翁公和媛媛在厨房里猛烈进出

What the hell does that even mean!?

Ruby stared at us with a confused expression as if saying, "Why are you guys so surprised...isn\'t this normal?"

Finally breaking the silence, Lily ignored Irene, Alya, and I\'s shellshocked figures before pointing at the marked tree and asking.

"...you\'re saying that the tree wants to be destroyed?"

As Ruby nodded her head at Lily\'s question, I was at a loss for words as I couldn\'t even fathom the fact that trees could have desires.

Closing the distance between me and the four girls, I was about to start questioning Ruby when Irene asked.

"...do all trees have desires, then?"

...really?

So we\'re not even interested in escaping the loop anymore; we\'ve all just become botanists!

Wow, thank god, we\'re trapped in a forest with thousands of trees all around us! We can study them all and have loads of fun staring at them all day!

After thinking it over for a second, Ruby replied.

"Well... trees are technically living things, so yeah, all of them have desires. But that doesn\'t mean I can see all of them. Like, I can only see the desire of this tree, not all of the other ones."

Slowly comprehending her last few words, I immediately forgot my last question and spat out before anyone else could interrupt me.

"...couldn\'t you identify this tree as abnormal from the start then?"

Had all my hard labor and exhausting days been useless...?

Couldn\'t she have just found the tree easily by just looking at every tree and then finding whatever one had a desire?

Looking at my depressed figure, Ruby pointed at her eyes and said.

"I can only see desires if I focus my eyes, so I can only do that for ten minutes at a time. Anyway, I only saw this tree for the first time an hour ago, so I wouldn\'t have found it earlier than you."

After a moment, I straightened up my posture and looked back at the tree while Alya began speaking.

"Anyway...you said the tree wants to be destroyed, right?"

As Ruby nodded her head once again, Alya replied.

"Isn\'t the trigger... just destroying the tree, then? I mean, if the end condition wants to be destroyed, shouldn\'t we destroy it?"

While I contemplated her words, Ruby pointed back at the tree and replied.

"Like I said, that\'s what I thought when I cast that fire phoenix... but it survived my fire phoenix, so I\'m not sure destroying it is going to be easy."

Stepping forward, Irene took her wand out of her pocket and said.

"Let me give it a try."

Without even waiting for any response from us, Irene walked towards the tree with her wand glowing a fiery red.

Shaking my head, I stared at Irene\'s departing figure and said.

"Are we really going to be dumbasses and go one by one when we could all just go... at the same time?"

"..."

What is this a horror movie?

Are we all going to look for the monsters one by one just to get picked off until we all die at the end?

Slowly nodding her head, Alya also took out her sword and pointed it at the tree.

"Irene, I think attacking at the same time would be a more time-efficient strategy."

Abruptly stopping, Irene turned around and said.

"You think I don\'t know that?"

Running at Irene, Ruby broke into laughter and asked.

"So you just wanted to show off, then?"

"So, when you do i-"

Interrupting the two\'s bickering, Lily also took out her wand and walked towards Ruby and Irene.

Manifesting an elegant-black bow made of corruption, I strung it around my shoulders before walking in front of the three girls.

Shortly after, Alya also stepped beside me with her sword, which was now covered in particles of ice, causing me to shiver.

Behind me, three colors started shining as Irene\'s wand shone a light red while Ruby\'s was a dark red, and Lily\'s was an ocean blue, resembling mana.

Seeing the three girls behind us ready, Alya raised his ice-covered sword while I manifested an entire quiver of arrows.

As the four ready girls stared at my unprepared figure, I slowly took three arrows out of my quiver and strung them all at the same time.

One arrow was at the top, one at the middle, and one finally at the bottom, each having a pitch-black tip in contrast to the bright colors shining around me.

As I pulled back the bowstring, nocking the three arrows, the area once again descended into silence.

Wait... who\'s gonna tell us when to attack?

Taking the moment, I smiled before yelling.

"ATTACK!"

What a commander I was!

Leaving the rest of the attacks in the dust, my arrows were the first to move, barrelling towards the tree at a pace invisible to unawakened.

In the next millisecond, the rest of the spells departed in synchrony, lighting up the night sky as the contrasting dark red and light red of Ruby and Irene fought against the dark blue of Lily and ice blue of Alya. story-source-MvLeMpYr

It was like a meteor shower...

Since my arrows didn\'t have to be controlled, unlike spells, I looked away from the tree and watched as the four girls controlled their spells to coexist alongside each other without reacting while simultaneously targeting the tree\'s trunk.

The four spells of varying colors created a beam that should have looked like purple... but none of the colors combined, each spell not daring to stray away to touch the other colors.

Looking away from the beam for a second, I saw each girl holding their wands completely still while staring directly at their individual spells.

Even if one of them were to mess up, the others would be able to readjust to their spells before the stray spell had time to react with the others.

Their ability to be so precise when using such a great amount of power was... scary.

Could I defend against that beam of red and blue...?