! Next two chapters are free on my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ), five chapters beyond that for only a dollar, and many more for five dollars (two chapters release a week at this tier).