Enemies Are All Nourishment for My Fungi..

Chapter 83: Chapter 83: Hunting with Sister Da Ma (1)
 

It’s not that soldiers have prejudice against private armies, but rather that these capital-driven, profit-oriented private teams often have too many bosses who are inhuman. Otherwise, how could the constant online disputes arise?

Having accepted another exploration task, Ye Nai completely lost the desire to nap. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up, got dressed, and went to the kitchen to stew meat.

The meat delivered to the cold storage in the morning wasn’t their entire haul; they kept a portion for themselves and shared some with Brother Peng.

She took out all the meat they had set aside, washed and cut it neatly, added some stored mutant beast meat, and blanched them together in boiling water. Then she cooked two large plates of chicken eggs, stewing everything together in a large soup pot to make egg-braised meat.

Over the next two days, Ye Nai visited the training gym and practiced all of her courses.

When she got home, a new delivery had arrived—the two axes she had purchased.

She carried the axes to the blacksmith to be sharpened and then went home to pack up.

This time she was joining Sister Da Ma’s team.

There were two team leaders surnamed Ma in her team leaders’ group, a man and a woman, simply sharing the same surname without any blood relation. Sister Da Ma was two years older, in her early thirties, and by age, she was the eldest in her team.

Sister Da Ma had prepared two inflatable assault boats, fully charged and fitted with propellers; paddles and air pumps were also ready, each large enough for their entire team to fit in.

Ye Nai swiftly stored everything into her space.

Bottled water, fresh fruits, packed fast food, dry snacks, and all other food-related items were also collected by Ye Nai.

Both weapons and ammunition, as well as medical supplies, were split between the logistics and Ye Nai, each taking half. They brought more of everything than usual, including handheld medical and detection equipment that they couldn’t bring before.

After setting off, Ye Nai continued to ride her motorcycle behind the convoy.

This time, they sped through the Secret Realm for three days before leaving the highway. As she traveled, Ye Nai scattered spores, and luckily triggered an encounter with strange mutant plants in a thicket ahead of the convoy.

Thick vines as if with human faces stretched out from the low woods, blocking their path. Thankfully it was broad daylight in the Secret Realm—had it been night, one might have recalled every horror movie they had ever seen.

“All units be advised, Ghost-faced Vines have appeared in the forest ahead. The convoy will turn around and change direction; the rest follow. Over.”

The lead vehicle promptly gave the order to turn right, making a wide detour around the low woods.

One of the team members sitting in the back promptly noted the location of these woods and the Ghost-faced Vines on the map record.

Ye Nai was intrigued by the Ghost-faced Vines and let the spores attack them for a meal, claiming the woodlands for herself.

As they moved farther away, leaving the woods behind, Ye Nai felt like she could still hear strange ghostly wails. She wasn’t sure whether it was an illusion brought on by the wind brushing past her.

After traveling for the day, the road conditions worsened, from dry and hard to muddy wetlands, with several vehicles getting stuck in the mire in turns.

Each time, the people would get out first, Ye Nai would store the vehicle in her space and release it elsewhere, freeing them from the muck this way.

After a bumpy journey, they finally found a place that was barely suitable to set up camp and rest for the night.

“How did we cross this section in the past?”

While eating, Ye Nai held her bowl and casually chatted with everyone. She couldn’t imagine how they had explored to map out this route before today.

“Previously, this was as far as we went; we didn’t delve deeper. We’ve come a few times and just traversed sideways to see how wide this area is.”

“You know that continuing onwards from this soil type means definitely reaching swamp wetlands. Even though drones can give us an overview, we still need to walk it step by step. The more information we collect, the safer it will be to assemble a professional team later, bringing professors and researchers in.”

“Hey, I didn’t expect you to come, and you even bought a tractor. This time we can go in deeper.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high; I’m like a wheeled tractor that can get stuck in the mud just the same. I’ll wait until the day I can buy a track-type one.”

“No worries, if we can’t get through, we’ll just go hunting.” Sister Da Ma came over with a bowl and sat down, “There’s no strict requirement for opening up the map. We’ll take it as it comes.”

“If you managed to collect all kinds of heavy construction machinery and large agricultural tools, you could take on any job opening up the Secret Realm in the future. No engineering team would have as complete a set of equipment as you could lead.”

Ye Nai chewed her meal, nodding repeatedly.

Sister Da Ma’s words also reminded her, after all, her Space was of the growing type. The newly expanded volume of several hundred units would be just right to fit the big machines, and she would buy them when she had the money. They would definitely all come in handy.

Overnight, the Fungal Mycelium grown from the spores Ye Nai released had scouted the nearby terrain for her, guiding several safe routes for the tractor to delve into the muddy land.

The whole team got up when the sky was still dim, packed up early to set off. If they couldn’t make it, they could still turn back in time to go hunting.

Ye Nai stowed the entire team’s vehicles, took out the tractor, hitched up the trailer, and Sister Da Ma joined her in the cab. The others got on the trailer, with guns, ammo, and various handheld instruments also placed on there, ready for use.

“Do we have a route, or should I just drive?”

Ye Nai sat at the driver’s seat, starting the vehicle while checking that all the instruments were displaying normally, as she asked Sister Da Ma beside her.

“Just drive wherever.”

Sister Da Ma had set up a laptop desk on her lap, with a large tablet that had a keyboard, it looked like an intricate little laptop.

Ye Nai caught a glimpse of a note document opened on the tablet, and then heard the deputy leader’s voice coming through the walkie-talkies on both her and Sister Da Ma’s persons.

“Leader, we’re all ready.”

“Alright, hang on tight, off we go.”

Ye Nai replied, then stepped on the accelerator, and the powerful tractor pulling the trailer slowly drove into the wet and soft muddy ground.

Through the window, Ye Nai also saw two drones flying off in different directions.

Ye Nai stuck to the safe paths laid by the Fungus, occasionally her tires bogged down, but a bit more gas always got her out again. The whole morning passed without serious incident, even after the drones had their batteries switched, finally arriving at a scene of wetlands with lush aquatic vegetation and rippling water.

There were also plenty of animals.

A flock of startled waterfowl flew up from the surface, and as they swept over their heads, they pelted them with a rain of bird droppings.

Though their aim was poor, missing the people entirely, the stench was comparable to that of stink bombs, leaving those on the trailer with nowhere to hide, retching at the foul smell, unable to speak clearly when yelling through the walkie-talkies.

Seeing the bird droppings on the front window of the vehicle, and hearing the noise coming from the walkie-talkies, Ye Nai quickly turned the steering wheel, eager to get further away from the water’s edge.

As the vehicle was slowly turning around, something whip-like suddenly sprang out from the aquatic plants, tightly seizing the rear left wheel of the tractor’s front, and stubbornly held onto the vehicle.

There was a chorus of shouts from the trailer, with the Gold Element team member acting first, followed by the sniper taking a shot.

“What is that?”

“Doesn’t look like mutant plants; more like a mutant beast?”

“Is that a tongue?”

“The golden blade is cutting into it, and it’s tough—it’s a mutant beast.”