NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1057
Ziang felt the rolling ability, which wasn’t even in his destiny, growing rapidly in real-time.
He was in a tough spot; it was hard to keep his feet on the ground while dodging the plants stretching their roots and branches, hungry for prey.
“I’m going to grow up to be an arsonist.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because all the plants in this world deserve to be burned.”
After being hit by the pumpkin monster Flying Pumpkin’s barrage of pumpkin seeds, which dyed his clothes in a myriad of colors, it was easy to understand the depths of his hatred.
“Rosgini would love that!”
“Oknodie, you know how to use fire magic, right?”
“I do, but I wouldn’t bother!”
“Why not? If you set the mountain on fire, all the beasts living there would die, and we’d get tons of experience points!”
“If nature burns, Professor Weird’s <Awareness> ability will activate, right?”
“…That function exists?”
“You’re a fairy, aren’t you?”
That professor was nothing but annoying, with not a single good quality.
Ziang found Oknodie’s carefree demeanor exasperating.
“So, are you going to spend the next two weeks like this?”
“No! That’s a bit much.”
Honestly, Oknodie was secretly angry too. If they just waited out the 100 hours, they’d gain a ton of experience, but they ended up losing it all. This was enough to cause some longing for the lost opportunity.
“The professor’s been going on about the epidemic and put us in quarantine, so I thought I might as well do some legit research on it.”
“Epidemic research?”
“Dark Mana is the mana attribute that can most easily cause disease, isn’t it?”
Oknodie was rambling about diseases in a place filled with plants.
Ziang suddenly felt cheerier.
“Is there anything I can help with?”
“Please collect some plant cells for me!”
Ziang gathered a ton of plant cells of various types, using his dagger. Just then, Senior Instructor and Sadi Chocolate appeared carrying two bags.
“It’s infuriating to just stand around and take it.”
“The ink smell from the inkweed hasn’t faded yet.”
With the quiet fury of the trio spurring him on, Oknodie’s audacious rebellion began its prologue.
*
Cough.
The 7th-tier plant monster, Potato Lord, shook its stern roots and let out a small cough. It was a new experience for Potato Lord, who mixed curiosity and amazement with its first-ever cough.
For beings that had achieved a certain level of collection, unfamiliar experiences became valuable moments for growth. It was only natural for the Potato Lord to show curiosity.
Cough cough.
But its body felt weak and, for some reason, it lacked power. Its roots also felt limp and lacked firmness.
Beyond the Potato Lord’s curiosity, its crisis detection function lit up.
Not every first experience is beneficial.
Some first experiences are better left unexperienced.
The plant cells tingled and heated up, causing the moisture they held to evaporate.
It wasn’t just a simple feeling.
The moisture essential for survival was being forcibly evaporated by body heat.
Twitch.
Potato Lord felt fear. It didn’t even have time to realize what had hit it. Even now, it felt the threat without knowing how to respond.
It made sense.
What Oknodie had touched was a plant virus.
Even the synthesis of nucleic acids and proteins occurs at different times before being assembled as viral agents.
The trick was simple: activation of minute dark mana contamination cells due to air pollution.
This was a contagious disease that only affected plants and had no influence on animals.
Cough cough.
As the Potato Lord stumbled out to a spring, many plants residing within Professor Weird’s research dimension dome gathered there.
The first stage of symptoms began with plants’ leaves, flowers, stems, and fruits all starting to limp.
Feeling a burning sensation and simultaneously experiencing thirst marked the second stage of the disease, leading the infected plants to gather for moisture intake.
– Plants are weird.
– Even when given water, they still seem thirsty.
– If you keep this up, your roots will burst!
The tree fairies, not infected by the epidemic, stamped their feet in agitation at the sight of the plants drinking water like hippos.
The disease was dubbed <Dark Blight>.
It manifested only after a certain level of erosion in the Middle Realm of the Demon Realm.
Crisp.
Despite drinking a lot of water, black spots began to appear on the plants.
Roots swollen from excessive water intake would finally burst, while the leaves dried up and turned dark red, ultimately withering away.
Whether they drank or didn’t, it was a miserable situation!
Cough cough cough.
Potato Lord attempted to submerge its head in water.
But a sharp vine that flew from somewhere prevented it from dipping its head into the spring.
“Sizz.”
An unaffected 7th-tier plant monster, <Tangled Orchid>, stretched its elegant root limbs while hissing.
It was a direct warning not to dip a dirty head afflicted by disease into their precious spring.
Grumble.
The potatoes attached to Potato Lord’s roots responded in fury, dropping off one by one.
Potato Warrior.
Potato Magician.
These class branches, with various functions, formed a potato army that rose up.
Even as the angry potato legion covered the ground, Tangled Orchid elegantly swept over it using her long root to massacre the potato monsters.
Under normal circumstances, Potato Lord’s followers would exhibit higher durability and better responses, but the sub-monsters shipped in their sickly state fell one after another at even slight shocks.
“Sizz.”
Tangled Orchid stretched her stem-like legs over the fallen potatoes, elegantly declaring victory.
The experience points gained from slaying the potatoes were accumulating within her, leading to an anomaly: small black spots appeared on her stem.
“Sizz?”
Oknodie’s epidemic was working.
The mechanism was truly diabolical.
Stage one infection by air contamination.
Which creatures have resistance to this?
Stage two infection, riding on the coattails of experience points.
It birthed the monstrous epidemic of experience point infection into the world.
Furthermore, when the products of air infection and experience point infection combined into a virus, the danger skyrocketed.
No matter how strong the individual, if the virus continues to intertwine and integrate multiple times, their resistance will eventually collapse.
“Sizz…”
Even Tangled Orchid, who had prided herself on the purity of her legs, slumped down as if she had lost the entire world.
Now, the plants inside the dome watched as the majority perished, and the remaining half fell ill and died.
Even the strong 8th-tier plant monster, <Walking Garden>, felt the repercussions of the deaths among the monsters belonging to its garden.
“Zzzz.”
Walking Garden made desperate efforts.
It sprinkled hormones and sap to cleanse the virus and hazardous substances over the garden like rain.
It tried hard to heal the dying plants and also isolated them to share the spring water.
However, the moment Walking Garden attempted to intervene, using those individuals as mediums for the “experience points” reward, the epidemic spread to it as well.
Although Walking Garden himself might endure due to his enormous resistance, all the plants belonging to him became infected due to the sap he dispersed.
The black plague of the plant world.
A contagious disease that spreads at the slightest contact.
With a 90% fatality rate, the vicious damage continues to inflict.
Symptoms gradually worsen, making it impossible to avoid death within a week of onset.
Dark Blight swept across Professor Weird’s dimension.
With a rumble.
Seeing the ailing plants escape the dome, the 8th-tier wild plant dominators fled in terror!
When Professor Weird finally arrived in the dimension following the alerts from her crisis detection function, they were astounded by the grotesque state of the dimension in just a week.
“I really caught an epidemic, huh? I’m thankful to you, professor, for noticing it before it harmed the Middle Realm!”
If you don’t speak, it isn’t so annoying, right?
Saying that with a laugh, even Professor Weird, who was usually insensitive to human emotions, could read the audacious intentions of Oknodie.
“You did this, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This. It’s your doing, isn’t it?”
Oknodie whistled dismissively.
“Sure. Asking with words isn’t how it’s done. You need to bury it in the ground with just the neck sticking out and water it for it to come out.”
As per Pasible Yep’s principle that a male can become a female if raised like one, Professor Weird had his unique educational philosophy that people could turn into docile plants if nurtured like one!
Right before the wicked hand reached out, a polite knock echoed from the dimensional gate that Professor Weird had opened.
“Who’s there?”
“Continental Great Healer.”
“What’s your business?”
“Healing.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Professor Weird did not accept unintended guests into his dimension.
However, one ranked among the Continental Great Healers would have the skills and audacity to break in, even if the owner rejected them.
Through the gaping dimensional gate, a skeleton mask-wearing figure wielding a scythe and a priest draped with overflowing divine powers stepped in.
“Step aside. I don’t need your permission to heal the Dark Princess’s illness.”
“Failed the quarantine procedure, huh? Just goes to show the average non-believer’s reliability.”
Rank 7 of the Continental Great Healers, <Reviving Healer>, Grim Reaper.
Rank 9 of the Continental Great Healers, <Holy Healer>, Panakeia.
Oknodie, who had waited for the arrival of other healers, saw this as the perfect chance, bit his lip, and coughed up blood-tinged coughed dramatically.
“U-uh, teachers… I feel so sick…”
Oknodie’s scheme calculated that healers would have an extraordinary desire to treat unknown diseases!
Even the shape of mana that flowed pulsatingly like the disease made Panakeia step back through the opened door while exclaiming.
“There’s no way a rank 9 can treat a disease that a rank 2 cannot handle. I’ll pray for your recovery as a servant of the Healing God.”
“…”
Because Oknodie was too talented at faking illness, it ironically drove the rank 9 Continental Great Healer to flee!