Multiverse Gourmet Hunter

After traveling a considerable distance into the jungle, Haruto stopped and surveyed his surroundings before looking upward.

The trees around him had grown increasingly tall and thick, their overlapping branches and leaves completely hiding the sky.

"This should be deep enough."

BB Corn did not grow on the forest floor. It could only be found high above the deepest parts of the Wuu Jungle.

To locate it, Haruto would have to climb.

He leaped onto a nearby branch and prepared to ascend.

The moment his feet touched it, however, the branch suddenly sprang to life and twisted toward him, attempting to wrap around his body.

The attack came without warning, but Haruto still managed to sever the branch before it could restrain him.

He landed back on the ground and looked ahead.

Countless branches began swaying, and at their center, a vicious humanlike face appeared on the trunk, its expression filled with predatory malice.

"So it’s a Zombie Tree."

Haruto studied the creature with interest.

Its branches were twisted and dried out, and nothing about them looked remotely appetizing.

Zombie Trees were plant beasts with a Capture Level of 33.

Yet despite being classified as beasts, they felt almost identical to the surrounding vegetation within Haruto’s En.

As long as they remained still, distinguishing one from an ordinary tree was extremely difficult.

That was why Haruto had failed to notice it earlier.

While he examined the Zombie Tree, it eagerly launched another attack.

Dry branches whipped through the air from every direction, producing a rapid series of sharp whistles as they rushed toward him.

The dense barrage sealed off every possible route of escape.

Haruto showed no panic. If anything, excitement stirred within him.

"Perfect. I’ll use you to test the Food Technique I’ve been developing."

Before he finished speaking, Haruto raised his right hand and pressed his fingers together like the edge of a blade.

Highly condensed Nen gathered around his palm, forming the shape of an ethereal kitchen knife.

Its outline was hazy, but the sharpness radiating from it was unmistakable.

"Knife!"

With a sharp flick of his wrist, the phantom kitchen knife left his hand and shot forward like a streak of lightning.

Crack!

Several thick branches were sliced apart, their severed ends perfectly smooth.

However, an attack that looked so devastating meant little to a Zombie Tree.

Within seconds, the cut surfaces began writhing and twisting.

Fresh branches rapidly sprouted from the wounds, growing and spreading at a speed visible to the naked eye.

In moments, the Zombie Tree had completely recovered, as though it had never been injured.

Haruto’s counterattack only enraged it further.

The hideous face embedded in its trunk opened its enormous mouth and released a roar more fitting for a savage beast than a plant.

The sound shook loose leaves from the surrounding trees.

An even denser mass of branches surged toward Haruto from every direction.

Haruto raised an eyebrow.

This was the perfect opportunity to test the next stage of his Food Technique.

His gaze sharpened as a large amount of Nen poured into his right hand.

The aura rapidly took shape, forming a gigantic phantom kitchen knife several meters long.

This blade appeared far more solid than the first, radiating a domineering force that seemed capable of cutting through anything in its path.

"Cut!"

The enormous phantom knife came crashing down.

Its blade tore through the approaching branches as effortlessly as a hot knife slicing through butter. Severed limbs flew through the air in every direction.

The attack did not stop there.

Still carrying tremendous force, the phantom blade struck the grotesque face in the center of the Zombie Tree’s trunk and split the entire creature in half.

The bisected Zombie Tree shook violently.

Its trunk collapsed with a thunderous crash, its enormous body slamming into the ground.

The scattered branches twitched weakly several times before falling still.

Haruto rotated his wrist, reasonably satisfied with the Food Technique he had created.

Most importantly, although the phantom knife was formed from Nen, it could not truly be considered a Nen ability.

It was similar to how he used Nen to cast magic.

More accurately, the energy within Haruto had always been a manifestation of appetite.

It merely displayed the characteristics of Nen, and Haruto continued calling it Nen because that was what he was accustomed to.

Putting the matter aside, Haruto turned toward the fallen Zombie Tree.

He could sense that it was not truly dead.

The damage had merely been severe enough to slow its regeneration, temporarily leaving it unable to resist.

Haruto approached and picked up one of its fallen branches.

He rubbed his fingers across the rough, dark surface. The wood was hard and dry, containing almost no moisture.

Haruto shook his head.

The branch would probably burn exceptionally well as firewood, but that was its only useful quality.

It could not be made into a spice and had no value as smoking wood.

That was not particularly surprising.

The Zombie Tree and the other carnivorous plants throughout the jungle were essentially nothing more than tools used by the BB Corn to absorb nutrients from the surrounding environment.

Those plants hunted animals and drained nourishment from the earth, only for everything they gathered to be transported back to the BB Corn.

Naturally, the Zombie Tree itself contained very little nutrition.

Haruto casually tossed the branch aside and looked upward once more.

He leaped into the air and began climbing along the enormous interwoven trunks.

Some sections were covered in thick moss and dangerously slippery, but that presented little difficulty for him.

Using his hands and feet in perfect coordination, Haruto continued ascending until his figure disappeared among the dense canopy.

He had no idea how long he climbed.

Eventually, the thick leaves overhead began to thin, and the surrounding light gradually grew brighter.

Haruto’s spirits lifted. Anticipation flashed through his eyes as he increased his pace.

A short while later, he finally reached the top of the Wuu Jungle’s canopy.

A thin layer of cloud and mist still covered the forest, turning the world around him into a vast expanse of white.

That did not stop Haruto from immediately beginning his search.

Before long, he spotted a stalk of BB Corn slightly over a meter tall.

Haruto glanced at it once, then ignored it and continued moving across the canopy.

Although these stalks were already several times larger than ordinary corn, they were actually malnourished.

A properly matured BB Corn would be far larger.

Haruto had no intention of wasting his strength harvesting inferior specimens.

Time slowly passed, and the mist above the canopy began to disperse, greatly expanding his field of vision.

When one thick bank of cloud finally drifted apart, an unimaginably enormous shape appeared before him.

Haruto’s pupils contracted, and his heartbeat accelerated.

It was a stalk of BB Corn nearly fifty or sixty meters tall.

The colossal plant stood upright above the canopy like a green tower. Its stalk was thick and powerful, while enormous emerald leaves spread around it like giant sails.

"I finally found it!"

Unable to suppress his excitement, Haruto raced toward the towering BB Corn.

As he approached, a faint but irresistibly sweet fragrance of grain drifted toward him on the wind.

A single breath was enough to awaken his appetite and leave his mind pleasantly intoxicated.

Haruto soon reached the base of the enormous plant and looked upward, overwhelmed by the sight.

The gigantic ear of corn towered above its stalk, with countless strands of golden silk swaying gently in the wind like fine threads.

The number of kernels on an ear of BB Corn was exactly equal to the number of strands of corn silk it possessed.

Those golden strands filled the air, densely packed and far too numerous to count.

That meant the ear contained thousands—perhaps even tens of thousands—of plump BB Corn kernels.

Haruto stared at it with burning eyes, rapidly considering whether he should remove the kernels here or—

He quickly made his decision.

He would take the entire ear of BB Corn with him.

Removing every kernel here would waste too much time, and the depths of the Wuu Jungle were hardly safe.

The best choice was to carry it somewhere secure and process it slowly afterward.

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