After chatting for a bit, they fell silent again, advancing cautiously.

Pushing aside a thick layer of foliage, Squirtle suddenly saw a half-collapsed concrete structure ahead.

Vines coiled around cracked walls. On one side lay overgrown earth; on the other, a deep, bottomless pit ten meters wide.

“I’ll check it out. Cover me.” He swallowed hard, slung the machete, switched to his assault rifle, and crept closer.

There was no sign of mutant creatures.

After scanning the vine-covered wall and finding no threats, he took out his flashlight and aimed it down the pit. The beam cut deep into darkness, and glinted off rippling water below.

Hearing the faint drips, Squirtle’s eyes lit up. He turned back and shouted, “There’s water...”

He froze when he saw the terror written across his teammates’ faces.

“Behind you!”

“Get back!”

Even as they yelled, something lashed across his ribs, hard. It was a vine as thick as an arm.

It struck, then coiled rapidly around his exosuit chest plate, winding twice before jerking him backward.

“Urgh!”

The air was crushed from his lungs. Eyes bulging, he clawed at the pit’s edge as the pressure increased, the polymer plates of his armor bending inward.

“Hold on, bro!” Blastoise quickly flicked off his grenade launcher’s safety and fired.

The explosive detonated against the wall, showering dust and green fragments, but it barely scorched the vine. The monstrous tendril tightened further, dragging him down.

With the last of his strength, Squirtle ripped the VM off his arm and hurled it toward his friends, just as the vine yanked him screaming into the abyss.

“Squirtle!”

“Bro!”

Their cries vanished into the jungle’s hum. Only the rustling leaves and insect song remained.

Picking the mud-stained VM off the ground, Blastoise pressed his palm to his helmet and took a long breath.

“This is Team B. We found an underground freshwater source beneath a concrete ruin, but there’s... some kind of creature down there.”

Elf Wang’s voice came over the comms. “A creature?!”

“More like... a plant,” Blastoise said, glancing uneasily at the pit. “It got Squirtle instantly. We didn’t even have time to call for help.”

Silence crackled through static. Then Elf Wang’s voice returned, calm but heavy. “Copy. Stay put, we’re on our way.”

“Roger.” Ending the transmission, Blastoise stowed Squirtle’s VM and looked again at the deceptively quiet structure.

From outside, it looked harmless.

“Poor Squirtle, gone in a flash,” Dumb Turtle sighed, glancing toward the trees, and froze.

At the roots of a barrel-thick tree hung clusters of green berries. Something about them seemed eerily familiar.

He crouched, plucked one free, and turned it over in his palm.

Seeing him, Blastoise asked curiously, “What’re you doing?”

Dumb Turtle tossed him the berry. “Look familiar?”

Blastoise caught it, took one look, and his eyes went wide. “A little bit... wait, holy crap! That’s...”

“That’s what?”

“Na Fruit! It’s Na Fruit!”

Dumb Turtle’s jaw dropped. “What?!”

By the time the sun dipped west, half a day had passed since the New Alliance’s cargo airship arrived over Baiyue Strait.

Already, 10 player deaths had been reported.

Five in the jungle, five on the beach. It was perfectly balanced, like all things should be.

Another 12 players were severely wounded beyond healing.

Rather than waste precious playtime, most saved their progress in and chose to forfeit treatment.

The Bull and Horse Squad’s airship would later carry their VM data and recovered bio-matter back to New Alliance territory, free of charge.

In a camp of barely 300, losing over 20 people was serious.

Ample Time finally understood what that NPC’s cryptic warning had meant before leaving. Apparently, the man had never believed they could survive here for long. And honestly, he wasn’t wrong.

If it truly was so easy to settle down in the land, the locals wouldn’t have abandoned such resource-rich territory to hide on barren islands.

Still, while such losses were tragic to NPCs, for players it was just part of the grind.

It was simply new map problems.

A few deaths were totally acceptable.

“The rainforest clearing speed’s too slow... should’ve hired the Jungle Corps,” Ample Time thought, surveying the camp bathed in dusk.

Just then, a comms alert blinked on his VM screen.

Seeing Irene’s ID, he plugged in his earpiece and pressed connect. “Yeah?”

“It’s me, Irene.”

“What’s up?”

“We found a freshwater source, but the situation’s bad. A large carnivorous plant’s taken over the area. Might take a while to clear it. Also... we found Na Fruit nearby. Looks wild.”

“Wild Na Fruit?!” Ample Time froze.

“Yeah... it’s not like the cultivated stuff we saw in the Brocade River Province,” Irene explained. “These grow slow, like mushrooms. They cling to certain trees, just a thin layer along the roots. Easy to miss if you don’t look carefully.”

Ample Time frowned. “What about the soil nearby? Any signs of contamination?”

Irene said, “I didn’t see any contaminated soil... as for what it might look like under a microscope, I have no idea. All I’ve got here is a magnifying glass. But I’ve been thinking, what if these naturally grown Na Fruit are actually what the fruit originally looked like, and the ones we saw in the Brocade River Province were modified strains, enhanced with Mutant Slime Mold DNA?”

That matched what the official lore described.

According to the setting compendium, Na Fruit first spread northward from the Southern Sea into the Ocean Edge Province. Before the Torch Church spliced Mutant Slime Mold genes into it and began preaching it as the cornerstone of their so-called Kingdom of Heaven, it had simply been one among many species of tropical fungi, no different from common tree fungus.

They were like wood ear mushrooms.

Ample Time thought for a moment, then said, “Bring back some samples.”

Irene chuckled. “No problem! Though... to collect them, we did have to sacrifice a teammate. The guy’s gear was worth quite a bit, you know, so about that...”

Ample Time rolled his eyes. “10,000 silver coins enough for you?”

His smile widened instantly. “Deal!”

...