Chapter 183: Great Stink Bomb Fruit
Great Stink Bomb Fruit!
This was the name that they gave this fruit, and it couldn’t be more fitting. In the end, Bai Yi and Betsy prepared this thing together. Initially, Bai Yi wanted to prepare this himself. There were only two chefs here, Betsy was a lady, and deep in Bai Yi’s bones was the belief that he should be a gentleman. However, Betsy insisted on preparing this thing as well and only said one sentence: a chef will never abandon ingredients!
Bai Yi was stunned for a moment, and since Betsy was this insistent the two of them decided to prepare it together.
Firstly, there was the layer of vile, viscous liquid on the surface of the Great Stink Bomb Fruit. Although it really looked too disgusting to bear, the two of them still carefully scraped off the layer of viscous fluid and placed it somewhere else. Every part of the ingredient couldn’t be abandoned just based on their likes or dislikes before tasting. Nobody could be certain if the viscous liquid had any other uses to it.
While preparing this fruit, they realized that the plants around them behaved like mimosa plants and started to shrivel and curl up. Just from seeing how Momo and the others had disappeared to somewhere else long ago, they could guess the reason behind it. This fruit was practically a biological weapon.
After scraping off all the viscous liquid, the two of them took the smelly fruit to the river to wash. When they put this thing into the river for washing, its effects were even greater. Starting downstream from where they were, over a continuous stretch about ten meters wide, many strange aquatic creatures floated up to the surface of the river. Many of these aquatic lifeforms desperately ran for the shore, but for a greater portion of them, their eyes directly rolled into the backs of their heads and they floated on the surface.
The two of them didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The destructive power of this thing was really too astounding. It was probably only in the unique environment of the Devil Isles that something as special as this plant could be grown.
After washing it simply, Bai Yi started to cut open the slightly tough outer layer of the fruit. He even got another small knife from Martin for the sake of doing this, intending to abandon it after using it this time. After cutting it open, Bai Yi and Betsy immediately turned their faces way. They had thought that the disgusting smell was only on the surface and was the self-defense mechanism of the fruit; unexpectedly, the flesh inside had an even stronger smell.
Bai Yi turned his head back, and at this time he was actually already holding his breath, but that powerful stench seemed to be able to disregard his nose and pervade his body directly. He almost suffocated to the point of crying now. Betsy smiled bitterly, but accidentally slowly drew in a breath of air, and fell to the ground in the next instant.
Bai Yi was immediately worried and shouted, “Betsy!” However, he instantly regretted this shout as he inhaled that deep and dense smell. ARGHHHHHH!... Bai Yi suddenly felt like he saw the afterlife in that moment, and similarly almost fainted. But, after all, Bai Yi was a LV2, and his resistance was greater than Betsy's. He immediately carried Betsy away, and rapidly ran into the distance.
Far away, Bai Yi saw Woolf and the others standing upwind from them.
Woolf saw Bai Yi running over, anxiously carrying Betsy, and immediately panicked as well. At this time, they didn’t care about the disgusting smell on their bodies anymore, and immediately gathered around the two with great concern. Nancy was the first one to come to Betsy’s side, and gave her an emergency check-up. After awhile, Nancy turned her head around, trying to hold her laughter in.
“She’s fine; not poisoned, but she just fainted from the smell!” Nancy said, and burst out laughing.
Fainted from the smell!
The others were taken aback by her words and started letting out muffled laughter as well. They initially thought that ‘fainting because it was too smelly’ was just a way of describing things, but something like this had actually happened in real life. Within a short while, everybody couldn’t hold it in anymore, and they all started to laugh out loud. Just where did Pupu find this fruit? It was really too powerful.
In the midst of all their laughter, Betsy slowly woke up, and looked at everyone in puzzlement.
“You fainted because it was too smelly.” Nancy patted Betsy’s shoulder and laughed again.
“Is it like that, that smell, really...!” Betsy revealed a bitter smile herself, and breathed in. “Bai Yi, did you smell it just now? The smell was still extremely horrible just now, but there was an additional, profound aroma inside.”
“Aroma?” Not only was Bai Yi dumbfounded, the rest of them were as well. That thing could have an aroma? Was she joking?
“It’s not exactly right to say that it’s an aroma, it’s the smell something gives off after fermentation. If I really had to describe it, it’s just like old vinegar. That’s right, it’s old vinegar! That intense impact is just like a seasoning that fermented for a very long time. It smells disgusting, but still has that trace of uniqueness to it,” Betsy started to quietly mutter to herself, and gradually became excited at the end.
Bai Yi nodded. “Now that you said it, there really seems to be such a smell.”
“Seasoning, intense impact, use other ingredients to balance,” Bai Yi and Betsy’s eyes immediately shined, and they said the same words simultaneously. Both of them were chefs, and although there was some difference in their culinary skills, they both still loved the culinary arts a lot. At this time, the two of them thought of a way to prepare this thing.
“I’ll try it as well, see if this thing can be used to make some potion. Maybe this thing isn’t just a food ingredient,” Nancy said as well. Although the smell was really unbearable, as a Medicinal Maker, Nancy had to test unfamiliar plants or animals for their properties as well.
Betsy laughed. “As long as you aren’t afraid of fainting.”
“Pupu, Romain, where does the Great Stink Bomb Fruit grow at, are there a lot of them?” Bai Yi asked.
“In the east, there’s only one tree, and there’s around a dozen of those fruits. There are no other plants or animals around that tree,” Romain said. Apparently, this fruit was also one of those plants that had a gene mutation; otherwise, if this plant really grew everywhere it would kill everybody.
“I’ll store the one that I cut open earlier first, then we’ll go and take a look at the tree. After that, everybody start searching for suitable ingredients to balance out the intense taste of the Great Stink Bomb Fruit,” Bai Yi said.
“We really have to eat this thing?” Woolf’s face was full of despair.
Bai Yi smiled bitterly and said, “Trust in Pupu’s intuition; this thing is probably extremely important to everyone. Moreover, I can’t eat this thing either before dealing with the smell, so treat it as trusting me and Betsy’s cooking skills too.” He himself wasn’t sure as to what extent they could prepare this strange ingredient.
After confirming this, they found a sealed monster skin to keep the smelly fruit in. They could basically infer by now that the useful part was the flesh inside; the viscous liquid on the outside could be thrown away.
They didn’t know if they were hallucinating, but they felt like they were still enveloped in that intense stink even though the bag was sealed properly. However, when Pupu brought them toward the Great Stink Bomb Fruit Tree, none of them had that feeling anymore. Even from a few kilometers away, they could already smell this thing. While all of them endured the smell and slowly walked toward that area, they stopped at the perimeter and didn’t want to go further anymore.
The fruit tree was twisted and bent, various strange, big bumps grew all over it, and some viscous liquid that had burst out from the tree flowed on the surface of its bark. On the top of this tree were more than ten Great Stink Bomb Fruits, each about the size of a pineapple. There wasn’t even a single plant growing within a range of 100 meters around this tree's area. The closest plant to it was some sparse grass growing 400 meters away, and even that seemed to already be dyed with this smell.
They looked at the tree from a few hundred meters away and didn’t approach it. If not for the vision of all of them being very sharp now, they probably couldn’t see it clearly either.
“What a really strange lifeform. Let’s go, we’ll look for other food or medicinal ingredients that can go with this thing. I’m afraid nobody else would be interested in this anyway,” Bai Yi said.
Everyone nodded in agreement. If not for Pupu insisting that this thing was beneficial, who would come and touch this? The further away they ran, the better!
Looking for ingredients to pair with the Great Stink Bomb Fruit was apparently not so easy. In the Devil Isles now, every ingredient was considered foreign by everybody, and looking for an ingredient that could balance out the impact of the smell of this strange fruit was even more difficult. Bai Yi and Betsy found various ingredients along the way and tasted them, trying to ascertain if they could be used for that purpose.
Plants, animals, and any parts of those things. At this time, the rest of them suddenly realized how tough it was to be a chef.
As for Nancy, it wasn’t so troublesome for her. She only had to test the medicinal properties of things, and their taste wasn’t part of her concerns.
After walking like this for half a month, they finally reached the City of Graves. Everyone quietly stood outside the city, looking at the desolate scene in front of them.
“Should we go in and take a look?” Woolf asked. After standing outside for a while, all of them felt that the city was extremely quiet, and it didn’t seem like it would be dangerous. Moreover, with their strength now, they should be able to deal with any dangers that popped up anyway.
“Wait!” Bai Yi suddenly stopped Woolf. The City of Graves was now preternaturally quiet, as if all lifeforms inside had gone extinct. This was extremely abnormal. The City of Graves was something that humans had named it, and that should have no meaning whatsoever to other lifeforms. Even if all the humans had died, there should be at least some evolved lifeforms that lived in this city, but this place was really too quiet now.
“We’ll walk around the perimeter of the city first and see if there’s anything abnormal. It’s unusual for this place to be so quiet,” Bai Yi said.
Bai Yi’s team walked around the perimeter of the city along places that they generally felt were safe, and finally encountered another team. There were only three people in this team, and when they first met, Bai Yi thought that the three of them were evolved lifeforms. However, the other side saw that Bai Yi was obviously a human and immediately shouted loudly. At this time, Woolf and Sharpei were already right in front of the three of them.
“Don’t, don’t attack us! We are also evolved humans!” The three of them felt the aura coming from the group of people opposite them and immediately raised their hands in surrender. They would really be greatly aggrieved if Bai Yi’s team treated them as monsters and slaughtered them.