Chapter 636 - 626: Zombie 21

Moira Lynch stored the adult Fragrant Rabbits, which didn’t taste very good, in her Space Button, while the young ones all ended up in the team’s stomachs.

"If I’d known these rabbits were this delicious, we wouldn’t have had to gnaw on tree bark during our old missions."

one of the team members said, pounding his chest in mock despair as he held a half-eaten rabbit leg.

The others nodded in agreement.

Fragrant Rabbits were highly fertile, even more so than rabbits before the mutation. As long as they had enough food, they could breed continuously.

The only downside was that they matured too quickly. Once they reached adulthood, their meat became tough, though it wasn’t completely inedible.

After a full day of travel and a night’s rest on the periphery, the group set off once more.

"Moira, look over there. Is that a huge patch of White Ginger?" The sharp-eyed Shane Rhodes had spotted a cluster of very familiar-looking plants growing in the distance.

"It really is," Moira said, pleasantly surprised.

After all, White Ginger was a valuable resource. They hadn’t seen any since leaving the Crino Prairie, so they never expected to find it growing here.

"What’s White Ginger?" Mark Rhodes asked.

Seeing their excitement, his intuition told him that this White Ginger was something valuable.

After Kai York explained the uses of White Ginger to him, Mark Rhodes immediately insisted on taking half, arguing that those who find it get a share.

’I’d let it slide if it were something else,’ Mark Rhodes thought, ’but this White Ginger is a miraculous healing herb. I have to get my hands on it, even if it means offending them.’

Moira Lynch and her group didn’t object. After all, there was more than enough White Ginger to go around—it was a huge patch.

And so, the group took out tools they had prepared and began to dig.

As the saying goes, many hands make light work. With everyone pitching in, they dug up the entire patch of White Ginger in no time.

Moira Lynch stored away their share.

’This White Ginger is great stuff. I’ll have to see if I can cultivate it when we get back.’

Just as the group was preparing to move on, one of Mark Rhodes’s team members suddenly spoke up. "Captain, I smell something foul, like the stench of a wild boar."

This team member’s awakened superpower was a superhuman sense of smell, hundreds of times more sensitive than an ordinary person’s, allowing him to easily distinguish different scents in the air.

"You’re right. There are three wild boars heading this way. And..." Moira Lynch pointed to something nearby. "That looks like their droppings."

It seemed they had just dug up the boars’ personal dining hall.

Running was no longer an option. There’s an old saying about the ferocity of wild animals: first comes the tiger, second the bear, and third, the boar.

To be ranked alongside tigers and bears spoke to how formidable boars were—and these were mutated ones.

"They’re here."

Kai York and Moira Lynch spread their wings and flew into the sky. From their vantage point, they saw three wild boars the size of small hills charging toward them.

The once-sturdy trees seemed utterly fragile in the face of the three charging boars.

Mark Rhodes and his men were already dumbfounded when they saw Kai York and Moira Lynch fly up into the sky, their expressions screaming, ’Who am I? Where am I?’

The next second, however, they watched Moira Lynch slowly lower her altitude and call down to Shane Rhodes on the ground. "They’re too big. Getting close could cause unnecessary casualties. Boss, you take care of them."

Shane Rhodes nodded and, with a single step, vanished from sight.

"Um, are you sure you don’t need our help?" one of the team members asked.

They were used to being the ones desperately protecting others; being protected for the first time felt a little strange.

"No," Hugh Finch explained. "If you go, you might get caught in the crossfire. It would cause unnecessary casualties."

The man was about to say more when three bolts of purple lightning crashed down from the sky. The tremendous roar and brilliant flash drowned out the boars’ agonizing squeals and momentarily lit up the entire area.

"Yeah, we definitely would’ve been caught in the crossfire," the man muttered to himself.

"Let’s go. The fight over there should be over."

After Moira and the other two departed, the team member turned to Mark Rhodes with a grave expression.

"Captain, they..."

Mark Rhodes cut him off. "I know what you’re going to say. But as far as I can tell, they bear us no ill will. Besides, they’re the ones who provide the base with Awakening Potions and Purification Potions."

Hearing Mark Rhodes’s words, his men fell silent.

It was true; they could also tell that Moira Lynch and her group meant them no harm.

"Well, if you say so, Captain, I’ll trust your judgment."

"I trust the captain, too. Besides, they saved my life, after all," another said. The rest voiced their agreement.

Seeing this, Mark Rhodes really wanted to tell them, ’It doesn’t matter if you’re worried, because they’re leaving soon anyway.’

「Elsewhere」 Moira and the others had found Shane Rhodes. Lying before him were three wild boars, charred completely black and still giving off a burnt smell.

"Looks like I overdid it a bit. These boars are totally scorched," Shane Rhodes said, frustrated.

"It should be fine. Wild boars have thick hides. Once we skin them, there should be plenty of good meat left."

Regular wild boar meat wasn’t great, but mutated wild boar meat was delicious.

Moira Lynch’s group took one boar, leaving the other two for Mark Rhodes and his people.

Although Mark Rhodes had a spatial storage ability, its capacity was limited. He could only butcher the boars on the spot, storing the meat and having his team eat the rest.

For the next leg of the journey, Moira Lynch and Kai York continued to fly overhead.

"Searching aimlessly like this is exhausting, Moira," Kai York said. "Can you try using your spiritual power to find it?"

Moira sighed in response. "What do you think? Of course I’ve tried," she said, a hint of frustration in her voice.

"And you didn’t find it? No way."

’If even Moira’s spiritual power can’t find it,’ he thought, ’then I have reason to doubt whether this Five-Grain Rice is real.’

"I don’t know if I found it or not, because I have no idea what Five-Grain Rice even looks like," Moira replied. "But even so, I’ve pinpointed a few suspicious locations. We can go check them out first."

As she spoke, Moira shared the locations she’d marked with Kai York.

There were three locations in total, each one progressively deeper in the forest. The last one was right in the very center.

"I’ll take the farthest one. You can handle the other two."

Moira gave him an OK sign.

After Kai York flew off, she called out a goodbye to the people on the ground and took flight as well.

"Is it safe for them to go off like that?" Mark Rhodes asked, concerned.

"Don’t worry, they’ll be fine," Shane Rhodes reassured him. "If nothing else, they definitely know how to save their own skins."

「Meanwhile」 Moira arrived at the first suspicious location.

Looking at the plants below, she exclaimed in delight, "Five-Grain Rice? I found it?"