Chapter 247: How the Active Forest Earned Its Name... Now They Know Why.

Johnn’s stared at the Elder Ent and the twisted Green Men with a look of pure, unadulterated loathing.

"You disgusting, parasitic... rot!" Johnn spat, his voice trembling with a deep-seated rage. "You monster! You don’t just kill; you mock us! You use our faces to lure in more? You’re not nature—you’re a goddamn cancer!"

He began shouting at the monsters, hurling insults that were sharp and personal, as if he weren’t talking to trees, but to demons from his own past. Maddy watched him, her divine eyes narrowing. This wasn’t the "Hero" performing for a crowd. This was something raw—a trauma awakened, a wound that had never truly healed. His hatred for monsters wasn’t just professional; it was visceral.

Maddy stepped forward, her hand reaching out to firmly grasp his armored shoulder.

"Johnn. Calm down."

The heat coming off him was intense, but she didn’t flinch. He turned to her, his eyes wild and bloodshot, but the contact seemed to anchor him.

"I want to free them too," Maddy said, her voice a steady, low hum beneath the roaring of the forest. "Not because I’m a hero, but because this is an insult to the cycle of life. They deserve to rest, not to be puppets."

Johnn’s breath hitched.

"Maddy... are you sure? These things... they’re B rank. They aren’t like the mushrooms. If you get caught in those vines... if you see their faces up close..." He shook his head, his voice cracking. "I don’t want you to suffer like that. I can’t watch that happen... a-again."

Maddy pulled her hood lower, her grip on her shield tightening.

"Johnn, look at me. Did you bring me here just to baby me? Did you invite me to be your partner just so I could stand in your shadow and watch you have a breakdown?"

She tilted her chin up defiantly. "

Because if that’s the case, then you picked the wrong girl."

Johnn stared at her, the silence between them heavy with the screams of the Green Men. He looked like he wanted to argue, to push her away and take the burden himself, but the iron resolve in her eyes stopped him. He looked away, his shoulders dropping just an inch.

"Fine," he whispered, a shadow of a memory flickering across his face—a past he wasn’t ready to share.

"But please..."

He looked back at her, and for the first time, the "Hero" mask was completely gone. His eyes were pleading, filled with a terrifyingly sincere fear.

"Please, stay safe. I mean it. Do not let them touch... you."

Maddy nodded once, a sharp, professional acknowledgement. She could feel the darkness of his past radiating off him, but she didn’t pry. She simply turned toward the Elder Ent, her blade finally sliding from its sheath with a cold, metallic hiss.

"Don’t worry, Johnn," she murmured. "I’m harder to recycle than I look."

Johnn didn’t wait for another word. He exploded into motion.

"After me!" he shouted, his voice regaining its command but underscored by a frantic protectiveness. "Stay on my side—do not wander! If a vine moves, you move with me!"

Maddy gave a curt nod, keeping her pace perfectly synchronized with his. She moved with a calculated, muted grace; she wasn’t jumping ten feet into the air or trailing light, but she was never where the Elder Ent’s roots slammed down. To Johnn, it looked like she was barely managing to keep up with his lead, but in reality, she was reading the forest’s intent seconds before it acted, ensuring she stayed "safe" without ever becoming a burden.

The Elder Ent roared, its massive obsidian-bark limbs sweeping through the air with the sound of a falling mountain. At the same time, the umbilical roots of the Green Men lashed out like whips.

"Severance!" Johnn barked.

He lunged toward the first cluster of transformed adventurers. His tonfas didn’t strike the "men"; instead, he targeted the glowing umbilical vines connecting them to the Ent. With a series of precision claps, the air pressure sliced through the thick, parasitic wood.

Maddy moved in the opening he created. As Johnn redirected a massive overhead smash from the Elder Ent, Maddy slid beneath the creature’s shadow. Her blade flashed—a cold, silver blur—severing the secondary neural vines of two Green Men that Johnn had missed in his fury.

Five Green Men were severed from the tree in a single, fluid heartbeat. As they hit the ground, the sickly green glow in their eyes faded, replaced by the dull, peaceful gray of death. They were free.

"Five down!" Johnn yelled, stepping in front of Maddy to parry a volley of jagged thorns. "Stay close, Maddy! The tree is getting pissed!"

Maddy stood at his shoulder, her breath steady, her eyes already tracking the next set of victims. She was playing the part of the capable but protected partner perfectly, letting Johnn be the shield while she quietly ensured that nothing, not a vine, not a root, not a thorn, could actually touch them.

The Elder Ent’s trunk groaned as it began to shift its entire massive weight toward them, the earth beneath their feet liquifying into a sea of grasping roots. The real fight was just beginning.

The ground buckled as the Elder Ent roared, a sound like a forest collapsing into a canyon. Thousands of roots erupted from the soil, twisting into a cage of jagged thorns around them.

Johnn smashed through a cluster of vines, his breathing heavy. He looked down at the five Green Men they had just severed. They lay on the ground, twitching as the parasitic plants within them began a desperate, final surge to reclaim their nervous systems. They weren’t "alive," but they weren’t fully gone either—they were in a state of agonizing limbo.

Johnn’s tonfas lowered, his hands trembling.

"Once they’re free from the tree... once the umbilical is cut..."

He paused, his face twisting into a mask of grief. The words died in his throat, choked by whatever memory was currently haunting his eyes.

"Then we kill them,"

Maddy finished for him. Her voice was flat, devoid of cruelty but sharpened by a brutal mercy. Johnn looked at her, startled.

"If it’s hard for you, Johnn, then let me," she said, her eyes fixed on the writhing figures. "You focus on the source. Keep that tree off me and cut the rest loose. I’ll ensure they don’t wake up as monsters again."

Johnn let out a shuddering breath, his golden aura stabilizing.

"Thank you. I... I couldn’t do it. Not yet."