As evening approached and the sun's heat began to fade, Shinji's group was nearing their destination. Looking up, they could see the Great tree Perga standing majestically in the middle of the mushroom forest. Its canopy reached so high it seemed to pierce the sky, far beyond the layers of clouds.
"Hey, I'm exhausted! Slow down a bit!"
"You're too slow, pick up the pace!"
Meanwhile, back at Heavenfield, the mysterious man finally regained consciousness. He was so tall that his body stretched beyond the edges of the bed. Stella was diligently using a warm towel to wipe his body, but she couldn't help whispering in confusion:
"The hell? how is this mud so stubborn that it won't come off?"
Suddenly, the man snapped awake. Driven by a beastly instinct, he sprang up like a coiled spring, leaping backward to stay on guard. Stella frantically raised both hands to show she meant no harm. Before her stood a warrior with a dark brown skin, wearing only a small loincloth, his sharp eyes filled with wariness.
"I don't mean you any harm, we were the ones who saved you."
But the man didn't care for the explanation. He stomped hard on the floor, shattering the wood, then quickly grabbed a sharp splinter and lunged forward, intending to stab Stella.
"Wait a minute."
Grand Commander Ares appeared just in time. The sharp wood was now pointing right at Stella's neck but was frozen in place. Ares smiled admiringly:
" Dude, your skills aren't bad at all."
The man didn't say a word; he threw the wood splinter at Ares with the speed of whistling wind. Ares caught it in the blink of an eye. However, that was just a trap, the man immediately lunged forward to close the distance, launching a direct kick at Ares's ribs. The Grand Commander, who possessed light powers, was slightly surprised by this incredible speed and immediately summoned a light sword to block the attack. Even though it was just an ordinary physical kick, its power was terrifying.
"Impressive. If you had a weapon, you'd be quite strong."
However, because his wounds were too severe, he couldn't maintain his fighting state any longer. His eyes blurred, and he collapsed, fainting on the floor once again.
On Shinji's side, they had reached the area beneath the massive canopy of the Great tree Perga. The canopy alone was large enough to cover half the mushroom forest. Around them, low-hanging clouds floated in a very bizarre way. Omelet stared at them and wondered:
"Strange, clouds are usually higher than 1,6 miles... Why do these look like they're only a few hundred meters from the ground?"
Akidou also felt something was wrong:
"Hey, could that heavy cloud that fell earlier have been one of these?"
But time waited for no one. The mission deadline Odin gave them was ticking down second by second. Lumber looked up at the sky, which had turned a cloudy bluish-white, and urged the group while still standing in his familiar wooden crate:
"Hurry up, it's about to be pitch black! If Heavenfield locks the gates, we'll be sleeping outside with the demons tonight!"
The group hurried their pace, running toward the base of the Great tree Perga.
Back at Heavenfield, right where the dark-skinned man had smashed the floor, the ground suddenly sank and split to both sides. A mechanical platform rose from below. In that deep pit stood a steel figure, motionless at first, then its eyes suddenly lit up with electronic light and spoke:
"Hello Ares, it's me again, Tetsutaro."
Ares's eyes sparkled when he saw the new toy:
"Tetsutaro! What kind of crazy toy is this now?!"
The robot slowly stepped forward and explained:
"I couldn't come in person, so I sent this instead. Now, where is our lucky guy?"
Stella pulled on the robot's arm, her face still showing a bit of fear:
"He's really fierce, he almost killed me. But hey, why is his body covered in mud? I wiped and wiped but couldn't get it off."
Tetsutaro looked at the man lying down and realized Stella's mistake:
"Oh, you've misunderstood, Stella. That isn't mud; that's his natural skin color."
Stella was confused:
"What? How can it be like that?"
"I guess he comes from the Sernik continent. People there usually have brown or black skin due to the climate. Our Gallela is cool and warm all year round, but Sernik is hot and harshly dry, with only a few places being easy to breathe."
Stella looked at Tetsutaro skeptically:
"Hey, you also said you're from Sernik, so why is your skin so white?"
"Well... I'm a robot, aren't I?"