The red flower was vibrant, its fragrance intensely rich. Smelling it didn't cause disgust but rather induced a sense of addiction.
With a basic understanding of the forest's ecology, seeing that blatantly obvious red flower, Law immediately recognized it as a blatant trap.
He leaned against a tree, looking sideways at the pitch-black hole. Through the gaps blocked by the tree stumps, he couldn't see anything.
The root-like object and the red flower lay motionless on the ground, only the floral scent dispersing around.
'The trap was clear, but the floral scent was the bait to lure the victims.'
Law watched quietly from the side. In less than thirty or forty seconds, a rodent the size of a domestic pig came trotting over with small steps, heading straight for the red flower.
The rodent had visible muscles, bulging like rocks. It approached on all fours, glanced around, then suddenly lunged forward with lightning speed, biting onto the red flower.
The moment its mouth touched the red flower, the root moved like lightning, pulling back into the hole. In less than a second, the rodent vanished into the hole.
"So fast."
A look of surprise flashed in Law's eyes. Just now, he could only see a blur. What astonished him was that the rodent's volume was clearly larger than the area of the hole's entrance.
Yet, when the root pulled the rodent into the hole, the several tree stumps blocking the entrance didn't move at all.
'Moreover, that rodent clearly wasn't weak. Not only did it not make a sound, but there wasn't even a hint of struggle?'
Looking at the silent, dark hole entrance, Law was full of curiosity. The speed displayed by the root was truly strange.
Seconds later, another root passed through the gaps between the tree stumps, extending several meters onto the ground. A red flower at its end wantonly emitted its fragrance.
Law thought about taking out the patterned stone hidden weapon but came up empty. He then realized Kuro wasn't with him, and he had only brought Shin.
He could only access the storage space when Kuro resided on the back of his hand.
'This limitation was truly troublesome.'
Law let out a soft sigh, considering whether to use violent means to destroy the hole first. Just then, a furry black ball came from not far away.
The rather cute ball of fuzz, about the size of a small car, bounced slowly on the ground. A pair of white eyes were visible.
Shortly after, the fuzz ball stopped in front of the red flower.
Law focused intently on the seemingly harmless black fuzz ball. The next second, his expression froze slightly as he saw the fuzz ball's body split open into a gaping maw.
The vibrant red tongue flesh and gleaming white sharp teeth formed a stark contrast with the black fuzz.
The gaping maw swallowed the red flower and immediately followed in the footsteps of the previous rodent, dragged into the hole in an instant without a sound.
This time, Law saw it clearly.
In the few meters from the ground to the hole, within the second the root dragged the prey, it had already used some method of consumption to digest the prey almost completely.
So when the root retracted into the hole, the prey's shriveled body could just pass through the gaps between the tree stumps.
Law couldn't help but fall silent. The more he witnessed, the more wary he became of the Dark Continent.
Curiosity sometimes killed the cat, but Law really wanted to know what was at the bottom of that hole.
He didn't act rashly, patiently observing.
Half an hour passed. Almost every thirty seconds, a creature would be dragged into the hole.
An hour passed.
The thing in the hole seemed like a bottomless pit, showing no signs of stopping. Relying on the flower's fragrance, it lured one prey after another like moths to a flame.
Another twenty minutes passed. After dragging in one more prey, the root didn't extend out again.
"Seems like it's full."
Law thought silently, quietly changing position. He moved to a tree several tens of meters directly in front of the hole entrance. Then, he gathered Nen in his palm, forming a crescent-shaped Aura Blade.
After a pause, Law swung his arm. The crescent Aura Blade shot out, accurately flying into the hole. Accompanied by an explosion, the tree stumps blocking the entrance were blasted away by the shockwave from the hole. Clouds of dust flew out from the hole.
The dust was suddenly stirred. Over a dozen roots shot out from the dust, aiming straight at Law hiding behind the tree.
The speed of the roots was clearly not as fast as when hunting. However, being able to find Law's position in such a short time suggested it detected him through the fluctuation of Nen.
"Pretty quick reaction."
Law held the sword with one hand, his Aura gushing forth.
Instead of retreating, he charged forward, crashing into the formation woven by the roots. He swung the knife rapidly several times, severing all dozen-plus roots. Green juice splattered on the ground.
After cutting the roots, Law slashed another Aura Blade towards the dust-filled hole, causing another explosion.
His two consecutive Aura Blades weren't of the penetrating type but the explosive type.
After the second explosion, until the dust settled, the hole remained quiet for a long time.
"Dead?"
Law wondered silently. From a distance of several tens of meters, he used [Conductor's Baton] on the hole.
A Nen Circle covered the area. Layers of sand and soil were dug up, gradually revealing the full appearance of the hole.
It was a rather large pit, the walls covered in debris and green juice.
Those two explosions had clearly dealt a devastating blow to the creature in the hole.
Soon after, Law found the corpse at the bottom of the hole. It turned out to be a plant life form.
Its head was a large red flower, its pistil filled with red crystalline fruits the size of eggs, like fish roe enlarged several times.
Below the flower, its body was wrapped in layers of bright green leaves.
The lower half was a mess of roots.
Considering just the volume of the flower and leaves, it was less than a tenth of the roots. After all, more than half of the roots had already been destroyed.
Placing the plant life form on the ground, he touched it and learned it was called Pearl Flower, a plant life form. The fruits in the pistil and the leaves on its body were both edible parts.
Fortunately, the flower and leaves were deep at the bottom of the hole, so they weren't affected by the explosion.
Those roots were the Pearl Flower's lifeblood. Once the roots were severely damaged, it would die directly. No wonder the Pearl Flower, despite having so many roots, only used one root when hunting.
Based on the information provided by the White Smoke Font, Law returned to the hole again and found a large pile of semi-transparent rice grain-sized seeds deep inside.
These were also a relatively precious type of ingredient.
The roots weren't ingredients, so he cut them all off, keeping the bright green leaves, the petal fruits, and the rice grain-sized seeds.
'These seeds might be able to replace rice grains.'
Looking at the harvest, Law thought to himself, 'With these ingredients, I should be able to cook that chicken.'
Each ingredient could be considered top-notch, so he wondered what kind of flavor they could combine to create.
Using a tree stump, he made a wooden box, placed all the ingredients inside, and prepared to return to the tree hole.
Just then, Law's spine chilled. Accompanied by a faint sound of breaking air that was hard to detect, a faint killing intent came from behind.
[Instant!]
Law moved sideways several tens of meters, looking towards his original position. Dust was billowing.
"A person?"
Within the dust, a humanoid figure over two meters tall was revealed.
Law frowned, then saw that 'person' turn around and swing its arm. The dust dispersed, revealing most of its true appearance.
"Magical Beast Race...?"
Seeing its features clearly, Law's eyelids lifted slightly.
'That seemed to be... a demi-human from the Magical Beast Race? Judging from some facial features, was it a leopard?'