The following morning the old man told him the Minotaur had clearly captured and used the boar as its attempt to test them. The fact it hadn't been seen since that night further unsettled the old man.
The centaur had also returned each night, becoming a constant that seemed to bring two others with it each time. Again, they didn't look anything like what he had expected; even though they had the lower half of a horse and torso of a human, they had horse heads. It took a bit of explaining to the old man why he reacted with a bit of laughter, confusion, and surprise when he saw them. It also caused the old man to frown and add beasts to the lectures he would be giving to him during the day.
The centaurs, unlike the Minotaur, kept their distance, instead choosing to fire arrows at the vines in a clear attempt to try and find a weak point before leaving. They sometimes tried to fire through the window along with seeing if they could hit the vines themselves.
The old man explained on the fifth day, having watched what they did each night, that they had no doubt taken to using the vines as a form of target practice due to how they could move and wriggle around to dodge. The few that did hit only grazed them at most and failed to do any real harm to the vines themselves, making them perfect practice targets that wouldn't harm them, flee, or die. The vines even began to treat it as a game, taunting one another each time an arrow managed to hit or graze them.
The sixth day is when things seemed to change. The morning followed the same steady rhythm of scattering the dried husks or placing bits of meat as a tribute. He still had no idea who or what the boss of the area was, though. The old man refusing to speak of it and Chris didn't want to risk provoking him as he seemed to grow both annoyed and angry when he did ask.
Once the morning tasks were done, the old man would begin to teach him about plants and beasts, using visual aids from the books to help him understand before having him explain about whatever plants he could remember from his old world as a way to compare them. The tongue lashing he got when he cheekily explained grass to the old man was beyond worth it and brought a smile to his face whenever he remembered it. It was worth being called an idiot and a range of other things, but it did help him realize there were still many similarities between both worlds.
It was during one of those lessons that the plants had told him some strange people had come, making him frown. Before he could question it or mention it to the old man, the door was kicked in violently and a scraggly-looking figure wearing leather strap armor swaggered in, his hair long and matted with a mocking grin on his scratched-up face. "Yo, old man. It's been a while." He said, and Chris could see a pair of bigger figures in similar leather and rough, matted hair standing outside.
"Who's this?" He asked, his grin slipping into a sneer as he looked Chris up and down, before dismissing him and focusing back on the old man.
"He's my future replacement; you can probably tell he's got no hope of reaching any of the closest towns or cities, so he's stuck here." The old man said, giving Chris a look to keep his mouth shut.
"Thinking ahead, yeah? That's good, but since there's now two of you, well, we will be needing more tribute to ensure your protection, ya?" He told the old man, fully disregarding Chris entirely now, not caring about the angry look on his face.
A glare from the old man ensured Chris kept his mouth shut when he noticed he was about to speak, along with subtle gestures from time to time to try and keep him quiet as they made their way to the storeroom with the thugs trailing behind.
"Man, that's a lot of meat, old man, and a full jar of water? You probably got that from the fancy tree you got out front." He said, looking at the old man with barely held suspicion and greed. "Then there's those strange plants you have all over the place now." He added with a low whisper before shaking his head. "Load up, boys; take all you can carry and store in the packs. Make sure you swap out that large jug with the empty one we brought." The lead said with a mocking smile.
As they were busy looting the meat, devouring some of it as they looted, even gulping down as much water as they could before putting a strange cap over the jar to roll it out and rolling in an empty one, one of the brawny thugs even whistled when they managed to find the boar meat, commenting how they would be eating good tonight and telling Chris and the old man to try and get them more.
The old man had to smack Chris lightly with his walking stick and whisper for him to not make trouble repeatedly whenever he saw he was about to speak or react.
The storeroom had almost no meat left when they were done, and a cracked jar now sat where the full water one used to be. "Thank you very much, old man. Help." He said mockingly, taking joy in the way Chris's nails dug into his palms. "This will be quite useful for us considering things have been far more dangerous as of late." Their leader commented, not caring about the way Chris seemed all but ready to try and swing at him, possibly even wanting him to do so. He missed the wary looks his men sent the bristling spike bushes that had steadily approached, though, having waved away their concern as the big boss's paranoia about the recent changes getting into their heads.
"Oh? Could you perhaps tell me more about that? I had noticed there were a lot more wolves and dogs lately, and I have also noticed a Minotaur and a centaur roaming around as of late." The old man commented, clearly fishing for information.
"Heck if I know." He said with a dismissive shrug. "The boss says the dungeon is angry or some shit like that. Superstitious idiot seeing shadows where there's nothing around." He scoffed.
"I see. It's been the same for us. We've mostly just gotten lucky as of late, our stone huts thankfully holding strong, but we did have a run-in with a flesh Minotaur a few nights back; it scraped one of the walls and I got concerned it would destroy the entire area." The old man said, shaking his head with an exaggerated sigh. "If a centaur hadn't disturbed it, you probably would have found only ruins here today; it's why I'm glad that those spike bushes began to spread. Probably a stupid scavenger spreading seeds, and the damn things took like the tree and horrid vines did." The old man added, trying to play off the plants that now existed as they escorted the bandits to the edge of the small village.
"It would be a loss to lose ya, old man. Without you lot here, getting meat and water would probably be a bit harder, so don't die yet, okay?" The leader said, but his tone made it clear he couldn't care less before kicking the back of the old man's wounded leg, causing him to let out a pained cry as he fell to the ground. "Good thing you have a replacement ready; you hardly have a leg to stand on in your old age." He mocked with a condescending smile as the others with him laughed as they left.
"What the hell was all that about, old man? Why did you have me keep quiet the entire time? We should have just fed them to the vines or had the spike bushes shred them!" Chris exploded angrily once he was sure they were gone, causing the old man to roll his eyes as he accepted Chris's help to stand back up, leaning far more on his walking stick than before.
"Lad, listen to me and listen well." He began, tone as hard as iron. "This world isn't like the one you came from; if those scouts didn't get back, we would have more of them breathing down our neck with blades and arrows. And before you think we could bait them into your vines, they're smart enough to know how to wait us out! When they see the mutts ignoring them and attacking the hut? Well, you might as well just shout 'treasure' to them."
His words made Chris realize the truth of his words and he frowned harder. "Their leader, the big one in charge, not the idiot we just dealt with, would also be smart enough to have his archers fire at us whenever we tried to leave. We wouldn't be waiting them out, lad; rather they would be waiting us out. Either through thirst, hunger, or their arrows and swords, we would end up dead long before them." The old man told him with a mild glare, making him realize how stupid it would have been had he acted out.
"Damn it. I was being impulsive again, wasn't I? Not thinking things through and wanting to react rather than plan and counter." Chris admitted with a frown.
"At least you're learning, lad; that's what's most important in this situation. Take this as another lesson, one on the importance of not judging or taking action before knowing the full scope of things and what might come of it." The old man said to him with slight warmth in his tone and a nod, glad Chris realized things on his own as fast as he did.
"Old man, that smug bastard said something about the dungeon being angry. Does that have anything to do with the world tree? It hasn't grown much these last few days, so could it have some relation to it? Or to the boss we give that tribute stuff to?" Chris asked softly, old guilt slowly rearing its head once more.
"Bah, don't let that bother you, lad; all dungeons act up from time to time when they're left to rot. Just consider it bad timing. Let's rather focus on something of actual importance." He said, waving away his concern but clearly not telling him everything.
"Tomorrow we will try growing some new plants, preferably food or medical plants this time. Your vines and thorn bushes are more than enough protection for the time being." The old man added, clearly trying to change the topic with the promise of trying to grow something new.
His words made Chris look to the old man's leg; he noticed him limping slightly more each day and he refused to let him see the wound, which made Chris worry it might be infected. He didn't want to say anything, not wanting to upset the old man or cause a complication between them after the old man became visibly upset when he tried to press to see it.
So concerned about the old man's wound, he failed to see the way he looked in the dungeon's direction or notice the flash of fear that crossed his face for a few tense moments before he quickly schooled his features into one of annoyance, grumbling about youngsters needing to stop burdening themselves with old people's problems.