In the withered forest, red like glass, Colin was comforting the little elf Nasi.
"Little Nasi, try again, it might just be a fluke."
Nasi sat dejectedly atop his head, listlessly pulling at his hair, her red eyes brimming with crystalline tears.
Hearing Colin's words, she let go of the strand of blond hair she was holding and pouted in response,
"But Little Nasi has tried once, twice, three times... so many times!
The door over there is broken, Little Nasi can't open it..."
Colin was silent.
It had been six hours since they entered this place, and in the past hour, with his encouragement, the little elf Nasi had repeatedly tried to "open the door"...
But until now, after Nasi had eaten the last ancient tree heart, she had yet to succeed even once.
Drip~drip.
Tiny tears fell from Nasi's chin, landing on Colin's head.
"Wahh... Little Nasi can't open the door anymore, it's no use..."
Listening to Nasi's cries, Colin couldn't help but feel somewhat heavy-hearted and let out a light sigh.
But soon, he gathered his spirits once again.
An hour had passed since he received this news.
No matter how much his emotions fluctuated, they had long since calmed down.
After all, in such a dire situation, despair and sighs were futile.
"Nasi, how do you usually survive here?"
After pondering for a moment, Colin asked.
"Survive?"
"What do you normally eat and drink?" explained Colin.
Nasi tilted her head and after thinking carefully, she replied, "Little Nasi hasn't eaten in a long time, except for the sugar gems the kind giant gave me."
She counted on her fingers and added, "After one hundred more sunrises and sunsets, there will be delicious little flowers to eat, though they're not as yummy as the sugar gems from the kind giant..."
While she spoke, the little elf Nasi's voice suddenly dipped, and with a hint of sobbing, she said,
"But Little Nasi can't open the door anymore, can't eat the tasty little flowers..."
As she cried, Nasi's tone suddenly shifted, pulling on Colin's hair as she tentatively asked, "So, kind giant, Little Nasi is so pitiful, do you still have sugar gems to give to the cute Little Nasi?"
Colin listened, somewhat helplessly, and reached his hand to pluck the now entirely disheveled Little Nasi from his head, continuing to ask,
"Little Nasi, when there are no little flowers, what do you typically rely on to live?"
"Little Nasi doesn't need to eat, when I'm hungry I just come back here... although it's uncomfortable to stay too long, not as happy as eating little flowers, but I don't get hungry."
Little Nasi no longer feared him at all, allowing him to hold her in his hand while she pouted in response, seemingly unhappy because Colin did not answer her question.
'Doesn't need to eat...'
Colin was taken aback for a moment and subconsciously activated his Supersensitive Vision.
Under the supersensitive gaze, a golden-green glow enveloped the little elf Nasi, turning her from red to a golden green hue.
'Is this... some kind of Spiritual Light similar to human nature and knowledge?' Colin speculated after his careful observation.
In this world, every creature not tainted by Tainted babbling can be seen bathed in a misty glow under the Supersensitive Vision.
The ordinary is Spirit Fog, while the extraordinary ones vary in forms of Spiritual Light.
The Spiritual Light on the body surface of the elf Nasi was composed in a way somewhat similar to the external human essence and knowledge radiance of Colin.
And beyond the brilliance of this gold and green color, the most conspicuous was a stream of turbid radiance that continuously surged toward the little elf.
This radiance was a dirty grayish brown, unevenly distributed, with glimpses of blackish brown akin to ditch water and peculiar gold and green tinges in certain sections.
As it continued to surge inward, the gold and green light that passed through Nasi's body surface acted like a filter.
It stripped the murky light flow into dark, blackish brown tint, leaving only the same gold and green radiance to continue forward, absorbed by Nasi.
'Perhaps this is why Nasi doesn't need to eat food,' Colin speculated to himself.
Then, Colin furrowed his brows.
His keen perception made him realize that, in fact, the gold and green light filter on Nasi's body couldn't completely filter out those dark, blackish brown colors.
From time to time, some would slip through like fish through a net, slowly permeating Nasi's body... uncertain whether there might be any adverse effects.
As Colin thought this, he followed the dark streams of light toward their source.
"Hiss!"
But at the next moment, he suddenly shuddered and quickly shut off his Supersensitive Vision!
"What's wrong, kind giant, you're holding little Nasi too tightly, it hurts," Nasi struggled in his palm.
"Sorry." Colin came back to his senses and quickly released Nasi.
His face still bore traces of fright.
The source of those dark streams of light that continuously surged toward the little elf, with just a fleeting glance, he had seen clearly.
The source was none other than the surrounding trees and bushes that appeared to be stripped bare and dead.
However… under the state of Supersensitive Vision, these trees didn't look as benign as they did under normal vision, and they even possessed a strange beauty.
Those branches turned into dark-red gleaming glass, and in Supersensitive Vision, they looked more like clusters of purplish-black tainted mold, damp, sticky, with countless tiny grey-black fibers reaching out, rustling and swaying in the wind.
Only in the center of the thickest trunk could one faintly make out a sliver of warm and bright gold and green through this cluster of purplish-black mold.
Colin took a long, deep breath.
The impact of this scene seen under Supersensitive Vision was even more intense than the Divine Projection he had seen when first disembarking from the ship.
With this in mind, Colin couldn't help but take another look around.
The dark-red earth, the purplish-red Sky, each presented a desolate and magnificent sight.
But who could imagine… in Supersensitive Vision, these would turn into the decayed and cold grayish-black tones.
"Little Nasi, can you tell me what other places here are like?"
Colin collected his thoughts and continued to speak.
"Little Nasi doesn't know," Nasi shook her head, having found her way onto his head at some point, "Little Nasi has never been to other places, only knows this forest…"
Colin frowned slightly.
Next, he carefully inquired more from the elf Nasi about this place, but she knew next to nothing.
An hour later, the only information Colin had gathered was—
Nasi had been here since birth, naturally knew how to open Magic doors, liked to eat small flowers, preferred eating candy gems, and this forest was very large…
About other places, other information, she knew nothing at all…
Moreover, Colin also discovered—
The elf Nasi, in fact, didn't even know when she was actually born…
Her memory, Colin estimated, was at most about five years, anything further back was complete chaos.