Rust - Chapter 961



Only Krnovel

Rust [RUST] – Episode 961

Shhh-

Was it because the sound of breathing coming from the gas mask was annoying?

“Take off your mask!”

“Catch that kid!”

The guys who had been persistently yelling at me to take off my gas mask finally started to move.

Shhh-

Maru’s keen senses found something tangible at the end of their movements. Something that had come along with them as they climbed from the dirt with grass and weeds to the well-paved road. Something like a very thin line was connected to the end of their heels.

“This kid! What the hell is that pervert kid saying?”

“King of the Holy Kingdom?”

While the guy on the right is yelling loudly to draw attention to him, the guy on the left is tackling him silently.

Whoosh-

Compared to the general physical ability enhancement, the speed and strength were at least twice as fast. The expression on the face of the thing that rushed forward like a falcon catching its prey with incredible movements changed to one of absurdity.

Slippery-

Maru’s lower body slipped away just by twisting his body slightly. He tried to grab hold of Maru’s lower body as it slipped away from the tackle, but Maru slipped away leisurely.

“FUCK!!!”

As the floor fell away, the left guy lost his place to exert force and fell to the road with a thud. At that moment, when he tried to get up again, Newclips swung around.

Seoksuk-

Along with the taste of something slightly tough, the thin wire extending from the heel was cut. As the connected string was cut, the left one twisted its body for a moment and then twisted its body, baring its teeth.

Kkaaa-

Limbs bent backwards while lying forward.

Drumroll-

The creature’s cervical vertebrae rotated like an owl’s as it took a strange posture that looked like it was inverted into a plank position. The creature jumped upright in a posture that human joints and muscles could not do.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬—

And just like that, he split left and right in the air.

Iron-pudeok-

It really happened in the blink of an eye.

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

The ones who were shouting on the right and the ones who had turned sideways to catch Maru’s back also kept their mouths shut. All that could be heard was the sound of things like plant stems or roots writhing inside the vertically split room.

Maru’s gaze, hidden by the gas mask, glanced at the corpse that was split vertically. Since it was cut in midair, the contents inside should have spilled out, but they did not.

‘There are plants inside the intestines and everything.’

Maru felt strange seeing the pieces of plants sticking out like noodles in dumplings. Even though I gave them a little bit of a gap, they didn’t come in.

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

Rather, it was Maru who moved first as the guys seemed to be slowly increasing their distance.

Jeokbuk-

Movement without any warning.

The footsteps that shortened the distance by 15 meters in one step caught the backs of those who were trying to occupy the back of the floor. As if responding to that momentary movement, the guys turned their bodies— only their upper bodies spun around and fell to the floor.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬—

The guys on the right shouted as they saw the guys lying on the floor with their upper and lower bodies separated, with a long black line running horizontally behind them.

“Catch him. Catch him quickly!”

“Shit! It won’t work. It won’t work!”

The telekinetic tried to grab the shiny latex, but his strength was dispersed and he somehow slipped.

“What are you doing, Mental Shock!”

“Knock her out!”

“It doesn’t work! It doesn’t work at all!”

The same goes for people with psychic abilities. Even if you directly hit their psyche, it doesn’t work.

Immune to psychic abilities?

Does something like that exist?

And that was the last sound they made.

‧

As Maru waved his hand in the sky, Naruzu, who had been watching the situation from afar via drone, lowered a drop port. The drop port, which contained a special storage container, had a communicator attached to it.

[Chick- Are you okay?]

[Why did you use a hand signal? You brought a walkie-talkie?]

[Can’t we quickly clean up those kinds of people?]

[To that extent]

[It’s a bit gross.]

[There’s something inside.]

[Chiik- If we make our way through and you go right inside···.]

Maru answered with the radio attached to the landing port, not the one he had brought.

[Don’t talk nonsense and just wait. What about the bunker buster?]

The thing I was most cautious about was the trap that would collapse the passage and crush you when you entered the basement. I figured that if I had enough deaths, I could easily escape, so I decided to go in alone.

[I have 10 rounds ready.]

[Since the 5 shots were fired at hypersonic speeds, they can easily penetrate 100 meters underground.]

[But isn’t the basement dangerous?]

While fighting the Northern Ant Empire, he had accumulated a lot of deaths. The more deaths he had, the stronger his physical power could be used, so even if the underground collapsed, he would not be crushed to death.

Even if they collapsed the basement, we could just dig a hole with the bunker buster and go out through that hole. The place where the bunker buster dug was soft, so we could just clear the debris with the death vines and grass.

[It’s more dangerous if you follow me because you won’t be able to use death.]

[Chick- Ah-]

Naruz just sighs.

Naruzu was making an even more pitiful sound, as if he knew that pretending not to know was useless.

[Wait. If I don’t come out in an hour, put the bunker buster in immediately.]

[all right.]

[yes.]

[Chick- Be careful.]

Maru put the cut pieces into a special preservation container taken from the river port.

Sasa sasa-

Tree branches and grass swaying in the wind. And white clouds floating in the blue sky without a single speck of dust.

It was a picturesque scene, but the truth was that it was just a space occupied by plants digging inside. When the drop pot filled with the fragmented sample was re-erected, the plants responded.

Phi-yong-

The sensation of a biological EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) going off. It was the plants that were preventing the descent ports from firing again.

‘It’s no use.’

After we learned that plants use biological EMPs, we equipped them with purely mechanical rockets, but it was useless.

As Maru ignited the mechanical rocket, the descent port rose powerfully into the sky.

The Naruz airship, which had been waiting for the landing port to rise high, was seen retrieving it.

As if they didn’t know it, the branches and leaves of the trees swayed with a swoosh sound and scattered pollen toward the floor.

‘I said it’s useless.’

In an instant, we walked into a botanical garden with three circular domes, a floor filled with purifying tanks.

Shhh- whoosh-

Shhh- whoosh-

Regular breathing sounds came out of the purifier.

‧

‧

‧

Pollen didn’t work, and other chemicals didn’t work either. But when the plants sent out fused humans only to end up getting cut up into pretty pieces, they changed their strategy.

‘Come in quietly without breaking or tearing anything. Is this it?’

Unlike the first dome, which was barricaded with bushes, the second dome was completely cleared of bushes.

The infected human units also seemed to have retreated, as the characteristic marks left by ambushes in the bushes and ground were no longer noticeable.

The plants that had retreated beyond the reach of Newclips’ blade had made a path. Maru calmly walked along the floor despite the obvious movements of the swaying plants, even though there was no wind inside the dome.

Shhh- whoosh-

Shhh- whoosh-

So, as we passed the second dome and reached the third dome, there was a large tree that seemed to fill the dome. It was a tree that seemed to be a mixture of various trees.

It was a strange tree with drooping branches like a willow tree at the bottom and large leaves like a broad-leaved tree in the middle, but the shape of the branches spread out like a coniferous tree.

And there were people gathered under the tree.

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

A person with a line connected to their heels, a person with a line connected to the back of their head, etc. People connected to the tree with lines, standing blankly and looking at the floor.

Maru, unconcerned by the pressure from over a hundred people, walked along the road toward the plant research center.

“I wanted to talk to you directly, but I can’t seem to get through.”

A woman opened her mouth towards the floor that was just walking by, ignoring the people. It seemed as if she was speaking for the will of the large tree.

“Would you like to talk for a moment?”

Shhh-

Maru, who felt his breathing become difficult again after changing the purifier, stopped for a moment to replace the purifier. The woman, perhaps taking the pause as an invitation to talk, conveyed the will of the tree.

“I knew they would use tactical nukes or napalm bombs. If they didn’t, does that mean there’s room for discussion?”

[You said you would talk, but you dug a trap and are still spreading this?]

“Because the best way to avoid fighting is to become one. Humans were divided and out of order, and because they were out of order, they were animals destined for extinction. That’s why we needed to become one.”

[What the heck are you talking about?]

Maru started walking slowly towards the plant research center. There was a woman who approached Maru and spoke.

“It’s not nonsense. We don’t need to fight. It’s a true symbiosis where our plants fill in what humans lack, and humans fill in what our plants lack.”

[okay?]

“What do humans want? Longevity? If you become one with us, you can live a long time. Immortality? If you become one with us, you can stay young for a long time. You can easily escape hunger and thirst. The same goes for the fear of the end. If we, who are one, die, it will only be when the world is destroyed.”

[······.]

“Is the reason you came here for the plant research materials? I will give you the materials. But we also demand safety.”

[safety?]

“If this place is attacked, we will be spread out in all directions. We don’t want to spread all over the world. We just want to be safe where we are.”

[······.]

“Just think about it. If we had aimed to spread across the world, wouldn’t our territory have been bigger? We just need to be here near the clear lake. We also have enough people to nurture us.”

Perhaps realizing that pollen and chemicals were ineffective, they stopped spraying it. As they reached the main entrance to the plant research center, a woman walking next to Maru stopped.

“I hope you understand that I sent you the pollen. Just as you thought we were dangerous, we also thought you were a threat. I only did it because I thought it would be safer if we could connect through the pollen.”

[What if I try to kill you with just the data?]

“As I said, if you don’t kill us all at once, the control will be broken. Then we will spread everywhere. In time, every plant on Earth will become us. Is that okay with you?”

[How can I believe what you say?]

If you use pollen and the spirit world, how can you guarantee that you won’t hit the head? What if the pollen you just spewed spreads through the wind and mutates other plants?

“We don’t lie. The Holy Kingdom will have nukes. If we lie and spread it, you will use nukes. We know that in the end, mutual destruction will be the result.”

Do you know about the hydrogen bomb? Maru’s eyes narrowed.

This means that plants can also share the knowledge that humans have.

[I want to get back the mercenary troops of the Holy Kingdom that came here.]

“That’s difficult. They and we have already become one. If you check who we are, you’ll see that once we become one, it’s hard to separate again. That’s what it means to become completely one.”

Maru thought for a moment. He hadn’t expected this situation. He had thought that the plants would actively talk and attack by digging a trap, but he was wrong.

“I repeat, we did not try to kill you with all our might. We only wanted to become one with you. That is why we blocked your path. If we had tried to kill you, more of us would have tried to kill you. If that is what you want, we will give you the plant research materials. We just want peace.”

The woman who had been speaking like that seemed to lose her strength for a moment, and then spoke her own thoughts rather than representing the will of the tree.

“I am a refugee who fled from France.”

He was a refugee who followed the Holy Kingdom mercenary force south to Switzerland.

“The plants here could have killed people and used them for food, but they didn’t. They used mutated animals and cannibals as food.”

I don’t know if it’s because humans in the botanical garden took good care of them, but the plants here generally don’t use humans as nutrients.

The explanation was that the crow unit was a mutated entity that attacked and used the crow search party as food.

“It was safer to be here than to be hunted by monsters and eaten by cannibals in France.”

The woman’s voice was full of sincerity as she spoke of the safety of being one with plants.

Maru nodded, though he didn’t know whether to believe this was true or just the words of a woman consumed by plants.

A look of relief spread across the tense woman’s face as she nodded in agreement.

Shhh- whoosh-

Maru’s voice coming out of the gas mask.

[Is that so? But you know. Let’s get what we have first and then talk.]

Let’s talk after receiving the research data from the Plant Research Institute.

So, first of all, give me the data.

It’s nice that we don’t have to go underground.

“······.”

(······.)

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