Chapter 103: A New Companion
The moment he made his move, the cactus, which had been lying motionless on the ground, suddenly sprang to life.
Its roots moved like octopus tentacles as it desperately attempted to escape.
Unfortunately, plants were not creatures suited for movement, so its speed was rather pathetic.
Realizing that its flower was about to be taken away, the cactus panicked.
Its spines shot out violently like a storm of hidden needles, firing toward Joo Joowon with astonishing speed and force.
Joo Joowon dodged to the side and looked back.
Each spine possessed considerable killing power.
They had pierced directly through the ceramic floor tiles.
"Relax."
After realizing that the cactus had truly come alive and possessed quite impressive offensive abilities, Joo Joowon immediately abandoned the idea of killing it.
"You wouldn’t want your flower to wither before it even gets pollinated, would you?"
Cactus: ???
Joo Joowon used a small amount of Mental Power on his voice, trying to make the other party feel as much goodwill from him as possible.
This was a method Joo Joowon had only discovered after his Mental Power reached thirteen points.
Although he still could not do things like projecting Mental Power outward, he could apply it to himself, such as enhancing his eyes or his speech.
It was not much, but it was still somewhat effective.
At the very least, it made his emotions easier to express.
Even a cat like Byeol, who suffered from occasional bouts of selective deafness, would feel too embarrassed to continue pretending not to hear him.
Of course, even if the cactus could sense his emotions, Joo Joowon had no idea whether it could actually understand human language.
Logically speaking, animals that lived with humans for a long time could gradually understand human speech.
If that was the case, then perhaps plants that had lived with humans for a long time might also react to certain words.
Seeing that the cactus had not immediately used its roots to escape and had instead hesitated and stopped, seemingly "looking" at Joo Joowon, he continued speaking.
"If I remember correctly, your species can’t self pollinate," Joo Joowon said while patting his chest confidently. "Artificial pollination happens to be my specialty. So, what do you think? Want to come with me? I’ll make sure you’re well fed, and I guarantee you’ll be able to produce seeds smoothly."
Thinking back to the money tree his boss had once forced him to take care of during his days working as a receptionist, only for him to accidentally kill it, Joo Joowon still remained full of confidence.
After all, hadn’t he successfully raised the cat grass at home?
Hadn’t he also successfully raised Byeol?
And for something with as much vitality as a cactus, there was no way he could possibly manage to kill it.
The cactus struggled to understand Joo Joowon’s words.
Roughly speaking, it seemed like he wanted to find it a new flowerpot.
Since it had originally been a plant raised by humans, fragments of memories still remained inside its small cactus brain of humans watering it and taking care of it.
To be honest, the life of simply growing without having to think about anything had been pretty nice.
After hesitating for a while, the cactus finally shuffled a little closer toward Joo Joowon.
Joo Joowon crouched down and opened the zipper of his backpack, allowing it to climb inside.
A cactus the size of a human head obviously could not fit completely into the bag, but its roots could temporarily take root there, making it much easier for Joo Joowon to carry it away.
After putting the backpack back on, Joo Joowon headed toward the door.
To avoid ending up losing more than he gained, Joo Joowon never placed too many plants in a single apartment, nor did he place plants that were already large in size.
As for households that kept cacti, most of them would not own just a single cactus.
For office workers, even if they enjoyed raising plants, it was difficult to consistently maintain the hobby.
Most people ended up choosing plants that could survive with very little care or small succulents that did not take up much space.
Succulents had been extremely popular in recent years.
They required very little planting space and were more visually appealing than cacti and similar species, so quite a lot of people kept them.
Because of this, most of the plants Joo Joowon had placed were cacti and succulents.
The moment he stepped out of the room, Joo Joowon noticed that two more people had appeared beside the two individuals standing guard.
When they saw Joo Joowon, the group could not help but freeze for a moment.
Although everyone dressed strangely after the apocalypse and helmets had practically become a permanent part of daily life, making everyone look like walking performance artists, Joo Joowon’s current appearance could still only be described as bizarre.
Why was there a flower growing on top of his head?
Why were there spikes growing around his helmet?
"Wait... Wait a second!"
Following the unwritten rule that the stranger someone dressed in the apocalypse, the stronger they probably were, the man wearing a black and red helmet only hesitated briefly before speaking.
He raised both hands to show that he meant no harm and walked over alone, leaving his teammates behind.
Joo Joowon remained where he was standing.
He already had a rough idea of what the man wanted to say.
"Here’s the thing. You probably don’t have a team yet, right? If you don’t already have teammates, how about considering us?" the man said openly, his voice carrying a straightforward and heroic tone. "The four of us are already Level 2, so we definitely won’t hold you back. Whoever kills the monster gets the equipment drop. If you’re looking for teammates, do you think we might be suitable?"
In reality, Jin Hunseok was not particularly lacking in teammates.
He was fairly quick witted.
Back when the apocalypse had just begun and the internet had not yet gone down, he had already started recruiting people through group chats.