The harmless disposal of the Blood Corpse is in full swing, while hundreds of kilometers away on the outskirts of Fir City, a figure is acting with impunity.
The Dark Archmage walked through the lush, dense forest; the low temperatures of late autumn had no effect on the plants.
She stepped on the thick layer of fallen leaves, making a rustling sound, and the surrounding environment gave her a sense of satisfaction.
No NPCs, no other players, just one person acting alone, doing whatever they want...
This is why she likes to act alone. For someone with social anxiety, these moments don't bring her any fear or loneliness; all she feels is pure freedom.
The socially awkward Soul Returner was completely uninhibited at this moment, sometimes taking photos to record the surrounding hills and sometimes observing whether there were any types of plants he had never seen before.
As he passed a certain spot, the [ Dark Archmage ] sensed a change in the environment—it was too quiet all around.
This is not surprising, after all, in the jungle of World of Disorder, quiet never means safety.
The Deadwood Vine remains silent when it is about to strike, the "Plum Blossom" Deer remains silent when it is lying in ambush, and the monsters hiding in the trees, in the soil, and by the river look like nothing more than a motionless branch or dead wood before they launch their attack.
Realizing he hadn't heard the wind rustling through the leaves for a while, the [ Dark Archmage ] instantly snapped into battle mode.
She immediately went from relaxed to tense, arching her body and quickly disappearing into the low bushes.
Carefully lying down on the ground, the [ Dark Archmage ] placed his hand on a rather thick tree beside him.
After a brief negotiation, the massive tree, which would require three or four people to encircle, agreed to the gift of her life force and would become her external "ears" for the next five minutes.
[The creature "Giant Eucalyptus Tree" has agreed to your trade request, granting you the following enhancement buffs: Constitution +3, Willpower +3, Plant Compatibility +2, Duration: 5 minutes.]
Watching his health bar silently drop by half, the [ Dark Archmage ] closed his eyes and began to focus on sensing the movements around him.
Having received the enhancement buff, she felt as if she had instantly become sharp-witted and perceptive. Every leaf of the tree around her became a sensor that detected the slightest vibrations. Within a radius of a hundred meters, even the faint sound of a Thorn Rat crawling across a dead leaf was now crystal clear to her.
With such powerful perception, the [ Dark Archmage ] finally located the sound that shouldn't have been in the dense forest—the sound of conversation.
chat?
How could anyone be talking in such a dense forest?
Five minutes later, the [ Dark Archmage ] opened his eyes, eating food to recover health while pondering the problem.
This place isn't far from Fir City, so it's not surprising that there are Fir City patrols nearby.
But that was the case in the past, and it doesn't apply to Fir City now.
During this time, [ Dark Archmage ] used her offline time to watch the fake Holy Crusaders' siege and conquest, and then she came to a conclusion:
The people of this world, at least those who Tree Worship Church, seem to have completely degenerated when it comes to defending cities.
To verify his idea, the [ Dark Archmage ] consulted a lot of relevant information in the real world and confirmed that his conjecture was correct.
Regardless of the country or civilization, the so-called "defense of a city" is far more than just holding the line. In addition to the basic task of defending the city walls, it usually requires many other things, such as sending out scouts to confirm the direction of the enemy's movements and communicating with other cities.
But in the Tree Worship Church, what everyone seems to be doing is simply defending the city in the literal sense.
The fake Holy Crusaders have captured three towns, but none of the three bishops, the nominal rulers of these towns, have chosen to send out scouts to investigate the Blood Corpse operation or to make any contact with each other and promise to protect one another. They have simply defended the towns and held on!
Upon realizing this, even the complete novice, the [ Dark Archmage ], thought they were incredibly foolish. But if it was Archbishop Antiya Lisi's intention, everything seemed to make sense.
However, Antiya Lisi's motives for doing so were somewhat illogical. Moreover, after trying to deduce for a long time, she still couldn't figure out the identities of the people who were communicating. Furthermore, due to the distance, the translation function was of no help, leaving her completely unaware of what these people were saying.
Just as the [ Dark Archmage ] was about to heal herself and then make another deal with the giant eucalyptus tree beside her, she suddenly felt a tickle in her nose.
A tuft of grayish-white fluff with seeds landed on the tip of her nose.
The Dark Archmage was absolutely certain that he hadn't seen any plants that resembled dandelions or reeds along the way, and there was no wind in the forest. So where did this thing come from?
Alarm bells rang in her mind, and she took a barely perceptible step back, holding her breath as she tried to avoid the small tuft of downy feathers that was falling.
However, things did not go as she wished. The fluffy tuft of seeds seemed to have a mind of its own and managed to sneak into her nasal cavity during her barely perceptible breath.
The moment the fluffy substance touched the warm, moist mucous membrane, it dissolved on its own, turning into a gel-like substance that fixed the seed to the [ Dark Archmage's ] nasal cavity.
The Dark Archmage's Plant Compatibility was already very high. For a plant without consciousness, it was like a walking greenhouse. Therefore, the plant immediately began to take root and sprout, and within a few breaths, it had completely blocked her right nostril.
Realizing something was wrong, the Soul Returner had already put its hand in front of its nose, waiting for the evil plant to sprout so it could be uprooted.
However, the plant seemed to sense her thoughts and turned to burrow deeper into her nasal cavity, quickly blocking the other nostril as well.
The need for breathing is not as obvious for those Soul Returner as for ordinary people. With the help of symbiotic plants, they can even swim underwater for more than ten minutes at a time.
So things aren't as serious as they seem, but being parasitized by a plant is still a problem.
[ Dark Archmage ] is not afraid of death. As a player who loves exploring the map, she has died countless times. If it weren't for the insurance offered by Seraphina and the long-term quest issued by Ed to collect new plant species, she might have gone bankrupt long ago.
Before choosing to abandon this body, she hoped to obtain more useful information.
Just then, she heard a series of hurried but clear footsteps beside her.