Chapter 336: The Red Mist

Byeol had never eaten random things outside, so Joo Joowon had never needed to worry about things like this before.

One had to know that even if Byeol accepted a cat treat stick from Joo Joowon’s hand, as long as Joo Joowon was not the one feeding it directly to him, Byeol would not eat it. He would not even bother to smell it. He displayed his double standards to the fullest.

But now that it was Hwi, forget about something being handed to him by Joo Joowon. Joo Joowon even suspected that if a complete stranger handed something to Hwi, he would probably eat it without even bothering to test it first.

After finishing the fruit, Hwi licked his paws and washed his face. He did not ask for the other one.

He still remembered the mission they had come out for today, so after satisfying his appetite a little, he continued moving forward carefully.

Joo Joowon planned to move the fruit tree back to his territory when they returned. As for whether the environment in his territory was suitable for growing fruit trees, or whether the fruit tree would end up dying after being planted there... he did not intend to consider those problems at all. He would bring it back first and worry about the rest later.

After this little incident, they did not encounter any uncontrollable danger for a long stretch of the journey. They only came across a herd of zombie deer. Since their levels were low, they did not cause Joo Joowon and Hwi any trouble.

Along the way, they also encountered a plant that seemed to have been contaminated, somewhat resembling a corpse flower. It gave off an extremely strong foul smell, while the stamens looked more like sharp teeth that had been forcibly attached to it. Yellowish, fishy saliva occasionally dripped from its mouth, making it look extremely disgusting.

Because the area around it was far too open, the problem could be spotted at a glance. Therefore, it did not cause Joo Joowon any trouble. Hwi, however, could not help sneezing several times because of the overwhelming stench.

Hwi’s voice made the carnivorous flower excitedly shake its branches, only for Joo Joowon to immediately use spider silk to tear it apart, dealing with it extremely quickly.

As Joo Joowon’s Mental Power continued to increase, the spider web launcher had also become more and more comfortable for him to use. Although he had not managed to develop any additional functions for it, it had not fallen behind enough to be eliminated because of his growth. It remained the most useful weapon in his hands for the time being.

Moreover, Joo Joowon vaguely had a feeling that the quality of equipment did not merely represent its durability or how many additional levels it had. It also seemed to represent the upper limit of the level at which the equipment could be used, as well as the level range it was suitable for.

At least, when he had used the spider web launcher in the past, it had never felt this easy. The amount of Mental Power it consumed was almost negligible, yet its killing power had actually increased.

Joo Joowon was not sure whether this was merely an illusion caused by his increased Mental Power, but he did not dwell on it.

At present, these matters no longer required him to rely on the limited information available to speculate about the answers. Whenever he had a question, he could simply go to the Player Forum and search for the answer.

The carnivorous flower brought Joo Joowon a contaminated Crystallus. Other than that, nothing else dropped. Joo Joowon did not keep the Crystallus and directly sold it to the game before continuing to expand the map.

After the apocalypse, the protected area had indeed become much more desolate. Whether they were ordinary animals or Mutated Beasts, most of them had basically chosen to hide and protect themselves. The frequency of predation had decreased greatly, and their numbers had also become much more scarce.

However, Joo Joowon did not really know exactly how much their numbers had decreased. In any case, there seemed to be no decrease in the number of zombies. As they went deeper into the area, the frequency at which the zombies appeared began to increase significantly.

He guessed that this might be because they could no longer find food in the outer areas, so they had instinctively begun gathering toward areas where animals were more concentrated.

Fortunately, their levels were all low. Until now, Joo Joowon had not discovered anything that could threaten his territory, so they could slowly clear them out.

Even so, neither Joo Joowon nor Hwi became careless in the slightest.

Joo Joowon deeply understood that the power of his fate would continue to influence him. Even if there was no danger for the time being, under various coincidences and circumstances, danger could still be created.

As for Hwi, this was simply an animal’s instinct.

Even when cats were in their own territory, they could be invaded by other cats at any time. From time to time, they would have to fight to determine who the territory belonged to. In such an unfamiliar environment, there was even less reason for Hwi to relax simply because they had not encountered any danger for the time being.

Animals that dared to do this would not be able to escape the cruel survival of the fittest in nature.

They were not big cats like tigers that had no natural predators.

The human and cat carefully explored the area. Before long, they chose to hide in the grass and observe their surroundings.

Generally speaking, the deeper one went into a nature reserve, the denser the vegetation became. However, not long after Joo Joowon and Hwi continued forward, they discovered that the vegetation around them had begun to grow sparse.

Withered yellow branches and leaves hung lonely from the trees. Even the soil, which should have been rich in microorganisms, had become dry and cracked, with the kinds of cracks that only appeared during droughts.