416 This is the breeder's curse_2

There was no bed, just tatami mats laid directly on the floor.

The ground was covered with bedding that had turned somewhat yellow and damp, as if soaked in some murky, viscous fluid, and atop the bedding grew a bizarre tree.

The malevolent aura seemed to emanate from the tree itself.

The tree was probably about one meter eighty in height, its species unrecognizable. Its roots had pierced through the sheets and burrowed into the floor below. The branches were lush, the leaves were green, but the veins within them were red.

The trunk, as thick as the mouth of a bowl, had wrinkled bark filled with grooves and ridges, the surface resembling repugnant hypertrophic tissue that when examined closely appeared to be a mass of twisted faces.

Moreover, the trunk was enshrouded in a vest and trousers. The clothes were tattered but seemed to have grown into the tree, inseparable.

A tree unsettling to behold.