Little Mushroom

The caves were dark and moist, illuminated by faint fluorescence from plants.

Vines, dark green, dark purple, and thick black are entwined on the stone wall, like a large, entangled snake.

A black flying stumbling stumbled in. It had six hard wings and three mouthparts.

In the next second, a huge dark purple bulge suddenly appeared among the entangled vines, and it quickly split open, like opening a mouth, closing in an instant and swallowing the flying insects in the next moment.

The vine group slowly squirmed, and the bulging part gradually recovered and returned to its original state.

The cave sounded like wings flapping, a drop of mucus dragged the translucent filaments from the top of the cave, and it fell into the sticky moss on the ground, and they squirmed slightly. Absorbed, disappeared on the ground.

Corners-corners illuminated by fluorescence from green fungi. In the gap between the rock and the soil, white gushing out like tide water, covering a large area, is snow-white mycelium. It grows, spreads, stretches out hundreds of millions of tentacles, and finally creeps toward the center, closing, gathering, and elongating, and a shape appears. A thick, soft moss on one foot, the moss sinking and swallowing it, revealing only the white ankles.

An Zhe looked at his ankle, which is a human limb. The limbs are supported by the skeleton, muscles and blood vessels. The joints can move, but they are not flexible due to the limitations of the bones. The stratum corneum forms the nails, is round and transparent, is the product of degradation, and comes from the sharp claws of mammals.

He lifted his leg and took a step. The moss, which had been sunken by being trampled on, was wet and resilient, and reunited after he left, like a standing earthworm.

This time, he stepped on something else, an arm of a human skeleton.

In the darkness, Ann looked at the skeleton.

Fungi and vines have taken root in the depths of its bones. Dark green vines are entwined around the hip bones and leg bones. The ribs are grown with small, brightly colored mushrooms, like blooming flowers.

Fluorescent mushrooms emerge from its hollow eyes and sparse teeth. The green light is like fine flowing sand, and it is blurred in the mist of the cave.

Anzhe looked at it for a long time, and finally he leaned down and picked up a backpack made of animal skin next to the skull. The items stored inside the backpack were not affected by moisture. They were several clothes, human food and water, and a half-sized blue chip. The chip was engraved with the number: 3261170514.

Three days ago, this skeleton was still a living human.

"3261170514," the young human voice was hoarse, and the green fluorescence in the cave illuminated his face. "My ID number. This is my ID card. I can only return to the human base by holding it."

An Zhe asked, "Can I help you go back?"

The human smiled, the fingers of his right hand dangled softly on his side, and the chip rolled down from him, hiding into the moss. He leaned his back against the mountain wall, raised his head, and pressed his left chest against his chest—there was a huge wound there, and the gray-white bone spurs penetrated from the chest to the back. The flesh and blood covered the surface of the bone spurs, and the other part showed a dark green color. With the rhythm of breathing, the gray turbid liquid continued to drip down.

He took a few breaths and said softly, "I can't go back, little mushroom."

His shirt was stained, his skin was pale, his lips were cracked, and his body was shaking irregularly.

An Zhe looked at him, not knowing what to say, and finally murmured the young man's name: "Anze?"

"You have almost learned human language." Humans looked down at their bodies.

In addition to pus, blood, and white mycelium on this body, it is part of Anzhe's body. The mycelium grows meandering and tightly adheres to the wounds of Anza's limbs and torso. The original intention of the mushroom is to stop the bleeding of this human being, but by instinct, the mycelium also absorbs and digests the flowing Fresh blood.

"Eating my genes will make you learn so much? The pollution index in this place is really high," said Human.

Fragmented pieces of knowledge unfolded in An Zhe's mind. After five seconds of conversion, he knew that the pollution index meant the speed of gene transformation. Now, genes from humans are flowing into his body along with Azawa's blood.

"Maybe ... when I die, you eat all of my body ... and you will get a lot of things." An Ze looked at the top of the cave, dragging his lips: "Then I seem to have done something meaningful Things, although I don't know if it's good or bad for you. "

An Zhe didn't speak. The whole body moved in the direction of An Ze. He used the human arm that just grew out to hold An Ze's shoulder. A lot of mycelium came over and piled up next to An Ze, supporting his shaky body .

In the silent cave, there was only the breathing of dying humans.

After a long time, Anze finally spoke again: "I am a meaningless person alive."

"... There is no outstanding place, so it is normal for them to leave me. In fact, I am not happy to return to the human base. There, like the wild, are ... places where valuable people can live. .I think I've been dead for a long time, but I didn't expect to meet you such a mild creature, little mushroom before death. "

An Zhe is not very clear about the meaning of those nouns, such as value, such as death. He just captured that noun again, human base.

Leaning on his shoulder, he said, "I want to go to a human base."

Anza: "Why?"

An Zhe slightly raised her left arm, and her fingers swayed in the air, as if trying to catch a void of air, but he caught nothing.

Just like his body.

His body is empty.

A huge hollow emerged from the deepest part of his body, there was no way to fill it, no way to heal, and then there was boundless emptiness and panic, which hung around him day after day.

He organized human language and slowly said, "I lost ... my spores."

"spore?"

"My ... seed." He didn't know how to explain.

Every mushroom has spores in its lifetime, some have countless numbers and some have only one. Spores are the seeds of mushrooms. It will grow from the fungus folds, scattered to any place in the jungle with the wind, fall to the ground and become a new mushroom, and then this mushroom will gradually grow up and have its own spores. Raising spores to maturity is the only mission of a mushroom for life, but it loses its only spore, when it is far from mature.

An Ze slowly turned his head, An Zhe could hear the clicking sound of his bones turning, like an old human machine.

"Don't go there," the human voice said hoarsely, "you will die."

An Zhe read the word again: "... dead?"

"Only humans can enter the human base. You can't escape the judge's eyes." Anza coughed a few times, and then took a hard breath, "Don't go ... little mushroom."

An Zhe said blankly: "I ..."

The human hand grasped Anzhe's mycelium violently, and with a great deal of strength, his breathing became increasingly rapid.

"Obviously," Anza slowly closed his eyes after a trembling and gasping, and his voice was low. "You have no attack power and no defense, you are just ... a small mushroom."

Sometimes, Anzhe regrets telling Anze he is going to a human base.

If he didn't tell Anze, Anze would not spend the last time on stopping him. He may still be able to hear Anze tell a story, or he may be able to take him out of this dim cave and see the changing aurora in the sky for the last time. But Anze's eyes wouldn't open again.

The short-lived memories dissipated in the air, just as Anze's life suddenly disappeared in this world, and Anzhe still had only a white skeleton in front of her eyes.

However, he still had to go against Anze's will.

-He slowly spread his five fingers.

On the palm's delicate skin and light veins, a brass-colored, metal-shaped round cartridge shell was lying quietly. It was very heavy, with some incomprehensible, but absolutely unusual grains-this was what he lost The spores were found in that area and have not been released since they were picked up.

If there is still a one in ten thousand chance that he can retrieve his spores, then this one in ten thousand chance is pinned on this cartridge case, and it is a human creation.

With a slight sigh, he put the cartridge case in the animal skin backpack left by An Ze, leaned down, and picked up the clothes that An Ze had worn on his body. Blood-stained off-white long-sleeved shirt, black hard bib pants, and black leather boots.

After doing all this, he walked out of the cave. Slightly loose clothing rubbed his skin while walking, and a small electric current passed from the nerve endings buried in the skin to the center, and the first use of the human body's Anzu was not suitable. He frowned and rolled up the sleeves of a loose shirt.

The cave is long and zigzag, and the vines on the cave wall are piled up. They push each other. The tide recedes as Anzhe passes by.

After three turns, the wind blew in and was very humid. The mushroom lifted the dead vine from the opening. Mushrooms, his kind, in the field of vision, from near to far, endless. They seemed to be high in the sky, everything was quiet and silent. The dim sky came in under the umbrella cover, and the sky was gray with some messy green luster. An Zhewen saw the breath of rain, mist, snake slough, and plant decay.

It's still evening. He sat down under the umbrella of the gray mushroom closest to the cave entrance, and took out a dark yellow map from his backpack. The map has different shades of color, marking the danger of different areas. . Anze once pointed out to Anzhe the approximate location of the cave where they are located. This is the darkest piece in the entire map, which means that the six-star danger and six-star pollution section is named "Abyss". On the map, the area where the abyss is located is also marked with many weird symbols. Anzhe checks the index in the lower right corner of the map one by one. Those signs mean that there are extremely dense mushrooms, man-eating vines, and food Human shrubs, simple breastfeeding monsters, mixed breastfeeding monsters, reptile-type monsters, reptile-type poisonous monsters, winged monsters, amphibious monsters, mixed-type polymorphic monsters, humanoid monsters, etc. At the same time, there are landforms in the abyss, such as canyons, hills, mountains, abandoned human cities, and road ruins.

Going up north and down south, his gaze is all the way up. On the upper right of this mottled map, there is a pure white area. It is marked with a bright red pentagram. The name of the area is written on the right side of the pentagram: Northern base.

The sky's green light became more and more abundant, and the background color gradually became darker. At midnight, Anzhe reluctantly recognized the shape of the stars in the sky. He knew that the brightest one was called Polaris, which could indicate the direction.

So he pointed the upward arrow in the upper left corner of the map in the direction of the North Star, stepping on the dead wood, fallen leaves, mycelium, and dirt on the ground, and stepped outward.

The night is not dark. In the sky, those changing green rays-humans call it aurora, the aurora illuminates everything in front, and there are only mushrooms in the peaceful view.

Yellow, red, brown, mushrooms with huge canopies.

Small, densely packed mushrooms on mountain rocks.

The round germ packs are scattered on the ground. When mature, they emit spores like mist and rain.

These spores landed, began to split in the moist deciduous soil, and grew into spherical bulbs like their mothers.

There are also mushrooms with no umbrella cover, just white or yellow tentacles, clustered together, or separated radially, and the seaweed floats in the air.

But this is not a mushroom-only world, with vines, moss, bushes, cannibalizing flowers and weird trees lurking silently in the night. In the jungle of plants, some shadows, strange shapes, beasts, or a mixture of humans and beasts, running, howling, fighting in the jungle, fighting animals and animals, fighting animals and plants, or plants and plants . High and low howls hit Anzhe's tympanum, and fresh blood stains were mixed in the stones and soil. He saw a pine tree bend down the trunk and swallow a black snake with scales and two tails. I also saw a toad, a huge toad, with a bright red tongue hanging over a bat with a human arm behind it. Five minutes after swallowing the bat, a pair of black wings covered it with mules and mucus. His spine grew and softened, this was only one ten thousandth of what the mushrooms saw, and he was already used to it.

At this moment, a gray beast came over. It had four eyes, covered with scales, feathers, and fluff. Its head resembled a crocodile and a giant wolf. Seven teeth were exposed outside its lips. An Zhe, blood-red nose sniffed at him.

An Zhe didn't move. He leaned quietly next to a mushroom, breathing evenly, until he was sniffed all over his body.

The giant monster seemed to find nothing and dragged his head to leave.

An Zhe realized that nothing would notice him, even if he used a human body—perhaps because mushrooms are everywhere here, no nutrition, no aggressiveness, and sometimes poisonous. So he and them seemed to be creatures of the two worlds.

Perhaps, as Anze said, he was just a tiny mushroom.