The Gift of the Rot Spirit Flower

The blazing sun hung high.

The rainy season had just passed, and it was the leisurely time after planting on the island.

Ned had a chance to rest, helping his wife take care of the child.

But.

His wife Yami immediately refused.

"God, Ned, I don't want you watching the kid."

"If the child comes out of your hands unscathed, I'll thank heaven and earth."

"Last time you put him up in a tree, fell asleep underneath yourself, and the kid cried up there for half the day while you, dead asleep, didn't even twitch."

Yami hugged the child with a resentful look, continuing to complain about something.

"Besides, I've never seen a father compete with his child for a slingshot. You're a father now—can't you be a little more mature?"

Faced with that merciless criticism.

Ned just let out a few dry, guilty laughs.

Of course.

What his wife said was true.

He sometimes really did fail as a father.

Even though he had become a father.

The wild streak in his bones hadn't faded one bit.

"I'll go to the woods and find some vines, weave a bigger new backpack—that'll make carrying the kid easier."

Using that as an excuse, Ned fled from his still-nagging wife.

He reached the forest.

Then slowly stepped onto the familiar grass glowing with a faint blue haze.

Deep in this dense woods.

It was very cool.

Even the mosquitoes couldn't invade this sacred ground.

Because if they dared fly in, they'd immediately be parasitized by the Rot Spirit Mycelium floating in the air, becoming servants of the divine envoy.

The ground was littered with dead insects or ones transforming into rot spirits.

The quiet, cool scent of decay always made him feel intoxicated and at ease.

So.

Ned couldn't help but lie down flat.

Even though he'd promised his wife he'd weave a new backpack.

"I'll take a quick nap first, then get to work when night comes."

Ned looked at the midday sun piercing through the trees and yawned involuntarily.

Though there was still work to do.

He thought it over.

And in the end, chose to sleep first.

The blazing noon sun just killed his motivation.

So he planned to rest a while in the forest, sleep until evening.

Ned closed his eyes, his consciousness slowly sinking.

The faint blue haze floated in the darkness.

It reminded him of his childhood.

Ever since he was little.

He'd always loved sleeping beside the Rot Spirit Flower.

It made him sleep with absolute peace.

As serene as if he were dead.

Ned fell asleep.

In his dream, he came to this pale blue forest.

And hazy mist surrounded the entire woods.

As if he were the only one here.

Just then.

In that blurry mist, he suddenly spotted the figure of a child.

"Who are you?"

Ned asked instinctively.

He could vaguely sense that the other's aura was familiar.

Yet for some reason, he couldn't clearly discern their identity.

The child did not answer.

Only quietly, in that hazy obscurity, spread open a palm.

"Is there something you want to give me?"

Ned crouched down curiously.

In that tender hand, a faint blue glow appeared.

As if possessed by some magical allure, urging him to reach out and touch it.

He instinctively grasped the child's pale hand.

In an instant, the pale blue haze on the palm flowed onto his body.

At that moment.

He suddenly realized.

All the haziness before him dissipated.

He couldn't help but lift his head.

A pair of beautiful pale blue pupils were gazing at him.

In that instant their eyes met.

Within those pale blue pupils.

He saw a reflected world.

It was an immensely distant dark world, shimmering with scattered specks of light.

Just like the endless starry sky.

And at the end of that starry sky.

A figure too majestic for words stood far off, towering there.

A strangely gentle light, unlike anything he had ever seen, slowly radiated from behind that figure at the end.

It was not the light of the sun or the moon.

Nor any kind of light in the mortal world.

Rather, it was all the colors of the world.

All light miraculously converged and condensed there.

In the end, the flowing colors became an infinite color that surpassed the stars.

Yet.

That color, which had merged everything in the world, quietly turned into a cloak, gently draped over the shoulders of that great and hazy figure, fluttering behind Him as the flowing colors ceaselessly drifted.

Beneath the brilliant radiance constantly emanating from that towering figure.

Even the darkness seemed to submit, gradually turning illusory.

And so.

Ned also fell to his knees uncontrollably.

As if involuntarily prostrating himself before that figure.

His body trembled incessantly, nearly feeling his will collapse under the brilliance of that light.

That was because.

A mortal, glimpsing a trace of a deity's countenance through the eyes of a divine envoy, could not help but experience a soul-deep shudder.

And in that shudder of the soul.

He finally understood something.

He knew.

In this world.

Only one existence could correspond to that great figure at the end of the starry sky.

"God!"

In the midst of extreme trembling and terror, Ned couldn't help but cry out in ecstatic joy.

He realized what the figure reflected in those pupils was.

He also understood the identity of the child before him.

But before he could say anything more.

The dazzling radiance had already swallowed him.

His soul felt a stinging pain.

At the same time.

A silvery, bell-like whisper sounded in his ear, revealing the power that was about to descend upon him.

After the most crucial knowledge slowly entered his mind.

The endless radiance.

Slowly dissipated.

Who knows how long passed.

Ned jolted awake.

He sat up.

Gasping heavily.

Then suddenly felt something inexplicably in his hand.

Ned hurriedly looked at his hand.

A short staff, like a stone flower.

Lay peacefully in his palm.

When he saw that the thing from his dream was truly in his hand.

His heart seemed to stop in that moment.

"A gift bestowed by the god's messenger?"

Ned still couldn't believe it.

Like a stone statue, he sat dazed on the grass for a long time.

He recalled everything from the dream.

Until a Rot Spirit Insect crawled past his eyes.

Ned snapped back to reality.

In the end, he couldn't suppress the desire in his heart.

Hesitantly, he raised the staff.

Then stabbed it into his palm.

That was how the Rot Spirit Flower in the dream had taught him to use this gift.

After the sting.

A single drop of blood sank into the staff.

In that instant.

Countless unfamiliar sensations flooded into Ned's mind—

The faint tremor of the ant nest underground.

The Giant Cockroach laying eggs thirty paces away.

The far more distant, intensely foul stench of corrosive acid.

He frantically threw the staff away.

Those sensations vanished instantly.

"This feeling... it's like... I've become an insect."

Ned marveled at the sensation of turning into a bug, a strange, indescribable dissonance spreading through his body.

But for some reason.

He inexplicably picked up the staff again.

Through constant sensing.

He quickly grew familiar with the power.

As if he were naturally gifted at it.

Then.

He instinctively pressed his head to the grass, using a strange, unfamiliar organ that didn't exist in his body, and sent out a signal like an insect.

A rustling sound came from the grass.

Several rotting Centipedes slowly crawled over and gathered at his feet.

Seeing this, Ned struggled to contain his excitement.

He extended a finger.

"Go over there!"

His finger pointed toward the woods on the other side.

Those few centipedes were like his soldiers.

With their nimble legs, they all changed direction in unison, darting toward where his finger pointed, deep into the forest.

Even though they had already completely left Ned's sight.

Ned could still sense them.

Those insects were carrying out some task according to his commands.

"Even though I can't see them, I can perceive that they're right there, like my own limbs."

Ned stroked his chest, where his heart pounded wildly, his breathing a little ragged.

From initial disbelief to doubt.

Finally.

A strange excitement kept surging into his heart.

Just like that.

He was like a greedy child who had gotten his hands on a beloved toy.

Immersed in this fresh and wondrous thing.

He experimented from noon all the way until evening, endlessly delighted by it.

He quickly grasped and understood something:

Controlling three insects was far from his limit.

The smaller the insect.

The farther he could command it.

If he pushed to the limit.

He could probably order seven or eight tiny bugs to carry out his commands a hundred meters away.

This powerful ability to manipulate Rot Spirit Insects.

Was precisely the gift of the Messenger of the Gods.

Ned was so excited he couldn't sleep.

He immediately threw on his linen clothes and leaped out of the bushes in one stride.

He wanted to tell this astonishing good news to his younger brother and father.

But unexpectedly, those rotting centipedes chased after his heels, giving him a huge fright.

"Don't follow me, go back."

In the end, he had to issue another command with his staff to barely drive the Centipede Rot Spirits away for the time being.

Letting out a sigh of relief, he immediately ran toward the cave.

But his running speed gradually slowed.

Then turned into walking.

Finally.

He paced back and forth in front of the cave, a trace of hesitation showing on his face.