Wraithwood Botanist

I stared at the notification thoughtfully.

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Neophyte Mira Hill has met the conditions to be promoted from Level 16 to Level 17. You’ve leveled up!

…

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"I got another…" I whispered. Information requests were critical for my survival. Still, I made up for the three I had used to find the key to solving the quest, finding the Treskirita, and creating the safest path to completing the request. "But… there’s only two things a slurry’s good for, and I don’t wanna lose… skills or whatever," I pondered aloud.

I was warned that if I used Information Requests for unnecessary things, I’d get less valuable subclasses. I didn’t know what a "subclass" was, but I needed everything I could get to survive. If it were unclear, that’d be one thing. I’d prioritize my life. But I couldn’t imagine what it would tell me that I didn’t already know.

I closed my eyes and went through the situation carefully.

I had a slurry, which was used to inoculate a substrate with mycelium. Simply pouring this slurry into wandering reaper territory could kill the creature in a couple of months. It was a weapon—just a slow one.

There was another way that mycelium could be used to ward off creatures.

Scent.

I already mentioned this, but I’ll elaborate.

Fungi can be used as a deterrent by its scent. The best example is Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the fungus that the makers of the game and TV show "The Last of Us" made extreme leaps to turn into a zombie creator.

Cordyceps infect carpenter ants, taking control of their brain and brainwashing them into returning to their colonies, where they explode with spores to infect the others.

It’s lethal—but the ants know about it. So if they smell it near an area—they stay away. That’s why you can mix the spores into water and soak wood in it to create wood that carpenter ants won’t get near. That was my solution.

That said, it also came with a warning. If the carpenter ants found an infected ant, they killed it and dragged it far away from the colony to die. Things got violent, and I was strangely certain that if I were to dump this slurry onto a sentient being who knew it would kill it, it would panic and start trying to destroy the source: me.

This was all speculation—and that was the problem. I didn’t know if these plants could smell anything, and I didn’t know if they would attack me if I inoculated them with the slurry. The only way to know was to do some tests. So I sat down at a rock and pulled out the slurry.

"Come over here," I said to Kline.

Kline looked at me warily.

"It’s okay. It’s just like… insect repellent. It’ll be fine as long as you’re not cut up anywhere."

He walked up warrily, moving back and forth, looking at the aloe-looking water hesitantly before lying down next to me.

"Good guy," I said. He purred in delight as I petted him. Then I checked him for scratches and wounds before putting the slurry on my fingers and petting his legs—avoiding his paws.

This slurry contained a soul-eating mushroom. Far from healing us, it would probably inoculate us with the fungi and kill us from within. That was a cold fact that I read, so we had to be careful.

Once I finished, I itched my neck and feet, grunted, and then stood up, bag open—in case I had to pour it—and looked toward my stuff.

"Listen, Kline. I’m going to wander in there a little bit to get one’s attention. When it comes out, I want you to come after me. If you deter the plant—great. We’ll come back and regroup. If you don’t, I need your claws to rip me free, okay?"

Kline meowed, but there was worry in his eyes.

You can’t pay for love like that.

I petted his ears. "It’ll be okay."

I didn’t know it would be okay.

Neither did he. That’s why he yowled. I ignored him and approached the area on my map that was outlined in red. It was only once I got near it that the true nervousness kicked in. It suddenly hit me like someone jamming a steel rod into a set of cogs. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

Trauma.

Or, probably not even trauma. Just sheer fear of something that I should be afraid of.

Whatever it was, it instantly dried out my throat and made my muscles ache. My chest swelled like a balloon, and I had to remind myself to breathe. I probably would’ve locked up if Kline hadn’t pawed twice at my ankles to remind me it was okay. Then he meowed—and I walked forward.

—---

Twigs sound louder when your life’s on the line. Each sounded like the boom and quake of thunder, making my heart rattle as I walked over dirt where I could clearly see. I checked the ground cover and bushes for signs of rustling. The wandering reaper was deadly—but it was slow.

And smart.

It didn’t react as I walked in. It was luring me in further, making it difficult for me to escape. Or maybe it wasn’t even there, but tendrils were coming. It was truly unclear, so after I got a hundred feet in, I waited for about five minutes on a stump, taking sharp breaths, itching my neck and foot—watching the sun break over the horizon.

It would soon be night, and there was still a half-mile hike through reaper territory to go.

I waited there for a while, and nothing happened. That lulled me into a false sense of security, and when I moved, I finally felt something shift under my foot.

I pulled back, jumping backward. A tiny tendril came—and then it left, disappearing.

"Son of a bitch!" I wasn’t angry that it almost got me—I was angry because if it didn’t stay up, I couldn’t tell if Kline would deter it!

I kicked the ground. "Fight me!" I felt so ridiculous for saying that, but the sunlight was ticking, and I had at least twenty minutes before I got to my bag unless I ran. Otherwise, I’d be SOL. I was already in a terrible situation.

Suddenly, the wandering reaper decided to call my bluff. A dozen had slowly sprouted around me. They were eerily slow but deadly, and stepping on one would stick me in place.

"O-Oh, no. No-no-no-no—"

Kline let out a terrific roar and closed the distance. The tendrils panicked long before he got there, but Kline caught up faster, clawing the air and causing the area around my feet to explode.

The phantom slash opened up the ground like a ripped cheek exposing teeth, and I could see a huge writhing mass of dozens of tendrils shifting under the ground. I immediately panicked and jumped back into a tree. But I didn’t have to worry. As soon as Kline made it to the location, all the tendrils shot underground as quickly as possible.

"I-I think it worked…" I said, twisting the water sack shut.

Kline meowed. I looked at him with blubbery eyes. "Come here." Kline jumped in my arms, and I cradled him for a moment. Then I put him down, opened up the water sack, and put the slurry over my jeans, careful to avoid any scrapes.

My neck was burning and itching and almost bleeding, reminding me that I would die soon if I didn’t finish this quest, and my foot was hard to step on without wanting to itch all the skin off.

I looked at the setting sun. I had twenty minutes to make it half a mile; after that, I’d be walking back at night.

"Come on," I said to Kline. "Let’s go." Taking a deep breath while Kline was walking behind me, I stepped over the red line and started walking.

The reapers were aware of us by that point, so they had poised to strike, building a wall that was impossible to clear. They surrounded us by the hundreds, and more kept sprouting, rustling through grass and rock and ground cover—anywhere where we could move. Getting past them should’ve been impossible—but the slurry worked. Step after step, we walked through the area, reapers parting like the Red Sea, making way for us. Once they parted, they never touched the path we walked on again. It was working. They became docile—but they never left. They were always watching, waiting, looking to strike at a moment’s notice if necessary. Perhaps, like carpenter ants seeing their brethren infected with cordyceps, they were waiting to kill their own tendrils and send them far, far away to protect the body.

Perhaps.

It wasn’t clear. All I knew was that my hearing buzzed like static, my heart felt strained, and my foot hurt. It hurt so damn much and it didn’t help that I was stepping over jagged stones that felt like broken glass. At any moment, my weapon, the rest of the slurry in my hand, ready to be inoculated into the land to kill the wandering reaper, could fly out of my hand, sending the reapers into a frenzy.

That could happen.

Death.

I didn’t think about it. I just itched my neck a few times and pressed on, watching the sun get lower and lower over the horizon until the forest was bathed with warm colors.

Then I saw it.

It was twilight when I got to the clearing, and the backpack shone like a star. I imagined that it would be in tatters, ripped apart as the creature went after my beef jerky and meal bars. It wasn’t. There was a golden sheen on the bag, perfectly preserved, showcasing a glowing magical circle on the back that turned it into a lamp. I could also see it clearly because the wandering reapers had hoisted it up multiple tendrils and tree branches.

Below it was a cobra pit of reapers, as if my backpack was some desperate heroine from a B-rated movie, crucified by savages—begging to be saved.

I didn’t know why they did that, but I was guessing they did it to prevent anything from stealing it—and I shuddered to think what type of animal could disregard thousands of the wandering reapers.

Perhaps that bus-sized creature that was enraged that I cut the water sack plant?

Probably.

Kline meowed and snapped me out of my reverie. I took a deep breath and took another painful step. And then another. A third. Soon, I was walking back toward the backpack.

I needed to do it. I needed to get my survival equipment and complete that quest. If I didn’t, I was dead. That was almost a guarantee. The Guide said there was a cure for Wisteris poisoning, and the ingredients were available, but it said that I needed First Tier alchemy skills, which could mean that it was the easiest or hardest. And instead of having me attempt it, it sent me here.

This was my only shot. It was now or never.

I swallowed hard and started moving toward the backpack, slowly—thoughtfully. That concentration only made things worse because rashes itch the most when you’re trying to think or sleep.

"You’re gonna be okay," I whispered. "You’re going to get your water bottle and drink and use your cortisone cream. Yeah. Parasite or not, an itch is an itch. Yeah. And there’s jerky. Oh, yes, there’s jerky. Jack Links and a Luna bar. Ah…."

I suddenly lurched when I stepped on a twig with my uncovered foot. It shot pain up my leg and made me want to thrash around.

"Son of a—! God. I’m going to kill these things… Oh yes, I’m going to follow The Path just to murder every last…." I stopped in the clearing.

In front of me was my backpack, hanging like a sacrifice.

Below me were dozens of reapers, writhing underneath it like a cobra pit.

"Kline…?" I whispered. Kline mewed behind me, letting me know he was there. I nodded. "Let’s do this."