Sponsored by: C. Louis
Chapter 9 – Can Anyone Teach Me How to Beg for Rain?
Suddenly, summer had come.
It's so hot!!
What's with the weather!?
Looking up at the cloudless sky, I stretched out my hands high.
I wonder if it will rain.
I need water....
Since the day I saw an unidentified flying object shining at night, the season had suddenly changed to mid-summer.
UFO that calls for summer?
I feel a sign of youth like radio waves....
No, I have never heard such a story in this world.
Due to the hot waves and lack of rain, the ground started to crack in several places.
It's a drought.
The forest is screaming that there is not enough water.
My body, too, have started to run out of water and groaning.
The corolla I'm so proud of is wilting and my leaves are cracking. The vascular bundles, which are the pathways for water in plants, is noisily asking to send water all over the body as soon as possible. They seem to have been bored with no work lately. But hey, tell that complaint to the roots!
I’m doing everything what I can do here. I'm using all the strength I have to keep pushing the roots deeper and deeper. I send a command to them to absorb more water. Even so, they could only get a hazy amount of water. That shows how bad the heat waves we've been getting.
The other plants around me should still have plenty of room to grow even under these conditions. However, I am a plant monster called Alraune. I’m bigger and consume a completely different amount of energy per day compared them.
I am the only one here who has a mouth on a large bulb, can move my vines freely, and can grow a human body on flower. The more special and unusual I am for a plant, the less fuel efficient I am.
I hope I can manage to endure it somehow.
I wonder if it will rain soon….
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Several days had passed since then. One morning, I woke up feeling uncomfortable. I felt some kind of the pressure on my bulb as if something poking it. I looked down and found a root sticking out of ground.
What does this mean!?
There was nothing here until yesterday.
Yeah, this is not mine.
Could it be this is a sexual harassment?
I found the perpetrator easily. He was standing boldly some distance away in front of me, after all.
You, the tree over there!
The root of a nearby tree had grown until it reached my bulb, exposing its surface to the outside
His root should have not grown this far in a day. I wonder what is the reason for such a rapid growth. Are you, by any chance, a perverted tree?
This is a crime in progress. You have the right to remain silent. Or, if you are willing to give me a large amount of water as a solatium, I can pretend that nothing happened this time, and I won't turn you in to the police officer either. That’s how much I need water right now.
This must be the same for that tree. He grew his root all the way here to collect as much water as possible. Even so, no ordinary tree could grow its roots this fast. Maybe this is what they call a magic tree. This is my first time seeing one.
Still, sexual harassment is bad thing.
He needs to be punished for this crime.
Of course, in my stomach!
The distance to the magic tree is less than ten meters. This is still within the range of my vines. Now then, I'm going to use my vines to deliver a death penalty to the sexual harasser.
It took me half a day, but I managed to uproot the magic tree. I broke off its branches one by one with my vines and carried them to the bulb's mouth.
It’s time to eat.
Yeah, there's a little bit of moisture....
THIS IS IT!!!
I summoned my remaining energy and scraped up the surrounding vegetation.
They're not dead yet, which means they must still have some water left in their bodies. In other words, I can get all the water I want if I eat them.
I started from the unnamed weeds, overgrown plants in the vicinity, and even trees.
This is a world where the strong eat the weak, so please don't blame me. I'm only doing this to survive, after all.
Thus I managed to gather some water to sustain my life for a while longer. Perhaps out of sympathy with my condition, the Zornbienes also temporarily suspended their honey collection.
That's very helpful. Although it would be even better if they could also bring some water from the river for me. But with hands like theirs, it would be difficult as expected.
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The life was tough. A malicious environment that made you felt like you were being tortured. I wanted water so much that I would do anything for it. The Zornbienes gave me food from once in a while, but I've reached the limit. I've finally lost my mind.
O rain, come....
O rain, please come....
The goddess in the heaven, please grace me with the rain....
This scene must look bizarre to you. I mean, a lone Alraune raised her hands to the sky and begged for rain. However, I'm already at my wits' end here. I want water so badly that I will do anything for it. Even doing this rain-begging ritual. But to tell the truth, I don't actually know how to do it. I should have studied it in my previous lives.
Still, if it's a choice between doing it or not, I have no choice but to do it. I feel like a priestess praying to the gods. I've been begging for rain every day, so I think it's about time I awaken my ability as a shaman.
When I was working hard on the unfamiliar shaman’s duties, I felt a gaze from the ground nearby. There was a white bird watching me performing the rain-begging ritual.
I feel like seeing that bird a lot these days….
But it must be nice to be a bird. You can fly freely in the sky. Whenever you get thirsty, you just need to go to the watering hole and drink as much water as you want, or even take a bath. I'm so envious!
The bird was staring at me with pitiful eyes.
Hey, did you come here to pick a fight with me?
Did you come to watch a pitiful flower who couldn't get water and dying?
Unforgivable!
If you look closely, that bird seems to have a pretty healthy body. If I swallowed it whole, my throat would be moistened.
I stretched my vine to capture the white bird. However, once again, the white bird successfully escaped from me.
Grrr!!! That white bird seems to be good at detecting danger.
That being said, it doesn’t mean only bad things happened. That white bird seems to have just taken a bath, so when it flapped its wings to escape, droplets of water splashed on me. Just a little bit, but it was certainly water.
The droplets of water that splashed on me, even if it was just several dozen drops, had become a blessing that extended my life.
Fine, I will let you off this time as thanks for the water
Thus I was able to recover to some extent and regained my mind. Nevertheless, I continued to do the rain-begging ritual every day. There was just not enough water, after all.
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My wish finally came true about a week after I started begging for rain every day. One night, just like the time when the drought started, I saw something shining passed in the sky above me.
An unidentified flying object, surrounded in a red light that looked like it was on fire, went off somewhere. The next morning, I checked the direction in which the UFO flew away.
There should be a big mountain and a series of smaller mountains in that direction. If I remember it correctly, that place is called the demon mountain range because the demon lord's subordinates are said to live there. The next destination of our party when I was a saint was that place.
But it doesn't matter to me anymore. I'm no longer interested in the demon lord or his subordinates. It's not something that a single flower living in the forest should be worried about.
In any case, the unidentified flying object that was passing through the sky at night is a still mystery, but I have no way to gather information about it. Maybe it was some kind of spirit that appeared at the change of seasons in this region. I've heard that spirits have a way of manipulating nature, so it's possible. Then again, that's just a speculation. The truth is still unknown.
I'm completely disconnected from the outside world, and even if something big were to happen outside, I'm just a flower girl and can't do anything about it. Because of that, I try not to think too much about what's going on outside.
I hope that one day I can find out about the identity of that UFO. Until then, I will just keep this matter in the back of my mind. There’s something more important right now, after all.
Yeah, I’m talking about the first cloudy sky in a month!
I clasped my hands together, hoping it would rain soon. Then, a grain of stain was born on the ground, and it spread like a rat race in the blink of an eye.
It's raining at last.
I'm saved....
*gulped*
The water is so delicious….
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The scorching summer was over. My everyday life had returned again. There had been no drought since then. It rained properly, and the temperature did not rise strangely.
I've never thought I would be starving for water like that. The rain is really a blessing to nature. If it hadn't rained, the world would have been surrounded by deserts.
Thank you, rain.
The water is delicious.
I can spend comfortable days again with this.
I wake up in the morning, bask in the sun, the Zornbienes bring me food in the afternoon, I offer them honey in return, I take a nap in the sun, I exchange the food and honey with the Zornbienes again in the evening, and at night I close my corolla and go to bed.
What kind of NEET life is this?
That's just how plants are, so I can't help it.
This is the peak of life!
Speaking of problem, this place is still lack of entertainment. I have too much free time in my hands that this boredom is killing me
And so my days of paradise life continued. It was the perfect environment that seemed to be my reward for all the hardship I had gone through due to the drought. I had finally realized the plant life that I dreamed of --- living quietly while photosynthesizing.
The Zornbienes are really my best friends. Now that the drought is over, I've been giving them more honey than before as a token of my appreciation. They seem to be happy about it.
Everyone gets along well and lives in peace. If I can keep this up, I might even be able to take control of this forest. If there are no enemies left, there will be no one to pose a danger to me anymore. I will achieve my ideal life and my wish will be truly fulfilled. To reach that goal, first I will do my best to provide honey for the Zornbienes so they will continue to protect me.
Excuse me, everyone.
I'd like to have rabbit for dinner tonight.
I like them because they are cute.
They are small and can't fill my belly, though.
I guess they are like snack.
I wonder if I have time to think about something like this because my safety and food supply has been stabilized now.
I haven't had much experience being pampered by the opposite sex in the past, but I don't feel bad about becoming the princess of the forest with the Zornbienes paying me tribute.
It was a peaceful everyday life that I always wanted. Because of that, I was afraid of losing it when the Zornbienes suddenly brought another princess to our circle. Furthermore, that princess was also a plant monster like me.