I Am A Carnivorous Plant

A bunch of awkward walking and half a day later, we finally made it to a new section of the woods. Apparently this was the spot that Til meant for us to cut through, and honestly, I was completely all for it. I mean, I just spent days feeling super crazy uncomfortable for no visible reason all because some dumb Spirit stole a bit of land, so coming back into the woods basically felt like coming back home and snuggling myself under comfy comfy covers! Yeah, it was exactly like that, except uhhhm this part of the forest was looking really different than anywhere I’d been so far.

 

Seems like we stumbled into the mycotic jungle level of the forest. Yup.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I freaking loved it. The place was cute as hell, and the mushrooms were crazy cool to look at. There were gigantic mushrooms as tall as the trees in the treant’s forest all covering up the sky, with a bunch of variety to them, too! I’m sure the place was dark, but just like in the swamp we’d recently left, a lot of the moss and mushrooms here were of the glow-in-the-dark variety, so it was actually more on the lit up side, although I worried a little bit for Til’s eyes.

 

=You can see just fine in here, right? Or do you need me to pick you up and bring you through here?=

 

I was just trying to be considerate, you know? This was by no means yet another attempt to pick him up just because I really really liked doing it! Not at all! But yeah, doesn’t seem like Til was gonna let me get away with it once again, because he just kept on moving forward like it wasn’t even the slightest bit dark.

 

“I’m fine; I can see well enough with dim lighting.”

 

=Oh, okay. Didn’t know elves came with such good night vision!=

 

“... I do.”

 

Huh. And what the heck was that supposed to mean? Is this another one of those ‘he’s just special’ deals again? Ahhh, but I’m afraid to ask if that’s what’s happening now, since he got all snippy with me before! Eh, whatever. We’re about to make it to where the elves live anyways, so I can just ask some other elf there. If it’s some kind of universal ‘elves hate it when you ask that kinda thing’ question, then at least I won’t be dropping any more points with Til, you know?

 

Anyways, it didn’t take us very long to come across some of the inhabitants of this place. There were a bunch of spores floating around, which I hadn’t really given much thought to while we were moving along, but apparently they’re actually really dangerous! Case in point: A big bear covered in random bits of fungus came running over to us, followed by a small pack of wolves whose bodies were simply blossoming with ‘shrooms.

 

And from the looks of it, they were all on the same team!

 

I took on the bear while Til took on the wolves. Seems the funguses that they were infected with weren’t making them think of any kind of self preservation or anything, so they charged at us wildly even while Til set his sword on fire. You’d think that would make this a really really easy fight, since they’re obviously not in their right minds, and in a way, I find this to be super similar to the effects of my camellia flower, you know? So definitely I have the upper hand here, but I can say from experience that things that aren’t in their right minds get significantly stronger. It’s that thing, you know? The lack of your brain holding you back? Basically the animals are braindead, but they hit like trucks.

 

Really what I’m trying to say that they’re like zombies.

You should never underestimate a zombie!

 

Anyhoo, I trusted Til to take on the wolves now that I’d seen him fight all of those foxes, so it was time for my one on one with the bear! If I said I wasn’t excited for it I’d definitely be lying, because I actually really wanted to test my strength against one again. I’m significantly stronger than I was the last time I fought a bear, and these things and the cats have kind of become like my benchmark for me measuring how strong I’ve gotten! So yeah, I’m definitely gonna wrassle with it!

 

Come heeere beaaar~!

Come right into my loving embrace!

 

Well no, I guess it’s not really an embrace, since I won’t actually be hugging it, huh? I mean, I’d have to be an idiot to let that bear with its sharp claws get within swinging distance. Maybe the term ‘back hug’ would be a better one? Spooning, maybe? Yeah just like how I did with that very first bear I fought with. I even managed to ride it like a horse for a little while, wrapping my tendrils around his neck like horse reigns and driving him along. Let me tell you, if I didn’t have some of my other tendrils and root-feet wrapped around his middle, then I for sure would have gotten bucked off by now. Now that I think about it, it was definitely more like a bucking bronco than riding a horse, huh? Although I don’t think it would be very different, you know, between a bull trying to buck you off and a horse, right? But I guess when I think-

 

Oh, Til’s over there giving me a ‘hurry up’ look.

I feel like a kid on one of those mechanical horse rides at the store with their mom impatiently waiting for them to finish.

Okayyy, I guess this was starting to get a bit boring anyways...

 

So long bear, I had a blast~!

 

Just like I did with the lizard a few days ago, I popped the bear’s head off. Truth be told, I was a little bit worried that the shrooms on him would keep him alive somehow, like a true zombie, but thankfully that’s not the case and he died almost immediately. Well, I guess zombies do drop dead when you decapitate them, so maybe that wasn’t the best test of zombie-ness that I could have done? Oh well.

 

I snuck a shroomy little wolf or two into my mouth before I left the rest of them for Til to eat. At first I was a little concerned that the mushrooms on them would infest us like it did them if we ate them, but Til assured me that they wouldn’t have any effect on us, since we were ‘the ilk of the Spirit of the Forest’ or whatever fantasy crap he said, so that’s nice. Means I get to have my first meals with mushroom toppings in this life! How neat~!

 

But plant, I hear you say, did it enhance the flavor at all?

No, no it did not, because I literally have no sense of taste!

And as for the nutrients: There was absolutely no change!

 

You’d think I would have gotten some amount of extra nutrients from eating those mushrooms, but apparently the answer is no. It’s probably because I get literally nothing from eating other plants. I’m carnivorous after all, not omnivorous! I just don’t have those kinds of options in me!

 

Well I say all that, but if those mushrooms had a bunch of magic in them, then that probably would have been a different story.

 

After my teensy appetizer of wolves, I started on my main course of bear. Of course, the pre-separated bear head got eaten first. I dropped it right into my wide open mouth, all in one piece! It’s the first time I’ve gotten to do something like that with such large prey, so it made me really happy, you know? I can truly tell how much growing I’ve done, just with that one move! Well, that one move and also the fact that I’m completely stronger than the bear now. Oh, and also the fact that I could decapitate it easily.

 

You know what? Just forget I even said anything!

 

I started slowly breaking down the bear into more manageable pieces for consumption, and I could see Til setting up a small fire to roast the last two uneaten wolves a short distance away. I stopped what I was doing and just watched him for a while blankly, just enjoying the fantasy-like rustic scene. Sure, I’d seen him do this plenty ever since we first set out together, but for whatever reason the scene of him doing little busywork like this always just felt charming to me somehow. I don’t know, just an elf making a fire and cooking was a surreal thought to me. It’d be like watching a dwarf tending to their garden maybe, or an orc building a house. Just one of those things you wouldn’t expect to watch, I guess.

 

Maybe it’s too simple for some people, but seeing such unexpected scenes was really relaxing to me, even if I’d seen this one a bunch of times already.

 

“...Is something wrong, L’Lan’e’frea?”

 

Huh? Oh! I guess he caught me peeking this time! He’s looking at me kinda doubtfully, isn’t he? What can I say that wouldn’t be super obvious? Should I ask him a question? But what could I ask that wouldn't piss him off like last time? Ummm ummm-

 

I caught sight of the bear and wolves again with my conscious vision, and managed to slam a question together.

 

=Uhhh, so why did these guys attack us like that?=

 

Til’s eyebrows scrunched a bit like he thought my question was silly, but soon he gave up on trying to understand my lack of knowledge and simply answered my question as he got back to work.

 

“Well, I’m sure they were being controlled by the hypnotic fungi growing on them to attack any non-controlled thing that they see. It’s one of the defense mechanisms in this place, meant to keep intruders away. The spores here may not affect us because we’re a part of the forest, as I said, but everything else that wanders in here gets slowly infected by them and begins to grow the hypnotic fungi on their bodies, just like these beasts did. It’s quite the effective defense I’d say, and probably the only reason that the Spirit of Wind hasn’t tried to take it over yet; It would be a terrible crisis if the avatar it put so much of its energy into were to change sides, after all.”

 

Oh okay, so it’s basically a zombie thing like what I guessed. Sure sure. But wait a minute, if the fungus attacked these guys-

 

=So then the bear and the wolves aren’t a part of the forest like us?=

 

Til’s hands came to a stop, and he blinked at me confused for a moment.

 

“What? Of course they’re not. If they were, we wouldn’t be eating them like this.”