Translator Note: FYI, the bio-soldiers are cyborgs. In the raws the text for bio-soldiers and cyborgs are almost identical so the author didn’t need to provide a separate explanation.
Chapter 277: Common Sense My Meow! [Part 1]
When Neo said that this place was a work environment to him, he wasn’t lying. Neo was a Black Viper member, and to borrow his own words he was a local who had been in Black Viper for as far as he could remember. However, Neo had no idea what kind of organization Black Viper was, or how many imperial heavyweights were part of Black Viper. The only thing he was concerned about was his own research.
Neo had no fixed research project, allowing his interest to lead him wherever it wished. If a topic happened to pique his interest, he would devote his entire person into researching it such as today. Neo was looking for a substance that would work against cyborg, and many tests later he finally set his eyes on a particular plant. This plant was a variant that could only be found on certain planets, and it wasn’t recorded in the books. The first time Neo ran into this plant had been a complete accident.
In fact, Neo had tested the two toxins Cillin was using on the cyborgs, but they failed to achieve the ideal effect Neo was looking for. He was looking for a plant that bore tri-colored fruits of interlacing red, black and yellow throughout the year. The fruit was colorful, vibrant, and sweet smelling. Any nearby animal would be attracted by its intoxicating scent.
Any animal that consumed the fruit would become paralyzed immediately before dying shortly after. The dead animal served as fertilizer for the plant, and the plant’s roots would secrete some sort of special substance that alters its nearby soil and make it suitable for microorganisms to live. These microorganisms ensured that the dead animals would rot even faster. To the plant and the microorganisms, this was a symbiotic relationship. To the animals, this was a cooperative murder.
“I name this plant the Tri-colored Bean. The problem is that the plant is very difficult to find, and I’d found only two so far. I’d used up already one fruit, and my attempt to pluck the second fruit was spoiled by a low probability event and those dumb-as-a-rock bio-soldiers,” Neo looked a little depressed when he repeated his story. His hand had been less than ten centimeters away from the fruit before he was forced to retreat! What a shame.
In this case, Neo didn’t think he was in the wrong at all because he concluded that his failure was completely caused by a low probability event. This so-called low probability event was a bird shit that fell from the sky at the most inopportune time to hit the branch right next to Neo, drawing the nearby bio-soldiers’ attention.
This was why nothing was certain in this world. Even if Neo had arranged everything perfectly from the beginning to the end, he couldn’t have predicted the heavens to choose that moment to plop a bird shit right next to him. It wasn’t a loud noise, but it was enough noise to attract the aurally and visually sensitive bio-soldiers.
Cillin mulled over Neo’s story and thought that the fruit he mentioned shared pretty similar effects to the two toxins currently in his possession. It was obvious that Neo’s Tri-colored Bean was poisonous, however.
“Where is that fruit you mentioned?” Cillin asked. If he could get a Tri-colored Bean, not even a squad of bio-soldiers would be a problem to him.
Neo thought for a moment before answering, “It’s a bit far away from here. I had run for 113 hours straight before I met you.”
This meant that they wouldn’t reach that Tri-colored Bean in time even if they were to walk for an entire half of a day. Cillin took a look at the sky and noted that it was almost night time. It was a bad idea to head out during the night because the contrast between body temperature and ambient temperature was even bigger than normal. To the local fauna, they would look like a walking target made of red hot iron.
Although Cillin and Wheeze could alter their body temperatures, Neo didn’t have such an ability.
“Gu——”
Neo rubbed his stomach and asked, “My poor stomach is starting to grumble. Do you have food?”
Cillin grabbed a fruit from a corner and tossed it to Neo, “This should hold for a while.”
“Ew, this fruit is incredibly disgusting!” Neo caught the fruit, took a look and complained with a look of disgust. He hated excessively sweet food.
“You can stay hungry then.”
“... Fine, energy replenishment is the most important thing. In fact, this type of fruit is very nutritious and has plenty of sugar,” said Neo. It was more of an attempt to convince himself than placate Cillin.
Cillin watched as Neo took small bites from the fruit with a painful expression, looking like he was consuming poison and not food. He even gave himself a pep talk every time he was done swallowing to convince himself to keep eating. Cillin pressed a hand to his forehead and thought to himself: How did such a person come to exist in the world? Was Black Viper overflowing with weirdos like these besides robots?
Some time later.
“Aiya!” Neo suddenly cried out.
“What’s wrong?” Both Cillin and Wheeze turned to look at him.
Neo clutched his stomach and rolled back and forth on the dry grass heap. He rambled, “I’m feeling unwell, my heart rate is abnormal, my stomach hurts and… I have a strong desire to defecate right away!”
Basically, he meant that he needed to take a shit.
Cillin gave himself a facepalm: What can I even say about this!?
To prevent Neo from losing control of his bowels and polluting their little hideout, Cillin dragged him to a relatively safe spot some distance away from the cave. Fifteen minutes later, he brought a winded-looking Neo back to the cave the same way.
“Judging from the shape, color, smell and consistency of my excrement et cetera, and excluding other factors such as parasites, indigestion, biliary obstruction and intestinal infection et cetera, there’s a 72.42% chance that my current condition is caused by a gastrointestinal disorder. This means that the culprit behind this is very likely that fruit of yours.”
Cillin: “...” He was very, very tempted to kick Neo out of the cave.
Before the day turned completely dark, Cillin and Wheeze went away to collect some nuts to ensure that the smoothness of tomorrow’s operation, and eat. Today, Cillin’s meal was a small beast that he ate without cooking. Of course, he wasn’t stupid enough to offer this type of food to a certain idiot with a weak stomach. Nothing good except trouble would come out of it.
That being said, Neo’s knowledge of this place was noteworthy. Even better, he had a base somewhere in the area. As a member of Black Viper, the base he was provided was pretty well constructed and strong enough to keep both the wild animals and bio-soldiers away. Moreover, Cillin wished to procure some equipment from Neo’s place. It was the only reason he hadn’t knocked Neo out and left him behind a long time ago.
The planet’s magnetic field was a bit odd, and Black Viper had added an extra layer of disruptive magnetic field that further increased the instability of subspace objects. That was why Cillin made sure not to use his ring as much as he could afford even though it was quite special in its own right. He carried his crossbow, his gun and even his food on his person.
Nuts turned out to be more compatible with Neo’s stomach, and the young man quickly recovered his strength and spirit after consuming all the nuts had brought back to the cave. At the very least, he wasn’t shooting his mouth and causing unnecessary fury like the time after he was done defecating.
Night time finally arrived, and Cillin lay down on the ground and rested after blocking the cave entrance and disguising its surroundings. A pitch black canvas and a starry sky lay behind that rock, but it was also a world full of bloody murder. Countless bloodthirsty predators lay in wait for their preys, and invigorated nocturnal animals were busy fighting tooth and nail against one another after a day’s rest. From time to time, heavy footsteps and the odd cries of a beast would slip through the gaps of the walls.
Cillin withdrew his gaze and looked at Neo and Wheeze. The bit of starlight leaking through the top of the cave entrance was enough for him to see everything. The cat and the man was currently curled up against one another above the dry grass heap, and Cillin noticed that both their ears were moving slightly.
Neo said that his “ear vibrations” could sense danger around him, but it was only limited to strangers, dangerous beasts, bio-soldiers and so on. In reality, Neo hadn’t reacted at all when Cillin had tried putting a blade to his throat while he was asleep. That being said, the lack of reaction was probably because Neo had decided that Cillin was a harmless to him earlier. As for how he had arrived to that conclusion, it was impossible to tell.