Chapter 69: The Mandrake Root Monster

Logan had used the soldiers’ lifeforce to build his carbon sucking tree. There had been no other alternative, since although Logan could use Karma to power [Life Fabricator], he could only do that if he had a base to work with. A seed or a plant. This time, he’d envisioned a seed out of nothing, powering it with the only thing around—the soldiers. At the time, he’d noticed that something felt off, but the urgency of growing the tree so he could succeed at the Build an Empire Quest had overridden those concerns.

And yet, the last time this happened, he’d managed to hatch Shoot. He’d started to think of that quirk of his… of things not going exactly as planned as something that wouldn’t result in him digging himself his own hole. If whatever he’d hatched wanted to help, then Logan could only hope that this was the same scenario.

Tightening his grip on his sword, Logan inched forward, keeping his senses wide open as he scanned everything around him with [Life Fabricator]. The tree’s aura was as overwhelming as before, but now, he could sense three others—smaller, concentrated lifeforms. As if the tree had three shoots that it had sent out which were developing into saplings.

Aww, man.

These were no saplings.

At first glance, the tree appeared solid, solid like concrete. It was as wide as fifty rain barrels stacked against each other, the bark weathered and ancient. What appeared to be cracks in the bark were no cracks at all. It would be like staring at a wall and seeing a black felt pen outline of a man’s silhouette, only for that outline to take on life and step out of the wall.

He'd grown a tree, and yet, he’d sucked lifeforce from humans.

It shouldn’t have been rocket science. Logan was staring at the evidence right in front of him.

Lurching towards him was a monster that looked like a mandrake root that had grown into the size of an adult person. With grey skin—the same color as the bark of the tree. It had two deformed arms, so short they barely resembled limbs at all, with green shoots bursting out of the ends.

Its head was two times the size of a normal human’s—bald, and with no discernable face other than a mouth that was more of a slit—no lips, no bloom of color. It had no eyes. Speckled dark spots that resembled moles decorated its head, and each oozed a substance that was sticky and viscous. A scent of sugar wafted off the creature, as if… was it sap? Its torso was the same grey color, but bulging and swelling at intervals, like a deformed root.

Its skin looked wrinkled, as if the thing were ancient, and it had a bulging belly, but other than that, there was no sign of it being male or female.

It lurched towards Logan on two twisted legs. They looked like the legs of a deer turned around. Around its shoulders, straggly branches burst out of its skin like new shoots growing from a plant. Most were shriveled, like twigs left to dry in the heat, but others had green leaves that morphed and wiggled.

It was official.

Logan was a monster farmer.

Feeling his stomach slosh with queasiness, Logan scanned it with [Idiot’s Inspect]:

[Carbon Sucking Root Screamer: Level 20. This carbon sucking root monster has a weaponized scream that sucks out carbon from its opponents.]

[Highest Stat: Constitution. Characteristics: Loyal to user Idiot. Hidden name: N/A.]

Logan blinked.

Well, he’d grown a carbon sucking, monstruous tree, so he didn’t know why he’d be surprised that the monster that he’d hatched also had the ability to suck in carbon. But yikes, it didn’t state carbon dioxide, not the gaseous version. The description said ‘carbon.’

Logan wasn’t anywhere close to being a scientist, but even he knew that sucking carbon from an animal, or hell, a person, wouldn’t end well.

“We will help.”

He flexed his fingers on the handle of his sword. Just like with Ernie, the monster had communicated mentally rather than out loud.

Wait.

‘We?’

Logan looked behind the screamer, and sure enough, two additional monsters were detaching from the trunk of the tree and lurching over to join the other.

They had the same mandrake-like bodies; but one was shorter, its head barely coming up to the top of Logan’s shoulders, its skin speckled with faint green splotches that resembled mold. Tree sap covered the third one, as if its pocket marked moles were generating the liquid like a running faucet.

Logan scanned them with [Idiot’s Inspect]:

[Carbon Sucking Tree Root Screamer: Level 15.]

[Carbon Sucking Tree Root Screamer: Level 18.]

These ones didn’t have hidden names either. How was it that animals such as Shoot or Ernie could have hidden names right off the bat, and yet other monsters didn’t? For that matter, if he’d just hatched them, how were they so high leveled already?

“From sucking in carbon from our pores. The user fabricated us well.”

Logan held back a hiss. Fuck, it could read his mind? Logan didn’t like the sound of that, but at the same time, he’d grown the thing himself, and according to [Idiot’s Inspect] they felt loyalty to Logan. If anyone were going to read his mind, he’d much rather it be his own creation.

If these things leveled up by sucking carbon, another mystery was starting to make sense. He’d received more KarmaCoin for growing the tree than expected, a whopping 390,000. The System might have given him the extra just from creating these three.

Huh. If he put his mind to it, could he create monsters that wandered around feeding on carbon? A passive ability? Mobile carbon mouths? That’d be a heck of a way to knock down his Save Humanity Quest.

“Logan?” came a thready voice from behind him.

Logan gave Voss a look. He was pale, his lips bloodless and his eyes wide. He retreated, tripping over his own feet as he gazed at the screamers. “Mate, that’s the most f-upped thing I’ve seen in my life.”

Logan frowned. Voss should see an evil blob and then get back to Logan on f-upped monsters. “Nah, they’re just eager workers.”

“Would you like us to kill him?” sent one of the screamers.

“No,” said Logan, firm. “Voss is a friend. In fact…” He’d wanted a solution, a way for Logan to leave this place and not have to worry about Damsel’s supporters taking it back. If the screamers were already that high leveled, he might have found his answer. But were they intelligent enough to do what he wanted?

Logan willed his sword into his spatial collar and then rested his hands on his hips. “In fact, Voss is in charge of you three. Whatever he says, goes, understand?”

The screamers didn’t have eyes, so there was no acknowledgement, but somehow, he felt a warm sensation of agreement.

“Logan…?” questioned Voss.

“I need to leave.”

Voss frowned.

“I was only here to offer my private market. Voss, I want you to take control of this place and make it into a complex that you can be proud of. Kill anyone who stands in your way and let everyone else know the true cost of this place. Tell them what truly happened in those fighting parties. Bring forward witnesses who can attest to what Damsel and Charlie did.”

“Damsel will just come back and kill me.”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure. Maybe not. If you surround yourself with supporters, if you gain the love of the people? She didn’t strike me as the type who would want others to see her for what she truly is. Besides, I happen to know that I’ll be meeting her again in less than six days. Hold out for that long and I might take care of your problem for you.”

Voss hesitated. “But how do I communicate with them?”

Logan furrowed his brow and pinned the highest leveled screamer with an examining eye. “Can you talk to Voss like you can me?”

“If the user wills it.”

“I—”

“Oi!” shouted a male voice. “What are you going to do with those men?”

The crowd had started to return to the courtyard after the gunfire had stopped. First a trickle—a few scared faces peering around corners—and then two dozen or more. They gaped at the tree, faces pale, while a smattering glared at Logan and adjusted their weapons.

In a way, Logan felt relieved. At least he’d know if his strategy worked before he left. Logan had gone out of his way to save Voss, and he would hate for his efforts to go to waste.

The man was tall, tall enough to be a match for Logan, his mouth in a snarl. He had blond hair that curled around the base of his neck, looking bleached by the sun. He reminded Logan of what he considered a stereotypical surfer—wearing board shorts and sandals. A pretty substantial whip was wrapped around one shoulder, and a leather strap attached a long knife to his lower thigh.

Logan scanned him with [Idiot’s Inspect]:

[Lester Davidson: Level 29: A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Agility. Characteristics: Quick to blame others for his own mistakes. Hidden name: Lester.]

The man rushed towards Voss, reaching for his knife, before he came to a sudden stop, his mouth slackening as he stared at the screamers.

“Shit!” he said. “We’ve got a monster swarm on our hands! Don’t just stand there!” Grabbing his knife, he turned his head and yelled for help and then flashed his eyes at Voss in anger.

Logan supposed that Voss was the easier target. It was hard to threaten someone like Logan and expect to come out on top. Come to think of it, for all he knew, Lester could be seeing nothing but ??? when he used [Identify] on Logan.

“Command them to attack,” said Logan.

Voss looked green.

Logan’s lips thinned, and he gave Voss a pinched, unhappy expression. For him to be left in charge and to succeed, he needed to toughen up. “Voss,” Logan barked. “Command them.”

Voss took a deep breath and then he straightened, pushing his chest out. Instead of continuing to cradle his injured hand to his chest, he dropped it and then clenched it into a fist, as if using the pain to firm his resolve. Droplets of blood fell to the ground, the wound still a hellish mess.

In times like these, Logan realized how much he’d lucked out with Ernie and [Regenerate]. He would have had to increase his constitution attribute to a massive degree to get anywhere close to what the skill could do back when he was lower leveled. Not to mention that even a high constitution attribute couldn’t do anything if you lost a limb. Without [Regenerate], Logan would be walking around without a hand and without a foot.

Voss gestured with his chin at the nearest screamer. “Stop him. Stop anyone like him.”

The screamer didn’t acknowledge Voss, but it did turn towards Lester, its deer-like legs clacking against the asphalt, its green shoots and leaves rustling. Its giant mandrake root appearance made it come across as sluggish and slow moving, but in reality, it could challenge Shoot to a race and come out victorious.

One blink—a blink at most, and it was already in front of Lester, its green leaves rustling as if in excitement. The grey skin flexed on its back, like an old man with wrinkled skin reaching for something on a top cupboard. The sight made Logan scrunch his eyebrows in disgust.

“We will make you proud,” crooned the monster, its voice eager with devotion. After Ernie, Logan had gotten accustomed to speaking mentally, but this was something else. It was as if it were whispering directly into his ear, making the fine hairs on the back of Logan’s neck raise.

Lester twitched and pointed his knife at the screamer, his teeth bared, but the screamer had already opened the slot on its bulbous head, letting out a stream of sound. It sounded like a cat screaming, or an animal in agony. That sound you’d hear in the night, bundled underneath the covers, a screech so hair raising that you’d doubt you’d heard it in the first place.

Logan winced, grimacing in pain, feeling the effects even twenty feet away. Shit, if Logan felt it, what must Lester be experiencing?

He soon had his answer.

It began with Lester’s eyes swelling, the eyelids thinning until the skin became so translucent that you could see the pupils through it. Then his hair turned from beach washed blond to grey, as if he’d aged fifty years in a second. It kept accelerating, until his hair fell from his scalp, leaving nothing but bald patches.

Lester tried to get away, but the screamer grabbed him by the shoulder, wrapping one of its twig-like appendages around his arm. A shoot snapped into his bare arm, the sharp end of the thin branch digging into his flesh so deep that it had surely hit bone. Blood splashing in a deluge, the screamer pulled Lester closer until its hungry mouth screamed that hair-raising sound directly into his face.

And then…

Ugh.

It was as if the screamer had stuck his head into a microwave.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Voss chanted, his eyes glued to the gooey mess of exploding brain and scalp that littered the area. “You want me to command this thing?!”

Despite the ugliness of what he’d just witnessed, Logan could barely smother a grin. A surge of pride suffused his limbs. In a way, he felt like a father whose child had just hit a homerun.

***

With the Voss problem taken care of, Logan could return to what was most important, completing his Build an Empire Quest. First, he made sure to grab Charlie and Lester’s bodies and willed them inside of his spatial collar.

Charlie had been carrying a spatial collar pouch inside of his pocket, but it was like the others he’d found so far, C Grade, the capacity barely big enough to fit the contents of a large backpack. Inside, he had food, condoms, and a stick of deodorant. Logan rolled his eyes. He couldn’t even—

Hold on.

Holy shit!

Logan let out a whoop of excitement, feeling energized and ready to take on the world. And it was a silly thing like a six pack of beer that did it.

Charlie had beer! It was Australian, not anything Logan would choose to buy, but it was better than nothing after his dry spell. Logan wasn’t an alcoholic; he could take it or leave it, but he couldn’t deny that after a good fight, kicking back with a beer and letting himself unwind would be a hell of a mood booster. It had been almost two weeks since the Integration had started, and not once had he run into beer.

Chuckling, he put it to the side, sorting it towards what he considered the ‘priority’ section of his spatial collar, and then willed out the necklace he’d taken from Damsel.

[Gem of Subterfuge. B Grade. While touching the user’s skin, this gem will hide the user’s level, characteristics, and hidden name. You may change these items at whim.]

Logan ran his hand over his chin and scratched his stubble.

He felt like a kid in a candy shop.

<----Go to chapter 70.