What is the definition of life.
A living, sentient being that can repair itself and reproduce the next generation?
So as long as life is precious, is it worth cherishing? Are all lives equal?
Whether in Rigal or in the Crescent, plants are always considered to be inferior to animals. All those religions with the purpose of "ahimsa" when emphasizing the behavior of "ahimsa" and "love of life" require believers to be "vegetarian", as if burning and cooking plants does not count as killing life at all.
And the protagonists of various stories that make people burst into tears, move people extremely, and are sung everywhere rarely include immobile plants and mushrooms. This reason is ultimately because humans themselves are animals.
We will tend to get closer to those individuals who are similar to us and understandable. Among the crowd, family, ethnicity, and country are used as boundaries. People who speak the same language and have the same culture and appearance are "our own people", and other than that Those outside are “outsiders”.
The same is true when facing animals. They also have hands and feet, eyes and mouths, and they can be afraid and affectionate. People are always good at mixing delusions with wonderful guesses that other animals have sensibilities and emotions similar to humans, and that they can hate, take revenge, and repay kindness, and thus write many self-moving stories - but this kind of delusion always invariably destroys plants. and fungi were excluded.
Because humans cannot empathize with them.
Where are the eyes, where is the mouth?
They don't have any organs that humans can easily understand. People can't judge their intentions from their expressions and body movements, so they think they don't have any intentions or thoughts. Plants, a green existence that can be found in every corner of the world and is far larger than all other living things combined, are unknown and are taken for granted by people, but to people, it itself——
It's like a visitor from a foreign land.
Once the two sides come into contact with each other, the difference in their cognitive world is so great that effective communication methods are almost impossible to form, it will inevitably evolve into a situation of armed conflict.
This set of rules, which are very common in the games between large and small countries in the human world, still applies when facing objects that are almost completely beyond human cognition.
——There is a strange life form that is like a heart and a tree in the center of the village.
Its overall appearance is like a tree without a crown - or has not yet grown - a crown, with a complex and winding root system and trunk, except that part of the trunk is deformed and swollen and moving like a heart.
Its roots resemble a snail or a raw sheepskin bag filled with water, swollen and full of water.
The huge pale white creature several meters high is located in the center of the village. Under the huge and constantly squirming body is the village's water well, and its stone frame has become unable to bear the increasingly alarming weight. There are signs of collapse.
There are many cracks and folds in the center of the deformed meat mass. It seems that it cannot keep up due to overgrowth. In some places, the thin outer skin can also see various weird nutrient-transporting channels inside. In the winter. The densely packed small pointed protrusions on the top have a multi-layered structure like bamboo shoots, and it seems that they will grow into other structures in the future. And the pale white roots spreading everywhere extended into every house around them, extending through the cracks in the windows, doors, vents, and roofs, squirming like blood vessels and pulses to transport them to the heart in the center. Any source of nutrients found.
The collapsed bricks and wood during the growth process were embedded in the pale white roots, and it gnawed through most of the wood like moths and continued to grow around the bricks, swallowing it up, just like breaking through in the ancient ruins. The tree trunk on the stone road - it's just that the growth efficiency of this tree is too amazing compared to common trees.
According to the descriptions of the villagers, there was no such thing here half a month ago.
It seems to be aware of the arrival of a group of people, and every time they inevitably step on the roots spreading everywhere when they pass by, it will increase the frequency of its crawling.
But it was unable to make any counterattack.
Just like our sage said, it will all be over when they deal with the mutated villagers.
"It's like a structure like the aerial roots of a banyan tree in the south." Ling squatted down and cut the pale white roots with a knife. There was a violent squirming on the surface like water waves, but she didn't or couldn't do anything. Fight back.
The cut wound quickly exuded a large amount of body fluids, and the broken part quickly became shriveled up. The cross-section of the gap looks like a pipe with tentacles growing on the inner wall. Through the movement of the tentacles, the organic matter found by the tentacles is transported - the rations in the villagers' homes and even the wooden structures of the houses are its targets.
When Ling performed all these actions, it seemed very passive. Unable to escape, unable to resist, just like people harvesting crops or chopping firewood.
"Apart from the villagers who have been transformed by parasites, don't they have any means of self-defense?" Mira muttered, but she was still vigilant about her surroundings to prevent accidents.
"Symbiotic relationship, but it doesn't seem that simple." A word came out of Ling's mouth that others around her could not understand. She noticed the looks in the eyes of the Luoan girl and Lulu Mihu, so she took the initiative to explain: "Some trees allow ants to build nests on themselves and then allow them to destroy the borers that would harm them."
"Those villagers who have been..." Ling thought about the choice of words: "The villagers who have been 'changed' are like ants."
"It has no ability to protect itself, at least not when it has grown to this stage. So it needs something else to protect itself." Aya frowned: "Is this how those things grow, and then they will grow again? Producing seeds or fruits that look like gold to attract humans to obtain and transport them?”
"So it's actually a plant? But it can parasitize people and crawl like a bug?" She looked at Henry, but the sage who usually had answers could only shrug.
"I have only heard some rumors. Some adventurers in Rigar found that goblins with specific scars would appear again after being killed several times. After in-depth investigation, they found that they were as strange as the fruits on the trees. Produce without stopping.”
"In fact, an adventurer disappeared during the investigation, and a few weeks later people discovered that he was working with goblins." The Luoan girl had never heard of the incident mentioned by the sage, but she remembered the last time she encountered something similar. The thing that happened was those large insects with all the same scars.
"It can be interpreted as a form of mimicry, used for self-protection or hunting. Butterflies and caterpillars will grow eye-like markings to scare predators, and carnivorous fireflies will imitate the female's light signals to attract prey during the breeding season - but to this extent It’s too high, and you can move away from the body.” Ling rubbed her brow, this habit of hers has become more and more common recently - but this sentence attracted Mira’s attention.
"Leaving the main body to move around? Didn't the villagers say that these guys didn't know why they wouldn't cross the bridge to go outside the village?" She remembered this.
"Is the range limited? Maybe there is some kind of connection that we can't perceive." Watching the wound that had just been opened by the knife heal quickly, Ling sighed and stood up. The roots under their feet squirmed and shrank within a few minutes of them standing here talking. Although the speed was slow and the difference was only a few centimeters to the naked eye, it did seem to be trying to shrink themselves in order to avoid the presence of the group. Roots.
If given a few hours or even a day or two, maybe it would shrink into something completely different from what it looks like now.
"No matter what, if it poses a threat to people, it must be eradicated." Henry held Kramer and looked at the huge figure several meters in diameter and the roots everywhere.
They had made every effort to deal with this being three times. Even though they had done a lot of research with the wisdom of the two people from Crescent Continent and Rigar, they still could only roughly figure out the behavior pattern.
A thorough understanding requires more than just the wisdom of two people, but an extensive and in-depth statistical survey conducted by a large number of scholars across the country - this is what Aya tried to initiate at Tiange Academy before, but it is different from the survey. Things related to the inner world also ended in vain.
So all they can do is speculate based on what they know, and then try to eliminate it through speculation.
Such alien creatures, coupled with the influence of the cracks near the fairy trees and hibiscus trees all around, perhaps this strange existence that looks like a complex of plants, fungi and animals is a product of the inner world.
It's just that we have seen many cracks in the inner world along the way, but why is it only this village that suffers?
"The difference should be water." When Mira raised this question, the sage replied.
No matter how different and strange the appearance, as long as it is a living thing, it will definitely need water. When they encountered similar things in the cave in the past, there was plenty of water in a large area.
"The villagers probably concealed a lot of information." Henry pointed to the trunk that grew out of the well and said, "Maybe someone picked up the bug that turned into a golden state. They thought they could make a fortune but didn't want to reveal their wealth. Sharing, trying to hide the water well in the village. This led to the elderly and weak villagers who were in poor health being controlled by the parasite after drinking water."
Although his statement could not be verified, everyone in the group felt that this was more or less the case.
The truth is sometimes very simple and can even be said to be stupid, but it is precisely this kind of thing that will happen repeatedly one after another.
As soon as the sage finished speaking, as if confirming his reasoning, the sound of discussion that was deliberately lowered but still high-pitched came from the corner not far behind them.
"Oh, what's going on?"
"My family has suffered too."
Apparently, after seeing a group of people clearing away the threatening infected villagers from a distance, the young and middle-aged villagers who were staying outside the village quietly followed them.
Mira glanced back and met a villager's gaze. The other party held a hoe in his hand, and when he saw her looking back, his face turned blue and he hid in the back of the house in a hurry.
"They're holding the guy." The Luoan girl put her hand on the hilt of the sword. She was currently using a spare sword. The one with the broken tip was placed in the scabbard on Medea's saddle because it was still in use. Repairable.
"Are you guarding us? It seems that the guess is pretty close." Henry narrowed his gray-blue eyes: "I guess he was fanned by people who were hiding something they thought was gold. They thought we were going to rob them. ."
Kazuto farmers are far from simple, honest and innocent existences. The probability that poor days can cultivate noble and upright people is only very high in various folklore. Although the total value of all the valuable things in this small village with a population of dozens of households is probably not as valuable as the armor, weapons and horses of the group, the villagers do not have the vision to judge - they wholeheartedly feel that these luxurious clothes are not as valuable as the horses. He is also an honorary warrior of the rough southern barbarians. While solving the problem, he also comes to snatch away their precious dried sweet potatoes.
For this reason, they picked up farm tools and followed them. Somehow they felt that even if the group of people could easily deal with the mutated villagers who scared them away from the village, they could still mount some effective resistance when they wanted to plunder them by force.
This kind of cowardly, arrogant and arrogant behavior would probably not happen if the group of people were serious Kazuto samurai.
In the final analysis, whether they would have the courage to follow with weapons and "defend their property when necessary" was based on Kazuto's disdain for the Nanman people.
"What martial arts skills can the barbarians have that can compare with the warriors of the Otsuki Kingdom? Winning is just luck." Views such as this are widely circulated in this country, and many of the warriors they have encountered before are also this proud. loyal believers - including the ronin who tried to rob them, whom the Luoan girl killed not long ago.
"..." Mira frowned her little white eyebrows, her expression very dissatisfied.
They didn't dare to do it when they really wanted to, and the dead bodies in that area did seem to scare some people, but it was also because of their high degree of mutation.
The anxiety caused by not having enough to eat for half a month seems to have severely reduced these people's judgment ability. They have difficulty identifying ourselves and the enemy, and they seem to have no clear understanding of their own combat effectiveness. They even wishfully misjudge the behavior of a group of people. Purpose.
But how should they explain it?
The statement 'That's not gold, that's the culprit of everything' may sound like some kind of far-fetched argument for the sake of embezzlement.
Even if Aya pretends to be a doctor and explains the origin and appearance of these things, the other party will only half understand.
They walked towards the well in order to clean up the scourge, but the hiding villagers concluded for no reason that the news had somehow leaked out and the precious gold would be taken away. Greed, and a certain hope that as long as they have it, they can escape their current poor life, influence their way of thinking.
Even though they are both humans, they may not be able to communicate effectively with these villagers just like humans and plants.
"Kalaiva turned back and faced them with a big shield. Lulu also stayed behind, holding a bow." Henry said. They didn't have much time to try to reason, so they left the two of them behind for intimidation. .
But just as he was carrying Kramer to kill the huge pale creature, the cracks on its wriggling surface suddenly opened, spitting out a being that looked exactly like a human child.
The sage's steps stagnated, and the expressions of the Luoan girl and the doctor were also stunned.
"Did I underestimate you?" Henry squinted his eyes and looked at the biological body in the middle - if it could send out parasitic-infected villagers in batches like a test of combat effectiveness before, then it is assumed that it has some influence on the situation. The ability to perceive is reasonable.
But at this moment when its available troops were exhausted and it was about to suffer catastrophe, its actions were obviously not meaningless.
No matter how you look at it, he looks like an ordinary Kazuto child, but there is black liquid flowing under the translucent skin.
"It's my child!" A woman's voice immediately rang out from behind, followed by the crisp sound of Kazuto's clogs on the ground and the shouts of others trying to intercept them.
The child covered in mucus climbed up on the ground with support, and the eyes that met Henry were dark.
He laughed, grinning high at the corners of his mouth, as if mocking the tall man.
Behind him, the mother who had abandoned her child and was filled with guilt was stopped, crying and making a fuss, and dozens of villagers ran out from behind the house.
The original deterrent effect of Kaleva's tall figure seemed to be less effective after the overwhelming number of people. Leng Touqing turned around nervously, while Henry raised Kramer.
"No!!" The woman shouted heartbreakingly.
"What a bad taste." The sage glanced at the pale white giant creature that seemed to have lost its life and quickly started to shrivel, and then turned his attention to the one who had obviously inherited everything from it.
Something like a human being.
Swinging down the sword.
