Bard had long since grown accustomed to the increasingly strange changes in the personality of Lady Beltira, the former Dark Female Chapter Master, after she became a plant. Considering the earth-shaking upheavals everyone on this land had faced over the past two years, such minor changes seemed insignificant—ever since that legendary hero stepped out of an epic tale and rose from his coffin, everything in this world had been changing rapidly, without exception.
Beltira merely happened to be the one who had changed the most.
"Life needs a sense of ceremony..." He chuckled softly, his mood having somehow completely relaxed. "That does sound like something she would say lately... All right, I understand. I'll go find her as soon as possible."
General Margarita nodded, but before turning to leave, she kindly added, "Mr. Bard—wipe your eyes first."
"My eyes..." Bard froze for a moment before finally realizing it. He smiled awkwardly and wiped away the cold, dried streaks of moisture on his face with the back of his hand. "Thank you, General."
Passing through the luxuriant branches at the edge of the Canopy Zone, through the "curtains" and "green walls" formed by layer upon layer of broad leaves, one could reach facilities throughout the interior of this colossal entity directly through the crisscrossing Pipe Transportation System within the canopy, without using the external connecting passages of the giant tree. Bard sat inside a translucent "container" resembling some kind of pod, traveling along a semi-open wooden track toward Beltira's Biochemical Laboratory. He leaned out to look beyond the track, and at that moment, the container happened to pass through an open section within the canopy. A sight normally visible only to personnel with special access permissions unfolded before him.
He saw astonishingly vast wooden "skeletons" supporting one continuous ellipsoidal space