Mir stood on a clearing decorated by burnt leaves and decaying stems, smoke rising up quite prominently for any explorers nearby to see.
Only five tiny stems were left unharmed, still visible. The Witchweed wasn't a plant that could survive without sunlight. It couldn't afford to hide its entire body fully, especially not the green portions.
Mir fearlessly walked over to the cluster of these five stems, spinning the gas-torch in his hand like a toy. To the parasitic plant, it was akin to the swinging of an executioner's axe.
Stomping harshly on the burnt remains around his feet, Mir bent down to meet the plant at an eye-to-eye...no, eye-to-leaf level.
"You have two options now. Become my contracted creature so that no one finds out what I've done here...or die. You have 10 seconds to make your decision. One, two, three, four..."
Mir didn't waste any time trying to reason with the plant. If it understood him, that would be good. If it didn't...well, he wouldn't be the one suffering a loss.
For the first nine seconds, Mir saw no reaction coming from the plant. Clicking his tongue, he shouted, "TEN! GOODBYE!"
Right as he was about to burn the remaining stems, the soil below his feet trembled.
Mir jumped back several steps, reaching Reno's side, wary of whatever else this plant might be trying to do.
Reno suddenly gasped, but this time, it was not a gasp of pain.
"Mir, I think it let go of my foot!" he shouted half in excitement, half in relief.
Both of them immediately grabbed the thigh of the buried foot and tugged with all of their strength.
With a dull, popping sound, Reno's foot came up, spraying wet dirt over their faces.
It looked horrifying. The bottom of his foot was completely mangled, skin shredded, blood leaking like an overfilled jar. Some strange-looking roots were still connected to various parts of the foot through barbed seeds that had inserted themselves into the bloody muscles there.
While they were frozen from the shock of the visage, the seeds inside his foot exploded, spraying out pus-like fluids.
Wherever the fluids touched, Reno's mangled foot began to grow new skin at a visible speed. Underneath the skin, the torn muscles and blood vessels began to close up, sealing further chances of bleeding.
"So that's how it stops its hosts from bleeding to death after the haustoria injects itself into their bodies..." Mir mumbled in wonder.
Meanwhile, a second round of shivers went through the soil in front of them. Mir dragged Reno back into the boat and watched the scene, his curiosity burning.
Shshshshshshsh....
Like hundreds of snakes slithering across wet soil, an unsettling sound came from the earth as white, dirty roots began to pierce their way up to the surface.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
In their haste, the plants didn't seem to care at all about damages, ripping their parts out of the soil slowly, desperately. Countless torn stems, broken roots, and shredded leaves fell across the ground as the entire population of Witchweed plants surfaced, forming a dozen feet tall barrier around the fishing boat that trapped Mir and Reno inside.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"...Are you sure we can fight that?" Reno whispered from behind. Mir didn't answer him.
The plants didn't approach the boat, much to their relief. Instead, the dense barrier of roots opened up in the middle to reveal a scene in the center that made both boys shudder in terror.
A dirt-covered woman was lying inside the barrier, surrounded from every direction by barbed seeds and thick roots. She hadn't had a fate as good as Reno when the plants must have attacked her. Nobody had come to save her immediately.
The skin of her limbs sported countless pebble-sized warts that pulsed rhythmically, probably providing nutrition to the seeds that had been injected inside her blood vessels and muscles. Several tubular roots had penetrated her chest, perhaps to supply air from outside and expel the carbon dioxide from her lungs. One of the roots even seemed to have gone straight towards her heart, which was still beating, judging by her complexion.
However, there was one more prominent detail that took up their entire attention the moment they noticed it.
An especially fat root had penetrated her skull from behind.
"Fucking hell..." Reno cursed in a quivering tone.
"Hell it would be, yes," Mir agreed wholeheartedly.
And right then, the woman opened her eyes. Mir sensed Reno take a step back and stagger due to the injury in his foot. He himself was surprised, but he knew she was alive from all the information he had gathered about this plant so far.
"I suppose even the accursed sunlight feels good to see, huh?" He shouted, feeling unnaturally untouched by the shock he had experienced.
For almost ten seconds, she stared at him, her gaze slowly gaining focus. A faint cough came out of her mouth as she tried to speak. The cough pushed out a clump of wet dirt from inside her mouth.
"Mmm...gh...grrrhh..."
"Oh yeah, no, take your time, lady. No need to rush," Mir commented while she retched. "We understand that you haven't done this in a while."
Her focused gaze turned into a glare. Reno elbowed him from behind. But Mir didn't feel like showing much empathy for some reason.
"I-hhck..it is challenging you...ugh, don't-"
Her words were cut off halfway to what felt like a warning.
"Challenging me?" Mir pointed at himself in surprise. "That's pretty ballsy coming from something that just got fucking incinerated by me a minute ago! What kind of challenge does it think it has a chance to win?"
For half a minute, she seemed to be undergoing a struggle to speak. When she finally managed to do so once more, her tone sounded tired.
"A battle of men...mental strength. If you...win, it'll accept your contract."
"And if I lose?" Mir enquired. "Would it let us just leave if I lose? Because I sure as hell wouldn't be accepting the role of...uh, its food reserve, like you. I still have this gas-torch with me here that has plenty of fuel left. Take a look around you and guess what it can burn! This entire grove of catkins that it's been using as its hideout would be gone. In a peripheral area like this place, it won't be able to travel a hundred meters at that speed without being caught."
The woman groaned as if struggling to comprehend what he had said. Half a minute later, she answered, "It agrees to let you leave even if you lose..."
"Alright, sounds like a fair deal...for me. Reno, take the torch. You know what to point it at if this puny weed tries anything funny."
"The roots?" Reno asked, slightly confused.
"Come on, Reno. You're smarter than that, man. NO! Point it at HER! BURN ITS FOOD AND ITS FUTURE HOPE OF REPRODUCTION!"
The woman shuddered along with the barrier of weeds hearing the threat.
Mir boldly walked over and stood close to the opening of the barrier, just a few feet away from the woman. From so close, he could see how the parasitization had affected her. Despite being barely older than the two of them, her skin was loose, full of lines. She had to have lost a lot of muscles, because her arms and legs looked stick-thin beneath the torn jacket. The root attached to the back of her head had a bloody ring around it, surrounding the entrance to her skull.
"Well? Come, come! Why waste time? See the smoke rising above? Someone's gonna be here soon. You don't want that, Witchweed, do you?"
Still not quite intimidated, Mir cracked his knuckles and taunted the plants surrounding them.
A root slithered out from behind the woman's body, almost as fat as the one inserted into her head. It rose up to meet Mir's face cautiously.
"I'm not letting you inside my head, bitch," Mir said with a grin.
The root froze for a second and then went towards one of his hands, nudging his palm.
"Alright, guess that much can be allowed."
The moment he finished speaking, the root reared back like a snake and hurled itself into his palm, punching a hole into it and sticking its head in that hole.
Before Mir sensed the world growing dark, he noticed a look of utter despair on the woman's face.