Enemies Are All Nourishment for My Fungi..

Chapter 44: Chapter 44 The First Mission of the Big Space User (4)

In her hand was a green bean-sized crystal with an irregular shape, containing a certain type of energy that made her feel an urge to absorb it and convert it into her own strength.

This strange sensation, combined with the education from the online courses these past few days, helped Ye Nai recognize that this was a Heart Core, something found only in Otherworldly Creatures.

The size of the Heart Core determined the creature’s strength, but like the Awakeners, it was a matter of chance; not every creature had one.

If every creature had one, they wouldn’t be possible to kill with ordinary firearms; it would require heavy weaponry or for an Awakener to risk their life in battle.

After playing with it for a while, Ye Nai threw it back into the Fungal Space, allowing the fungus to absorb it. The energy it fed back was minimal, and at this moment, amidst the large amount of energy being fed back, the contribution from that Heart Core was hardly noticeable.

Another two hours passed, and the battle gradually subsided. The gunfire and the flashes of superpower were not as frequent, and the warriors who had been on lookout for three hours on the rooftop began to relax.

...

Ye Nai yawned as well. She didn’t necessarily believe the others’ reactions, but seeing that her Fungal Space, previously stuffed with big and small prey, finally had some free space, she truly believed that tonight’s battle was drawing to a close.

“Squad Leader Chen, is it almost over?” Ye Nai walked up to them, carrying a bag of drinks, which she handed directly to Squad Leader Chen, “Can I go downstairs to the dorm to sleep? I promise I won’t run around.”

Squad Leader Chen, feeling the cool bag, raised his binoculars to survey the distant battlefield before nodding finally.

“You can go rest now; remember your promise not to run around, and wait for your captain to return.”

“I promise to be good.”

Ye Nai quickly left, and Squad Leader Chen distributed the drinks among his subordinate warriors.

“Here, everyone take one. If that girl doesn’t wander off, she’ll be a regular here in the future.”

“Ah, it’s still cold. Is this from a Space User who can preserve freshness?”

“She’s indeed going to be a regular, depending on whether the higher-ups have the ability to keep her.”

“Heh, the young lady isn’t willing to enlist. It won’t be easy to keep her.”

“Just opens her mouth to say she doesn’t take well to discipline, pretty bold.”

The group laughed and shared the drinks. Being on lookout for three hours did indeed make them hot and thirsty, but while they drank, their eyes continued to focus on the battlefield, with no slack in their vigilance, unless they received the command indicating the end of the fight.

Upon returning to the dorm downstairs, Ye Nai took a shower and, before falling asleep, issued a new command to the Fungal Space to leave some edible meat for her.

The clean meat that humans could eat from a mutant beast was exceedingly scarce, and she wanted to test if the fungus was truly an extension of her will, capable of leaving the clean meat aside for her as she requested. This way, in the future, she wouldn’t need to spend money on meat, which would save her quite a sum.

Not long after she had fallen into a deep sleep, the conflict outside of the town ended, and all was peaceful once again.

Deputy Captain Shen and the others returned to the dorm to see Ye Nai sleeping soundly, even joking about how unworried she seemed; it was her first time entering the Secret Realm and witnessing the battlefield, yet she could sleep so soundly. It seemed she was an excellent candidate for enlistment, but unfortunately, she had admitted herself that she wasn’t good at taking orders.

The next morning, Ye Nai woke up to the sound of Deputy Captain Shen’s alarm, sat up, and saw that they had all returned. She smiled and exchanged morning greetings with them.

While brushing her teeth, Ye Nai glanced at her Space and was pleasantly surprised to find that the crammed Space had been largely cleared out while she slept, and the clean meat she had ordered was piled here and there.

So, while washing her face, she organized the Space, herding the piles of meat to the ground near the shelves, not just lumping them together, but simply moving them a little from the places designated by the Fungus.

The edible mutant beast meat was sorted into good and bad tasting piles; the bad-tasting meat, even if stewed until fall-apart tender, had a sour or strange flavor, as if it were spoiled. Now, these chunks of meat were unrecognizable as to which mutant beast they came from, and Ye Nai believed there must be a reason why her Fungus categorized them this way.

It had to be said, the meat was truly clean, free of any skin, fur, viscera, glands, vessels, blood, or any waste, just clean chunks of meat. Some pieces with bones had even had the marrow meticulously removed. If it was indeed edible, one could be assured that the cooked result would not contain any inedible parts.

Look how thoughtful her Fungus was.

She also saw many pig trotters, the same kind she had eaten at Brother Peng’s barbecue stand. Ye Nai figured that if pig trotters were edible, with the Fungus’s decomposing abilities, it probably would have left not even a single bone fragment for her.

After finishing brushing her teeth, the entire team gathered to have breakfast at the camp cafeteria, then Vice Captain Yang took the other members to prepare the vehicles, while Captain Mei and Deputy Captain Shen took Ye Nai to procure mission items from the camp’s logistics.

After a standard identity check, Ye Nai followed them to the camp’s cold storage, indeed to pick up mutant beast meat.

Everyone donned coats before entering the cold storage, where the meat, also cut and separated, was frozen solid and unrecognizable in its original form.

Both parties had a list, and as Ye Nai followed them, they pointed out what needed to be collected. She gathered it all, filling just over nine hundred in Space volume.

By then, they had reached the depths of the cold storage, where there was an open area. They took out all the meat to recount it. Ye Nai took the opportunity to snap a “family photo” with her phone, and then she scooped up everything into her Space in one go, completing the pickup.

Exiting the cold storage to the outside, Vice Captain Yang was already there waiting with the vehicles, and the three split up to get into different cars, ready to head back.

Before leaving, Ye Nai didn’t retract the spores she had left outside. She would come back in the future, so there was no need to collect them—she let her Fungus continue to freely grow and strengthen.

The return journey went smoothly. After a full day’s drive, they stopped at a small town overnight, then continued the next day. The team members took turns driving, pushing through straight to the Secret Realm’s entry point town and directly exiting.

With a 12-hour time difference between the inside and outside of the Secret Realm, they throttled out to daylight outside.

The convoy rushed back to the military base’s cold storage to unload the goods. Once everything was laid out, Ye Nai opened her phone’s photo gallery and confirmed everything with Deputy Shen, successfully completing the mission. After taxes, she pocketed a handsome reward of over a hundred thousand.

Ye Nai looked at her account, utterly delighted.

Captain Mei teased her, “So, how do you feel about this mission?”

“Very good, very satisfied,” Ye Nai nodded repeatedly, “But I’m curious, is it cheaper to hire me or to hire the entire vehicle fleet?”

“Hiring you, of course, is cheaper, and not just in cost, but also in cost-effectiveness. For these frozen meats, if we were to hire a refrigerated fleet, we’d need two drivers per vehicle for safety, and drivers who have a high enough Training Level for self-defense, who can enter the Secret Realm without fear of combat, are hard to find. Plus, when there’s a larger group, it’s easier for things to get messy in the event of an accident. Looking after one person, as opposed to a group, is a big difference.”

“So I do provide good value for money.”

“Definitely, our budget is not to be spent recklessly after all, we must choose the cheaper yet better option. For us, what’s more important is the safe, reliable, and efficient completion of the mission.”

“I see…”