He wandered around and caught sight of the bamboo growing faintly in the distance.
Wouldn't bamboo shoots grow abundantly after the rain?
With nothing else to do, Kim Haru decided to go looking for bamboo shoots. He rather enjoyed eating them. On his way past the toolshed, he thought for a mont and then tossed both an axe and a hoe into his system backpack to take along.
You couldn't just pull bamboo shoots from the ground without effort, so a hoe was essential. As for the axe, Kim Haru figured he could cut down a few bamboo stalks to make baskets or containers.
Before heading into the bamboo forest, Kim Haru made sure to tuck his sleeves and pants securely. He didn't want to return later and find out that so bugs had crawled into his clothes without him noticing.
The bamboo forest wasn't far from the wooden cabin. It only took Kim Haru five minutes to reach it.
As soon as he stepped into the forest, a chill washed over him.
"Brr, it's so cold." Kim Haru regretted wearing so few layers. He hadn't expected the temperature in the bamboo forest to be so much colder than outside. Even though sunlight was filtering through the trees, it didn't seem to make any difference.
Kim Haru shivered a couple of tis but quickly adjusted to the sudden temperature change and didn't give it much more thought.
After all, it was normal for densely vegetated areas to have slight temperature differences, and he was already here.
Kim Haru vaguely recalled reading sowhere that bamboo shoots start to grow once bamboo reaches more than ten sections in height. The bamboo in this forest was quite tall, so there shouldn't be any issue finding bamboo shoots... right?
After wandering through most of the forest without spotting a single bamboo shoot, Kim Haru began to doubt his eyesight.
What was going on? Why hadn't he seen even one bamboo shoot? He even swept away the pile of fallen bamboo leaves on the ground but still didn't find anything resembling a bamboo shoot.
Kim Haru racked his brain, trying to rember anything he knew about bamboo shoots. After a long mont, he finally dug out a faint mory from the back of his mind.
Bamboo shoots grow during the spring and autumn seasons, and by sumr and winter, they're mature enough to be dug up and eaten. Kim Haru looked up at the sky—it was September, right at the transition from sumr to autumn. The last batch of edible bamboo shoots had already grown into full bamboo, while the next batch was still underground, not yet sprouting.
A miscalculation.
Kim Haru sighed.
Since there were no bamboo shoots, his only option was to cut down so bamboo.
He set his sights on the tall, straight bamboo surrounding him, assessing which ones to cut. He needed older bamboo, as those would be more flexible when made into bamboo strips, able to bend without breaking easily.
It didn't take long for Kim Haru to spot suitable bamboo. He took out his axe, and with just a few swings, the bamboo ca crashing down. The fallen bamboo felt cold to the touch, surprisingly pleasant.
He continued chopping, felling several more stalks until he figured he had enough. Kim Haru put away his axe, satisfied with his haul.
Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that the other bamboo stalks had been trembling more than they should while he was chopping.
Could it be that he was swinging the axe too hard, causing vibrations to spread to the surrounding bamboo?
Fortunately, after he stopped, the bamboo around him stopped trembling as well. Kim Haru let out a sigh of relief.
Otherwise, he would've started worrying about whether there was an earthquake happening.
This was the apocalypse. In a world like this, disasters could easily happen, just like in the novels.
Kim Haru stowed the bamboo into his system backpack and glanced around, picking a direction to continue walking.
Since he rarely ventured into the forest, he wasn't about to head back so soon.
Just after stepping out of the bamboo grove, sothing caught his eye.
What was that? A cluster of mushrooms!
Kim Haru hurried over to inspect them more closely, confirming that they were indeed common, edible oyster mushrooms.
That's right! It wasn't just bamboo shoots that sprouted after rain—mushrooms often did, too!
The patch of mushrooms in front of him was quite large. Kim Haru carefully picked them one by one and stored them in his system backpack. Since all the mushrooms were of the sa variety, they only took up one slot in his inventory, so he wasn't worried about running out of space.
By the ti he had nearly picked the entire patch, the stack of mushrooms in his backpack had already surpassed a hundred. Aside from the common oyster mushrooms, Kim Haru also spotted so bolete mushrooms beneath a layer of fallen leaves nearby.
These mushrooms were edible as well.
Kim Haru gathered up every mushroom he could find happily.
Perhaps it was because the ground in this area was covered in decaying leaves, and the thick canopy overhead blocked out direct sunlight, keeping the ground damp even without rain. This environnt was perfect for the growth of fungi.
In no ti at all, Kim Haru had collected a large haul.
After searching for more mushrooms and not finding any, Kim Haru reluctantly continued on his way.
He wondered if there was a pond nearby, given how lush the vegetation was on these hills. Most of the plants here were unfamiliar to him, but they all looked vaguely recognizable.
The deeper he ventured into the forest, the more Kim Haru realized sothing odd—he hadn't seen a single animal.
Strange.
Thinking about the lack of wildlife, Kim Haru looked around, deciding to pause and set up a trap.
Back when he used to browse the internet, Kim Haru had been fascinated by videos of people setting traps in the mountains, catching wild chickens or rabbits by the next day.
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