Flora shouted as if she remembered something. However, a puzzled expression soon appeared on her face.
"Err… what was this again…? I almost had it..."
"No worries, let's just take it for now and check it out later. Maybe Miyu will need to level up her [Plant Expertise] skill to further inspect it."
"Alright…"
"Kio, do you want me to level up my skill now?"
"Sure, try leveling it one at a time until you can properly see what it is."
"Okay!"
Miyu had to raise [Plant Expertise] to level 4 before its description changed, which meant she now has 7 skill points leftover.
Item: Blood Flower
Description: A rare herb with both healing and poisonous effects. Eating one of its petals will improve a person's constitution by strengthening their skin, bones and organs. The rest of the flower contains a toxin that can cause cardiac arrest.
***
After Miyu explained the effects of the flower, Kio was amazed at how a common looking flower could actually be so incredible.
There were 6 petals in total, so he plucked them all and each of them ate one petal. He stored the other 3 petals into his inventory before some black grime started to ooze out of their skin.
"Ew, gross! What is this?!"
"I think this should be our body undergoing a cleansing process. Let's quickly wash our bodies to remove all the dirt."
"Sure!"
Since there were only two bathrooms in the house, Miyu and Flora had to share one while Kio had one to himself.
After they cleaned their bodies, they discovered that their skin looked a lot smoother than before. It also felt tougher and more flexible, which was probably the effect of the Blood Flower petal.
"Wow. You girls look so much prettier after that shower."
"Do you like it?"
"Yep. My Miyu was always cute, but now you look exceptionally cute."
"Hehe. Thanks."
Miyu gave him a kiss on the cheek as thanks for the compliment. She felt extremely happy to be praised by the man she loved.
"Why didn't I confess to you sooner if I knew it felt this good to be with you?"
"There's no need to think about the past too much. Isn't it good enough now?"
"Yep!"
Kio walked back to the Blood Flower pot and stored the remaining stem and leaves. He planned to make some kind of poison to coat his knives in the future to increase the lethality of his attacks.
"Miyu, now that you can detect rare flowers, why don't we go back to all the houses and check if there are any other rare herbs in this village?"
"Sounds good!"
As they retraced their path and went through all the houses again, they managed to find some more rare herbs. The effects varied, such as increasing vision, mana, strength, reflexes or libido. Kio was a bit startled at the last one, but he decided to store it into his inventory anyways, since there's no reason to leave it here.
Miyu blushed as she saw him take that last herb. A weird thought formed in her mind as she started to imagine why he would want it.
Although not all of them had 6 petals like the Blood Flower, he told Miyu and Flora to use the ones that were more appropriate for them. Similarly, he used the ones that synergized with his class and abilities, such as enhancing his vision, strength, and reflexes.
After the last house, they decided to check the Tree of Life again, since Kio had a vague suspicion that it should have some rare herbs around it.
To his disappointment, Miyu couldn't find any rare herbs around the base of the tree.
"What about up there?"
Flora pointed above them as she wanted to try climbing the tree.
"Hmm… Even though there isn't a staircase around it, you do have your skill to control the branches. Sure, why don't you girls go spend some time and look around up there?"
"Sure!"
Kio wanted to spend some time mixing the poisonous herbs, since he got a few more from their search. Although he didn't know what kind of poison he'll create, he hoped it would be something deadly enough to kill the zombies. If not, he could at least use it against other hostile creatures.
While he was doing that, Miyu and Flora were ascending the Tree of life on a thick branch. Instead of just going directly up, they spiraled around the tree to cover a wider area, since Miyu's [Plant Affinity] skill only had a range of 5 meters at level 1.
She wanted to level it up, but Kio told her to save her skill points since it would be bad if she couldn't raise the level of her next skill if it is useful.
After climbing the tree for an hour, Miyu finally had a reaction from her skill. She told Flora where it was, and they both stopped at one of the protruding branches. Hanging from it was a bundle of transparent leaves, which they would've missed if they hadn't spent a few minutes looking around the spot.
Item: Invisibility Leaf
Description: Consumption of this leaf would grant the user the ability to turn their body invisible for an hour. Any items held by the user would receive the same effect, and it would become visible again after losing contact.
***
"Hehe. I can use this to sneak in when Kio is taking a bath without him noticing me."
"Luckily we found a lot!"
"Mhmm. There are at least a few dozen of them. Flora, make sure you don't tell Kio about this later, ok? It'll be our secret."
"Kay~"
After looking around for another hour, they couldn't find anything else so they decided it was time to meet up with Kio. Miyu didn't want to worry him for too long, as they had been up here for a long time already. They both wanted to fully explore the Tree of Life, but they didn't know how tall it actually was.
"Kio! We're back!"
Miyu leaped into his arms when she was a few meters away from the ground, as she already started to miss him even though they were only separated for a few hours.
"Welcome back, girls. Did you two find anything good up there?"
"Yep. We found some of these Invisibility Leaves!"
Although Miyu found a lot of them earlier, she only handed a few over to Kio as she wanted to keep some for herself.
"Oh? These are pretty interesting. You two are so lucky to find something as useful as this."
"Mhmm! However, we didn't see anything else that was special. Even after we spent a few hours looking around, we never reached the end of the tree."
"Hmm… This tree sure is filled with mysteries."
"Anyways, are we going to meet up with the others now?"
"That was the plan. But with Flora here, I don't know if she would be able to come with us."
"Huh? Oh, right. We only have 2 Return Stones."
"Yea. Why don't we test to see if you can bring her with you by using your skill again?"
"How can I test it?"
"Hmm.. Flora, can you stay here for a few minutes?"
"Sure!"
"Ok. Miyu, follow me."
After Kio and Miyu walked far enough so they couldn't even see Flora anymore, Kio told Miyu to try using her [Summon Dryad] skill again.
As she used the skill, a gust of leaves blew in their surroundings and eventually formed a mini tornado in front of her. Soon, the wind stopped blowing and the leaves fell onto the ground, revealing a shocked Flora.
"What's going on?! Eh? Master, how come you're here?."
"Hmm… Looks like your skill summons her to your location. However, I'm not sure if it's limited by the environment, since that phenomenon earlier required a lot of leaves."
"Then…"
"Well, let's just try it. If we can't summon her right away, we'll just find a suitable location to summon her afterwards. Flora, make sure you stay somewhere safe if we don't immediately bring you over, okay?"
"Kay~"
"Miyu, are you ready to go?"
"Yep!"
"Wait. Just in case, let's both use an Invisibility Leaf first. Do you still have any inside of your inventory?"
"..."
Miyu nodded with a somewhat flustered expression.
Kio had a feeling he knew why she had that kind of look on her. He ruffled her hair a bit to ease her emotions.
"There's no need to be so embarrassed. I don't mind even if you keep some things for yourself. It just means you're a normal human being, rather than a mindless person who only does as they're told."
"Mmm…"
Miyu was glad that Kio didn't blame her for it. She realized that Kio would prefer it if she acted like herself, rather than pretend to be an obedient girl that would only listen to what he tells her. As she felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders, she couldn't wait to tease him with the invisibility leaves in the future.
"Well, let's go!"
"Hehe… okay!"
Miyu joyfully clung onto his arm as they both turned invisible and used the Return stone, disappearing from the spot.