Enemies Are All Nourishment for My Fungi-Chapter 138: Let’s Go Hunting (9)
Everyone looked at her expressions and gestures, automatically filling in that she must have found a rabbit warren, used her large Space to collect them directly, and brought back six large spiders the same way.
"I was just catching rabbits and pheasants when I heard the wild boar’s screams. When I went to check, a male boar was fighting with a male spider, and two female boars were leisurely foraging nearby, completely indifferent to the male boar’s fate. The spider didn’t care about the females either, it just took down the male and left."
"Hahaha~"
"How could the spider carry away such a big boar?"
"It wrapped it up with spider silk and dragged it away."
At this point, Ye Nai guessed they had never seen such a thing, so she gesticulated wildly as she explained to them.
"The female spider would sit outside the Earth Cave on eight legs, and when the male spider brought prey, she would inspect it on the spot. Once satisfied, she’d stuff the prey into the cave, and then the two would start dancing and mating. After the deed, the male would quickly run off, and the female would go back to feed. After eating, she’d come out and wait again for the next male. In the span of one day, five males came, each bringing prey that satisfied the female spider."
"But I didn’t dare to pick up the last piece of prey; I feared that animal wasn’t clean, so I just left it there."
Ye Nai made up a serious story, knowing it was impossible to go back and check, and besides, that piece of prey was already fungus food and couldn’t be regurgitated.
"Right, right, being cautious is correct."
"Yes, don’t randomly pick up prey that you didn’t hunt yourself."
In the midst of this discussion, everyone divided up the wild rabbits, pheasants, and their eggs, selecting a few chickens and rabbits to clean and reserve for tomorrow’s meal. The rest were photographed for recordkeeping, then Ye Nai collected them again.
Since Ye Nai had run out of communication range, she was supposed to do push-ups and frog jumps as a punishment, but considering the prey she brought back, of course, she was spared.
As for tomorrow, that could wait until tomorrow.
At night, the open-air movie was still showing, and those who wanted to practice driving were still circling the outskirts of the camp.
In the dead of night, while sleeping, a flock of sheep suddenly entered Ye Nai’s Space, waking her up.
There were more than twenty sheep in total—males, females, and sub-adult lambs. Three of the females were noticeably pregnant, with a coat of white mixed with grey, ordinary in amount, neither like mountain goats nor like sheep. The females had no horns, while the males had horns curled and thicker than those of an antelope and bore a strange, dark glow at the tips.
Curiously, Ye Nai singled out the most robust male in the flock and pulled its head out of her Space, shining her flashlight on it as she carefully felt its horns.
The horns were icy to the touch, growing colder the more she touched them. The tips weren’t sharp; they had a smooth, rounded feel to them. Ye Nai casually grabbed a fresh skin, not sure if it was rabbit or rat, from the hangar where she stored various Mutant Beast Skins and poked it at the tip of the horn.
With a "pfft" sound, it pierced through.
The prey consumed by the fungus would leave behind an intact, undamaged skin, and now such a skin was easily punctured and hung with two holes over the horn.
Filled with curiosity, Ye Nai touched the sharp tip of the horn again but still couldn’t feel any sharpness.
Yet the skin was really hanging there.
"Damn~" Ye Nai exclaimed in shock, "Sheep are not to be underestimated!"
Of course, this flock of sheep was kept.
They weren’t killed, saved for tomorrow’s hunting quota.
Come morning, just like yesterday, they split into groups to act, still hoping to snag a few cows.
Yesterday, nobody had found the cows, so today they would search again. If they still couldn’t find them, they would break camp and move to a different location.
Overnight, Ye Nai’s Space had accumulated quite a number of Nocturnal Rats.
All big rats.
They had dusty fur, tails as long as their bodies, and their heads and bodies combined could be as long as a person’s arm. With the addition of their long tails, they could circle a person’s neck twice.
The fungus decomposed several rats, leaving behind intact skins and two tenderloins—the only meat on a rat fit for human consumption.
But there were many rats, and upon Ye Nai’s order, various rats—males, females, and young—poured into her space storage. She found several rice-sized heart cores on the larger males.
This made Ye Nai even more interested in the larger rats.
She didn’t eat rat meat, nor did she want to submit the rats as hunting trophies. She considered them feed for the fungus, a way to control the rat population in the Secret Realm. If she found any heart cores, they were to be reserved for her.
Today, she revisited the route where she had found the young bull before. She believed what the team leaders had said: where a lone young bull roams, a herd was nearby. No one had found it yesterday due to bad luck; maybe today would be her lucky day.
Ye Nai bustled about all morning and encountered three boar groups. Her tactic was to sweep them all into her space at once, sort through them, keep the males, and release the females.
The three boar groups contributed a total of seventeen males.
The most uptodate nove𝙡s are published on frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓.
In the approach to noon, the fungus finally brought good news—a pregnant cow with gunshot wounds had suddenly appeared in her space.
Following the direction indicated by the spores, Ye Nai rushed over at full speed.
As expected, two minutes later, her walkie-talkie filled with static and went silent; she had run out of communication range again.
She hadn’t gone far, no more than a quarter-hour’s distance, when a spore suddenly hit Ye Nai in the face, stopping her in her tracks.
Ye Nai instinctively braked and released the throttle. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she heard gunshots in the distance.
She immediately hid her motorcycle in the grass and concealed herself.
While lying on the ground, she felt distinct vibrations from something heavy running.
Ye Nai crawled toward the direction where the shocks were strongest and the gunshots sounded.
It didn’t take long before she saw a private army hunting a buffalo herd through her binoculars.
There were many wild buffaloes, easily a hundred large and small, no newborn calves. Each adult buffalo was as big as a small hill, and the adolescents, although leaner, were not short at all.
Any way you looked at it, they were an undefeatable, mighty group.
Yet humanity wanted to be their natural predator.
A thirty-odd member private army drove seven vehicles, circling the outer perimeter of the buffalo herd and firing repeatedly.
The pregnant cow that the fungus had captured in her space must have been acquired this way.
The cow was protected in the middle of the herd, with the mature bulls leading the other males to counter the hunters.
In nature, large size and heavy weight signify strength.
Even as Otherworld animals, the same natural laws applied.
Their skin was so thick that bullets caused bleeding wounds, but they didn’t fall easily. Instead, the injury triggered their aggression. They lowered their heads and picked up speed to ram the off-road vehicles. If they hit one and raised their heads, they’d flip the vehicle over, leaving two gaping holes in its body.
Even an off-road vehicle reinforced to be heavier, weighing several tons, couldn’t withstand the enraged charge of a huge wild buffalo.
The team members trapped in the flipped vehicle couldn’t climb out for a while.
From her hiding spot, Ye Nai witnessed one lucky individual crawl out of the rear car window. The man hadn’t even stood up to run away before he was stomped dead by a buffalo hoof.
After several more stamps, his body was pulverized beyond recognition.
So what if one is an Awakener? A human body cannot withstand the enraged trampling of a several-ton wild buffalo.
