Clues in the Sound

He crouched beside the giant man-eating flower's corpse, examining every detail.

He parted its charred petals to inspect the structure inside, cut open its thick stem with a knife to study the fibers, and scanned it several times with [Item Appraisal].

"Find anything?" Kade asked.

"A lot," Xia Lin said with a frown. "And none of it makes sense."

He pointed to an organ deep inside the flower. It looked like a vocal sac.

"Look here. Normal man-eating flowers don't have anything like this. It's designed to produce resonant frequencies, much like a bard uses his voice and magic to cast [Song of Courage]."

"But how could a plant do that?" Celia asked.

"That's why I said it doesn't make sense." Xia Lin stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. "This isn't natural evolution."

"It was designed," Sera added coldly. "Someone is breeding them."

The conclusion cast a pall over the group.

"We'll worry about that later," Xia Lin said. "We need to move. There's an area ahead packed with Oddish. We'll go around."

This time, they had no intention of stirring up trouble. Celia took the lead, murmuring a prayer.

"Night is a silent cradle. May your anger rest awhile..." she chanted softly, casting [Midnight Solace].

An invisible wave of Divine Art spread over the Oddish ahead.

The plants, which had been swaying their leaves alertly, seemed to settle at once. Their movements grew slow and docile, their "eyes" half-closed as though they were drifting off to sleep.

She cast another spell.

[Penumbral Veil]

A faint shadow settled over the whole party like a thin gauze, blending their figures into the surroundings.

"Let's go. Quietly."

They carefully skirted the Oddish.

The soothed plants merely swayed their leaves, oblivious to the intruders passing right under their noses.

Following the