After a long walk through the forest, the boy finally arrived at his destination. He carried Gytha right below his chest while strapping a vine of a plant he grew with his newfound power to his back, and a spear he stole from the knights was attached to it.

In front of him stood tall a lone gate, covered in plants, shrooms, and mosses. From a naked eye, the gate leads to nothing. It just remained there in the middle of the forest resembling some abandoned stuff that humans left.

But for the nymphs and Staas, that gate will guide them to the keepers of this forest, entities that have outlived many lives for hundreds of years, some even more than a thousand.

“I stand before the greatest judge! The law of existence itself!” As he shouted the spell, the gate began to tremble. Then clack! The sound of a lock being unlocked. The gate opened its door, and from it crawl out bright light, along with white mist which slowly creeping through the air.

What can be seen inside of the gate is a clear space with nothing filling it but light and mist. However, this is not the first time he walked through this gate, so even with what can be seen as the unknown, is nothing new for Staas.

With no hesitation the boy went inside, carrying the girl with him through the ever so mysterious gate. And as they both perished into the light, the door closed itself, shut awkwardly, looking as uninteresting as possible.

And as they arrived inside, behold the Garden of Time! A closed space to the outside world, a sacred place where time won’t take your youth away. The sky here is dark and gloomy, painted in the shade of blue and purple.

Like every garden, the entire place is filled with trees and plants, but alongside all short of floating things from right above the ground to high up there in the sky, frozen in time, unaffected by gravity.

The trees here are varied in terms of height, from knee-high tall to the size of a palace tower. Although their trunk is wide and thick, and have one other thing in common.

A clock is attached to them, and their fingers uniformly moved, no matter how far is one tree from another. In fact, anything that is part of nature is attached to a clock. From a simple rock, to the spacious ground, to even the unmoved clouds.

You can hear the sounds of their hands coordinately ticking at the exact same time from every direction.

But this place also has its inhabitants, or gardeners to be more precise. They’re called the chroniads, a time nymph with pale skin, and clocks for eyes. Their hair is the same color as the gloomy sky and just like every other nymph, not a single string of fabric covered their body.

“Staas?-Why-are you-visiting-us?” One of the chroniads greeted the boy. She speaks alongside the sounds of the ticking clocks as if they’re the natural metronomes for her.

“I need to bring her to the elders,” Staas replied, showing her the unconscious girl in his hands.

“Oh-.-.-.-that-looks-bad-.-.-.-good-luck!” Said the chroniads encouraging him.

“Thank you, Harmonia.” The boy then continued his steps, to the destination he was going to.

The chroniads were also accompanied by another creature. They’re called the clockwork treant, a walking tree the size of their waist, and they’re the ones who maintain the clocks here to keep on working and stay on beat.

Sometimes you can see them just idling near another tree, with their roots attached to the ground. If a tree here let out a ripe fruit, they’ll pick it, and put it on the large clock fountain in the middle of the garden’s center.

“Eat later, Gytha first.” Staas gazed into the colorful stack of those fruits, he’s beyond hungry with all the things he’s been through since leaving the village. Especially with him not yet having breakfast.

He continued walking until he found the biggest tree among the ones which grew here. It may be not the tallest, but it is the widest and the thickest.

At the base of the tree exist a green wooden door. Staas proceeded to knock and walked through it without waiting for any permission to let him in.

Inside there were three tall thrones lined up with each other, with the tallest one being in the middle. On each throne, a youthful-looking dryad was attached to them as if they were bound to it.

“Staas!? Wha—” The dryads were in shock with the sudden appearance of the boy. “That wound… what happened!?” But their expression quickly turned grim when they realize how shredded Gytha’s back was.

“The humans attacked our village, they’re using ice magic to prison all the dryads there, but somehow… they attacked the two of us with their weapons instead of freezing us,” Staas explained to them.

The three dryads are the elders. They are the three out of four longest-living nymphs that existed to this day.

Since the elders mostly stay here in the Garden of Time, they didn’t age as other living creatures do. Nymphs have a lifespan of hundreds of years and are immune to wrinkles and the aging of outside appearance, but their performance does age throughout the years.

The elders, however, are still as strong as when they were young, maybe even stronger. Garden of Time kept them from growing old, even the second elder still have the look of a child to her.

To be completely honest they look even younger than the Chroniads, who is the native of the garden of time.

“Human!? The Ratna Kingdom’s here already!?” The three elders stared at each other in panic. It seemed they knew this would eventually happen, they just didn’t expect it to be this soon.

“Never mind that, can you fix this wound on Gytha’s back, Elder Isergia?” The boy is clearly worried about the condition of his companion. The elders realized this and immediately detach themselves from their throne.

“Of course Staas, you can relax.” The first elder face turned calm with a warm smile painted on it. “Rui, take Gytha to the Room of Beginning, heal her there.”

“On it, sister.” As asked, the third elder then tried to take Gytha away from Staas’ hands. “Kyah!” But as soon as the boy let go, she almost fell from how different the girl's weight was as compared to how Staas made it looks. She seemed extremely light on him when he was carrying her.

“Uh… excuse me, Staas, I’ll bring her to her bed.” As she proceeded to walk towards the door on the right side of the room, that third elder struggled heavily to maintain carrying Gytha’s body. Water started drenching from every pore on her body.

Meanwhile, the other elder awkwardly glared at their sister, as they too also didn’t expect Gytha to be heavy judging by how Staas carried her as if she’s nothing but a stick from a tree branch.

“Elder Isergia, can you please tell me what’s happening?” Staas demanded. The firm voice coming from his mouth startled both of the remaining elders.

“That… sure. The Ice Queen from the Ratna Kingdom asked us for help in her quest against the Dragon Patriarch. Well to be honest it is more of forcing than asking.” The first elder looked pretty sad when she talked about it.

“Forcing?” Questioned Staas.

“That’s right, what you saw in Spirit Grove is the consequences of not fulfilling her request… huft…” Isergia let out a deep sigh. “I explained to her that nymphs can’t afford to leave the forest, she just won’t listen!”

“But why prison us in ice?” Asked the boy confused.

“Prison? Oh! Then she understood what I meant!” The expression on the first elder's face changed to a mixture of relief and terror.

“What is it, sister?” The second elder was curious about why her sister’s voice turned high.

“She knew that we can’t leave the things we’re bound to, so she froze us until she found a way to take us to her kingdom!” Isergia answered, with an excited tone in her words.

“Ouh… that’s… smart. Well, I guess she’s a human after all.” The second elder was impressed.

“Then? Is there any way to save the frozen dryads?” Staas didn’t care about whatever the Queen’s motive is, he just wanted his family back.

“Save them…?” The elders started thinking, it would be very hard to just break the ice without harming the dryads inside. The only way to save them is by melting those so-called prisons.

Isergia realized this and momentarily took a quick glimpse at Staas. But she immediately turned her gaze away, trying to throw away whatever was on her mind at the time.

“Why are you looking at me, Elder Isergia? Is it something that I need to do?” Staas pointed out her behavior just now.

“You? Nonono. What can a child like you exactly hope to accomplish?” You can see water dripping from her forehead. She’s nervous to the point of panic. Never even thought a dryad could sweat. But both she and the third were definitely drenched in liquid.

“Don’t give me that, Elder Isergia. I know you knew who I was.” Staas confronted her.

“What— where did that come from!?” Her heart almost stops from hearing that. Although to be honest I don’t know if dryads have a heart or not.

“I saw you in the stream of memories, you were there! Watching me before I went asleep at the center tree in the Spirit Grove!” Said Staas, being assertive with what he wanted to know.

“Stream of memories…?” Isergia was afraid, but she was also very confused.

“Did he take his essence back from Gytha?” Innocently asked the second elder to her sister.

“Essence?” Staas heard her.

“Iyda!” Isergia yelled, showing that it was something she wasn’t supposed to say in front of Staas.

“Sorry!” Edetiyda went panicked and quickly run back to find safety inside of her throne.

“Explain to me please, Elder Isergia! Tell me who I was!” The boy cornered her. With this, she can no longer hide it from him anymore.

“Huft… I guess this day will come sooner or later.” Isergia once again let out a deep sigh. “Alright Staas, let me tell you a little story from the past.”