“Not selling anymore?!”

Hearing the report from his sales agent, Sindison, who had been sipping tea and reading the paper, froze mid-page.

The agent standing beside the desk nodded helplessly. “Yes, sir. We went to the Boulder Town Militia’s forward base and requested to purchase the Mutant Slime Mold remains from their commander. But they didn’t even let us name a price, they turned us away at the gate.”

“The reason?!” Sindison snapped, gripping the armrests of his chair, his voice full of outrage. “Don’t they realize leaving those remains out there will cause a plague?!”

“I... don’t know, sir,” the salesman said nervously, shrinking under his glare. “They said the New Alliance authorities have taken custody of all the remains.”

Sindison blinked once, struck dumb.

The New Alliance authorities took them? What the hell did they want with that stuff?

In the indulgent luxury of Bugra Free State, the Sindison Trading Company was a tiny, unremarkable business. Its sole trade was supplying organic waste, raw materials used by Free State factories to manufacture synthetic food and fertilizer.

Every year during the Tide, Sindison would send people north to Clearspring City to buy a batch of corpses. One trip could turn a profit of hundreds of millions of Bugra dollars.

The Slime Mold remains were basically free money.

The poor there didn’t care where their food came from, and the factories certainly didn’t care about the nutrient source.

And Boulder Town had a need to dispose of the remains anyway. His business was the perfect win-win arrangement for everyone.

Hearing the year’s Tide, after a warm winter, would be fiercer than ever, Sindison had even gone all-in, borrowing from the bank, renting over 30 heavy trucks, hiring a 100-man escort team, and personally leading the convoy south to Dawn City to strike it rich.

But just as he was dreaming of fortune, the news his agent brought back from the front line left him utterly dumbfounded.

He already had buyers lined up, and now the New Alliance was saying the remains weren’t for sale?!

What kind of joke is this?!

Though his fingers trembled with rage, Sindison quickly forced himself to calm down.

As the saying went, it wasn’t wise to fight a giant. Against the mighty New Alliance, his tiny firm was just an ant.

He didn’t want to see his years of work collapse under penalty fees and unpaid bank loans, but he knew one thing clearly, going head-to-head with the New Alliance would only end badly.

He would have to find another way.

Fixing his eyes on the salesman, Sindison asked slowly, “What about the remains? What’s the New Alliance planning to do with them?”

The salesman swallowed hard and spoke softly. “I heard they’ve been moved to the eastern district of Clearspring City... but I don’t know what they’re doing there.”

The eastern district?

Sindison frowned deeply.

Wasn’t that area covered by forest? What would they send them there for?

He couldn’t make sense of it. After a long pause, he sighed, “Tomorrow morning, take me to the eastern outskirts of Clearspring City. I want to see it myself.”

The salesman nodded quickly. “Yes, boss!”

...

The next morning, Sindison rose before dawn. Taking the salesman and a few armed guards, he left the inn while the first rays of dawn hadn’t broken.

After traveling more than 10 miles east of Dawn City, the group finally reached the edge of Clearspring’s eastern district. The sight that greeted them left Sindison completely speechless.

“... What in the world is that?”

They saw Crunchers pushing carts piled with Slime Mold remains, hauling them from heaps of corpses toward a half-collapsed building.

From the pitch-black windows, faint red growths pulsed softly, unmistakably the shape of nurseries!

The guards beside Sindison instinctively tightened their grips on their guns, thumbs flicking the safeties off as they focused warily on the building.

The Crunchers alone weren’t frightening. But if there were Creepers or even Tyrants around, things could get ugly fast. In terrain like this, not even seasoned mercenaries had a guaranteed chance of survival.

And indeed, there were Creepers and Tyrants nearby.

By an abandoned concrete tower near the incubation chambers, Creepers were clambering up walls carpeted in Slime Mold, hauling stacks of bricks and bundles of steel rebar on their backs.

At the damaged sections of the wall, slack-jawed Crunchers stood waiting to receive the materials, stacking them brick by brick into place.

“They’re... building a wall?” the salesman murmured in disbelief. The guards exchanged looks of pure horror.

“By the Great Stag God...”

“Since when do these weird things know how to build houses?!”

Sindison said nothing. He swallowed, took out a binocular scope, and focused on the middle floors of the building for a closer look. What he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The bricks weren’t being laid on cement. They were being placed atop a layer of pale red Slime Mold.

The living mat writhed with tiny tendrils, and the moment each brick touched it, the filaments latched on tightly. Thin red membranes then grew outward from the cracks, draining moisture and fusing the bricks securely into the wall.

Sindison was stunned beyond words.

The sun must’ve risen in the west because these Slime Mold were repairing human buildings!

Even stranger, the reconstructed sections weren’t ugly at all. In fact, they possessed an eerie kind of beauty.

At least, they looked far better than the crumbling ruins around them.

The pale red mats didn’t appear grotesque or intrusive. Spreading along the broken edges like an artist’s brushstroke, they turned the scars of a two-century-old war into living, organic graffiti. It was a natural memorial.

The only question was whether those rebuilt houses could actually be lived in.

Sindison doubted he had ever stepped inside one himself. The paupers of the Bugra Free State might not care, but he had no interest in spending his days breathing in spores.

The salesman beside him felt the same. Staring at the creeping red walls, he shook his head.

“I’d never live in a place like that... It feels like a trap. The moment you step inside, it would swallow you whole, like a pitcher plant.” 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The guards exchanged glances and nodded.

“Yeah, same here.”

“Not unless someone pays me.”

“And can people even live there? They didn’t even use cement!”

Sindison lowered his binoculars and cursed under his breath, his face dark with frustration. “Whatever the hell they’re doing... I finally get what the New Alliance is up to, hoarding those damn corpses.”

He still had no idea how the New Alliance managed to make the Slime Mold cooperate, but that was their business now.

He had considered a zero-cost acquisition before, sneaking in at night, loading a few trucks of remains, and hauling them north.

After all, the eastern district was huge. Maybe the New Alliance wouldn’t even notice.

But it was obvious that plan was impossible. Those Slime Mold acted almost like sentient beings. They would never just stand by and watch him haul away their own kind’s corpses.

Just as Sindison sank into frustrated thought, the rumble of engines echoed nearby. Two motorcycles turned the corner, roaring toward them.

He and his men looked over to see the bikes flying New Alliance flags, the First Army’s insignia painted on their fronts.

Four soldiers dismounted, watching the unfamiliar group warily as they approached.

The captain instantly asked, “You there, who are you? What are you doing here?”

Sindison quickly raised his hands slightly in a placating gesture. “I’m just a traveling merchant passing through. May I ask what’s happening here? Why are there so many Slime Mold...”

“That’s none of your concern,” one soldier cut him off coldly. “The area ahead is a restricted military zone. Unauthorized entry is prohibited. Leave now, or we’ll use force.”