Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

As soon as Cyanide saw Ragnar preparing to swing, he threw his sword at the skinny tree across from this one, handle first, then quickly covered up his own ears with his hands.

Ragnar's large greatsword slammed into the tree harshly, nearly splitting it in half, and from the trunk and various thicker branches, about a dozen mandrakes popped out of their camouflaged homes. They screamed loudly like a banshee's wail, enough to make ears bleed. Thankfully, both Ragnar and Cyanide had their ears covered up, so they wouldn't receive any lasting damage.

As for Cyanide's sword, well… it ricocheted off the skinny tree's trunk, and in a perfect, calculated angle, cut through all twelve screeching mandrakes in the air before they could even touch the ground, like a skewer. Each mandrake wasn't very big, so the «Anaconda's Fang»'s blade was long enough to catch them all. The sword, along with the mandrakes, then flew back into Cyanide's hand, who promptly plopped the harvested herbs into his inventory.

Part of the accuracy of this throw was made possible using the [Boomerang Knife Throw] skill, of course. Although the «Anaconda's Fang» was more technically speaking a sword, this skill applied to all one-handed blade weapons, thus it was possible to do this.

"Phew… flashy as always, assassin," Ragnar grunted. "You couldn't have just done the same thing I did, and stuff something into those ears of yours beforehand?"

"No," Cyanide said matter-of-factly. "They might be poisonous."

"What the- poisonous?" Ragnar laughed boldly. "Ha! You're way too sensitive, bastard. We're just collecting herbs, not fighting some boss. Easen up, will you? I get it, there are times you need to be tense and serious. But if you're like that all the time, you'll wear yourself out."

"I have been living like this for twenty-two years. I am not worn out yet."

At this, Ragnar sighed and shook his head. "… You're hopeless. But well, your skills are the real thing. Now, twelve ain't enough for jack shit. We'll need a shit ton more if we want this journey to be worth."

And just like that, the duo continued on whacking trees and harvesting the Shrieking Mandrakes from them, each time causing a tremendous amount of noise. By the time they were done, they'd harvested about 67 Shrieking Mandrakes in total, and pretty much cleared the area out.

"… That's enough," Cyanide said at last, stowing away his weapon.

"Huh? You sure? There's still a couple of trees up ahead, y'know," Ragnar said with a chuckle.

"We have other herbs to collect, and it is already midday."

"Oh, shit, you're right. Let's see… next up is…" Ragnar glanced at the list he held in his hand, and narrowed his gaze. "Insanire. Found in highlands."

He glanced up at the hill in the distance, where Cyanide had fought the Blood Baron.

"… Well, time to head up, I guess."

Unfortunately, however, just as the duo were about to leave the scene, they heard a growl from behind them.

"… You're shitting me, right?"

"Afraid not."

"God fucking damn it… can't you let us collect herbs in PEACE?!"

With a roar, Ragnar charged towards the tiger that had emerged behind them, who had probably been disturbed by all the mandrakes' shrieking. Cyanide followed, swinging across the trees like an nimble ninja. He reached the lion first, sweeping underneath it and cutting its legs with «Anaconda's Fang» to weaken it. The lion, who had been focused on Ragnar's charging figure, didn't see this coming, and was thus taken by surprise and caught off guard as its defenses were lowered.

Then, it was Ragnar's turn.

Charging his sword up with fire, he slammed it down on the weakened tiger, decimating its HP with a critical hit that rendered the beast immobilized and low on health. Ragnar then leaped over the beast using his momentum, making way for Cyanide, who finished it off with single bang from his gun.

"… Hmph. Not bad, for an improvised technique," Ragnar said, heaving his greatsword back up over his back. "Interestingly enough, though, I didn't expect my attack to do that much damage. It showed up as a 'crit' for me. You ever got that before?"

"Yes," Cyanide said. "Check your tutorials screen."

"Tutorials… ah, here it is," Ragnar muttered, bringing up his system screen before reading aloud.

"Critical hits are attacks that deal double the damage of a normal attack. By default, all players have a crit rate of 5%. However, certain mutants have critical weaknesses that will guarantee a crit attack when struck, and other mutants can be given critical weaknesses by weakening them. Oh… so that's what happened there. You caught the tiger off guard, revealing its weakspot, and I struck with a crit hit. Hoho, not bad! What's a good name for this technique?"

"Agreed," Cyanide said. "But regarding the name, unnecessary."

"Cheh, no fun," Ragnar snorted. "Whatever. Let's go. We have some climbing to do."

*****

After that, the herb collecting journey was mostly successful. Most of the herbs apart from Shrieking Mandrakes didn't actually involve any disastrous fighting, and more just required careful handling.

Insanire, for example, looks green on the outside and perfectly normal, but upon contact, will bloom into a dangerous, hellish orange and release spores that cause unnatural rage in any nearby creatures or people. When used as an ingredient, however, Insanire's rage is lessened just enough to allow reasonable thoughts to cross the user's mind, but remains powerful enough to cause the user to attack harder.

So long as someone was careful, they could avoid being hit by the spores, wait for them to easen and go on cooldown, then harvest the plants. Ragnar, however, accidentally got hit by one and began going on a rampage towards—naturally—Cyanide, who kept on dodging his attacks with little to no effort until the rage subsided.

Next was Prefilicous Sage—this herb didn't have any special properties to them and were just normal plants, just like the Veridian Envy told the group to pick up whenever they saw them. Apparently, these were just common green plants that could be found just about anywhere, and were essential components in any potion at all. As such, one should always collect them if they spot any.

But those were just the simple ones.. The rest… wouldn't be so easy.