In a towering red-walled valley, a dense sea of trees swayed ceaselessly in the wind.
The canopy shut out the midday sun and blocked the dry sand and dust blowing in from afar.
A stream ran through the woods, its waters murmuring.
A small tree, more than twice a person's height and seemingly cast from liquid gold, stood in a grassy clearing.
Specks of golden light fell from its branches, bathing the surroundings in a golden sea.
Had a wandering bard passed through, he would surely have composed a song about the miraculous sight.
Provided he couldn't hear what the tree was saying.
"What the hell is this godforsaken place?!!!"
The Erdtree, or rather Mu En, whose consciousness occupied the tree, was cursing up a storm.
Not long ago, he had been sitting at his computer, staying up late to livestream an all-achievements speedrun of "Elden Ring."
Then a sudden pain struck his chest, his vision went black, and he unlocked the Earth Online speedrun achievement.
In a haze, he had seen a dense forest, a botanical garden floating above a sea of clouds, a primitive ironworks deep in the mountains with sparks flying...
After vaguely choosing the place that looked most peaceful, he had been "thrown" here to take root and sprout, becoming an Erdtree.
Mu En had no time to ponder how a person could transmigrate into a tree.
He had a more pressing problem on his hands.
As a supernatural being, the Erdtree needed no water, sunlight, or nutrients. It could survive on the "runes" in the land alone, which could also be called magic, spiritual energy, or natural energy.
But the problem lay in the very land where he had taken root.
He had assumed this was somewhere in the Lands Between, where even the air ought to be full of grace and he could grow into a fine tree without much effort.
But the air was full not of grace, but of toxins!
Worst of all, it wasn't just the air. Every inch of soil here was permeated with an unknown, deadly poison.
Feeling the stinging pain from his roots, branches, and leaves, he had to constantly expend his precious rune reserves to fight it off and stay alive.
Before long, the struggle would drain him dry, and only withering awaited him then.
Heaven knew how that dense sea of trees beside him had survived!
"I was so stupid, really."
"If I'd known playing games would make me transmigrate, I should've played Stardew Valley that day."
"Where's my Queen Marika? Where's my Tarnished? Somebody help me... Huh?"
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Through a gap in the forest, he saw figures wandering in the distance!
The discovery made Mu En so excited that his branches and leaves trembled.
As he recalled, besides depending on nature, the Erdtree had two other paths to growth: faith and bestowal.
Faith sprang from thought and seemed intangible and illusory, but to him it was something real that could be converted into energy.
Alternatively, he could bestow Golden Runes on others, granting them supernatural power from the Erdtree.
The more people received the blessing of gold, the more runes they would generate and return to him.
"Come here, hurry over! As long as I have these fresh, juicy leeks... uh, believers, I'm saved!"
The next moment, however, thick smoke billowed from the woods in the distance.
They were burning the trees!
"Fuck, stay away from me!"
In the eastern part of the sea of trees, where the thick smoke rose.
The fork in a large tree's trunk was already covered in dense white mycelium and lumpy fungal growths.
Whoosh!
People carrying oil tanks on their backs and holding torches and crude flamethrowers were burning the strange tree together.
They wore leather clothes similar to those of Central Asian nomads, but thicker and sturdier.
Each wore a bizarre gas mask shaped like a pig's snout to block the thick smoke and spores drifting through the air.
One elderly man swung an axe with all his might, splitting open the exposed root of a nearby tree that appeared intact.
He reached inside to investigate, and viscous mycelium immediately oozed from the crack.
"The mycelium has already spread this far. Mark this tree!"
"This one's beyond saving too."
"Here too!"
As the search widened, the flames burned ever fiercer, while the people's hearts grew colder.
Just then, a girl with an upright bearing, dressed in a blue flight suit, strode into the crowd.
Though a mask and windproof helmet concealed most of her face, her bright eyes alone were captivating enough.
"Princess!"
As though they had found someone to rely on, the people stopped working and gathered around her.
The girl looked around, her eyes full of sorrow as her gaze swept over the withered leaves drifting through the flames.
"This forest is beyond saving. If we don't burn it down quickly, the land in the valley will be even more severely contaminated."
Yet when she spoke, there was no trace of hesitation in her voice.
"But this forest has protected our water source for three hundred years and borne countless fruits to feed us. Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Alas, even if we burn it all down, the land in the valley will still..."
"Damn it, if only those Tolmekians had never come! They must have brought the spores!"
Everyone's eyes were damp with reluctance to part with their home.
"It's all right. As long as we're all still here, this land can be brought back to life sooner or later," the girl they called princess said reassuringly.
But everyone knew in their hearts that things had reached a point where nothing they did could reverse the damage.
No one spoke again. Only the swish of axes and the crackle of burning wet wood could be heard.
As the crowd advanced, a flash of gold appeared among the smoke-filled trees.
"This is..."
Leading the way was a one-eyed old man with a patch over his left eye. Puzzled, he approached the Erdtree.
Glowing plants weren't all that unusual; he had seen them in the Sea of Corruption's forests.
The important thing was that the woods around this little golden tree showed no sign of infection whatsoever!
Though the valley's patrols hadn't been very diligent lately, surely a tree this big couldn't have appeared without anyone noticing?
The strange sight created by the Erdtree soon drew a number of torch-bearing villagers over.
"What are you doing? Stay away!" Mu En trembled as they gathered around him.
As everyone knew, Erdtrees were vulnerable to fire.
And the tanks on these people's backs certainly weren't filled with water.
Even the one in Elden Ring, his predecessor that stood over four thousand meters tall, hadn't escaped the fate of being burned. A sapling less than four meters tall like him could withstand a fire even less.
"Keep those flames away from me! Come any closer and I'll blow you all up with Wrath of Gold!"
His warning was in vain, however. No one could understand a tree's thoughts.
What gave Mu En an even greater headache was that he couldn't understand their language either.
Whatever happened to everyone in the world speaking Mandarin?
"Her Highness is here!"
The girl in blue arrived, and the crowd parted for her.
"What's wrong? Why is everyone gathered here?"
"Your Highness, there's something strange about this tree. Everywhere its light shines, there are no traces of the Sea of Corruption's fungus... Your Highness?"
Halfway through his explanation, the one-eyed old man noticed that the princess was staring straight at the little golden tree, seemingly awestruck by the sight before her.
To everyone else, the entire forest and the grass beneath their feet were bathed in brilliant gold.
The surrounding scenery was more splendid than even the palace of the Torumekian Empire-though none of them had ever seen the King of Torumekia's home with their own eyes.
But to the girl in blue, the sight was entirely different.
The instant her gaze met the Erdtree, she "stepped into" a vast, boundless expanse.
Beneath her feet was ankle-deep water, still as a mirror. Above her was a starless night sky and... a vertical golden mountain range?
No, that wasn't a mountain range.
It was just a single fold in the tree trunk.
Though the golden trunk stood far on the horizon, deep within the expanse, it was so massive that distance made no difference to its apparent size, and it stretched endlessly upward to who knew where.
Then an unknown language came roaring from every direction.
The girl felt like a feather in a storm, nearly torn apart by an impact that struck her soul.
Yet she understood what the storm meant-
"Get back!"
The surrounding crowd froze.
"Everyone, get back at once!"
When the villagers obeyed and retreated several meters, the deafening roar abruptly fell calm.
"You... can hear me?"
Mu En was almost moved to tears, though he had no eyes.
If the girl hadn't intervened, he suspected the group would have chopped him down or burned him.
Besides, she was the only living being he had encountered in days with whom he could communicate!
Excited as he was, he didn't rush to spread his faith to the girl before him.
Faith was like a blind date: if he was too eager to recruit someone, it would only make her think it cheap.
"State your purpose here."
The grand voice echoed through the spiritual world.
"We can communicate...?"
Thoughts raced through the girl's mind. Though her "intuition" told her the being before her meant no harm, she still responded cautiously in light of the extraordinary sight:
"Who are you? Where did you come from? Was it you who purified the Sea of Corruption's contamination from this land?"
The Sea of Corruption?
This time, it was Mu En's turn to fall into thought.
He was certain he had heard that name somewhere.
"You may call me by my name, 'Erdtree.' Tell me yours, and the name of this land."
"My name is Nausicaä. This is... the Valley of the Wind."