Ed-Bear took a deep breath. The fetid, heavy air of the rot-choked forest circulated through his six lung sacs before being expelled through the pores across his body, producing a sibilant hiss like a viper’s tongue.
He truly wanted to preserve the original state of the Monocle Cult’s sacrificial site. According to the environmentalist principle of non-interference, an observer should strive to let nature take its course without meddling.
However, this embryo looked remarkably rich in protein. It might provide enough energy for the next few days of activity… Just kidding. He had no intention of consuming this bizarre thing.
Ed-Bear didn’t suffer from pica, and survival wasn’t about being a thrill-seeker; one had to uphold the principle of pragmatism above all else.
He extended a single tentacle into the Black Flame.
It looked like a risky move, but in reality, there was little danger. Even if the Black Flame spread like Amaterasu, he could simply shed the limb like a lizard discarding its tail.
Ed-Bear discovered that the Black Flame produced by the burning embryo was a form of gaseous evaporation rather than true fire. It was neither hot nor cold, and it possessed no burning or infectious properties.
Soon, his palm split into five distinct tentacles that coiled around the embryo. They flattened from spheres into ribbons, adhering to one another as they differentiated into dense, spiny tissue. He wrapped and sealed the embryo entirely until it resembled a strange, oversized seed.
He plucked the fist-sized Demon Seed from the end of his arm and tucked it into his satchel. The severed tentacle stump rapidly regenerated, forming a new hand.
The spiny-skinned Demon Seed acted as a low-grade version of a Sealing Box. While it couldn’t match the original’s isolation and containment capabilities, it still pulsed with a faint, transcendent power. He could suppress his appetite for the sake of a precious specimen.
Ed-Bear turned around and looked at the little girl slumped on the ground, asking with confusion, “Why haven’t you left yet?”
Helen had regained her senses long ago, yet she remained frozen on the dirt.
The blurred whipping of shadows, the screams of the cultists, the fallen corpses… The images were far too jarring for her, leaving a chaotic and noisy resonance in her mind.
She hugged her knees, her curly hair spilling over her shoulders, her small face buried between her legs. She was a mess of tears and snot, her oversized eyes wide with a pitiful, hollow misery.
Hearing someone speak, she looked up, staring blankly at him.
Ed-Bear waved a hand as if shooing a duck. “Go home. This isn’t a place for you to linger.”
Upon second thought, however, he realized his words were ill-advised.
This was the Crimson Zone, a Tier 3 Danger Zone. A child wouldn’t last twenty meters before being swallowed by the darkness, destined to become monster droppings, a seedling bed for fungi, or just another stain on the forest floor.
At the mention of “home,” Helen’s painful memories surged again.
She wept with everything she had, her forehead pressed against her knees, her body tensing as she fought against the agony in her heart.
Investigating the events between victims and cults was also part of an Investigator’s duty. Ed-Bear walked over and patiently began to ask the girl about her ordeal.
Helen was only six years old. Her cognitive abilities weren’t developed enough to parse the meaning of tentacles, monsters, and Compound Eyes combined into one form. Furthermore, after witnessing the cultists being thrashed across the ground, she subconsciously decided that Ed-Bear was a good person.
In a sense, she wasn’t wrong.
Moreover, the creature’s movements were remarkably restrained. The little girl possessed an animalistic intuition; she felt that this strange “person” was not only non-threatening but someone she could lean on.
After a series of questions, Ed-Bear had the gist of it.
“I see. Your parents were murdered, you have no known relatives, and you don’t remember where your home is. You have an aunt, but you’ve never met her and don’t know her name or address…”
Like a diligent police officer, Ed-Bear recorded everything in his notebook.
He paused his pen to think. He decided to take the girl to a nearby human settlement and place her in an Almshouse… No, scratch the Almshouse. He would find a couple willing to adopt and provide for her.
Coincidentally, he was looking for a human settlement himself.
He had reaped a bountiful harvest on this journey. His notebook was filled with dozens of pages of observations, and he had collected over a dozen specimens. He desperately needed a permanent residence to store them safely and conduct further research.
Additionally, interacting with people would grant him more information. If there was a town surrounded by a complex environment, he was willing to settle down, rent a room, build a lab and a specimen vault, and use the town as a hub for his regional investigations.
Ed-Bear looked over his notes from beginning to end, summarizing the girl’s current situation: she had nothing left to lose.
Her parents were dead, her bear was lost, and she was stranded alone in the Gloomwood of a Crimson Zone. A few steps in any direction meant certain death. It was truly tragic.
Since he had decided to help her, he had to take responsibility.
Ed-Bear was a cautious soul. He didn’t rush to lead her away, opting to do some preparatory work first.
First, he had to check the girl’s mental state. He held up a finger and asked, “How many is this?”
“One…”
“And now?”
“Five…”
“Is this your left side or your right side?”
“Left…”
“How many gems am I holding?”
“…Seven.”
“Repeat the previous question.”
“How many… gems are you holding?”
Good. No cognitive impairment. She possessed functional capacity appropriate for her age.
“Stand up,” he commanded.
Helen shifted her legs, trying to rise, but her knees were weak. Her legs shook so violently that she failed several times.
“I… I can’t seem to stand… I’m sorry…” she said, her voice cracking.
Physically frail, Ed-Bear added a note.
“Take me with you…”
The little girl suddenly tilted her face up, her tiny hand gripping the hem of his clothes. Her eyes were filled with panic, like a drowning person clutching at a straw, terrified that this person would abandon her in the Gloomwood.
Ed-Bear didn’t understand the sentiment behind the gesture and casually pulled his clothes away.
As her fingers lost their grip, a tide of abandonment-induced fear flooded Helen’s heart.
Aggrieved and terrified, her small face crumpled. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she let out a loud hiccup, followed by soft, rhythmic sobs.
Though Ed-Bear’s personality was a cobbled-together construct that appeared somewhat dull, he still adhered to the simple moral values of his past life. He had no intention of abandoning the girl.
He leaned down and reached out to her. “Let me help you.”
Helen stopped crying, a flash of joy lighting up her face as she offered both her hands.
Ed-Bear’s hands were massive and cold, but he pulled her up effortlessly. The little girl was like a newborn fawn, wobbling unsteadily and leaning against his leg as she tremulously searched for her balance.
This little thing is far too fragile, Ed-Bear thought.
“Will you take me with you?” Helen asked, still uneasy. Sensing it might be a burden to a stranger, she added, “I—I’ll repay you later!”
Repay?
Ed-Bear didn’t need repayment. The little thing’s reaction seemed overly sentimental to him. He spoke bluntly:
“I cannot understand you, just as you cannot understand me.”
Helen looked at him blankly, struggling to parse the meaning. She didn’t want to make him angry, but he kept saying incomprehensible things that made her heart race with anxiety.
“Just do what I say. Understood?” Ed-Bear continued.
Helen pursed her lips and nodded vigorously.
Ed-Bear fell into thought.
He hadn’t chosen the Quicksand Lowlands as a base because the area near the Academy had been thoroughly scoured by the witches. There was virtually no mystery or unknown left to investigate there.
He had traveled west, gradually leaving behind the landmarks on his maps. When standing deep within the terrain, it was difficult to tell if the shapes of the jungles and rivers corresponded to those on paper.
He hadn’t encountered much trouble along the way—or rather, he was the trouble.
Almost every non-human creature he encountered had either ended up in his stomach or became a specimen inside a Demon Seed.
Through constant devouring and absorption, his height had increased to nearly two meters, and his weight exceeded three hundred kilograms. He looked lean, but his fascia and muscles were incredibly dense and tough; a single casual punch could deliver an impact of over two tons.
Moreover, since he wasn’t human, Mental Pollution had no effect on him.
Walking through a Crimson Zone was no challenge for Ed-Bear; Special Grade Relics were, without exception, treasures possessing powers great enough to overturn logic.
However, protecting a human cub while traversing the Crimson Zone increased the difficulty tenfold.
That might not be a strictly scientific assessment, but he certainly felt the burden.
Ed-Bear said to Helen, “I will take you to a human settlement. Humans have a habit of settling in river basins to engage in agriculture. We will find a river and drift downstream. Seeing farmland will mean we aren’t far from civilization.”
The girl might not understand his clinical explanation, but it didn’t matter. Constant talking helped ease her tension.
Ed-Bear added, “Before that, we need to find ‘Candle’.”
Helen couldn’t understand those words either, but she tried her best to memorize them, hoping to understand later.
She trailed behind Ed-Bear like a little shadow, though she no longer dared to tug at his clothes.
