My Overpowered Bunny Girls

Chapter 134: The Preparation

The days that followed were quiet, but they were not peaceful.

Nathan spent every spare hour in the TCA Archives, digging through old records and broken reports. The others joined him when they could—Garrett between training sessions, Dillon between meals, and Elise for hours at a time. Smithy proved to be very helpful, knowing exactly which sections of the Archives were most likely to hold useful information.

The Verdant Depths was their target. But the records were thin.

"Thirty years since the last expedition," Smithy said, spreading documents across a reading table. "Three survivors, and all of them died within days of coming back. Before that, another expedition forty years prior. No one returned. And before that, a single party entered and only one Climber came back—insane, and covered in vines. The records of his testimony are in this file."

Nathan picked up the file. The pages were yellow and brittle. The handwriting was shaky, the words of someone who had seen things no person should see.

"The plants sing. The trees walk. The water is warm and full of teeth. The Tidecallers welcomed us at first. Then the deep spoke. Then the growing began. We tried to leave. The vines wouldn’t let us. They grew through the doors. Through the walls. Through us."

Nathan put the file down. "The overgrowth is aggressive. It doesn’t just grow—it hunts."

"The Shepherd’s corruption," Elise said quietly. "He took a world of life and turned it into a world of endless consumption. Life without limits. Growth without balance."

Kuro’s voice came through the link. ’The Verdant Depths will not be like the Ashen Expanse. The Ashen Expanse was already dead. The Verdant Depths is alive and hostile. We will not be able to simply make a choice and leave.’

Nathan nodded. "Then we prepare for a fight. But we also need to understand the World’s Clear Condition. The Ashen Expanse was cleared through mercy. The Verdant Depths might require something different."

"Balance," Shiro said softly. She was in humanoid form, sitting cross-legged near the window. "The world is out of balance. Too much life. Too much growth. The Shepherd tipped the scales. Perhaps the Clear Condition is to restore what was lost."

"Or to destroy what’s become corrupted," Garrett added. "Like the Reaver. Some things are too far gone to save."

The party exchanged glances. They would not know the answer until they entered the World.

Three days before the TCA’s scheduled expedition, a report arrived from the southern marshes.

Nathan was in the guild hall when Helena found him. Her expression was grim.

"The Verdant Depths portal is becoming unstable," she said. "The TCA’s monitoring station is reporting surges of mana—green mana, like the kind described in the old records. The World is bleeding into ours."

"Bleeding how?"

"Plants. They’re growing near the portal. Fast. The TCA burned them back, but they returned within hours." Helena paused. "And there’s something else. A team of researchers went missing near the portal. Their communication crystals went dead three days ago."

Nathan felt a chill. "The World is reaching out."

"Or something inside it is." Helena met his eyes. "The TCA is accelerating the expedition timeline. You leave tomorrow."

The southern marshes were hot and wet. The air smelled of mud and salt and growing things. The portal to the Verdant Depths stood at the center of a shallow lake, its surface rippling with bright green light. Around it, the marsh had changed.

Plants grew in strange shapes. Trees bent at impossible angles. Vines covered the ground, thick and pulsing. The TCA’s burn teams had been through, but new growth had already replaced the old.

"It’s spreading," Garrett said. "The corruption is spreading."

Nathan looked at the portal. The green light was bright, almost alive. Through the link, he felt his summons react.

’The World is calling,’ Kuro said. ’I can hear it. A song. Deep and green.’

’It is hungry,’ Shiro added. ’The growth is not life. It is hunger dressed as life.’

Mirko shifted to humanoid form, Dragon’s Fang blazing in her hands. "Hmph! Let it hunger! This Knight has faced hungrier things!"

The other parties were already assembled on the banks—Silver Drake, Red Dragon, Golden Hawk, and Goldcrest. Derek stood with his party, his Salamander coiled and ready. He caught Nathan’s eye and nodded.

Helena stepped forward. "The plan is the same as the Ashen Expanse. Each party enters through the portal at staggered intervals. You’ll be assigned sectors. Celestial Peak has the southern sector—the deepest marshland, where the overgrowth is thickest. The other parties will cover the northern and eastern approaches."

"Clear Condition?" Nathan asked.

"Unknown. The previous expeditions never reached the center of the World. We don’t know what’s waiting there." Helena paused. "But the Verdant Depths is more active than the Ashen Expanse. Expect resistance. Expect the World to fight back."

Nathan looked at his party. They were ready. Tired, but ready.

"Let’s go," he said.

The party moved toward the portal. The green light grew brighter. The air thickened with the heavy smell of growing things.

Nathan stepped through—

---

The portal spat them out into a world of green.

Nathan stumbled, caught his balance, and looked around. Everywhere he looked, there was green. Tall trees with trunks as wide as houses. Thick vines that hung from branches like snakes. Leaves the size of shields. The air was hot and wet and full of the smell of growing things. It was like standing inside a living creature’s throat.

Garrett appeared beside him, then Dillon, then Elise, then Smithy. One by one, the party materialized out of the portal, which shimmered behind them and then vanished. They were alone in the forest.

"This is..." Garrett trailed off. He was turning in a slow circle, looking up at the trees. "This is a lot of green."

"It’s the Verdant Monolith," Dillon said. "But bigger. Much bigger."

Nathan knew what he meant. The Verdant Monolith—the High Class Tower they’d cleared months ago—had been a vertical jungle, a world of aggressive plant life and toxic spores. They’d fought the Verdant Empress there, a massive plant-humanoid hybrid that controlled the Tower’s ecosystem. Nathan had taken the Heartseed from her corpse. That seed had eventually become the refinement that broke his F-Rank ceiling.

But this place made the Verdant Monolith look like a garden.

The trees here were ancient. Their trunks rose a hundred feet before branching out. Their roots covered the ground in thick knots. The canopy overhead was so dense that only slivers of green-tinted light filtered through. The air was heavy and wet. Nathan could feel sweat forming on his skin.

"The plants are everywhere," Elise said. She was looking at the ground. "The roots are moving. Slowly. Like they’re breathing."

Nathan looked down. She was right. The roots were shifting. Not much. Just a little. A slow, rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat.

Smithy knelt and touched a root. "It’s warm. And it’s connected to something. A network. The whole forest is one organism."

"Like the Verdant Monolith," Nathan said. "But the Monolith was contained in a Tower. This is a whole World."

Shiro materialized beside him in humanoid form. Her golden eyes scanned the forest. "The Young Lord senses it. This place is like the Empire’s garden. But the garden is gone. This is what grew from its corpse."

Mirko shifted to humanoid form, Dragon’s Fang blazing. "Hmph! This Knight remembers the Verdant Monolith! We crushed that Empress and took her heart! If this World has an Empress, she will meet the same fate!"

Kuro was already in the shadows. Her voice came through the link. ’This World is not the same. The Monolith was contained. This is unbounded. The rules are different.’

Nathan activated [Hunter’s Insight]. The forest lit up with mana signatures. Everywhere. The trees were full of it. The vines were full of it. The ground was full of it. The whole World was saturated with green mana.

"There’s mana in everything," Nathan said. "The plants are soaking in it. Growing from it. We need to be careful."

Garrett hefted Volcan. "Careful. Right. In the forest full of man-eating plants."

"The records said the Tidecallers live somewhere in this World," Elise said. She pulled up the map fragment they’d found in the Ashen Expanse. "If we can find them, they might be able to tell us what the Clear Condition is."

"Or they might try to feed us to the trees," Dillon said.

"Then we deal with that when it happens." Nathan looked at the forest around them. "First, we need to find the source of the corruption. The Shepherd’s influence. If this World is like the Monolith, there’s a central point. A heart. Something that drives the overgrowth."

He started walking. The others followed. The forest was dense and dark. The green light from above was weak. Nathan had to use [Hunter’s Insight] just to see where they were going.

They walked for an hour. Then two. The forest did not change. It was the same everywhere—giant trees, thick vines, pulsing roots. The air got heavier. The heat got worse. Nathan felt like the forest was pressing in on them.

Then they found the first sign of the Tidecallers.

It was a village. Or what was left of one. The houses were made of wood and leaves, built into the branches of the trees. But the houses were broken. The branches were twisted. Vines had grown through everything—through the walls, through the roofs, through the ground. The village had been swallowed by the forest.

"Something happened here," Garrett said quietly.

Nathan moved toward the village. The roots were thicker here. The vines were pulsing. He could see bones on the ground. Humanoid bones. Small bones. Children’s bones.

"The Shepherd’s corruption," Smithy said. "It doesn’t just kill. It consumes. These people were taken by the forest."

Nathan felt his stomach tighten. The Verdant Monolith had been a Tower. A challenge. A place to be cleared. But this was a World. Real people had lived here. Real people had died here.

And the Shepherd had done this to them.

Elise knelt beside a broken wall. She picked up something from the ground—a small carving, made of shell. It was shaped like a fish. "The Tidecallers made this. They were a peaceful people. Fishermen. Healers. They communed with the deep."

"And the deep turned on them," Dillon said.

"Or something in the deep did." Elise looked at Nathan. "The records mentioned something in the ocean. Something that was calling to the Tidecallers. Maybe that’s the source of the corruption."

Nathan looked at the village. The bones. The broken homes. The vines that had grown through everything. "Then we find the ocean. We find what’s calling them. And we end it."

They left the village behind. The forest grew darker. The vines grew thicker. And somewhere in the distance, Nathan heard a sound.

A low, rumbling sound. Like something large moving through the trees.

"Contact," Nathan whispered. "Something’s coming."

The party froze. The sound grew louder. The ground began to shake. Nathan looked up and saw the trees swaying.

Something was moving toward them. Something big.