After growing Puribloom in the village well and cesspits, I found myself feeling hungry. I’d been producing a lot of full-recovery potions too, and my recovery clearly wasn’t keeping up with my expenditure.
The well had apparently been contaminated as well — a few Puribloom petals had fallen and scattered around it. I pick them up and discreetly open a gap in my glove to touch them. As expected from something known as fertilizer, these taste quite good to me too. Now that the flowers are blooming, I don’t need to keep expending magical energy on them — and if I can receive the petals that the villagers won’t need for farming, it should make for a nice meal. …Could this be what you’d call a mutually beneficial relationship?
“Ma’am Witch, these petals are pretty, but what do you do with them?”
“They become fertilizer. …It’s a flower that converts things poisonous to people into nutrients that help plants grow.”
I’d been wondering how to convey that to Noel when Daon arrived and answered for me. Apparently he knows what Puribloom is. Then he’ll be able to use it properly without me having to explain.
Daon, unusually, had a sword at his hip. It suited him quite well — he looked nothing like a village chief from some rural backwater.
(Why does Daon have a sword… d-don’t tell me he’s found out I’m a monster and he’s going to cut me down…!?)
“Daon, why are you dressed for combat? Ma’am Witch looks worried too.”
“Ah… there have been a lot of animals coming around lately, so I need to be armed. They’re probably losing the survival competition up on the mountain. I’m going to reinforce the fence around the village, but I might be attacked on the way.”
Apparently animals that can’t keep up with the wasteland’s changes are fleeing and appearing near here. It would be like mountain bears coming down to human settlements when their food source disappears.
But in a sense, this might be an opportunity. I smile at Daon and point to myself. Let me handle that — that’s what I mean.
“Ma’am Witch is going to do it? …Right, you’ve only just recovered too, Daon.”
“The full-recovery potion has restored me completely. Ma’am Witch, you’re too kind — there’s no need to worry.”
(No, that’s not it… I’m just hungry…)
“…You have a plan, don’t you, ma’am Witch?”
Not exactly — but please, I very much need to be left alone. I give a firm nod and Noel nods back as if he understands.
“Daon, please leave it to ma’am Witch. Probably… there’s magic she can only do when no one else is around. When she defeated that beast before, she told me not to follow her either. She must have some incredible magic that could get people caught up in it if they’re nearby!”
(Well, I mean… I do have a voice that would kill anyone who heard it, so it’s not entirely wrong…?)
The trust Noel has in me is almost painful. I’m nothing but a cowardly little Mandrake, but to him I’m apparently a great and mighty Flower Witch.
Daon let out a resigned sigh, but his expression somehow looked satisfied — like something had clicked into place for him.
“That does sound like ma’am Witch. Understood — I’ll go alert the villagers to keep away. Noel, come help me.”
“Yes!”
I watched the two of them walk away, thought there are a lot of misunderstandings here, but it’s convenient this way, and headed outside the village. The village is enclosed by a wooden fence all the way around — apparently this is for protection against animals.
The fence has large outward-facing spikes, but there are limits to how much a wooden fence can hold. I’ll put in some effort here. …While hunting for food, incidentally.
(Though food comes first, I suppose… if I go toward the thicker growth, something will probably… come at me…)
Even knowing something will attack doesn’t stop me from being startled when it does. Shrieking at the slightest thing is just the nature of a Mandrake at this point — not being startled is essentially impossible. …Being startled is exhausting, and I’d honestly prefer not to be, but here we are. It feels rather like steeling yourself before entering a haunted house you know you hate.
So I crept nervously into the forest, and exactly as predicted, some kind of beast came leaping out at me and I screamed magnificently on the inside, and while screaming I entangled it with the hair-vines.
(Wh-whoa, this one’s really fighting back — hold still!!)
Locking the joints usually immobilizes an animal, but what’s attacking me now is a snake-like monster covered in fur, writhing and slipping to wriggle free of the vines. No choice but to seep medicine from the vines and subdue it. I couldn’t tell whether a sedative or a paralytic would work, so I tried pushing both from the vines onto the thrashing snake — but the creature is secreting some kind of body fluid that makes it slippery, and it keeps resisting. Whether the fluid is blocking the medicine or not, there’s no sign of it weakening.
(In a situation like this… inject it! Like a needle!)
I grow sharp-thorned plants from the vines. As the snake thrashes, the thorns dig in. Then I push medicine through the tips of the thorns — and even the snake finally starts to quiet, the medicine apparently making it inside.
Once it stops moving, I unwind my hair from it and lower it to the ground. The slipperiness is less like a snake and more like an eel, actually. …It would probably make delicious kabayaki. Not that I’d cook it — I absorb more nutrition without cooking — but still.
(That was genuinely terrifying… there’s no way a human could deal with something like that. And that fence would do nothing against it… something needs to be done.)
I touched the snake directly and found it quite nutritionally rich and good. This is just a feeling, but the stronger the monster, the more satisfied I feel afterward. I don’t have a stomach, so it’s not the same as a human’s sense of fullness, but — the feeling of being replenished is real. My spent magical energy should be restored with this.
(If that kind of thing is out there, the fence needs sharper thorns. I’ll grow those thorned plants along it. They’re dangerous, so I’ll have the villagers keep their hands off the fence…)
I reinforced the wooden fence around the village by growing thorned plants along it. The plant is called chain-rose — it has thorns that can wound even a monster’s body, but it blooms with beautiful roses, so the appearance isn’t bad at all. I was careful to grow the thorns facing outward only, with no spines on the inner side. The original fence had already been built as a kind of shield with wooden spikes facing outward, so I simply reinforced that.
…It does make the village look a little like it’s being encircled by thorns, a bit under the dominion of plants — but since it looks beautiful, it should probably be fine.
(I’ll instruct them to actively capture anything that comes through… but having no way to know when something’s been caught is inconvenient.)
Plants I’ve produced through Diversification continue to follow my orders faithfully as loyal servants even when I’m far away. So they’ll carry out an automatic capture just fine — but they have no way to report back that they’ve caught something.
(It would be nice to see from a distance. My body loses its connection to detached pieces once they’re separated — if I could keep a link to detached parts, that would work… oh.)
Immediately, the ping of a skill acquisition sounds. The text that appears reads: [Bifurcation] acquired. I’ve done it again — acquired a skill without meaning to. That leaves only 10 Evolution Points remaining.
(…But Bifurcation… does that mean I can multiply myself…?)