One of the many things that are unknown about the nature of monsters is how certain monsters interact with their environment. One of such instances are plant girls and how they interact with the plants around them. As a botanist studying the nature of plants that live within places known for housing many plant monsters this question is the object of your research. Unfortunately you lack support for a variety of reasons, most of them relating to the magical aspect being an easy explanation, and also the danger involved with dealing with plant girls due to many of them being sadistic in nature.

Your journey leads you through remote locations and you meet many plant monsters along the way. By using your research to understand the nature of the plant monsters you meet, many of them let you pass and some even give aid by moving thick, overgrown areas in your way to make your journey easier. But despite all of this, you still struggle to come up with an answer for the symbiosis, in fact, you are not even able to say if the plants are part of the monsters or if the plants simply bend to the monster’s will.

The deeper you venture, the stronger monsters you encounter. You are by no means a fighter, the closest thing you have to a weapon is a knife which you keep in your bag at all times to avoid giving any monsters a bad impression of you. Of course, with power comes corrupt views resulting in many of the monsters you encounter later in your journey caring little for your research or any aid you can give them, and simply wish to catch you instead.

Many of the early monsters could be won over by simply listening to requests, things like removing dead plants, taking care of an insect colony that was using them as hosts for food, and other methods that were used to keep normal plants healthy. The issue with these sadists was that they seemed to either not care about the pain, were strong enough to overcome the issue themselves, or even use the annoyance as a source of power. In short, it became a lot more challenging for you to continue. Escaping with your life was fine enough for you but seeing the empty pages in your journal ate away at you.

The final step of your journey would be the queen alraune, but she normally spent her days in the world tree which was off the South coast of Sabasa, dangerously close to Fairy’s Island, both really don’t like visitors. Your goal for the journey was to try and use your research to prove that you meant no harm and request an audience with the alraune queen, if anyone would be able to answer your questions regarding the nature of plant monsters it would be her.

As you continue on your journey you start to notice that some of the plant monsters who were from the species that you encountered earlier were talking about you. Many of them left you alone and others helped in the same way others did in the beginning. This made it easier to avoid the monsters you know would attack you mercilessly. But the deeper you go, the less and less these helpful monsters appeared, most likely being unable to compete with the stronger monsters. It was starting to become a hazard to breathe without something covering your face, the pheromones being released by the plants in the area threatened to overpower you, luckily they all seemed to mix together creating an effect that confused you instead of attracting you to a specific plant. You would like to not have the issue at all but at least it wasn’t an instant game over.

When you think that you’re in the clear for dangerous plants you let your guard down in order to prepare to rest for the night, but just as you do you hear something moving close to the ground and something tightly wraps around your ankle. You are dragged for a few minutes before you see the plant that did this, a large monster with a Venus-flytrap opening, something you wouldn’t be able to talk your way out of. Luckily you still hadn’t dropped your bag and you quickly use the knife to cut the vine. You realize that you’re bleeding, in the moment you hadn’t noticed that the vine was covered in thorns.

This makes your escape challenging but after a little while the monster gives up, and unfortunately so does your ankle. Contrary to popular belief, plant monsters were definitely able to move, some faster than others, but in your current position any single monster was faster than you. Wasting no time, you got to work patching up your leg, doing your best to identify whatever the monster had inflicted on you, it could be anything, weak paralysis, some kind of venom, maybe even some type of pheromone that has to be injected, it might even be why you were allowed to escape, because she knew you wouldn’t get far.

A single vine was easy to cut through with a knife, but the monster itself was a different story. Monsters were beings designed to use magic and mana, their forms became physically reinforced by whatever they consumed, if it had eaten humans before it would have the strength of those it consumed. A knife wouldn’t be enough to kill it, especially if you couldn’t move. The only thing you could do was wait and hope that whatever monster found you wasn’t a sadistic one, a tall order for the monsters in the area, each one having a sadistic mindset due to their immense strength due to a god complex granted by years of being undefeated.

You hear movement and turn to find nothing, you turn another direction, nothing, you do you best to look behind you, still nothing. Defeated you look down and notice that a flower had sprouted not far from where you sat, a flower that had not been their when you collapsed. You look back up and see a tall woman- no a tall monster.

Her skin is purple, a large flower sprouts from her head and hangs down to cover her eyes, her hair is dirty blonde, and vines cover the upper half of her body. The lower half of her body is almost entirely inside of a large bulb with dozens of smaller plants and vines sprouting from it. She moves a vine closer to you and you can see that it’s covered in a strange liquid, a similar liquid covers her skin giving it a glossy appearance. The display is a mixture of natural beauty and grotesque, creating a strange aura that seems to confuse and excite you. Her figure is plump, almost motherly, and her movements are slow and graceful.

You don’t even realize that she’s in front of you until she caresses your face, a sweet aroma violates your senses reducing your mind into a soup of needy desire that drowns any rational thought. You know who you are looking at, the power that radiates from her was something you had never felt before, it was the Queen Alraune.

“Such wonderful things I’ve heard of you, never did I expect a human to care so deeply for our kind. To think such a thing was almost lost to this world.” She gestures towards your ankle, a dark ring already forming around where you were grabbed. “I cannot let such a rare human be left alone out here.”

You suddenly have a brief moment of realization, and you flinch away from the queen. As if anticipating your next move you feel a vine wrap around your torso. Unlike the previous monster, the Queen Alraune’s grip is only as firm as it needs to be and even loosens and tightens as you breathe to maintain its hold but not hurt you. This action reminds you of the plant monsters from the start of your journey, the ones who weren’t sadistic or at least didn’t want to consume humans entirely, though you knew that many of their actions were intended to fake affection in order to force their prey into submission, the actions of the Queen Alraune seemed sincere, not that you had any say in what would happen next if she were a sadist.

“Your journey was long and hard, you have met both the best and worst of my subjects, your reactions are only natural. I am quite surprised that you managed to stay true to your goals, most would’ve abandoned them the moment they became endangered.” She strokes your hair, her massive body towering over you yet still managing to maintain a soothing aura despite how imposing it seems from your prospective.

“I am under the impression that you wish to see the World Tree?”

You nod hesitantly.

“Then I shall take you there under my protection and thoroughly reward you for your deeds.” She lifts you into her arms as if you were a baby and smiles down at you with a warmth that could unthaw the harshest winters.

“I wish to expand my kingdom, but to do that I would need a mate, any human would do but I think it would be best if it were done by a human who cares for my realm as much as I do. I look forward to our time together.” She says this as she releases a pleasant smell the seems to work its way into every part of your body. You feel pleasantly warm as your vision begins to fade and you completely rely on the Queen Alraune to carry you. The last thing you see before falling asleep was her looking down at you with a sweet, and comforting smile.