On balance, August would rather have continued the conversation than go off alone into the forest with Kalter—even with Haiko’s assurance that they wouldn’t be as upset as he believed, he couldn’t help but remember the frantic moments when she’d first arrived, and the damage she’d managed to inflict on him. But she was also correct, they could talk about this afterwards, and right now, they were wasting valuable daylight.

“Sorry, Kalter is right; let’s table this for now,” August said, turning and stepping past Rittan. “Ladybug, come on.”

Ladybug gave a trill of affirmation as she kicked off the stump, twisted and then landed feet first on his shoulder—for once he actually managed to brace himself in time. Haiko scooped Morningstar up a moment later, carrying him in the bottom pair of her hands as she moved to follow.

“Every time I see you pick one of these guys up, I can’t help but picture them erupting into a ball of spears.” Boko admitted, “You guys are far braver than I am; I’ll tell you that.”

“I don’t believe it’s bravery, in this case, just a different set of experiences,” Haiko said, sounding amused. “You’ve spent years seeing these types of creatures in a specific environment in which they are indiscriminately violent—the first time I ever encountered one was a few days ago, and it’s been nothing but friendly.”

“They aren’t all like that,” Kalter said, the frown in her voice audible, “You better not try and pick one up unless August has dealt with it first.”

“Oh, my sweet pet,” Haiko cooed, “Is this jealousy I hear?”

“On second thoughts,” Kalter said, changing her mind. “Maybe you should try picking them up.”

August slipped through the trees, eyes flitting between his next foot placement and the tree tops, searching for hazards.

“[Locate Plant],” August murmured, toggling the skill on.

The world shifted slightly, moving to accommodate the new white outlines surrounding everything nearby. The tree roots tangling beneath the dirt, a mess of overlapping white lines, fighting for space with their surrounding opposition. Seeing it like this made him realise just how much was going on under the grass that he’d never even considered before.

The outline of a flower, hidden behind a string of vines, caught his eye as they passed it by, something he never would have seen if not for the skill augmenting his vision. Ladybug fired a chain off into the mess above, zipping up and out of sight; Morningstar followed a moment later.

“Yeah, that’s far more concerning than the old version,” Boko said, voice low. “Advanced accuracy and collision detection. Understanding of depth perception, distance, momentum, and weight distribution—these things are dangerous, even before the ability to understand complex orders.”

“The speed and ability to attack from the range is the problem,” Kalter muttered, “There’s no way to get close enough to kill them.”

“Not without baiting out an attack first,” Boko agreed, “Have you noticed any patterns on where on the target they tend to attack?”

“Torso and head,” August guessed, thinking about his own encounter. “They have six chains, and there are enough holes that they could probably fire off six attacks in a single direction, but I’ve never seen them do more than one or two at a time.”

“Do they come to a stop before attacking?” Boko asked.

“I don’t think so; the one that was coming after I attacked while it was swinging around,” August admitted, “It was also blocking attacks from Ladybug at the same time, so they’re definitely capable of tracking multiple targets at once.”

“Multitasking capability as well,” Boko said, laughing. “As if it wasn’t bad enough.”

August came to a stop almost a minute later, looking around at the area—plenty of trees with massive leaves and vines were already in the process of strangling everything else to death.

“Shall this be our area?” Rittan said, ducking to avoid the low branch that August had simply stepped under. “It certainly looks rich in resources.”

“Works for me,” Boko said, following him in. “Make sure you check in every five minutes; I don’t know the area at all, so trying to find you guys will be a total pain.”

“We will,” August agreed, “Morningstar, make sure they’re safe while we’re gone.”

A chain burst out of the trees, dragging the red and black blur above them; it crashed feet first against the tree, held aloft by the now taut chain—Morningstar trilled out a confirmation. August nodded before choosing a direction parallel to the now-vanished treeline and then started forward, away from the group. Kalter followed behind him, far enough back that she was well clear of his life-sensing radius.

There was no lack of plant life around, but it was hard to actually tell if any of the ones he was seeing were actually useful or not, and considering that half of his mana was in reserve to keep [Locate Plant] running, that left exactly two uses of [Analysis] before he was entirely out of mana.

“Kalter, do you recognise any of these plants?” August asked, squinting at a bunched-up mess of what looked like not-quite grass. “I was never a big gardening kind of guy back home.”

“The only plants I ever saw on Hekaton were the decorations they put on every corner and the parks,” Kalter murmured, “Anything food related was grown in buildings or on farms, and I was never in a position to see any of that.”

“Right,” August said.

There was a fair bit of sunlight ahead of them, some larger gap amongst the trees letting it in, and when he got close enough, he could see the cause—a clearing with a series of trees had fallen down, the cause of which wasn’t immediately obvious. The sun exposure seemed to have caused the clearing to undergo far more plant growth than most of the forest, although most of it looked like grass and some kind of thing weedy vine.

There was, however, the faint smell of something else present, although he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. August pushed into the overgrown area, feet vanishing into the mess, and the further he went, the stronger the scent grew until he actually identified it—on the other side of the sun-spoiled area, near the edge of the trees.

“I know that smell,” August muttered.

He crouched down, clearing weeds away, the white outline below the dirt showing a tightly packed cluster of small bulbs, none of them much larger than one of his knuckles. August squinted in an attempt to distinguish the top of the green plant from the rest of the surrounding mess.

“[Analysis],” August said.

Allium Sativum

An enduring, flowering plant growing from a bulb.

Which told him absolutely nothing about it that he could actually use, but the smell alone was enough to motivate him into pressing his fingers into the dirt and digging the entire thing out of the ground—the smell was stronger here, and any doubt he might have had before was gone.

“Garlic?” August said, lifting it up. “You know what that is, right?”

“Are you making fun of me?” Kalter said, frowning.

“No,” August said, shaking his head. “None of you recognised the sad apple tree, and I thought this might be the same type of situation—you guys had this on Hekaton?”

“Yes,” Kalter said, eyeing him for a long moment. “You had it as well?”

“Yeah,” August said, holding the top part up for her to see. “There’s a bunch of them here—can you help me dig them out?”

Kalter stepped passed him, dropping down into a crouch, her arms searching the mess of vine for more of the plant. August placed the plant into his inventory and then turned to continue the task. He had no real idea about the nutritional value of Garlic, but it had the mystical power of making everything else taste better—which was more than enough for him.