25 : Dangle Fern – 2


“Now then, first thing to do was to collect the dangling meat fern flower.”
Just as I had verified earlier, from the ceiling of the 3rd layer, it grew approximately 4 meters above the floor.
The pathway was about 3 meters wide which meant it would seem narrow if you were to swing a long weapon horizontally, but it was enough to normally move and fight in.

“Seii!”
I first checked to make sure there were no signs of enemies in the said pathway.
After that, I kicked off of the floor at full force, and jumped while making the best use of my levitation.
Furthermore, once I had arrived at the highest point, I moved my wings at their utmost, increasing my altitude slightly so I could grab a suitable tendril from the root of the dangling meat fern flower.

“Then, let’s harvest…… Hm?”
I tried to sever the tendril in my grasp with the tooth knife.
However, it wouldn’t cut.
I drove the tooth knife back and forth many times over like it was a saw and finally managed to hack through it, but it was pretty tough.
It was as though I wasn’t cutting apart the vines of a plant, but rather a metal wire or something of the sorts.

“Alright, it severed.”
Even so, I somehow managed to succeed in cutting it.
Upon doing so, the dangling meat fern flower immediately began to absorb the nearby curse…… It left behind a cluster of leaves and the rest disintegrated.

“Well, this was something to be expected, wasn’t it.”
After all, it seems like if you wanted to collect all of the materials from a living organism, you’ll have to appropriately kill them with a curse.
Since its HP simply became 0, this too was a mechanic of the dungeon and the only thing that was left remaining was the dangling meat fern flower’s leaves.
With that reason, I activated 5 of my eyes and casted『Taruwiveno』at a different dangling meat fern flower, giving it a poisoned status.
Then, while the dangling meat fern flower was being sapped by the poison damage, I appraised the leaves that had fallen earlier.


△△△△△
Dangling Meat Fern Flower’s Leaf
Level : 1
Durability : 100/100
Interference: 100
Corruption : 100/100
Abnormalities : 1

A leaf from a Dangling Meat Fern Flower, which closely resembles the leaf of a pteridophyte.
It has the property of nourishing itself by absorbing the curses that were around it.
▽▽▽▽▽

“Rather than photosynthesis, I wonder if this would be considered curse-synthesis.”
It had a interesting disposition.
If you grinded it into a paste, plastered it over your equipment and cursed it with the grudge stand, you might even be able to make something like an equipment that automatically recovered itself.
Also, if its properties could be used as a ability that actively absorbed curses…… I may be able to craft some equipment that would allow me to exit the『Tower of Mice』too.
Yep, it’s definitely intriguing.

“It finally fell, huh.”
The dangling meat fern flower was torn off from its roots because of the poison and had descended to the floor.
I felt like it took more time than the number of poison stacks I had administered, but…… I wasn’t properly watching over it.
Well, given that it was a poison that came from within an animal, it was possible that the effect would lessen when using it on a plant.

“Anyways, let’s appraise.”
In any case, I decided to use appraisal on the item I’d just obtained.


△△△△△
Dangling Meat Fern Flower’s Vine
Level : 1
Durability : 100/100
Interference : 100
Corruption : 100/100
Abnormalities : 5

A vine growing from the moss of a Dangling Meat Fern Flower.
It has the property of increasing its strength in accordance to the curse concentration around it.
▽▽▽▽▽


“Ohh!”
I involuntarily let out a voice of joy.
Needless to say, it was obvious as to why.
It’s because this vine was a magnificent material.

“Fufufuu, I’ve got to collect more of these……”
The dangling meat fern flower’s vine did certainly twist as much as a vine would.
With this alone, if I could braid it skillfully, I’d be able to make clothes or another bag with its wonderful trait.
On top of that, because of its characteristic which raised its strength depending on the surrounding curse concentration, it was resilient enough to the point of where the tooth knife I had couldn’t even compete with it, so there were definitely numerous ways to use it.
With that being said, to test it out, I grabbed a vine that was hanging from the ceiling and used my whole body weight, but it didn’t yield an inch.
Yep, this could probably also be used as a rope then.
Exactly as I’d thought, I really should gather more of these.
No matter how I applied it, it wouldn’t just only be the curse concentration around me that would decrease.

“It’s a good thing that the vines and leaves were likely to have an easy-to-understand practical way of use.”
I activated my『Magic Eye of Poison・1』on the dangling meat fern flowers that were at a certain length and harvested them.
Furthermore, when I obtained them, I severed the leaves from the vines and collected them separately.
At the same time, I verified the effectiveness of the poison, which I hadn’t done earlier. As suspected, it appeared that『Magic Eye of Poison・1』was ineffective towards the plants.
It’s only a rough estimate, but it was around 30% less effective.
Maybe this aspect will also improve one of these days……

“Hm?”
For a short while, I went and had a look around the 3rd layer while gathering the dangling meat fern flowers.
I dealt with the Poisonous Bite Rats that attacked me along the way as I pressed on before coming across something that seemed a bit unusual.

“This is a dangling meat fern flower, right?”
It indeed was a dangling meat fern flower.
Though, it stretched around 4 meters in length. It wasn’t long enough to the point where it came in contact with the ground, but it was definitely the longest dangling meat fern flower I’ve seen thus far.
Moreover, what also stood out besides its length was the pink-colored lump that was attached to the end of the section that nearly reached the floor.
By any chance, was this spherical mass the so-called meat part of the dangling meat fern flower and the reason for its name?

“It really looks similar to meat, doesn’t it.”
I approached it carefully and tried lifting the lump which was almost the size of a human head.
The conglomerate seemed to be formed of several layers overlapping each other before solidifying and a pale white accompanied its edges. It was almost as if it was a bundle of meat that was hardened after being shaped out of thin slices of meat folded over one another.
When I brought my nose closer to it, the smell of fine meat also came wafting through.
Ahh, I wonder if it’ll be easier to understand if I called it a meat bud and presented it that way instead.

“Just a bite.”
I couldn’t resist the smell any longer, thus I sank my teeth into the meat bud.
Although, however.

“…… It’s hard……”
It wasn’t exceedingly so, but I couldn’t chew through it.
Even though it was soft to the touch, when I bit into it or tried to tear off the petals from the bud, it didn’t budge.
What exactly was up with this thing?
Did this mean that the vines’ strengthening ability also reached all the way through to the bud too?

“I guess I’ll give up on eating it, but I’ll still harvest it though.”
I let go of the bud in my hand and was going to use『Magic Eye of Poison・1』on the dangling meat fern flower.
That’s when it happened.
It was as though the release of my grip served as a trigger. The bud bloomed and a fleshy flower that seemed like it was made of marbled meat blossomed.

“Hm?”
“Chuu chuu chuu~!”
Then, a pungent smell of grilled meat was spread around and its smell alone was enough to result in an unbearable appetite.
Because of the enticingly rich smell, I unintentionally forgot to use my『Magic Eye of Poison・1』and just stared blanky at the swaying flower of meat.
Thinking back, this was probably the point in time when my fate was sealed.

“””Chuuchuuchuu!”””
“Eh?”
I heard the sound of a rat’s cry.
Moreover, it wasn’t just 1 or 2, but dozens…… No, maybe even over 100.

“””Chuu Chuu Chuu!!”””
“Why……”
A horde of rats instantly entered my field of vision.
Each one of them seemed to be small, normally-sized rats.
Though, in any case, their numbers were large.
The color of gray mingled in uneven dark green spots surged forward in every direction as if water had overflooded the floor.

“””Chuuchuuchuu!!”””
“It can’t be……”
Why did all these rats gather at a rate that hasn’t happened up until now?
The reason was entirely obvious. It was because of the smell that radiating from the flourishing dangling meat fern flower.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that this blossom from the dangling meat fern flower was an important source of food for the rats in the『Tower of Mice』and whether or not they got a chance to eat this was a matter of life or death for them.

“Let’s escape!”
In any event, I couldn’t manage this number of opponents.
Neither my『Magic Eye of Poison・1』or tooth knife had any ability to deal with such an amount of enemies.
So I kicked away from the floor, executing a big jump and tried to escape by clearing over the wave of rats.

“Jyua-!”
“Buge-!?”
At that time, a Poison Spitting Rat appeared and spewed its poison at me. It was almost as if it had seen through my actions, or possibly, maybe it was leading the other smaller rats.
Since my attention was on the smaller rats, I couldn’t react in time and was simply shot down from above.
Furthermore, the ground I was falling towards was completely packed with the swarm of rats.

“Chuu chuu chuu!!”
“Wai-…… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”
The rats couldn’t pass up and overlook human beings, as they were basically lumps of flesh.
Over a hundred rats flocked over and sank their teeth into my entire body. Without any time to experience the pain, I died, not being able to do anything except scream.

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