Chapter 35: Cleaning the Polluted Zone

After learning about magical beasts from Wusel's side, Rekedun couldn't help but run to Xiya, asking her to keep an eye out for any good‑looking magical beasts.

As it turned out, Xiya and the captain had already gone with Earth Church personnel to the deepest part of the polluted area to investigate.

"So you want to raise a magical beast?" Jessica asked, looking curiously at Rekedun, who had come to inquire about Xiya's whereabouts.

"Yes." Rekedun nodded.

"But these magical beasts, while their extraordinary abilities are odd and varied, are not strong—indeed many are weak. If you don't give them the corresponding magic potions, they can't become your helpers," Jessica analyzed the pros and cons.

"I'm not raising magical beasts to make them my helpers. It's just like everyone keeps cats and dogs as pets; I want one, so I get one!" Rekedun said, as if it were obvious.

Jessica was momentarily stunned, then shook her head as if recalling something, and a smile returned to her face: "Looks like I've been in the Knowledge Church too long; my thinking unconsciously leans toward that of a rational scholar."

Then Jessica solemnly nodded to Rekedun: "Thanks for the reminder; otherwise I wouldn't have noticed this issue. Looks like I should also raise a magical beast to improve my mental state."

Rekedun was still in a dazed state: "Uh, I didn't say anything; you figured it out yourself."

"Ha ha, but your words reminded me. No need to be so formal; my gratitude is only natural," Jessica said with a light laugh.

"There's a saying: the audience is the least likely path to lose control, and also the most likely path to lose control. Now you see how much your words affected me?" Jessica smiled and added another explanation.

From her voice one could tell she was very happy. Discovering a flaw in her thinking and fixing it in time would prevent the high‑probability problems that would otherwise arise later.

"Congratulations!" Rekedun smiled and nodded in celebration.

"I can't stay here forever; I'll wander around and see if there are any magical beasts suitable as pets. What kind of little creature do you like? I'll keep an eye out for you," Jessica said after thinking.

"As long as it's pretty." Rekedun replied casually.

"Alright, I'll keep an eye out." Jessica nodded, then turned and started strolling elsewhere.

After Jessica left, Rekedun rejoined Mr. Kesi and Wusel's team. The four then began clearing mutated creatures along the surrounding roads.

This area belongs to the outer polluted zone; after yesterday afternoon's round of cleaning and the mutual slaughter of mutated creatures, few mutated creatures remained alive.

On an abandoned street overgrown with vines and weeds, the four of them stood back‑to‑back in a circle, each watching one direction, proceeding cautiously.

The sun was unusually dazzling today; under its light the vines clinging to house walls swayed with green leaves, and thorns winding around gas streetlamps were blooming with flowers, while not a single insect chirped.

This made Rekedun feel that they hadn't entered a perilous mutation zone, but rather a green‑themed park.

"The plants here grow way too luxuriantly," Rekedun exclaimed.

"And they grow fast; we only burned all the plants here yesterday," Jin added.

"Perhaps because the Church's strike on the central area yesterday was so severe that the pollution spread outward," Mr. Kesi offered an explanation.

"Pollution isn't alive, how could it know to run?" Jin couldn't understand.

"Pollution itself isn't alive, but the polluted matter is alive; it can move," Rekedun said, agreeing that this possibility was likely after hearing Mr. Kesi's explanation.

"Then today's outskirts are more dangerous than yesterday!" Wusel grew a bit nervous.

Most of the Earth Church personnel stationed at the outskirts are wounded; if those mutated creatures now flee toward the outskirts, casualties could easily occur.

"That's just a possibility; we still need to observe first," Mr. Kesi steadied the temporary squad's emotions.

The four continued carefully moving through a green‑lined street of trees. The farther they went, the stranger the ground plants became.

Rekedun saw a two‑story‑high tree with only a trunk and no leaves, a crimson plant resembling a sugarcane whose whole body and leaves were covered in spines, and a plant whose fruits looked like wind‑rolling grass.

Rekedun thought he understood why Jin said they had burned all the plants here yesterday; there was not a single plant that looked normal.

"Boom!" Mr. Kesi suddenly fired at a clump of wind‑rolling grass‑like plants on the ground.

"Wooo~" A half‑human‑tall fish monster with arms and legs emerged from it, a hand dripping blue blood, apparently wounded by Kesi's shot.

The fish monster's appearance was rather grotesque, as if a fish had been fitted with a pair of webbed arms and legs and a set of fangs.

After bursting from the grass, the fish monster charged straight at Kesi. Kesi, without dodging, fired three more shots: two hit the body, one struck the eye. The fish monster seemed to feel no pain and kept charging at Kesi.

At this point Rekedun, Wusel, and the others prepared to attack the fish monster, but the creature slipped past Kesi and sprinted away.

The fish monster passed a gas streetlamp tangled in thorns, which suddenly sprang to life and tightly coiled around it.

The fish monster was tripped and fell, but the thorns kept tightening, growing wildly as if in a frenzy, wrapping the monster tighter and even piercing its body.

The fish monster writhed on the ground in agony, yet made no sound, as if its vocal cords had vanished during mutation, and was eventually dragged underground by the thorns.

Watching this, Rekedun felt a tingling in his feet; they had just passed through there moments ago, yet hadn't noticed anything odd about the thorns.

"Never thought the Farmer's Path ability would be so useful here!" Mr. Kesi's voice came from behind.

Rekedun instantly turned his head to look at Wusel standing on his left; Wusel just smiled.

"It's not that useful; only a few plants can resonate with my extraordinary ability, allowing me to command them by expending spirit," Wusel explained.

Rekedun curiously asked, "What difference is there between plants that can resonate with your extraordinary ability and ordinary plants?"

Wusel shook his head, "You can't tell by appearance; specifically, those plants are among the relatively normal types of mutation in this area."

"Relatively normal mutation? Does that mean the mutation comes from that ancient alchemist rather than the blood‑noble viscount's trait or the clown's Gou San family trait?" Rekedun guessed inwardly.

"Then how do we clear these mutated plants? They all seem hard to deal with," Rekedun thought of the thorns earlier, feeling his skin crawl.

"We can only see if the Bishop has a way; their roots are deep. If we can't clear the roots, even burning them all will make them grow back," Wusel explained.

Rekedun asked no further questions, probably guessing the situation; these plants perfectly embody the life force represented by the Farmer's Path.

After this little incident, Rekedun walked more cautiously. If not for the two extraordinary practitioners of the Farmer's Path in the team, he would have thrown a stone at every plant to test it.

Whether because yesterday's cleaning or because the mutated extraordinary beings here follow the extraordinary property aggregation law in their battles, Rekedun and his companions encountered no extraordinary animals besides that fish monster.

"Hold on, the air ahead is filled with some hallucinogenic toxic gas," Wusel announced, halting their advance.

He then took a transparent glass bottle from his pack, filled with many red pills, and handed out one pill to each of the four.

"These are antidote pills, just made last night; they can counter most toxins here, but one only lasts twenty minutes. We must keep track of time and take them continuously, without interruption," Wusel explained.

"No problem," Mr. Kesi and Rekedun both nodded.

"Then let's set off; I sense several strong life forces inside, we must be careful," Wusel said while pulling out a handful of unknown seeds from his pack and scattering them around.

Rekedun held a gun in one hand, a restraint talisman in the other, stayed behind Mr. Kesi, and walked side by side with Jin of the Earth Church, both advancing while watching behind them.

This area is criss‑crossed with many vines, like a huge spider‑web.

Since entering this area, Rekedun has felt a faint, unseen gaze watching him, yet he can't locate its direction.

After hesitating for a moment, Leiketon still voluntarily used the Secret-Viewing Eye; the surrounding view instantly became cloaked in a thick layer of colored patches, most of them green in varying shades, interspersed with some red and purple patches.

On every intertwined vine around him, it seemed as if life existed; within Leiketon's Secret-Viewing Eye vision, they contracted and expanded at a steady pace, and the vines acted as a whole, their contraction and expansion rhythms exactly identical.

Staring at the vines, Leiketon seemed to see a pair of blood‑red eyes behind them, gazing back at him.

(End of chapter)