Chapter 75 - 74: Discovering Mutated Wild Garlic, A Pleasant Surprise!

Compared to the shepherd’s purse on Azure, the leaves of this mutated shepherd’s purse were much thicker. Even the smallest leaf was as wide as an adult’s palm. The layers of leaves spread out like a rosette, resembling dark green plates inverted on the ground.

Sev Steele looked around. After confirming it was safe, she took out her Detection Knife and sliced off a small piece of a leaf. Soon, a voice broadcast sounded: "BEEP! Edible plant detected: mutated shepherd’s purse. Radiation level: 42. Belongs to the moderate radiation category. Not recommended for excessive consumption."

Hearing this prompt, Sev could only smile bitterly. Scavengers in District Nine ate nothing but moderately irradiated food. They knew full well that long-term consumption would damage their health and shorten their lifespans, but the alternative was starving to death. Only a minority of the true elites in The Gilded Ward could probably afford low-radiation food.

Under normal circumstances, the radiation levels of leaves on the same plant wouldn’t differ by much. If one leaf was edible, there was a high probability the rest were too. Sev was delighted. The very first wild vegetable she tested today was edible. Her luck wasn’t bad at all.

She skillfully drew her Blunt Dagger from her backpack and severed the thick plant about two inches above its roots, doing her best not to damage its root system or the surrounding soil. This way, it wouldn’t take long for it to grow new leaves for future gatherers. This was a common rule observed by Scavengers in District Nine: to survive, they had to properly protect these edible mutated plants.

The S Level Dagger Doctor Jenkins had given her was sitting in her inner pocket, but Sev couldn’t bear to use it for foraging. Although the Blunt Dagger required a lot of effort to use, a good knife had to be saved for critical moments; she couldn’t waste it on vegetables.

She took out a torn gunny sack, tossed the entire plant inside, and tied the opening tight. Fastening it to her waist with a hemp rope, she dragged it behind her. Today, she hadn’t rented an official Tactical Backpack because Hayden Hanson was around, and he had brought one. They had agreed that if she encountered anything heavy, she would send him a message, and he would rush over to help her pack it. Her harvests from the previous two trips made her feel that renting a backpack was a rip-off. She certainly didn’t want to hand over twenty percent of her valuable supplies for nothing.

Sev dragged the torn sack and continued forward. According to the original body’s memory, she had once gathered a few mutated goosefoot plants around here. Unfortunately, her luck wasn’t as good this time. Those mutated goosefoot plants had likely been harvested a couple of days ago, as they had only just sprouted tender leaves about two inches long. Even if she picked them all now, it would only amount to a small handful. Sev ignored them and kept moving.

As she walked, a familiar pungent scent suddenly wafted over. Sev subconsciously sniffed the air and immediately identified it: a rich, familiar blend of scallion and garlic. She stopped in her tracks, taking a few deep breaths to distinguish the scent carefully. That’s right! This was the exact smell of concentrated wild garlic!

Back when her grandfather used to take her hunting in the woods, he would casually pick some wild garlic whenever they came across it. It had the spiciness of garlic as well as the fresh fragrance of scallions, but its overall taste was milder and more refreshing than regular garlic. Her grandfather had loved using wild garlic to scramble eggs. Because it didn’t have the overwhelming stench of regular garlic, even those who couldn’t stomach the usual taste enjoyed eating it.

Sev followed the scent and searched carefully. Sure enough, she spotted an enlarged version of wild garlic. It was about 1.2 meters tall. Compared to the slender, twenty-centimeter wild garlic she used to see, this one was clearly much taller and sturdier. The normally emerald, delicate leaves that resembled chives now looked like thick leeks. Digging away the soil at the roots revealed a ten-centimeter-long, oval-shaped white bulb, shaped like an elongated single-clove garlic.

Sev was so excited she wanted to jump for joy! These past few days, she had desperately searched the original body’s memories for various seasonings, only to find that apart from salt and sugar, her culinary knowledge was almost completely blank. But now, she had finally found a great treasure that could substitute for scallions and garlic—indispensable condiments for everyday cooking. The original body’s memory had no record of mutated wild garlic at all. Or perhaps she had seen it before, but because the detection result showed high radiation and it wasn’t on the edible plant list, she had completely ignored it.

Sev immediately used her Detection Knife to cut off the tip of a leaf. The voice broadcast soon sounded: "BEEP! Plant detected is not on the edible list. Radiation level: 59. Belongs to the moderately high radiation category, approaching the lower limit of high radiation. Harvesting is not recommended!"

Hearing the broadcast, Sev figured as much! The reason this mutated wild garlic had managed to survive without being picked by others was because of the "harvesting is not recommended" warning. Usually, Scavengers would decisively abandon a find upon hearing such a prompt. Not to mention, people who didn’t know how to cook would smell the pungent scent of wild garlic and subjectively assume it tasted terrible.

Suppressing her excitement, Sev carefully examined the mutated wild garlic before her. To her pleasant surprise, she discovered a cylindrical scape hidden among the leaves. Although it had only grown to about fifty centimeters in height, a spherical flower bud had already formed at the top of the stalk. This was a clear sign that it was about to bloom and go to seed! If she could harvest the seeds of this mutated wild garlic, she would take them back and have her Rose stimulate their growth and plant them. From then on, her home would never lack scallions and garlic for seasoning.

With this in mind, Sev took a small trowel from her backpack and began carefully digging around the roots. She dug in a slightly wider radius to ensure the root system wouldn’t be damaged. Fortunately, wild garlic naturally lacked a well-developed root system. Its rootlets were only a few centimeters long, growing sparsely at the bottom of the small bulb. In the past, when she foraged with her grandfather, she had always been able to effortlessly pull them up by the roots.

Although this mutated wild garlic looked as burly as Brock Grant, digging it out by the roots didn’t take much effort at all. Fifteen minutes later, Sev had completely unearthed it, roots, surrounding soil, and all.

She took out a vacuum fresh-keeping bag and carefully wrapped the soil surrounding the root bulb. Then she grabbed another bag to protect its flower bud before finally placing it into the gunny sack. Afraid that the bumps of travel might snap it, she specifically parted the mutated shepherd’s purse she had just picked and nestled the wild garlic safely in the middle. In stark contrast, the mutated shepherd’s purse was treated like an unwanted stepchild.

Having obtained the mutated wild garlic, Sev felt that today’s trip was truly worthwhile. She wasn’t a greedy person. For the remainder of her time, she planned to stroll around slowly. If she didn’t find any more harvests, she would just gather some firewood on the way back.

As she walked, she suddenly spotted a short tree stump about fifty centimeters in diameter, so she took the opportunity to sit down and rest. The stump had a remarkably neat cut; it was likely left behind after being chopped down by someone in the past. The strange thing was that within a radius of more than two meters around the stump, not a single weed or shrub grew.

There was only one possible reason for this phenomenon: there was a Source around this stump capable of killing other plants! This Source could be a deadly poison, or it could be a highly radioactive Origin Stone. The more she thought about it, the more terrifying it became!

Frightened, Sev hurriedly jumped up and retreated to what she believed was a safe distance. However, her curiosity had already been piqued, and she was truly unwilling to just leave it at that.