It was hard to imagine that a few soybean-sized Mirage Ticks had nearly wiped out Law's team.
Fortunately, the Mirage Ticks had only gained partial access to their minds, not full control… otherwise, even Law would have succumbed.
Moreover, if he had woken up even a moment later, allowing the Mirage Tick on Bruna to evolve, it would have been a disastrous outcome.
The rain outside had stopped.
Releasing his En allowed him to detect some moving objects. Even so, Law remained vigilant.
After all, after experiencing so many absurd yet incredibly realistic dreams, how could one be sure whether this moment was reality or still a dream?
Ultimately, each of those experiences had become memory fragments embedded in his mind.
"Did I fall asleep?"
Kuro walked over to the fire and asked hesitantly.
"Yes." Preferring to avoid unnecessary complications, Law nodded in affirmation.
"Strange." Kuro frowned. It was impossible for him to fall asleep unconsciously, yet that seemed to be the case.
Law looked at him and suddenly asked, "What did you dream about?"
Kuro was taken aback by the question. His silver eyes widened slightly before he quickly recovered, shifting his gaze away as he replied, "I didn't dream at all. Just slept soundly."
He had indeed had a dream, a very strange one. Although the process had been particularly satisfying, the ending was somewhat miserable.
In that endlessly looping dream, disregarding the outcome and focusing only on the process, he had finally turned the tables, finding various ways to thoroughly torment Law. Of course, there was no way he would reveal such a dream.
"Oh."
Law responded indifferently. He knew Kuro had also been trapped in the dream.
Judging by the swollen volume of the Mirage Tick on him, he had probably sunk deep into it, never realizing something was wrong. The Mirage Tick likely hadn't even revealed its true nature to him.
Now, Kuro was avoiding the topic. Law guessed the dream involved him, probably one where their roles and status were severely reversed.
He had a pretty good idea and wasn't particularly interested in pressing for details.
'However, that barely concealed look of secret pleasure was way too obvious.'
Watching Kuro's face turn away, seemingly about to get lost in blissful recollection, Law immediately slapped him, pulling him out of his pointless delusions.
"What was that for!"
Kuro said, slightly angry.
Law said indifferently, "Get some things out."
He then took a test tube from Kuro's space and carefully placed the drop of body fluid extracted from the Mirage Tick inside. He also took out some food.
Law didn't leave the tree hole to investigate outside. After eating some food, he just stared into the fire, deep in thought.
Kuro found him a bit strange but didn't think too much about it, just sat by himself.
Time passed bit by bit.
Adding firewood to the fire, sunrise and sunset, a whole day passed. The thorn in Law's heart was finally pulled out.
"Tricky enough."
Law sighed softly, then checked on Biscuit and the others' condition. Not to mention their previous injuries, the aftereffects of the Mirage Tick attack were enough to keep them asleep for several more days.
There were no IV tools here, but he could use his Nen Ability to supplement the water and food their bodily functions needed.
Several days passed, and Biscuit and the others still showed no signs of waking up. Kuro wanted to go out to find some ingredients, but Law refused and ordered him to stay in the tree hole to look after Biscuit and the others.
Then, Law took Shin from Kuro and left the tree hole.
Emerging from the underground world, passing through the curtain of rain, crossing the intangible presence, they finally reached the edge of the tree sea. In a hurry, he carved out a tree hole in a large tree.
Counting the days, it had been five or six days. This was also the first time Law could properly observe the forest's situation.
However, after descending from the tree, he was surprised to find that the environment around the tree hole, aside from some differences, was largely the same as the forest in his dream.
Due to the giant trees being scattered relatively sparsely with large intervals between them, and coupled with Law having experienced the dream several times with clear memories, he confirmed that the position and general appearance of several large trees near the tree hole had the same layout as in the dream.
As for the differences, most of the ground was covered with a layer of leaf litter. There were low shrubs, clusters of flowers competing in beauty, mushrooms sprouting after the rain, and the forest was no longer dead silent… many signs of life flowed within.
Looking up, the gloom in the sky had dispersed. Sunlight passed through the branches and leaves, casting slanting beams of light. It was a peaceful scene, yet no one knew how many deadly dangers lurked here.
Law silently observed the surroundings. The largely unchanged, yet different in many details, environment did not make him suspect that he hadn't yet escaped the dream.
He was certain the threat of the Mirage Ticks had been completely eradicated.
He suddenly turned around and looked in the direction he came from, towards the vast flat rocky ground.
His gaze passed through the gaps between several large trees and could still see the enormous, motionless humanoid figure in the far distance.
He just didn't know where the unknown entity that had injured Biscuit and Tonpa in the rain had gone.
Law looked at the distance between the tree hole and the flat rocky ground, worried that creatures active on the rocky ground might inadvertently affect their tree hole.
He immediately hesitated about whether to change locations.
'On second thought, the threats in the forest hadn't been fully explored yet, so changing locations might not make much difference.'
Thinking this, Law began appraising all the nearby plants and animals. The accumulated intelligence would be very helpful for their upcoming journey through the forest.
Law had thought most creatures in the Dark Continent were gigantic.
Only after encountering the Mirage Ticks and personally inspecting the forest's ecology did he realize he was wrong.
Although the trees in the forest were large and tall, there were also trees and shrubs of relatively normal size. Similarly, the blooming flower clusters and mushroom groups that sprouted after the rain were all of normal volume.
Right at the base of the large tree where he had made the tree hole, there was a patch of purple and red mushrooms.
Law wanted to pick two to investigate. However, as soon as he approached, the cap of a red mushroom suddenly split open, revealing two rows of sharp teeth.
A leech-like mouthpart wriggled out from the middle and sprayed green mucus at him.
Law dodged, avoiding the mucus, then destroyed dozens of the red mushrooms, leaving about ten purple ones.
Since this was right below their temporary base, Law meticulously cleaned up the remnants left by the red mushrooms, such as the highly toxic mucus.
Afterwards, he picked up a purple mushroom. The moment he touched it, he quickly threw it away.
The purple mushroom exploded mid-air, turning into waves of purple smoke.
Seeing this, Law really didn't know what to say.
He had the God Hand, so even if these mushrooms were poisonous, there were ways to make them edible. But these mushrooms were simply insane… they weren't born here to be food ingredients.
Next, he found many types of mushrooms and some wild vegetables, mostly similar, all possessing exaggerated lethality and unable to become ingredients.
Thus, Law turned his attention to fruits. After a carpet search, he wanted to retract his earlier assessment of the forest's ecological circle being excellent.
All the plants and creatures here seemed innately unaware that they could be considered food ingredients.
Severe toxicity, acid, self-destruction… all sorts of brutal self-defense methods emerged endlessly. Who knew what kind of food chain was constructed within this forest?
Deeply feeling the hardship humans would face trying to survive in this forest, he could only sigh at the usefulness of Kuro's space.
At least they had brought plenty of food supplies, so they didn't necessarily have to find usable ingredients in the forest.
It was just that if they didn't cook the turkey soon, its flavor would indeed be lost.
Finding ingredients was one thing, the main purpose was also to eliminate potential threats.
After the carpet search, he discovered quite a few potential threats.
He could later inform Biscuit and the others to nip some risks in the bud.
After traveling several kilometers, Law found a low hillside with a cave entrance that looked very much like a bear den, blocked by a few rotten tree stumps.
A root-like object, about the thickness of an index finger, extended from the cave, roughly two or three meters long.
The end of the root-like object was a bright red flower, emitting an enticing floral scent.