Right when he was about to run into the catkin groves to look for Reno, he noticed a strange detail on the ground.
The composition of the soil below his feet didn't quite feel right. When he was entering the boat, the ground outside the hole had been flatter, harder, and smoother to walk on. But now as he was stepping on it, it felt soft and uneven...
Mir's pupils shrank as he leaped backward, stepping on the wooden remains of the floor of the boat, surveying the ground in front of him cautiously.
Taking a rusty spoon from the kitchen, he leaned over and stabbed into the ground, an action which seemed to elicit a faint shudder. As Mir pulled his spoon back up, his eyes grew wide in fear.
The last inch of the spoon was dyed red in what appeared to be fresh blood. Mir's veins suddenly popped up in his arms, body going into overdrive mode as he stood up and reentered the kitchen to grab another spoon.
Returning to the entrance of the fishing boat, he sat down and began to hack away at the soil, doing his best to not stab the parts of the soil that had risen a few inches higher than before.
Half a minute later, he found his spoon hitting something that definitely wasn't soil or rocks. Clearing away the loose soil above, a palm was revealed underneath. Mir recognized Reno's hand immediately.
Heart growing cold, he quickened his pace of digging. Following the palm, he dug out Reno's entire hand, from where, he did his best to trace his head underneath the soil. By the time he managed to clear the soil above Reno's upturned face, Reno's breathing had grown very faint. Had the soil not been so loose, he'd have probably suffocated by now.
The good news was, Reno's eyes opened immediately upon being touched by sunlight.
Seeing Mir staring at his face, wide-eyed, Reno seemed confused. For a moment, he looked around, observing the surroundings as his brain kicked into action.
"...What the fuck, Mir? You're burying me?!"
His outcry was cut short as Mir hit him in the head with a spoon.
"I'm digging you out, idiot! Shut the fuck up and help me!"
Reno was confused, but he quickly complied with the order. Mir handed him a spoon too and tried to trace his other hand inside the soil. With Reno's guidance, the search and digging became quicker than before.
Thankfully, his body had been buried nearly horizontally, except for one bent leg buried deeper than the rest of his body. As they managed to dig and pull most of his body out, Reno suddenly groaned.
"What is it?"
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Reno shook his head and clutched the leg that was still stuck inside up to the knee vertically.
"I think...it feels like...like some needles penetrated my soul, FUCK!"
Gasping and cursing, Reno tried to forcefully pull up that buried foot. But even with Mir's assistance, they didn't manage to pull it up. The more force they applied, the more pain Reno seemed to be experiencing.
"It's like those needles are pulling back...like they've been hooked to the bones of my feet!"
With tears of pain streaming down his face, Reno did his best to suppress his screams and assist Mir. But Mir understood that neither of them had enough strength to accomplish this task. Something mysterious, something much stronger than them was beneath this soil, and it didn't intend to let Reno go; at least, not his foot.
Eyes growing cold, Mir looked around for something, anything that might help. As Reno let out another cry of pain and cursed in a choked tone, Mir noticed something in front of them.
The dense weeds that had grown around the boat looked slightly different from before. They seemed taller, thicker, and... somewhat closer to the boat than the first time he had observed them.
Mir pulled his communicator out and snapped several pictures of the weeds. The sunlight made the quality of the photos pretty good. He uploaded the files on the search bar of the ExplorerAid software and waited for a few seconds.
A couple of results popped out from the database. Among the two matches, one had matched by 29% only. But the other result made Mir exhale in relief.
Match: 78%
Organism: Witchweed (mutated)
Mutation: Grade- 2
Soulslot Consumption: Unknown
Evolution Potential: Grade- 2
Affinity: Earth
Danger Rating: Above average in the mutant class
Origin: Endemic
Mutation details: No one has yet managed to form a contract with this plant due to how difficult it is to understand the mental influence and thinking process of mutant plants in general. So it isn't clear what its internal attributes are. This heavily mutated weed preys on animals as well as other plants. Anything of remotely nutritional value, ranging from the carbohydrate prepared by plants to blood, meat, and bones of animals shall be absorbed by its haustoria to germinate new seeds. Like most mutant plants, it can move much faster than ordinary plants, but it is still slow compared to animals. But this plant doesn't kill its hosts directly. Rather, it keeps them alive as long as possible to exact the highest possible benefit. Explorers are suggested to not kill it, as the National Institute of Botanical Research (NIBR) has labeled this plant as 'HIGHLY VALUABLE' in their database for protected plants. Explorers found guilty of destroying this plant shall face heavy penalties, ranging from one to three years of jail.
"Highly valuable, my foot!" Mir cursed profusely. Someone was dying here and he couldn't even kill the assailant without risking jail time. His initial plan had been to set the entire population of weeds on fire, but now he was having second thoughts.
The only good news was that Reno wouldn't be dying anytime soon. The haustoria of the weeds must have pierced his buried foot to feed on his blood, meat, and bones.
Mir quickly pulled out the red diary from his waistband and used the pen he had kept inside it to write a new wish.
"I'll be able to sense and understand the mental influence of any organism that I try to bond with, no matter how difficult and incomprehensible it is."
But as he wrote this wish, he felt that it wasn't quite as concise as he needed it to be. The diary couldn't just put unknown data inside his head out of nowhere. Its performance was based on his body, his mind. Shaking his head, he added another wish below it.
"I'll temporarily gain a higher mental clarity, enough to withstand powerful hallucinations."
He felt that it was still not enough. Thinking for a second, he added a third wish below these two.
"I'll not be tempted in any way to mutate, or have my thoughts affected by external influences at all."
Satisfied with the arrangement of the wishes, Mir put the diary back inside his jacket and stepped past Reno. From his backpack, he took out a gas-torch and flicked it on.
A faint hissing sound began to emit from the head of the torch as an inch-tall flame formed on it, dancing wildly.
Mir calmly walked over towards the weeds, standing dangerously close to their stems. Inwardly, he felt strangely serene, his fears now no longer affecting his thinking.
"I do not know if you understand me, but I hope you understand death," he said, and pressed hard on a button of his gas-torch, pointing the head at the weeds.
The inch-tall fire exploded into a foot-wide fiery spray. Every stalk, every stem, every offshoot of the weeds that came into contact with the fire lit up instantly.
Like a shocked living animal, the weeds shrank back, their height decreasing slowly as the stems began to reenter the loose soil like snakes.
"Oh no, you don't have enough time for that, slowpoke," Mir laughed in a cheerful tone and continued to spray the fire at whatever he could reach.
If he couldn't kill this thing, he would make sure it couldn't kill anyone else either. As for being penalized...they'd have to catch him killing it first. In the worst-case scenario, he could just leave one weed alive.