Chapter 2

Anzhe walked for a long time.

Many nights and days passed, yet on the map, the distance he covered was no wider than a human's fingernail, with a whole finger's length still separating him from the Northern Base. Without human transportation, he had no idea how long it would take to get there.

Finally, the moist, dark scent began to fade, and the ground under his feet became increasingly hard.

In the evening, the sun sank like a deep red eye, accepted by the contiguous black mountains like eyelids, its light gradually disappearing. Dusk and auroras surfaced together as Anzhe struggled to decipher the writing and symbols on the map.

The dry river he had just crossed marked the boundary of "The Abyss," beyond which lay an area known as "Plain No. 2." With a danger level of three stars and a pollution rating of two stars, Plain No. 2 was inhabited by large arthropod monsters and rodent creatures, devoid of mushrooms and primarily covered in ordinary low shrubs.

Indeed, the undulating terrain, ubiquitous rifts, and towering tree shadows entangled in the night of The Abyss were all absent here. The place offered an open view—an endless dusk panorama, flat and endless.

But Anzhe felt uneasy.

The dry air of Plain No. 2 seemed ill-suited for mushrooms. He couldn't find soil from which to draw nutrients and had to resort to human methods of rest, such as sleep, to regain his strength.

So, he walked for a long time until he found a slightly hollow, sparsely grass-covered depression where he sat down, curling up in a suitable position.

A mushroom spends much of its life in a state of sleep, but this was his first time sleeping in a human posture.

Mushrooms' sleep entails staying quietly in one place, waiting for time to pass, but human sleep seemed different. Shortly after closing his eyes, boundless darkness rose like a tide, lightening his body, or rather, giving him the sensation of gradually losing it.

At some moment, the sound of the wind began to whine past his ears—the winds of the wilderness, once his favorite thing.

But those winds now meant nothing to him; they took his spores away—while he rolled in a favorite wilderness. The wind carried human voices, the syllables of which he barely remembered, forming disjointed fragments in human language—

"Very... strange, very..."

"...how?"

"Take... here... samples."

The next moment, an indescribable pain radiated throughout his body. The sensation was light but deep, leaving a void in his consciousness that could never, ever be filled. He knew he had lost something most precious from then on.

Fear swept through his body in an instant, and since then, he began to fear the sounds of the wind, opting to reside in caves.

His heart thudded, a wave of fear crashing over him—the kind of fear associated with losing spores.

Anzhe abruptly opened his eyes, immediately realizing he was dreaming, something only humans do. The next moment, his breathing stopped completely.

He recognized the source of his fear—a black creature standing before him.

Two eerily glowing, blood-red compound eyes, Anzhe's body tensed, his gaze lowered to the huge—human adult-length, triple pairs of thin and sharp scythe-like forelimbs reflecting a cold, moonlit sheen.

Realizing what this creature was, his body shivered, feeling a distant sensation, a tremor from the first ancestor millions of years ago—mushrooms could die from a swarm of termite bites.

The Abyss's beasts might disdain mushrooms, but Plain No. 2's arthropod monsters could consider mushrooms a rare delicacy.

This thought had barely formed when Anzhe instinctively rolled to the side!

A dull thud echoed, shaking the ground, as the arthropod monster's sharp limbs fiercely stabbed into the dirt right where he had just lain.

Anzhe quickly grabbed his backpack, scrambled to his feet, and bolted towards a nearby thicket, the arthropod monster's dense footsteps echoing in his ears. When the sound diminished slightly, Anzhe glanced back, finally discerning the beast's entire form under the aurora—a giant black monster, thousands of times the size of an ant.

Fortunately, its body seemed too cumbersome, human running speed outpacing it. If only he could reach the thicket ahead—

He tripped.

In that instant, he was engulfed in the monster's shadow, sharp whooshing sounds as its forelimbs hacked towards his arms.

Anzhe's sleeve suddenly emptied, fabric yielding… it missed.

The monster, apparently surprised, hesitated.

Meanwhile, mycelium in Anzhe's sleeve spread anew, reforming into a complete human arm.

He rolled away, narrowly evading the monster's next attack, then, using his arms for support, plunged into the underbrush, robust shrubs shielding his body.

But that wasn't enough to escape the monster's sight. Anzhe gasped, his body beginning to change at that moment, arms, fingers, and all extremities blurring. Something surged beneath, transitioning towards mycelium, preparing to flee in a more flexible manner.

At that moment—

"Bang!"

A white light streaked across the sky, striking heavily at the joint connecting the monster's head and abdomen.

Following the dull impact sound, the white light silently exploded, interspersed with red flames,

Anzhe lay in the bushes, watching as the giant creature was bisected and thudded to the ground.

Shaken leaves rustled, showering him, the monster's head landing less than half a meter from him, its blood-red eyes still staring in his direction.

In "The Abyss," Anzhe had seen creatures split into three parts, each segment still moving. He thought to move away from the beast when he suddenly heard voices not far off.

"The last uranium bullet, let's collect the corpse and head back to the base." A man's voice, thick with texture.

"The shell of arthropods isn't cheap. Didn't expect to snag something in the end." Another man's voice, sharper than the first.

After a brief exchange, they fell silent, and footsteps approached, the sound of heavy-soled boots on sandy ground mixed with rustling friction.

—Humans.

Since Anzhe's death, Anzhe hadn't seen another human. He quietly raised his head from the bushes.

The bushes rustled. The first man to speak sharply commanded, "Alert!"

The next second, three dark gun muzzles aimed in his direction.

Anzhe looked at them.

He couldn't help recalling the chaotic memories of that night he lost his spores, but Anzhe's presence showed him the kind and friendly traits of humans. He considered his present situation and said, "Hello... you."

Auroras illuminated the scene before him, revealing three men in gray attire, all male. They wore brown wide belts at their waists, carrying magazines, with the tallest man in the center and the other two slightly shorter.

The man in the middle, who had spoken about "the last uranium bullet," said with a steady voice, "Human?"

Anzhe hesitated, recalling the weapon that had bisected the monster, and replied, "Yes."

"What's your name? Your ID number? Where are your teammates?"

"Anzhe, 3261170514, we got separated."

The man frowned, studying him. He had thick black eyebrows, distinct black and white eyes, a high bridge on his nose, and full lips. This combination of features didn't make Anzhe feel threatened, unlike the beasts of The Abyss. He pursed his lips, returning the gaze.

After three seconds, another man—a shorter, dark-skinned man—clicked his gun, threateningly loading it. He stared at Anzhe with a deep voice and fast speech: "Strip."

Anzhe stood up from the bush, undoing the first button on his gray shirt, then the second, revealing the skin of his neck. His skin was a smooth, milky white, slightly resembling the color of his mycelium.

Next, he heard the third man whistle, a short-haired individual with many wrinkles indicating human aging. His eyes were gray-blue, lifted at the corners, staring directly at him,

Anzhe lowered his head, unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, and slipped it off.

The gray-blue-eyed man approached, whistled a second time, and started to scrutinize him from top to bottom.

His gaze was very sticky, like the slime of beasts from The Abyss, scanning Anzhe before circling to his side.

The next moment, Anzhe's wrist was caught, and the man's fingers brushed across Anzhe's skin. His thumb rubbed Anzhe's wrist bone, asking in a slightly sharp voice, "What's this?"

Anzhe looked down at his hand and wrist, marked with irregular red lines from brushing against the bushes while evading the monster. He turned, indicating the bushes behind him: "Leaves."

A brief silence followed. After a while, the man smacked his lips and said, "You take off the rest yourself, or should I help you?"

Anzhe didn't move.

He roughly knew what they were doing; Anzhe's memories had similar scenes.

Monsters could contaminate each other and humans with their genes. Checking for wounds on a stranger's body was the preliminary method to determine if they were contaminated.

But the man behind him made him uncomfortable, like when he was still a mushroom, and snakes slithered over his stalk and cap.

So he looked at the man in the center. Having seen many fierce beasts in The Abyss, he could roughly judge their danger level. Now, he instinctively felt this man was the least aggressive among the three.

"Hawson." After a brief stare, the man spoke again, his voice deep: "Don't act up in the wild."

Hawson chuckled, his gaze becoming even more presumptuous as he looked at Anzhe.

After three seconds, the man told Anzhe, "Come with me."

Anzhe obediently followed the man behind the monster's skull, indeed showing no injuries besides the scratches from the bushes.

The man asked, "How long have you been separated from your teammate?"

Anzhe thought for a moment and answered, "A day."

"You're lucky to be alive."

"It seems there aren't many monsters here."

"But plenty of insects." The man always spoke succinctly yet reliably.

Anzhe buttoned up his shirt and looked at him, asking softly, "Are you heading back to the Northern Base?"

"Hmm," the man replied.

"Then…" Anzhe said, "Can you take me with you? I have my own food and water."

"It's not up to me," the man said.

As he spoke, he stepped forward, looking at the other two: "He's uninjured. Shall we take him?"

Hawson smiled, folding his arms as he looked at Anzhe, whistled for the third time, then said, "Why not bring him? One more won't make a difference."

Then he turned to the remaining man, "Blackie, what do you think?"

Anzhe also looked over, meeting the gaze of the somber-eyed dark-skinned man.