episode_0256

I made a simple belt using what I had in the bathroom.

I was planning on attaching bottled water to my pants using tape.

Even if you put it in your pocket, you won’t be able to carry a few of them.

I wondered if this was the right thing to do, but it didn’t last long.

There was no longer an option to go back.

I had no intention of feeling reassured that I had enough information.

It was time to move on, for something only I could do.

“The height is only 100m, so it will end up as a line to get to and from the neighborhood.”

Since it is a mountain near the city, there are probably hiking trails.

So there was no need to worry about going up.

You’ll have to worry about how you can get down.

Well, it seemed like it would work out somehow. So far, there has never been a time when it didn’t work out.

So the worries didn’t last long.

I hung a few bottles of water around my waist and left the county office building.

It was clearly visible where the mountain was.

All you had to do was look straight back at the county office building.

“Okay, let’s go.”

I thought it would be better to hurry.

This place was open, so I felt uneasy in many ways.

Especially since climbing the mountain doesn’t mean it’s over.

So, without hesitation, I increased my speed and ran towards the mountain.

I was planning to speed up like this and run up the mountain.

In the past, this would have been unthinkable.

How many people can run up a mountain?

But now I had the stamina to do it.

Rather, it would have been better to avoid the unfortunate event of being caught by other insects while moving slowly.

“It will turn.”

Even so, climbing up was not easy.

It’s not like I can’t breathe and can’t move, but it’s still hard.

Moreover, I must have taken a wrong turn, and the slope going up was no joke.

Because my body is strong, I can just hold on and climb up. If I were weak, I would have definitely climbed up a long time ago.

Well, if you think about it, it wasn’t a bad thing at all.

Thanks to this, hatred towards that damn Margrave was building up.

I don’t know if it’s a tree or a zombie, but the moment I see it, I plan on swinging my baton.

They’re going to dig it up right down to the roots so it can never grow again.

How much did you climb like that? About 10 to 15 minutes?

I frowned and looked at the trees around me to calculate the height.

Since I had been running for a while, I thought I would probably have reached the halfway point.

So, it was a moment when I thought I could just go a little further.

“… Ah?”

Suddenly something sharp shot out in front of me.

I quickly stopped running and grabbed onto a nearby tree to support myself.

I felt like I would have gotten seriously hurt if I had walked forward without thinking much.

It appeared as if someone had set a trap.

“Are there any survivors on the mountain?”

I muttered, looking closely at something sharp.

stem… It seemed the same, but it seemed like it would hurt once it got stabbed.

If you look at the information written in the notebook, it may seem unlikely, but it is not entirely impossible.

Otherwise, there’s no way something like this would exist.

“Anyway, it’s dangerous wherever you go.”

It could have been a mistake to let down my guard just because it was a mountain.

So I tried to move forward again, but my hand wouldn’t come off.

Then I realized that something sticky was coming out of the tree.

It didn’t come off as if my hand was covered in glue.

“… What is it?”

Now that I think about it, that sharp stem a little while ago was also strange.

It seemed like it had grown naturally rather than being artificially cut by a person.

As my thoughts reached this point, I remembered what was written in my notebook.

You know why, they say plants grow strangely and eat people.

“It’s going to turn!”

I used all my strength to pull my hand away.

Fortunately, there were no unfortunate incidents such as skin tearing.

If it didn’t open well, I was going to pour water on it.

Anyway, it was now clear that we had to make the right move.

And not only were you not allowed to move, you were not to touch any of the plants on the mountain.

At the same time, it was a pain in the ass to have to move properly to avoid traps.

But I couldn’t help it. Since I had come this far, going down was also a funny thing.

So I gritted my teeth and continued climbing the mountain.

And the process of climbing the mountain was never easy.

Even if you don’t touch the plants, it’s not like you can avoid the trap.

Suddenly sharp leaves fall from the sky.

Don’t the thorns shoot out or the ground break away and the roots inside become exposed?

The sticky sticks stuck to the fruit and caused trouble, or the fruit burst and the seeds spilled out like grenades.

Thanks to this, I was so irritated the whole way up that I felt like I was going to die.

I don’t even know where Margrave is. I lost my way.

I can still hear the sound of insects moving around.

The trap continues to operate. If you avoid it, time will be wasted again.

Then, when I reached the top, I was so angry.

“But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get anything at all.”

I smiled bitterly and gritted my teeth.

There was a tree growing at the top that was so huge that it was strange to anyone who saw it.

To be honest, I wondered if that could even be called a tree.

Anyone could see that it was not a tree but closer to a human being.

It reminded me of a science fiction novel I read a while ago.

In the novel, the main character was a white male farmer.

And the farmer was so lonely that he seemed determined to find a wife for himself.

Did you receive a seed that, if planted like that, would turn you into a woman, and grow it?

And that seed is a green-skinned woman.

If the woman in that novel were in front of me, it would be like that.

Or, it would have been nice to say it was a statue made of wood.

The inside of a huge tree was roughly hollowed out, and a woman was carved inside.

Whatever it was, the fact that it was Margrave didn’t change.

“Once you kill them, everything will work out.”

I slowly relaxed my hands.

And instead of Cheonmachong, he took out a baton and held it again.

If I swung the sword incorrectly, it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to get it out.

Margrave showed no reaction whether I did this or not.

Maybe it was because it was a plant.

There’s no way they could see me like this in the first place.

So I walked toward the Margrave with peace of mind.

And he was about to smash it with his baton, but suddenly Margrave opened his eyes.

“… What, what?!”

I distanced myself a bit to take a moment to look at the situation.

It would have been nice to rush in and destroy it right now, but I wasn’t sure.

Even though it is a plant, it is noble in appearance.

Instead of properly destroying it, I could have been cornered.

Of course, examining the situation was the right choice.

It was a reasonable decision. Anyone else would have chosen to watch for a moment.

But for some reason, I felt uneasy.

I was convinced that if I didn’t do something now, I would get seriously hurt.

“… Oh, I don’t know!”

In the end, I chose to run forward.

It doesn’t seem like there’s something that nullifies regeneration like Ahn Hae-jin did.

If we got scared and left here, no one knew what would happen next.

So, I put as much strength into my hands as I could and swung the baton.

I thought it applied quite a bit of force, but it didn’t do much damage.

There was nothing other than a part of the Margrave’s shell that was crushed.

The Margrave, on the other hand, took no action.

He just quietly opened his eyes and looked at me.

I stood blankly for a moment and looked at it.

A very large tree that looks like it has grown for hundreds of years.

And a woman who seems to have been carved into the stem.

Even this was strange, but the woman opened her eyes and was looking at me.

But it didn’t move.

It’s as if he had his eyes open from the beginning.

So it was hard to bear.

It would have been better if he had shown some kind of reaction.

“… Does it just feel like control?”

That’s why, I’ve seen it in some games.

I don’t know if it’s Over or Hive, but in any case, it’s about leading a race.

So, instead of having no combat ability, there could have been something transcendent.

… But was there such a variant in the original?

I gathered as much knowledge as I could about the original.

But I couldn’t remember anything. There really was nothing.

In a way, it was natural.

In the first place, it was said that there were no such plant-like zombies in the original work.

Noh Chang-Hoon How can I find out something that only exists in my head?

But I had to find out.

Or take it down.

Whatever it was, there was a need to act.

“… Honestly, I didn’t want to use this method.”

I slowly inserted the baton and smiled brightly.

Then he put down his headset and took out a lighter from his pocket.

“It’s about the environment anyway. Humanity is on the verge of extinction. What will happen?”

It was a simple thing to think about.

Since the Margrave in front of me was a plant anyway, it seemed like it would be weak to fire.

It didn’t matter that I wasn’t weak to fire.

There is a forest fire, can you survive on that mountain?

All you can do is quietly become firewood.

I thought so and nodded.

If Noh Chang-hoon had been next to me, I would have stopped him, but Noh Chang-hoon was not next to me right now.

So, after thinking about it for a while longer, I turned on the lighter.

Then he threw it on the ground and started watching it catch fire.