Chapter 221 Activated Protocol 2

One of the tendrils was tugging Number Three’s shoulder, somehow stopping his large war machine-like armour from moving.

“Must have got caught in the armour.” he guessed as he went to sever it with his sword.

The sword was so fast that it caused a silver flash; sand was blown away from the speed.

Unfortunately, as he swung his sword, the mushroom tendril strangely slid around the blade.

The tendril was completely unaffected; It was like it was both rubber and a thick steel wire, holding him in place.

Number Three frowned.

He had seen things impervious to melee attacks in dungeons before, so he guessed this must be something like it.

Of course, a mage hunter was prepared for such an occasion.

Lifting up one gauntlet, a segment of his armour folded back, revealing a small hidden compartment behind it holding two small blue beads of gem stone.

They seemed to shine, almost like a storm was brewing under the surface of them.

Channeling some mana into his armour, the blue beads floated and left the compartment before they attached to the tip of the thumb and fingertip on his glove.

Seeing that everything was in order, he closed the armour panel and then channeled mana into them.

The precious blue stones glowed brighter until finally a blue arc of crackling energy linked between them, releasing a loud crack like a lightening bolt between his fingers.

After a moment, the arc of energy between them normalized and was ready for use.

Despite being small, it hummed with power fiercely and sparked brightly, creating shadows of the mushrooms around him, even in the sunlight.

Slowly, he brought the arc down onto the tendril as it wickedly crackled between his fingers.

Even then, the tendril resisted for a moment before it sizzled, bloated, and melted all at once.

The tendril was easily cut, right before it even had the chance to begin to reel in its victim.

Number Three quickly stored the precious blue arc stones away, stashing them back into the hidden armour compartment before attempting to pull the tendril out from his armour.

Unfortunately it didn’t come loose.

He guessed it was wedged pretty tightly into some small crack somewhere behind his shoulder, as it simply wouldn’t break free, and soon he stopped pulling as he didn’t want to risk damaging his armour.

“Hmh. Another job for another peasant.” he grunted with a shrug.

If they made a mistake, they would be the ones to be punished, so if anyone were to damage it then it was better off some worthless peasant suffer for it, so he thought.

Unbeknownst to Number Three, the tendril wasn’t wedged into his armour at all. As he walked away, he was oblivious to a red patch of the fruit plastered right in the middle of his back.

For now though, he ignored the tendril hanging somewhere off his back and continued his mission.

“Now…” he gazed across the desert, as he stood near the bone pile as looked towards the trail of bones leading to the forest.

“That way.” he nodded, stepping towards the forest.

As he pushed through some more tendrils, he failed to notice the fruit again.

Why would he be wary of the fruit anyway? So far, the only things attacking him were some strange lizards adding red plaques to his legs which were underground for the most part.

This time, one of them attached to his shoulder and burst, sending the rampant red growth over his armour and solidifying.

His military training activated again and he swung his sword with a quick spin, ready for whatever was attacking him.

“Dammit.” he thought.

Sensing no danger, he took a moment to see what was no tugging on him, and as he suspected, another tendril – though this time he realised it was stuck to his armour.

This was not the only tendril now attached to him either.

When span and flashed his sword, he made a grave mistake. He had turned and shifted his body into even more of the fruit – all of them attached to tendrils, and all of them sticking to his armour.

“Hm. A minor hindrance.” he thought, though more annoyed than anything.

Without panicking, he calmly opened the hidden armour compartment again and took out the blue arc stones once more.

These stones had to be mended by the armour after each time they were used, which is why they were in the compartment to begin with. Each of these were engraved gems, and having such tiny engravings gave them tremendous value.

Usually a gemstone would be socketed into a purpose-made item to give the item various effects, such as flame, sharpness or even sense, but these were themselves the item and the gem. The power and the conduit.

Only the mage hunters had access to such exquisite and expensive gems.

Precious as they were, these arc stones were also fragile because of it, and had to rest inside a regenerative compartment built into the mage hunter suit.

Number Three worked quickly and diligently, hoping he would be able to cut away all these tendrils before his arc stones would need to be repaired by the suit.

He didn’t want to wait here for hours as they repaired, and it would truly be embarrassing if Number Two and Number Four caught up to him and found him in this sorry state, so he carried out the tedious process as quickly and precisely as he could.

A few times, he did try to break off the red growths attaching the tendrils, but it seemed that these plaques were further enhanced by the mushrooms, which provided them with an unknown nourishment and helped them to further solidify.

About thirteen of these tendrils were currently attached to his body, and unfortunately, each had to be cut.

A few times he tried to simply tug at them, hoping that something would snap, but even the mushrooms seemed to be made of something much stronger than even his own armour, as they didn’t so much as budge.

He was sure now that they had a form of physical damage immunity, so his best option was to cut them.

“They probably became like this after rock slides.” he guessed.

Suddenly, the tendrils got shorter. He was only half-way through cutting the fifth tendril away when he noticed that they began to pull on him.

Despite his armour weighing as much as a house, they managed to tug at him without much effort at all, soon even pulling him off-balance.

He took a step forward to stop himself from falling over, but in the sand where his balance was reduced, combined with the large balls of red plaques on his feet, he had no choice but to fall into the sand.

A heavy thud, and he fell to one knee. It was better than falling over completely.

Taking a deep breath, he remained calm.

He noticed ever more tendrils were just attached to his body as he was pulled into them.

“Looks like I’m stuck for now.” he thought bitterly, seeing his five minute job just turn into a three hour slog.

Following procedure, he took out his communication crystal.

“Number Three. Environmental hazard. Temporarily hindered. There’s a beacon at where to cross the desert for Two and Four.”

“Acknowledged.” another voice sounded back, “Hazard type?”

“… Obstruction.” he replied.

“Acknowledged.”

Stashing away his communication crystal, he calmly went back to cutting.

Unfortunately, he was soon back on his feet.

Normally this would be a good thing, but in this case it was not because he was pulled to his feet.

Still, through all this, he didn’t let panic set in – he simply tried to cut away the tendrils faster.

However, the tendrils kept pulling.

Slowly, to even Number Three’s surprise, he was pulled out of the sand.

While it made it harder to cut, he ignored his current predicament and calmly continued to cut with a cold efficiency hammered into his mind and body through his years of training.

More tendrils were cut, but he was simply too slow.

Before too long, his whole body was pulled tight.

Channeling more mana into the suit, he even resisted it for a moment, but he soon decided to conserve his mana for the time being.

There was no point fighting it if the result would be the same.

With no way to continue cutting, he stored the arc stones in his inventory, as he currently couldn’t place them into his armour.

Thankfully, the mushrooms were not strong enough to pull his armour apart completely.

After the mushrooms stopped pulling him in multiple directions, he found himself tucked under the mushrooms cap, strapped to it as if he was a peasant in a dungeon.

“Hm.” He angrily grunted for a moment as he wasn’t able to do anything, but soon decided it was a hidden blessing.

He could finally get some rest as he waited for the others to show up and cut him loose.

As he hung there, he secretly rested his eyes under his heavy black helmet.

Suddenly though, the mushroom began to move.

The vine-like tendrils even seemed to loosen – though it was not setting him free.

“Fuck.”

The flesh of the mushroom closed around him suddenly, and instead of being pulled apart, he was now being squeezed inside its cap.

In all this, though, he still didn’t panic.

He calmly took out the communication crystal in relayed another message.

“Number Three. Trapped inside a mushroom. Waiting for assistance.”

The mushroom had already closed and was pitch black inside.

He didn’t even hear them say ‘Acknowledged’ in response.

“It cuts off mana lines?” he wondered, intrigued by the strange specimen he found himself in.

“Number Three. Need Assistance. Please respond.” he tried.

No response.

Next, he felt a fluid fill up the inside of the mushroom cap. He quickly put his communication crystal away to protect it, as he heard a familiar hissing and bubbling noise of corrosive acid.

The tendrils burnt away and the red plaques melted off.

Thankfully, the fluid couldn’t eat through his armour; it wouldn’t be very good armour otherwise.

Finally, he was free.

Well, relatively free.