As instructed by Astlyn, they made their way closer to the tree, but it wasn't without problems.
""Water!""
They both shouted with expressions of relief. In front of them was a long desired stream!
Since they've been transmigrated, they haven't drunk a drop of water. They came close during the night but were interrupted by the Pale Harvester's appearance.
During that time, they ran, or Ren ran, until he nearly passed out. On top of that, they both fought against creatures much stronger than themselves.
It would be a lie to say they weren't parched.
With happy eyes, Aria approached, bending down to the ground on the edge of the stream, reaching out for the water before being stopped by Ren.
"Aria, we need to boil it."
Her head slowly turned towards him.
"But…. I'm thirsty."
"It isn't safe to drink."
"But.."
"Boil it."
"Ugh, fine!"
With a laugh, he started to boil the water as Aria looked listlessly at the stream before turning back to Ren.
"Whoa, where did you get that?"
In Ren's hand was a pot not too large, but enough for his needs.
"It was in the duffel bag that I had on me when I woke up."
He pointed at the duffel bag lying against a tree while preparing a fire; soon, a neat stack of wood appeared,
[Fire Discharge]
The wood was set aflame with his spell. Ren's eyes glowed with joy at the fire as he reached towards the side to grab the pot.
"Hmm? Where did it go?"
"Fire elemental affinity must be great, huh?"
"Ah, yeah, it will be useful during the colder months."
As Ren replied, he looked up, finding Aria holding the pot, which was now filled with water.
"Here."
"Thanks."
After some time, the water boiled as they drank their first drink since waking up in the new world.
"Cheers! "
"Haha, it's not beer, Ren!"
"I really miss drinking…"
As they laughed, reminiscing about the various drinks they lost access to on Earth, a low growl emerged from Aria's stomach.
"Ah!"
"Pft, you hungry?"
"Y-yea, I haven't eaten."
Picking up the duffel bag, Ren looked inside, pulling out the piece of monster meat he cut from the Gorge Devourer.
"The monster meat?"
"What? Do you not like it?"
"No, it's a good source of mana, right? But… it tastes awful."
Ren chuckled,
"Aria, you sweet summer child, it'll taste good if you prepare it the right way. Don't you remember my instructions?"
Aria frowned at his words, responding with a pout,
"Yeah, yeah, I did follow your instructions, but they always tasted terrible."
"It's because you're cooking it wrong!"
Monster meat was the third best way to get mana behind mana crystals and mana potions, but despite this, many people didn't eat it because of its terrible flavor.
During Ren's travels in the Abyss, there was always a lack of food, and since the meat was convenient in his properties, it was what he ate most of the time.
So there would come a time when he would eventually solve the problem of flavor!
'Or maybe his taste buds had gone so numb that it didn't matter.'
The thought occurred to Aria, but watching the sparkle in Ren's eyes, she decided to amuse herself with his cooking.
"Then show me what you got, 'master chef'."
Minutes passed as Ren prepared the dish.
…
"Huh?"
Aria looked down with astonishment. In her hand was a kabab, it was simple with only meat, yet it glimmered in the sunlight as the fat poured down the cooked meat.
'And it smells good too.'
The fragrance of the meat wafted through the forest as she noticed small spices attached to the surface of the meat.
"Where did you find this?"
Looking to the side, she found Ren taking a happy bite into his own kabab with eyes filled with satisfaction before turning to answer.
"Find what? Oh, you mean the spices? I gathered them from around us."
"Around us? Aren't you worried they're poisonous?"
Ren looked up at the forest scenery, his eyes full of admiration for its beauty, before turning back with a smile.
"That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
The irresponsible words made Aria frown incredulously.
'He's fine with being poisoned but isn't with drinking unboiled water!? T-This hypocrite!'
Looking at her expression, Ren burst out into laughter,
"I'm joking, didn't I mention this before my senses can tell me what is and isn't safe?"
As Ren pointed to his nose, Aria shook her head in disbelief as she bit into the meat.
Chewing for a couple of moments, she looked down at the beautiful forest scenery as Ren did.
"It's good."
"Haha, I knew you'd like it."
…
After finishing their breakfast, the two made their way towards the gigantic tree as the system instructed,
"It's getting closer, is it?"
Blocking the sunlight from entering his eyes, Ren scanned the tree in awe.
He observed that the size was much bigger than before, which meant they were also getting closer.
Aria walking by his side made an estimation.
"We will probably make it by the end of the day. Astlyn said we had to retrieve an item from there. What do you think it is?"
The system or Astlyn had mentioned that there was an item they had to retrieve in the tree, though she didn't tell them what it was.
"Ren, can we really trust her?"
Ren paused his steps, looking towards Aria,
"Do you not? There isn't much we can do anyway. You don't want to spend another night here, right?"
Aria let out a sigh,
"Yeah, I guess we'll see what happens when we get there."
As they assumed, the monsters seemed to only appear during the nighttime, coupled with the fact that the area around the tree didn't have any monsters, their journey was strangely safe.
Time passed like a blur.
The morning sun was now nearly setting, but the two weren't concerned as they looked up at the towering tree bark.
"We're finally here!"
The height of the tree was even more imposing up close, and they were only at its roots that stuck out of the ground.
Its leaves were actually pretty normal in size, just slightly larger than the smaller forest tree's leaves, but its sheer quantity of leaves may even dwarf the entire forest.
That was just a giant tree; the swaying of the large branches made Aria think of the ocean waves. The only difference was that these waves were green instead of blue.
Even though so many leaves swayed, Ren noticed that it was strangely quiet, and the two looked ahead.
"But Ren, how do we get in?"
"HEY! OPEN UP!"
"!?"
Aria flinched at his shout, stepping back in shock,
"W-What are you doing!?"
"I'm asking the tree to open up. What else would I be doing?"
"You could've warned me!"
As Aria spoke those words, the bark of the tree started to shimmer as motes of mana, appearing as light exited its trunk, the two looked with surprise.
The tiny particles of mana gathered into a large sphere enough to fit two people, and it started to drift towards them.
As the two stared at it, Aria turned to Ren with eyes full of pity.
"Ah, you angered the tree's spirit, Ren. It… It was nice knowing you!"
Ren stared at her pity with amusement,
"Pft, what are you saying? We're in this together."
Looking at his resolute eyes, Aria took a few steps back,
"T-together? Don't you dare!"
But Ren was much faster than her.
"It's too late!"
Dashing Ren picked her up, causing her to let out a yelp as he jumped into the light.
The light took away their vision for a couple of moments before disappearing,
Looking around, they were in a large empty room made completely out of wood. Large chandeliers were hanging from the ceiling, emitting a bright, calming light.
The wood around them shimmered with various colors, and they could feel the dense mana all around them.
It was pretty obvious that they were now inside the tree.
"Tsk, you knew what that was, didn't you?"
Aria stared at Ren with narrowed eyes,
"Yeah, a transportation spell. Oh? Were you trying to scare me?"
"Yeah, what of it? You scared me half to death with that yell earlier."
Ren laughed as he put Aria down, turning to Ren, she gave him a good kick on the knee before walking forward,
"Haha, I'm sorry it won't happen again."
"It better!"
They looked around the room, finding it empty except for an altar in the center with particles of light floating on top.
"Ren, there's something on it."
"Yeah, I see it."
Aria readied her staff, while Ren took a step forward in front of her with his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Slowly approaching the altar, they noticed the floor was covered in carved characters of an unknown language. They started small but got bigger and bigger as they got closer and closer to the altar.
"What do you think about it, Aria?"
Compared to a warrior like Ren, a mage like Aria had more extensive knowledge when it came to topics such as this, yet Aria could only shake her head.
"It's a different world, of course, so I don't know, but each character emits mana, and it gets denser as the characters get bigger."
Looking closer, the smaller characters were attached to the bigger characters, while one side of the bigger characters remained empty so they could attach to even bigger characters.
Aria analyzed the flow of the mana, which was increasing as it got closer and closer to the altar.
"The mana is flowing towards the item on the Altar, like it's powering it?"
They got closer and closer to the point that they could now see what was on the Altar.
"A book?"
Floating on the Altar was a book; it had a brown leather cover, it was thick, and the pages seemed worn out from use.
They felt the system reacting, and upon focusing, a system window appeared.
***
Raymond's Guide to the World of Atlas
[Description: An ambitious traveler sought to be the freest of them all. In the pursuit of his goal, he climbed the highest heights and went to the deepest depths.
But despite that, he desired more freedom, reaching for the stars only to realize he had reached for his end.
The book will be your guide to this world.]
"How dark..."
"Poor Raymond…"
As the pair read the description, the book moved, as massive amounts of mana burst forth in all directions.
"!", Ren unsheathed his sword.
"?!", Aria's staff emitted green light.
It blitzed forward towards the pair, reacting quickly, Ren slashed at the book, yet his blade moved through it as if it didn't exist,
Surprised, Aria let out a gust of wind, but that two didn't work.
The book entered the system window as multiple system notifications appeared,
[Congratulations on finding the first fragment of purified Chaos!]
[1/9 Remaining]
[Activating transportation sequence]
[BRACE!]
[BRACE!!]
[BRACE!!!]
"Brace?" Aria looked suspiciously at the message, spreading her wind element around both herself and Ren.
"What the?" Ren let out a dumbfounded mutter, positioning himself near Aria and grabbing her waist.
A massive shaking was felt as the dense mana around them started to materialize into another set of bright lights similar to when they were transported in.
The system gave them one last message,
[Never Give Up]
Light filled their vision, blinding them once more before disappearing, but instead of being met with another room, the sound of wind bellowed in their ears.
It was a loud wind, so loud that it was all they could hear. It was then that a feeling of being pulled down enveloped their entire body,
"Aria!"
Ren shouted, opening his eyes, but all he saw was sunlight, causing him to squint. Thankfully, he could still feel Aria by his side as she shouted back,
"Ren!"
Looking down at her, they both met eyes before looking down further, they saw a green plain that stretched far and wide, they could also see mountains and lakes of various sizes.
Looking slightly to the side, they spotted a city of an enormous size, not quite as large as the tree they saw earlier, but much bigger than most of the cities they've been to in their past lives, including Earth.
Its various walls formed a giant circle,
In the middle was a castle reaching high into the sky, yet still far from reaching them.
The sunlight casting upon the land under them created an ethereal sight, but to the pair, none of that mattered.
From the loud sound of the wind, to the feeling of being pulled, and now to the city that was under them.
It was safe to say they were falling,
Free falling from what seemed to be thousands of meters in the air,
Their dive back into civilization had begun.
""Damn it!""