Chapter 2144: Feeding Sol

Inside the house at night, the figure of a loving couple wrestled in a loving embrace. What started as a shared bath (to save water, of course) moved to a soft cushion on the floor, and the couple stayed there for hours.

The sunflower leisurely hung around outside, living as it always had before it met Althea. It had no idea what was happening inside. Monster Plants didn’t have much ambition but to eat when they were hungry, drink when they’re thirsty.

Of course, if the two inside decided to take too long inside and forget to feed Sol, then that would be another matter altogether.

When the couple finished, Althea rested her head on her husband’s chest, while his calloused hands caressed her shapely hips, a satisfied expression on his face.

The two of them fell asleep for a few hours and woke up in the morning. They were under the thick canopies of Hollow Forest, so it wasn’t very bright, but there was still sun.

Garan looked at the soft wife in his arms. She was breathing softly, unconsciously rubbing against him like a sated cat. The sight made his heart and body heat up.

Their little house had solar-charged dim lighting, so even when it was a bit dark due to the small fenestrations, he could still see her.

He patiently watched her sleep, her softness comforting. He did not even notice the passing of time as she woke up naturally. "Good morning, Husband," she said, wiggling up to give him a kiss on the cheek.

The next thing she knew, she was under the man, signalling the beginning of morning exercises.

...

When it was done, Althea sat up and stood up to get cleaned up, lest the man make up for the lost time today. They had a mission to do, and this certainly wasn’t the place to surrender to lust for too long.

Garan had a soft smile on his face as he watched his wife’s movements, his peripheral view catching sight of the house’s fenestration. It so happened that part of the sunflower’s rays were visible from there. "What is that one?"

"It’s called a Monster Root," she said, explaining what she knew about this species. Garan, like her, was also very curious, and she had no doubt that he was thinking of its military potential. It was a force of habit.

"It looks useful," he said. "It will also have very good intimidating effects."

It was then that they saw a vine try to get inside the fenestration. It was too thick, though, so a leaf curled over and then slapped the interior of the walls, looking very silly.

"..."

"..."

Althea blinked and cleaned up the house as she went out, realizing the sunflower looked a bit wilted. "It’s hungry," she said. As for how she knew, it was more instinct.

She was relieved it didn’t become violent when famished, but it made her feel even more guilty.

"How did it eat before?" Garan asked.

"A variety of things."

She saw that it liked certain nutritious fruits and monsters. A proper omnivore, this one.

Interestingly, the fruits it preferred were not the fresh ones, though it could eat any fruit. Rather, it liked the overripe ones, even those that had fallen down the ground.

Althea would automatically think of theories whenever she encountered something odd like this. What did overripe fruit have over the others other than the fact that they could be turned into fruit shakes more easily?

It had more sugar, for one. Acids were less, which was why they were less sour. Aroma compounds were much more developed.

Fermentation also begins at this stage. At the time, she thought, did this thing want to be an alcoholic or something?

Other than that, it also liked beasts, but not sapient creatures like humans, which was extremely convenient.

It was a bit of a mystery, but as a rule of thumb, it seemed to like ’trash’ —i.e. Monsters instead of intelligent beings, and overripe fruits instead of fresh ones—which was just as well.

She’d understand the reasoning in the future, probably, but as long as it didn’t harm her and her loved ones’ interests, she wouldn’t mind it.

Of course, unripe fruits didn’t really fill it up much. It still preferred live beasts.

"Then we will go look for prey to hunt," he said. "Will we be able to find a lot of them here? Those wild roots are formidable." He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a small number of monsters in the Hollow Forest.

"Monsters do go here, only the high-level ones actively avoid it unless there’s prey." Of course, this meant that most of the prey would be in the peripheries because, by the time the inner area was reached, most of these monsters had been eaten up unless a large monster mob entered the forest.

They went further out into the periphery to help Sol get filled up first. Since they were heading deeper into the forest, everyone had to be in their best condition, and this included their newest teammate.

....

The plan was to let the plant eat as much as it could and stockpile the rest, so that it wouldn’t be a problem if they couldn’t find decent prey deeper inside the forest.

They encountered a few loose ones and handled those. They were weakened by the wild roots, so they were fairly easy to defeat, let alone by Sol.

They watched as the bright yellow petals enclosed a carcass, slowly digesting it like a Venus flytrap.

This went on until they got two more, though the plant still wasn’t sated. Their hunt was interrupted by a scream some distance away.

"AHHH!"

While Sol was busy digesting, the two of them rushed over to where the sound came from. After all, they hadn’t encountered someone for a while so they naturally had to check it out.

Unexpectedly, it was a small group of orcs being surrounded by sharp, crawling branches.

All of the orcs were unfamiliar, so she knew they were from another tribe. How far had she and Garan gone, anyway, to encounter yet another tribe?

By this time, they were not only outnumbered, but they were also outpowered. Everyone had at least one deep gash on their bodies, and their attacks had become somewhat sluggish.

"Wuuuu! Why did you go in this direction!?"

"Our place was destroyed by the mob; this place had the fewest!"

"Of course there’re few!!!"

They slashed and slashed with their claws, but whatever branch they cut would just be replaced by another.

Garan and Althea did not delay anymore and jumped down.

For now, while they had a lot of questions, they focused on helping the orcs out, specifically those who seemed to be having a hard time.

The Wild root vines, the branches, and so on were something even level 20s would struggle with. The orcs weren’t many, and the plants were dense and tireless, and many of them had been scooped up in the past few hours.

The branches had small thorns that poked at the orcs. It was fortunate the orcs had hard skins, akin to beasts. If it were human, he’d have been riddled with holes.

Then they saw those thorns actually trying to absorb blood; the two’s faces turned more solemn.

Wild roots are truly creepy things.

While the orcs fought for their lives on one end, Garan walked over to one of the wild roots at the edge of the crowd. He took a lighter from his space and tried to burn it. This time, since he knew normal fire had limited effects, he added oil. Fortunately, it did increase its efficacy.

There was a small scream-like sound, and the branches near the fire curled away. However, it didn’t even spread a meter before it died down on its own.

Since the effect of fire was still limited, Garan moved forward and created sharp ice shards. Though he was cutting them, it was not like cutting cheese, so Garan knew he couldn’t just use his abilities endlessly.

The thorns expanded the moment a victim came close by, so Althea made sure to travel through without getting touched by it.

Althea created a few earth platforms to lift herself up and minimize contact with the enemies. She made a few to jump over the branches so she could help the orcs with more accurate shots. These things had to be handled in relatively close combat, sadly.

While on her platform, she condensed water knives and threw them onto the increasingly dense branches.

She had to be accurate, and she had to do it repeatedly. She specifically targeted those connecting to the orcs in order to help them out.

The power of water was not just in the mass, but in momentum, so she continuously moved the slash over and over, using gravity as well, keeping the energy created and using it to damage the plants.

At some point while she was slashing away, she paused.

Did she forget something?