Fantasy Game: Infinite City

"Woo~"

"..Well..Don't do it..."

Around eight or nine in the morning, Gloria felt something rubbing against her arm. She thought it was Han Zu trying to wake her up, so she didn't pay much attention to it. Perhaps because of the long climb yesterday, Gloria was a little too lazy to get up, so she was not ready to get up right away.

"No, wasn't I sleeping in a sleeping bag?"

But Gloria quickly opened her eyes, because no matter what was rubbing her arm, it definitely couldn't be Han Zu.

First of all, Gloria was sleeping in a sleeping bag. Although there was some extra space in the sleeping bag, it was a single sleeping bag after all. Han Zu was so big that it was difficult for him to stretch his arm in while she was still in the sleeping bag. Moreover, the thing next to her arm was soft. Gloria didn't think that Han Zu's arm, which could easily squeeze a steel plate into a steel ball, would be something soft.

So Gloria turned her head and looked towards the direction of the cave entrance. Han Zu was still there, leaning against the wall and still sleeping, but for some reason, there were several fur blankets on his body.

"Woo~"

The area next to Gloria's arm moved a few more times, and this time Gloria heard something cry. She turned her head stiffly and slowly moved her arm upwards. Soon, Gloria's hand touched something furry.

Gloria slowly closed her fingers and grabbed the furry thing, wanting to take it out of the sleeping bag to see what it was. But what happened next made Gloria suddenly feel a little scared and she froze in place.

The thing she grabbed seemed to be holding her wrist.

"Maybe it's some animal...Don't panic..."

Gloria slowly took her hand out of the sleeping bag, tilted her head slightly to move some distance, and then looked towards the position of her hand. However, the thing she grabbed was not something scary, but a cub of a canine.

"what?"

This canine cub didn't seem to be afraid of people, or it might have never seen people before. From the structural features of its body, Gloria could tell that it was a canine without using a scanning device. However, in Gloria's impression, although there were many species in Antarctica, most of them were birds, marine life, or seals. Canine mammals were not among these species.

Gloria held the cub in her palm, and it rubbed against her hand. It opened its eyes and looked at Gloria for a while, then fell asleep in Gloria's palm again.

Gloria unzipped the sleeping bag and put the canine cub back into the sleeping bag. She found several other cubs of the same species in the sleeping bag. Gloria stood up from the sleeping bag and walked to the embers of the campfire. She took out the terminal from her backpack and prepared to use it to scan the cubs. At this time, Gloria subconsciously glanced in Han Zu's direction and found that the blankets on Han Zu's body suddenly moved.

"wrong."

Walking up to Han Zu and squatting down, Gloria realized that what was on Han Zu was not a blanket, but several animals with long hair. They looked very similar to dogs, except that their eyes were slanted, their mouths were slightly wider, their muzzles were sharper than those of ordinary dogs, and their tails were shorter and never curled up, hanging between their hind legs. Their ears were erect and not bent. And it seemed that these canines were the same species as the cub in her sleeping bag.

"Canids: Antarctic Wolf"

"Status: Extinct"

"what?"

After using the terminal to scan these canines, Gloria discovered that this was actually a species that had long been recorded as extinct, which made Gloria very confused.

Although they are called Antarctic wolves, they are not actually wolves and almost never attack humans. Because they live very close to the Antarctic Circle and their bones have been discovered inside the Antarctic Circle, zoologists named this dog the Antarctic wolf. They are more like a wild dog that does not need to be domesticated at all. . . . Big dog.

"Why would an extinct species appear in this place? And according to the existing information about them, they don't seem to be very adapted to the mountains, but it seems that there is nothing abnormal about them."

Although the data obtained through scanning can confirm that these canines are indeed the extinct Antarctic wolves, they do not seem to be exactly the same as the Antarctic wolves recorded in the data. They are larger in size and have thicker fur... But they are indeed very friendly.

An Antarctic wolf lying on Han Zu's abdomen woke up. It looked up at Gloria squatting in front of it. It was not frightened or angry, but just stretched and yawned. Then it squatted on Han Zu's body and tilted its head to look at Gloria curiously.

"Um.. hello?"

Gloria cautiously reached out her hand and stroked the Antarctic wolf's head. It showed no resistance and rubbed Gloria's hand. Then it walked to Gloria, sniffed it, circled around her, and lay down at her feet.

"It looks like a pet dog... but a few sizes bigger."

But just when Gloria was immersed in Rua Wolf, she suddenly realized something was wrong, that is, Han Zu was still sleeping.

"No! Go away!"

Gloria waved her hand and drove off the adult Antarctic wolves lying on Han Zu, but they didn't seem to care. After driving them away, they temporarily occupied Gloria's sleeping bag. The cubs woke up and began to play around the adult Antarctic wolves.

However, Gloria was not in the mood to watch this very healing scene for the time being, because the data obtained from a scan of Han Zu's body showed a bad situation.

"How is this going?"

According to the data obtained from the scan, Han Zu is currently in an extremely low body temperature state. Although Gloria is not a professional scientific researcher, she has been in charge of many similar projects in her original organization. She has read Han Zu's own experimental reports that were originally stored in the secret base. This kind of abnormal body temperature state is not uncommon, but they are all abnormally high temperatures. Low body temperatures have never appeared before.

Han Zu's body temperature is currently in the single digits, and is still slowly decreasing. At this rate, Han Zu's body temperature will drop to zero in less than half an hour. Although Gloria does not think that Han Zu will die from this, for Han Zu, who uses spitting flames and high-pressure fire pillars as his basic means of attack (Han Zu has not used flesh and blood weapons and the ability of soul-grabbing miasma in front of Gloria), this is definitely not a good situation.

"Error: Scanning requires specific palmprint permissions"

"Damn it! Why put so many permission locks?"

Gloria tried to scan Han Zu further, but the terminal was locked by Han Zu. Gloria could only lift Han Zu's hand and try to unlock it with his hand, but Han Zu's body temperature was too low and the terminal could not recognize him for the time being.

"Oh... it's so cool..."

Gloria tucked Han Zu's hand under her clothes and used the heat from her skin to restore some temperature to Han Zu's palm. Then she successfully unlocked the authority and conducted a further scan of Han Zu's body. This time the examination results found that Han Zu seemed to have absorbed something special, which caused his body temperature to continue to drop. His body activity dropped to a very slow state, even similar to suspended animation.

But the good news is that Han Zu's physical condition is very outrageous. No matter what he absorbs, it will soon be completely converted into his own energy, so in about a few minutes, his body temperature should gradually return to normal and then he will wake up.

Gloria was no longer nervous because she knew that Han Zu would be fine. After relaxing, her thinking returned to normal. Gloria immediately thought of the victims they met when they first entered the Snow Mountain Range. Their conditions were very similar to Han Zu's, except that they had unfortunately died, but Han Zu would not.

"Error: Temperature too low to be recognized."

"It's really troublesome. Ha...ha..."

Gloria wanted to use a scanning device to scan Han Zu's stomach to see if there were any residual fungi or the like. Han Zu's movements were almost the same as what she saw last night, so it should not have been eaten by Han Zu himself. This kind of thing would most likely be directly absorbed once it came into contact with the skin. This could also explain why the previous victims still had residual food in their stomachs even though they had enough food.

However, Han Zu's body temperature was still dropping and had reached below 0 degrees, so the equipment could not work. Gloria could only undress Han Zu, breathe into his abdomen, and rub his palms to generate heat. It took several minutes for the temperature of his abdomen to reach a level that could be scanned and identified.

"Similar substance detected: no fungal residue recorded"

"I was right."

Sure enough, after another scan, remnants of the fungus appeared in Han Zu's body. However, unlike those victims, according to the display, Han Zu's body was slowly absorbing the fungus and converting it into energy.

"Tuk-tuk-tuk."

"Is this still a living thing? It's so solid, like an iron plate. How did it grow?"

"You...I didn't expect you had this hobby..."

"What? Oh, you're awake."

"It's okay, I can cooperate with you. Do I need to pretend to sleep again?"

"Pretending to sleep? What do you mean by pretending... Wait! It's not what you see!"

Gloria's hands, which were pressing on Han Zu's abdominal muscles, felt the temperature rising rapidly, and soon returned to normal body temperature, even hotter, close to 40 degrees, but this was normal for Han Zu.

But Gloria's posture now is indeed easy to be misunderstood. She is riding on Han Zu's waist, with her hands on Han Zu's abdominal muscles. Han Zu's shirt is also mostly unbuttoned. In order to restore the temperature of Han Zu's palm, Gloria also unbuttoned her ski suit. Ski suits are usually one-piece, so if you want to unbutton the top, you must unzip it completely. The current posture is indeed very ambiguous, and there is no one else here except those Antarctic wolves.

"It's okay, I understand. It's understandable that you want to try everything out for a newly reshaped body..."

"Hehe..Bang."

Gloria, with a forced smile, punched Han Zu in the vitals.

Similarly, it's no different from hitting a steel plate. Oh, no, it should be a steel column.

"I didn't expect you'd be willing to try this? I'm fine with anything. I'm not picky."

"Ah...you guys are all the same, you always like to mess around."

"So are you going to make my joke a reality, or are you going to get up from me?"

"Oh, sorry."

Han Zu was indeed joking. He would not choose to do inappropriate things under inappropriate circumstances. He also saw those Antarctic wolves, but his perception search last night did not detect these guys. He also recalled that there was indeed something furry that rubbed his face last night.

But Gloria just stood up from him at Han Zu's prompt, not because she forgot, on the contrary, Gloria did it on purpose, she has a little secret, that is, she likes muscular men very much, not ordinary muscular men, but Han Zu, whose muscle lines have changed from bodybuilding to terrifying level. In fact, when she was in Han Zu's secret base, this kind of body that would be a little hairy to ordinary people gave Gloria a roller coaster in her head, but Gloria didn't know Han Zu's identity at the time, so she didn't think about this. But if Han Zu had followed her words just now, maybe something would really happen. Gloria is still very lustful.

Fortunately, Han Zu was very serious about his work, and Gloria knew when to distinguish between the proper time and the improper time.

After tidying up her clothes, Gloria explained to Han Zu the information she had obtained through the scan.

"In other words, the fungus is not ingested, but absorbed directly through the skin?"

"Did you remember eating mushrooms last night?"

"No."

"That's right. But where do these mushrooms, or fungi, more accurately, come from?"

Using his perspective, Han Zu carefully searched the inside of the cave, even in the bodies of the Antarctic wolves that were still playing, but he didn't find anything like fungus. This made Han Zu a little clueless.

"You said you felt something breathing toward the top of your head last night, right?"

"Yes, I have some impression of it. Aren't those the Antarctic wolves?"

"Although they are not small, they are not too big. From the way you sleep sitting on the ground against the wall, these Antarctic wolves walking on four legs cannot see the top of your head."

"You mean, there were other things that came into the cave?"

Gloria stood at the entrance of the cave, or more precisely, at the junction where Han Zu had built it with ice blocks yesterday to block the wind and extend the size of the cave. She stared at the ground in thought. Han Zu walked over and found that on the snow at the junction of the ice arch and the cave, in addition to the footprints of the Antarctic wolf, there was another kind of footprint.

This location is blocked by an ice arch and will not be covered by the blizzard outside last night, but because this place was not originally inside the cave, there is still a layer of snow on the ground, so the footprints of the Antarctic wolf and another thing are preserved.

"What do you think these footprints belong to?"

"I don't know. The scanning device didn't find any comparison, but judging by the shape, it should be some kind of hoof print."

This extra hoof print is much deeper than the footprints left by the Antarctic wolves, so its body size should be larger than the Antarctic wolf. The thing that was breathing towards Han Zu last night should be this thing, but although the blizzard outside has subsided a lot, it has not stopped yet, and the footprints or other traces have long been buried.

And in the traces left by these hoof prints, Han Zu and Gloria saw some crushed mushroom fragments. Through inspection and scanning, they found that they were very similar to the fungi remaining in the stomachs of the victims, although not the same species.

Moreover, it can be confirmed that these crushed mushrooms and the ones Han Zu just absorbed are the same thing.

"What do you think? Is it possible that the fungus was left by this guy?"

"It's not impossible, but even if that guy has long hair, he won't get stuck with mushrooms, right?"

"...I thought of a research report on a creature that I had seen a long time ago when I was still in my original organization. At the time, I thought it was someone's prank. After all..."

"...Mushrooms don't grow on animals?"

"What...you've seen it too?!"

"I'm not sure if they are the same creatures, but in some biological research institutes of Infinite Company, I have indeed seen animals with plants growing on their bodies. Many of them are natural, not artificially created."

The speculation gradually came into line, leaving Han Zu and Gloria silent for a while. They found it a little unbelievable, but soon they felt that it was not completely impossible. After a long while, Gloria, who heard Han Zu lighting a cigarette, broke the silence first.

"What do you think... this thing looks like?"

"Huh... I don't know, but I hope it's not a cow with mushrooms growing on its body. After all, if that were the case, it would be a bit... how should I put it?"

"Too much torn from reality?"

"That's pretty much what I meant."