"Are you sure?" She pressed. He knew how to get in but not how to get out? This man was so reckless for the sake of his obsession for mutated plants...?
Then, they heard a rumbling sound.
Zerra shot up, thinking it was another earthquake. She hissed in the process, almost forgetting her injured foot.
A blush spread across Derek’s fair cheeks. She widened her eyes when her gaze landed on him.
It was the sound from his stomach, eh?
Derek nodded in embarrassment.
Anyway, her space ability wasn’t a secret anymore. She walked over to him, bringing out some pieces of bread and biscuits. Alas, she didn’t have any instant cooked food for a sick patient. She never stockpiled such food again since Cassias often cooked for her.
But... he wasn’t here.
She suddenly missed him... oh wait, no, she stopped herself. She missed his cooking, to be exact, not him.
It looked a little painful for him to eat because of the wounds on his hand, but he didn’t protest. After a bite, he seemed to realize something. "Your foot is injured?"
She glanced at her bandaged foot. "Only a minor wound."
Her mind went back to the mutated plant, which had cut into her shoes. It seemed the razor-sharp leaves actively went after her feet.
"Your condition is a lot more severe," she muttered. "If I hadn’t come, a vulture would have been waiting for you to die before eating you."
Derek fell silent for a moment, leaning against the damp cave walls. "Was there no tiger around?"
She shook her head, understanding he must have been worried about the tiger coming back with his current condition.
"It might have left because of the earthquake and landslides," she muttered. She thought about it. "How effective is your mutated animal repellent? Tell me the range and effect."
"It can spread at least a hundred meters. You can take it out of my bag. As for the effect, it’s effective for any mutated animals below that tiger’s level."
She took out the bottle of powder and some kind of potion from the bag. If it was effective for mutated animals below the tiger’s level... It meant that the animal repellent would work on most mutated animals.
"Will it work on zombies too?"
"Zombie?" Derek thought about it. "No, it won’t."
"How about zombie mutated animals?"
"It still works just fine for them too." He shrugged before grimacing in pain. "I don’t know the reason. These guys just explained it like that."
Zerra scrunched her face when she sniffed the bottle of powder. She seemed to recognize this scent. If she didn’t smell it wrong, it should be from the octopus monster. Unexpectedly, they had acquired some and made it into powder.
There were some other substances too, but she wasn’t sure what they were made of. They were mixed together to create the impression that a high-level beast was nearby.
No wonder it was quite effective.
She turned to the other bottle. It was a bottle filled with potion. The color was a little unsightly — dark green. Like swamp water.
"You might not want to try that one," Derek warned. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ novèlfire.net
She glanced at him briefly. Would she listen? Of course not. Because of his words, she became more curious now. What kind of liquid was it?
The moment she opened the bottle and sniffed it, she was stunned. There was a hint of blood, although it was very faint.
The smell made her nauseous and dizzy. Her vision went black at some point, and she was breathless when she recovered her senses again.
"What the heck is this?" She cursed, holding back the urge to throw that thing away.
"We still need it to repel the mutated animals. Don’t throw it away," Derek muttered, a little anxious when he saw Zerra on the verge of tossing the thing away.
"What is it made of?" She squinted her eyes, inspecting the bottle. She had put the lid back on it.
Derek shook his head. "I don’t know. I am only in charge of the garden."
"For the powder, you scatter it in the winds. And the potion, you use it on the skin or clothes." He paused. "A fellow researcher who gave me this told me they are expecting it to have the same effect as the presence of a high-level mutated animal."
Her face said it all: what do you mean using this stinky and suspicious liquid on the skin and clothes?
She was afraid she might vomit.
In the end, they ended up using only the powder.
"But... wouldn’t this attract the tiger here, though?" She thought about it.
She wouldn’t mind meeting the tiger, but there was Derek here. The tiger wouldn’t attack her, and unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same thing about him.
It might eat him clean.
"The tiger shouldn’t be nearby," he said in a sure tone.
She raised her eyebrows. How did he know, though? After she spread her senses, indeed there was no sign of the tiger nearby. They were safe for the time being.
"Those are the mutated plants you have taken from this forest?" Zerra stared at the small pots in Derek’s bag.
He was lucky that the bag was still slung around him when she found him.
Some plants looked dead, but there were some that were alive. Derek let out a disappointed sigh when he saw his mutated plants, a little frustrated.
"At least some can still be saved." He reassured himself. Then, he made a decision. "You are not going anywhere, right, Zerra?"
She shook her head and waited for his next words.
"I am going to take a brief nap. Wake me up when the outside has turned dark," he said and closed his eyes.
Light seeped a little from the vines she had grown. He must have noticed the situation outside from the streaming light.
But... didn’t he have a problem with his eyesight? That was why he was using the glasses, right?
When night came, Zerra woke him up. His face was a bit more fresh compared to before.
"Derek, why can you see the light without your glasses when it’s so far away...? And your wounds recovered so fast."
She had opened his bandage because some got dirty, but she hadn’t expected such a sight.