To be fair, these noises were not very obvious, but to Rozim's sharp hearing, the actions of these unknown targets looked like careless marches.
In order to prevent alerting more possible enemies, Rozim gave up the gun and took out his knife - it was a boning knife. The long and sharp blade was deliberately covered with dust to avoid reflection.
He leaned against a thorny stem, his body fixed on the twisted plant.
But when he looked carefully, he found that it was not an enemy, but some native animals on the planet walking among the ferns.
They looked like some kind of herbivorous ungulates. Based on their size, Rozim judged that they were not a threat, so he put away his knife and moved forward.
He didn't encounter anything special for the next two hours.
He walked all the way through the valley bottom to the shadow side, where ferns stood endlessly, like black fans.
Every dozen steps he took, Rozim's feet would crack either a thorn or a seed shell, or kick up a pebble - no matter how carefully he moved forward.
Every time he made a sound, he cursed.
The fern fronds suddenly hissed in the wind.
Rozim paused to check his small compass, his gaze flickering between the sun and the hands.
Half an hour ago, his route should have taken him to the outskirts of Laidi Town.
But now he still hasn't seen any traces of human activity, which is a bit abnormal.
The wary Rozim lowered his body close to a thick fern stem, knelt down on one knee, and raised his gun.
There was some dust on the muzzle of the gun, which he wiped off casually.
Dust also got into his eyes. He wiped his eyes and aimed to the left and right as he moved forward.
After advancing a few meters, he discovered another twisted mark in the fern bushes, as wide as three people shoulder to shoulder. The fern bushes had been uprooted or broken and trampled.
Rozim carefully touched a broken stem that was dripping with sap.
It was as thick as my own thigh, and the bark was as hard as steel. Even with a logging ax, I couldn't cut it open so neatly.
Then he checked the ground.
The trampling marks were deep and wide, just like the footprints left by giants. The traces snaked forward and back to the limit of his sight, uneven and twisted.
Something huge is moving here.
Suddenly, Rozim's fingers touched something buried in the gray soil and pulled it out.
It was a piece of charred black bone, about the size of a clenched fist. After his identification, it should be the skull of an adult.
Knowing that there may be greater dangers here, Rozim did not intend to give up, but continued to move, following the line of the trace and following the direction given by the compound leaves that were pressed forward.
Sixty meters later, the trail suddenly turned uphill, and he stopped and wiped his weapon again.
At this time, a scream cut through the air, as bright and sharp as a sharp blade.
Rozim stopped immediately, and the scream also stopped suddenly. He thought for a while, and there was no doubt that it was from humans.
The owner of the restaurant immediately moved according to the direction from which the sound came.
He deviated from the trail and reentered the trees.
Ahead, the plant species changed, and beneath the top of the hillside, he saw a clump of strange, multi-petaled purple flowers.
Rozim's eyes immediately lit up. This was the target he was looking for, Spinach!
The average height of Spiny Orchid is about three meters. Its fibrous gourd-shaped stems have many hairs on the surface, and the open flower bones are like a big mouth. The diameter is generally more than half a meter, and there are six bladders inside.
Rows of long needles are arranged between the gaps in the bladder, and sway gently with the wind.
There are hundreds of such plants, forming a forest of needle-studded bulbs.
About five hundred meters away from the spinach bush, he also saw the outline of a town.
Just when he was very excited about finding his target, a weaker scream came, like the sound of someone waking up from a nightmare but quickly realizing that it was just a dream.
Then there was another sound, immediately following the scream.
It was a hollow, explosive sputtering sound, like the sound of someone vomiting a fruit core from their mouth.
Rozim lay on the ground and slowly touched in the direction of the sound.
Soon, he saw a wrinkled human being among the gourd-shaped bulbs.
A bright blood stain splashed on the gray ground showed how the man crawled over. There were more than a dozen thorns, some as long as one meter long, which directly pierced the man.
The deadliest one went straight through the eye and into the brain.
Rozim was horrified. He saw that this man was wearing an Astra Militarum uniform, with grenades and laser rifles scattered around him.
"Why did the Astra Militarum die here?"
While he was wondering, he noticed that the blood on the ground was clumping and quickly turning yellow, and the body was also dissolving rapidly.
Soon, only scattered equipment and clothes were left on the ground.
Apparently the thorns of this plant are highly poisonous, and the way they eat their prey is to dissolve the prey and then absorb it.
Rozim had no intention of becoming a victim of such stupidity.
He looked around for a while and found that a ring of needles on the nearest Spiny Orchid plant had disappeared, leaving only a row of orifices that oozed juice.
After thinking for a moment, Rozim decided to do an experiment.
He took out a stone from the side, pointed it at the helmet left by the unlucky guy, and then threw it lightly.
With a thud, the stone hit the helmet accurately.
In an instant, the three spiny orchids closest to the helmet vibrated, and the needles in their corollas spurted out.
A hollow blasting sound sounded again, and the needle pierced the helmet like a swift arrow, or was bounced off and fell to the ground.
"I see."
Rozim suddenly realized that these plants attack based on sound, so this would be much easier to handle.
He just needs to make enough noise to trick all the thorns out of the spinach orchid, and then he can harvest these plants like wheat.
To make noise, he needed some tools, so he planned to go to Laidi Town to see if he could find what he needed.
Thinking of these things, as soon as he turned around, a dead wood was crushed under his feet.
"Oops-"
A spinach orchid vibrated with the sound of breaking and shot out a thorn leaf.
Rozim suppressed his screams and quickly dodged to avoid it.
But he still didn't dodge, and the needle hit him directly.
Thankfully, his melta gun saved his life in this situation, as the gun's butt eventually jammed the needle - it was only an inch away from reaching Rozim's abdomen.
Only then did Rozim exhale, pull out the needles, and then slowly withdraw from the attack range of the Spiny Orchid.