“You said you were entrusted by Rude to get the Ice God Fruit… But do you know that the Ice God Fruit is of no use to you humans? It’s purely part of his trading plan with my race?”

“This…” Okara’s face turned pale…pale…pale…as pale as possible.

I finally managed to tell a lie, but it turned out to be wrong!

It’s all fucked up now, and now they’ve pissed off the big guy, they’re really going to be eaten!

“What is the Ice God Fruit? Can you introduce it in detail?” Johnny held his breath and tried to make his tone as steady as possible.

“Oh?” The giant spider raised its head slightly and looked at him carefully with its eight eyes.

“Human… you don’t seem to be afraid of the fate you will face next…”

“What I mean is,” Johnny swallowed hard, “you seem to need humans to help you pick the Ice God Fruit? Right?”

“You… you and your people cannot pick the fruit with your own strength… so you have to ask us for help… ask Mr. Rude for help, and even reach a cooperation with them privately.”

“But why can’t you cooperate with us?” He said quickly, “Look at us… our height is not bad, right? We can also pick those fruits for you! As long as you can let us go!”

This ability to adapt to circumstances and perform logical analysis…

Hitzfeld couldn’t help but look at him a few more times.

She was going to completely change her opinion of this guy whose nickname was “Johnny” and whose full name was “George Lister”…

“You said cooperation… um…?” The giant spider Atla shook his body, as if he was lost in some thought, hesitant.

“It’s the heaviest snowy time of the year.” Johnny decided to completely block the possibility of it refusing, and continued to talk, “It’s been a long time since anyone came to the mountain to mine… Is that right? The mountain is closed due to heavy snow, so they won’t take the huge risk of sending a mining team here.”

“But we are different! Dear Atla, we can continue to stay here and work for you for at least one week! During this time, we will do our best to pick the Ice God Fruit for you!”

“As long as… you can tell us what the Ice God Fruit is, what it is used for, and… promise to let us go after this work is completed.”

“…” His words left Okara stunned.

He never thought that Johnny, who was usually considered dull and wooden by countless people, actually possessed such eloquence!

“That sounds like a good deal.” The giant spider’s response surprised the two. “Since you didn’t destroy any of the follicles… please follow me…”

The giant spider Atla led the way in front, and the two followed tremblingly.

Many small spider monsters were waiting on the road, rubbing their mouthparts at them. Hitzfeld could hear their unwillingness from their continuous whispers.

“Living people… gada gada… why don’t you eat…”

“This is Atla’s order… gada gada… cannot be disobeyed…”

“They are going to pick the Ice God Fruit… gada… that will be of greater benefit to us… we must believe… gada gada… believe in Lord Atla…”

“But can they really pick the Ice God Fruit… Gada Gada… Those fruits… Gada Gada… have grown taller again…”

Hitzfeld followed the giant spider’s perspective and soon arrived at the cliff platform, facing the ice crystal tree.

This tree is… nothing special.

Kind of like a pine tree?

But the branches are bearing fruit.

Each fruit looked like a completely transparent ice bag, which made Hitzfeld give up the idea that they had anything to do with the “forbidden fruit”.

The appearance is too different.

Moreover, the Memory Fruit should be something created by humans, but these fruits… look like they are purely natural?

Moreover, the efficacy does not match, which seems to be related to the specialty of Orwater, the ice crystal vein.

She looked the tree over.

It is about six meters high, and the lowest branches are only about 1.2 meters from the ground.

But the branches from the ground to 2 meters are all empty, and only higher up are there fruits.

It seems that picking the Ice God Fruit is something only humans can do?

Hitzfeld was a little puzzled.

The tree was not very tall, let alone Atla’s size. Even if the spider monsters were shrunk to the size of a fist and climbed up to eat the fruit… it didn’t seem to be a very difficult thing.

The only explanation is that they really can’t do it.

Some force prevents them from doing so.

This made her think of “God”.

Ice God Fruit.

Ice God Fruit.

What did old Isaac Lord say before he died? Gods really existed?

Perhaps this is the legacy left by the “Ice God”.

A legacy that only humans can touch…

“This is it.”

Atla spoke to the two of them in a muffled voice.

“Ice God Fruit Tree… a treasure left behind by the local gods.”

“Its fruit is of great use to us, but we cannot get close to it… not at all…”

“We can only ask humans to help pick them, and then we will use the remaining ice crystal power to help you make ‘ice crystal stone’, just like this -“

Atla raised his eight claws, thrust his fat belly forward, and spurted out a stream of white liquid from the deep hole in his tail.

The slurry solidified quickly in the low temperature, forming a translucent ice crystal colloid. After hardening, it looked like hard crystal, which surprised Johnny and Okara.

It turns out… this is how the cryolite veins come from!

Okara walked under the fruit tree.

Some of the branches were so low that they got stuck at his waist, and he had to push them apart to move forward.

Looking up at a crystal fruit, he stretched out his arms, trying to reach it.

Out of reach.

Stand on tiptoe.

Still a little bit off.

He frowned and pulled out a belt from his waist.

“Oh, I advise you not to do that.”

Atla laughed quietly beside him.

“why?”

Neither Okara nor Jonny understood.

“Not only does this tree exclude us from approaching, it also prohibits those who pick its fruit from using any cunning means.”

Atla explained to them.

“No tools or helpers are allowed.”

“Otherwise why would we make a height requirement… Short humans can do just fine with tools.”

“So troublesome?”

Johnny frowned deeply.

“What happens if this condition is violated?”

“How is it? Hehehehe…”

Atla chuckled again.

“Just look at the ground beneath your feet and you will know…”

The moment it made a sound, Hitzfeld pulled the camera down.

Passing through layers of dead branches, she saw many uneven marks left on a piece of ice crystal ground.

That’s not ice rock.

Instead, it was completely frozen, cracked and stuck to the ground.

——–

Thanks to: Keruberos, vigiler, inkf… for their blades and rewards~

Thanks for your support~!

Chapter 42: Ice Dust Disaster 5

All debris has had its material properties changed.

They are not… not simply “the remains of flesh and blood are frozen in the crystal”. Rather, they “have become part of the ice crystal itself”.

They are pure white.

It is translucent.

In addition, there was a layer of ice crystal powder similar to snow scattered under the tree. If the giant spider Atla hadn’t reminded them, they might not have noticed the abnormality on the ground.

Hitzfeld had been distracted by Okara’s movements. He was obviously a little unconvinced and swung the belt.

“Ouch!” Then his face suddenly changed, and his whole body leaned on the protruding strips of paper, shouting for help as if half of his body was frozen.

Johnny rushed over to pull him out and found that his right shoulder was stiff. He immediately rolled up his right sleeve to check the situation.

“This…this is…” He stared again when he saw Okara’s arm.

Okara’s arm had changed. The tips of his five right fingers were turning blue and purple, and a faint white mist was coming out. This phenomenon appeared in patches at various locations below his elbow joint, and was gradually spreading at a slow speed.

The pioneer of death.

That was Hitzfeld’s only comment.

Of course, compared to those unlucky people who were directly frozen and buried under the bone tree, Okara was already very lucky. This may be because his transgression did not touch any fruit. He did not really violate the “rules” set by the tree.

Cold sweat oozed from Johnny’s forehead. He soon realized that the hope of their survival rested entirely on him.

These spider monsters are willing to leave their names so that they can pick these ice crystal fruits. If they can’t do it, they are worthless.

They will definitely be eaten…these monsters may not be moral.

The sense of crisis made him put Okara aside and recover on his own. He also came to the ice crystal tree, crawled into the branches, and stood in the position where Okara had been before.

Hitzfeld, the giant spider Atla, and Okara all stared at him eagerly, watching him stand on tiptoe as hard as he could, stretch out his arms, and somewhat reluctantly pinch a fruit with his fingertips.

His legs were shaking so much because he was not tall enough for the task, and he had to stand on his toes to do it.

With a snap, the fruit was picked. Johnny took a deep breath of air in the cave, looked at Okara, and saw him also lay back on the ground with a sigh of relief.

“Since you can do it,” the giant spider Atla also expressed his opinion, “then stay here for now.”

“My tribesmen and I will share the food we hunt with you, and you can cook it yourself. There is also a pit at the innermost part of the cave, which is filled with some collected human garbage. You can take whatever you want, and I won’t interfere.”

Atla is a monster with enough intelligence, and at least so far it has kept its promises, which makes the two very fortunate.

In the next few days, they were imprisoned in the cave by the spider monsters. When they were hungry, they roasted the animals sent by the spider monsters. When they were tired, they wrapped themselves in discarded blankets found in the pits and rested. Every day, they picked ice god fruits for the spider monsters.

It wasn’t entirely Johnny’s work. After many studies by Okara – which was a death wish in Hitzfeld’s eyes – he found that if one stayed close to the tree trunk and stepped slightly on the bumps on the trunk to gain leverage, one could jump higher in this way without triggering the ice crystal curse.

Yes, although according to Atla this tree was left by the gods, he still insisted on calling it the “Ice Crystal Curse”.

“You can’t use tools or climb trees. What serious god would leave you with such a test?”

That’s what he complained about.

“I am restricted to picking the fruits only by my own strength, but this tree is as high as two or three stories! How can I pick all the fruits by my own strength?”

Hitzfeld felt that the complaint was not entirely unreasonable.

If this tree is a test left by the Ice God, then the content of the test… is probably to pick all the fruits on the tree by relying on one’s own strength.

Because these fruits are non-renewable resources, if you pick one, it’s one less – otherwise Allwater wouldn’t have to look for so many big and tall ones. He could just pick the smaller ones when they produce more fruits.

But it is six meters high…

This means that according to its “rules”, to complete this task, humans need to be at least three or four meters tall. It is simply impossible.