Allies and Bees

"Tch, this damned place." Odin muttered under his breath and raised his left hand to wipe his face.

His palm was covered in droplets. He couldn't tell whether they were condensed mist or sweat.

He had been wandering through the fog for about twenty minutes.

Odin had tried using the Rabbit Talisman's high-speed movement to explore an area quickly, but soon gave up.

The fog was too thick. Moving faster only made things more dangerous.

Once, he had charged straight into a swamp. Luckily, he hadn't stopped to check his surroundings, or he would have been stuck in it by now.

His soles had already sunk halfway into the muck.

Fortunately, he was fast enough to race straight across the surface.

"Leave the specialist work to the specialists." Remembering how easy things had been when he followed Satotz, he couldn't help grumbling inwardly again. I'm just an ordinary college student. What do I know about wilderness survival?

Still, the past few months of physical training and theoretical study hadn't been entirely useless.

At least he could now recognize ground that was too dark and might be swamp, or plants whose shapes were too uniform and might be mimicking creatures.

Like that clump of "bushes" on his right.

Odin stopped and narrowed his eyes at the indistinct shadow in the fog.

It looked like an ordinary cluster of low trees with dense foliage, but a closer look revealed that every leaf tilted slightly in the same direction, as if listening for something.

And it was too still.

The other plants nearby swayed gently as the mist drifted past, but that clump of "bushes" didn't move at all.

Odin bent down, picked up a fist-sized stone, weighed it in his hand, then hurled it at the "bushes."

The stone traced an arc through the air.

Just before it struck the foliage.

The "bushes" came alive.

The entire plant sprang upward, exposing a circular maw packed with sharp teeth underneath!

It swallowed the stone in one bite, with a sharp crunch.

It was a Mimic Snake disguised as a bush. It was smaller than the Ambush Giant Frogs Odin had encountered earlier, but just as deadly.

After swallowing the stone, the Mimic Snake seemed to realize something was wrong. Its head turned from side to side, its bulging eyes glowing a dull yellow in the fog.

Odin had already retreated five meters, holding his knife across his body.

The Mimic Snake spotted him.

Its body began to swell. The markings mimicking moss and leaves rapidly faded from its skin, revealing a slick, dark green surface beneath.

It mimics things with its scales?!

Odin was astonished, marveling at the wonders of this world.

The Mimic Snake's muscles tensed as it prepared to pounce.

Odin didn't run.

He watched the Mimic Snake's movements, and within the Rabbit Talisman's altered perception of time, the world slowed down once more.

The Mimic Snake's slingshot-like motion broke down into individual frames: how its muscles contracted, how its force traveled, the angle at which its body leaned forward...

Now.

Odin stepped half a pace to the left with his left foot, tilting his body along with it.

Almost simultaneously, the Mimic Snake shot toward him. Its enormous, slime-covered maw skimmed past his right shoulder, filling his nose with a foul stench.

Odin gave it no chance. Before the Mimic Snake landed, he drove the knife in his right hand hard into its eye.

The tip pierced the soft eyeball with a faint wet pop.

The Mimic Snake let out a piercing hiss, its body thrashing violently as its tail lashed toward him like a whip.

Odin ducked in advance. The tail swept just past his short hair, the gust stirring his black locks.

Thud-

The wounded Mimic Snake crashed into the muddy water, writhing wildly and tearing the surrounding low bushes to pieces.

Odin backed away to a safe distance and watched it thrash.

There was no need to finish it off. Killing it would gain him nothing.

This creature was tenacious, but losing an eye would severely diminish both its aggression and its accuracy. It no longer posed a threat to him.

More importantly, he didn't want to waste his energy.

The Mimic Snake's hisses echoed through the fog, gradually fading into the distance.

Odin looked away and continued forward.

After about five minutes, another kind of sound came from the fog ahead.

It wasn't an animal's cry or footsteps, but some kind of... buzzing?

A dense, high-frequency vibration, like a large swarm of insects in flight.

A Deceitful Crow?!

Possibly, but-

Odin tightened his grip on his knife, slowed his steps, and cautiously approached the sound.

The fog thinned a little, bringing visibility up to about five meters.

He saw a figure standing with her back to him in a clearing ahead.

It was a girl.

She wore ordinary orange clothes, had green hair, and wore a tall yellow hat.

At the moment, she held her hands up, her fingers moving rapidly through the air as she made various unintelligible sounds.

A large swarm of bees flew around her.

They circled the girl, sometimes drawing close, sometimes trying to fly deeper into the fog as though something was attracting them.

The girl was clearly trying hard to control them, but without much success.

Her movements were becoming frantic.

Odin recognized her.

Ponzu.

Examinee number 246, the girl who controlled poisonous bees.

He had seen her during the tunnel marathon. She wasn't particularly fast, but her steps were light.

Later, he had also seen her at the edge of Demin Swamp, fanning her flushed face.

Now, it looked as though something was wrong with her bees.

Odin didn't reveal himself immediately.

He stayed at the edge of the fog and watched for a while, making sure there were no other dangers nearby-at least for now.

Ponzu tried a few more times, but the bees still wouldn't obey.

A few even began flying deeper into the fog, making her stamp her foot in frustration.

"Honestly... is the pollen here really that tempting?!"

Odin thought for a moment, then stepped out of the fog.

Ponzu detected him through her bees.

She spun around, raising both hands defensively in front of herself, her eyes as wary as a startled cat's.

Sensing their owner's emotions, the bees quickly flew back to her, circling above her head with a threatening buzz.

"Relax." Odin stopped and raised both hands to show he meant no harm. "I'm an examinee too. Number 48. Odin."

Ponzu stared at him for a few seconds, her gaze passing over the number badge on his chest before returning to his face.

She relaxed a little, but wasn't fully convinced. A Man-Faced Ape and some strange magical beasts had already fooled her before.

"I know you," she said, her voice tense as her gaze shifted back to the restless bees. "What do you want?"

"Want to team up?" Odin pointed at the swarm above her head.

Ponzu looked at Odin and asked, "You want me to guide you?"

Although it was a question, she sounded fairly certain.

Odin answered honestly. "Yes. I'm lost, and the Deceitful Crows are messing with my hearing. There's no way I can get out on my own. Your bees can guide us, and I can protect you. We both win."

Ponzu thought for a few seconds. Her gaze traveled over Odin once more before she finally nodded. "Deal. But I need to sort out the problem with these little ones first."

"Of course." Odin nodded. "What do we need to do?"

Ponzu pointed ahead and to the left. "About thirty meters that way, there should be one or more sources of pollen my bees love. But I'm not sure what dangers are ahead. Normally, if I weren't in a hurry, I'd investigate slowly myself. But right now-"

Ponzu didn't finish, but Odin understood what she meant.

He nodded. "You just need the flowers, right?"

The question caught Ponzu off guard, but then she hurriedly nodded.

Odin nodded and tightened his grip on his knife. "Wait here."

The Rabbit Talisman activated, and Odin vanished under Ponzu's astonished gaze.

Through the fog ahead, he could just make out a patch of low-lying ground.

A cluster of strange flowers grew in the middle of the hollow. Their petals were vivid purplish red and shaped like trumpets, with a faint fluorescent glow emanating from deep within their centers.

The sweet, rank smell was especially strong here, almost nauseating.

The ground around the flowers was noticeably darker. The soil was an unnatural black, as though it had been soaked in some liquid for a long time.

Odin didn't approach recklessly.

He crouched, picked up several small stones, and threw them toward different parts of the flower patch.

The first stone landed to the left of the flowers. The muddy ground sank slightly, but nothing unusual happened.

The second stone landed on the right, which was safe as well.

The third stone flew straight into the middle of the flowers-

The ground suddenly split open!

A vine as thick as a wrist shot out from underground, whipping toward the airborne stone like lightning.

Its surface was covered in fine barbs, and its tip split into four lobes, exposing serrated structures inside.

The vine "bit" the stone with a sharp crunch, then dragged it underground.

"A Man-Eating Flower Vine," Odin murmured.

He had read about this creature in books. It usually grew alongside highly attractive plants, preying on insects or small animals lured toward them.

And humans happened to fall within the Man-Eating Flower Vine's definition of small animals.

No! There's more than one.