Chương 74: 1-73 Forbidden garden

Josef's landing was less than smooth, and in no small part because he fell the last dozen meters. If the ground beneath hadn't been soft and squishy, he might have broken something, though he wasn't so sure about these metrics with how much sturdier his body had become ever since he arrived on Arum. Just as he was about to regain his bearings, realizing why his descent had accelerated so suddenly, he was tackled from behind, tumbling across the ground.

It was just in time to avoid the remains of a long, worm-like appendage slamming down, forming a small, coiled mountain. Right, that thing had been on the verge of tearing apart, and had now fallen from the petal above.

"Thanks, buddy." He gave his furry little savior a head pat, which was answered only by the silent twitch of a nose. The familiar had returned to his usual shape, abandoning the oversized maw. He had felt Dusty's presence on the way down, but was too caught up in clinging to his biological rope to give him any attention.

"I really hope you found a safe enough spot for Aifreed." This time, the bunny replied by imitating the grating sound grinding metals. Which could have meant anything, if not for the vague affirmation seeping through their link. At least his familiar had gotten a lot more expressive since their early days, even if his choice of sounds made Josef long for the muteness from before.

Pushing some more mana into his light, which had almost winked out during his last drop, he illuminated his surroundings, getting a bearing of his location. Once more, darkness had become an all-encompassing companion, as it refused to yield more than a dozen meters to him. It wasn't much, but enough to reveal a disturbing mix of fleshy formations and pulsating tendrils that wormed their way around this pulsating cavern.

Though it might have been more accurate to call it the belly of the beast, as the stinging pain from where he had touched the gargantuan creature during his tumble reminded him all too much of stomach acid. The comparison probably wasn't far off, considering he had passed its teeth on the way down. He wiped the translucent, sticky mucus from his body using a small display of water magic, doing barely more than pushing some changed mana through his pores.

After the defense he had erected against being burned alive, doing this much was no longer much of an effort.

"Alright, buddy. Let's find the core of this thing. It should be around here somewhere." Using his manasight, Josef walked towards the direction that appeared to be thickest with magical energy, hoping that it would lead him to his target. That turned out to be easier than he expected, because the mana making up the surrounding darkness was much denser in one particular direction. Taking a closer look without his latest eye-upgrade, he even noticed that the circle of light around him was slightly dented.

Even if this didn't lead him where he wanted to be, destroying the origin of this energy would at least make it easier to navigate this area. Trudging through the dimly lit bowels of the boss, Josef concentrated on his Link with Pretzel, sending her his reassurance. Once she noticed he was safe, he received a heated mix of anger and indignation from her, though the emotions felt muted. Maybe it was the distance, or their exhaustion, but whatever they shared appeared to be muddled quite a bit.

On second thought, there was one other reason the link could be weird. Throwing a quick glance at his accumulating notifications, he immediately saw one generated in that very moment. ☆☆☆☆ Mental Resistance (Moderate) -> (Advanced) It was his old frenemy, mental resistance, which he was glad to have but angry to see. Maybe it was on him not to expect the insides of this creature to hold a second round of manipulation at the ready, but he was pissed either way.

This ability had done enough harm to their party already, and encountering more of it only twisted the knife in an already open wound. With the effect seen through before it could properly ensnare him, little about his situation changed, except for the sudden sweet smell that assaulted his nose with sickening intensity.

"So this one's airborne?" Josef muttered, clasping his nose shut. He had found nothing on the mucus he touched, but if it was in the very air? If everything he breathed had a slight hue against this blackened background? That was pretty much impossible to notice, even now that he knew to look for it. It was another devious trap, one he could only give the slip so easily because of the resistance he had gained.

Thinking back on the first time he had been caught in the manipulation, he wondered why everything he saw was so… simple. Considering how badly the experience hurt Zippa, not to mention the old knight being completely swallowed by it, he figured there should have been more to be seen. It seemed like both of them had to face some trauma from their past lives. He, on the other hand, couldn't be assaulted by such means, considering how most of his memories were missing. Wasn't it sad though?

To be lacking so much of who he was before that a spell failed to use his own mind against him? It would be ridiculous to envy those hurt by these circumstances, but he really wondered what he would have seen if he still had access to his memories. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. It probably would have been about his family and how much his absence hurt them. Did he leave behind a crying spouse?

He didn't think he had ever married, but there might have been a romantic partner. He almost wished the dark would haunt him with those left behind, just so he could remember their faces. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain emanating from Josef's ear, causing him to cry out in surprise. Almost falling to the ground from being disoriented, he needed a moment of focus to get his thoughts back in line.

"Thanks again, Dusty," he nodded to his little familiar, while using a burst of healing magic to fix the bite in his earlobe. Apparently, even with resistance to and knowledge of the illusion, he was not entirely immune to it. Not if he created live ammunition for this thing to use against him. That would not happen again, he promised himself. Fool me once, and so on.

Pushing against the dark, his path to find the core continued, and he soon noticed his surroundings growing more jagged, with even more tendrils breaching the surface of the squishy ground. It almost looked like there was fur growing in front of him, if hair was naturally as thick as a thumb. Waving back and forth, as if trapped by an invisible current, these appendages were now numerous to prevent his travel if he wished to avoid touching them. He did, but that didn't mean he could just turn around and leave.

Neither would he just blindly walk into them, though. Carefully, looking for small bald spots in this small sea of hair, he accumulated space mana before targeting one such clearing, hopping forward without ever disturbing the rhythm of the tendrils. Maybe he was overly cautious, but he didn't trust this plant as far as he could throw it. There was no reason to see these as anything but a defense mechanism, and he refused to trigger it if avoidable. And avoid it, he did.

Carefully planning his jumps, some of which only became possible thanks to Dusty, he gained more and more ground. Once more his familiar showed off the mysterious ways of his movement, as he disappeared into the darkness to act as a beacon, without ever touching a single hair. Finally, as his light had shrunk down to barely an arm's length, and the clearings were even smaller, one last teleportation following his familiar showed him something new.

Literally, as the oppressive dark didn't appear to touch this place, allowing him to see the entire chamber he was now situated in, albeit in a dim light. Where both the light and the surfaces still held the same reddish tint he had to get used to since entering the boss chamber, the texture underneath had clearly shifted. Bringing a hand down to check the ground, even with his gloves on he could tell the familiar feeling. He was standing on wood, or rather, bark.

"So you are still a plant at your core, huh?" Josef mused, digesting the jarring change in his surroundings. He had almost gotten used to the slight bounce on every step, only to now return to solid reality.

"Smells a lot better, too." Going so far as to trust his new surroundings not to surprise him with another illusion was a bit too much for him, but he did appreciate the lack of the weird, sweet scent in the air he breathed. This whole place appeared almost like an oasis of normalcy compared to the rest of what he had seen today. It was like walking into a massive, hollowed-out tree, escaping a furious storm outside.

"This would be a nice place to kick back and relax, if time wasn't of the essence. Right?" he asked his bunny, who ignored all laws of civilized conversation. Instead, he hopped forward, approaching the center of the clearing. His target was obvious enough to figure out, as there was only one thing of interest right in the middle. Hanging from above was a thick wad of pulsating vines, and whatever energies flowed through them was bright enough to cause the red light illuminating its surroundings.

On closer inspection, it became quickly apparent, however, that there were not only red vines in that large amalgamation of plants. They were certainly outnumbered, but poking out here and there were thinner offshoots with a much healthier, green coloration. Focusing his eyes on the green mana swirling within those, he almost found the impression soothing. Was this another trap, an illusion meant to trick him? Or something true, a part of this creature's vulnerable core?

The green vines felt almost out of place, and then, right before his eyes, he saw one of them wither. It was a violent process, where the little plant thrashed and curled as if in pain, before a faint red light drilled through it from within, splitting it open. After that, only a moment passed before the little thing darkened and crumbled to dust, a sight Josef was more than accustomed to.

"You are being consumed… but why?" he wondered, not receiving an answer from the plant. Then, in an almost unperceivable glow of green magic, a new green tendril burst from the canopy, replacing the one that was gone. It looked almost identical to the first one, but under the scrutiny of his mana sight, he could clearly see that the energy within it was less than before. Whatever it was, it couldn't fully replace what was lost to that drain.

Considering the similarity to his own magic, he quickly got an idea of what he was seeing.

"One plant which consumes another. This red stuff is a parasite through and through, isn't it?" The green tendrils didn't merely grow alongside the red ones. They were kept around to be harvested for mana, a live battery that refilled itself, even if not perfectly. It was just like those parasites he had trapped in his Water Prison, only to drain them for all their worth. Seeing it from this perspective, the entire process looked rather creepy, almost heinous.

It almost made him feel bad about what he had done, but that notion quickly disappeared when he recalled their attack on Bezzo. If this thing just consumed a tendril, did that mean it needed more mana to accomplish something? Did it replace another one of its appendages up there, in its fight against his friends? Josef wasn't certain if this was truly the core of the monster, but taking away its mana source would surely help in killing it.

"Looks like we're gonna have to do some trimming, Dusty. Hope you brought your gardening teeth," he joked, covering himself with earth mana while grabbing one of the red vines and yanking it out violently. In response, his bunny made a sound oddly reminiscent of a chainsaw before showing off some grossly enlarged teeth.

"Yeah, that will do." Neither of them was prepared for the ear-piercing scream that echoed all around them, mere moments after they began their violation. Then, the walls vibrated as something tunneled towards them, causing an oddly familiar and terrifying feeling.