Chapter 222: 1.5-3 (1/2)

'I wonder what awesome farm animal I will be able to find in here,' Melting Snow thought happily as he used his Sonic Run skill to speed through the wooded area of Drifting Cloud's farm.

That excitement only lasted so long, though, because there was nothing else to be seen after minutes of running apart from a charred landscape. The only thing around Melting Snow was scorched trees, rocks, and grass, which wasn't very appealing to look at.

He must have been running for a while because without noticing his stamina became depleted, this caused his Sonic Run skill to end prematurely. He thought about chugging down a Stamina potion but decided against it and let it refill slowly on its own.

Now that he was slowed to walking speed, he could really see everything around him in more detail. What really stood out to him was the ground, it looked strange, he wondered why he didn't notice it before.

Well, he knew why he didn't, it was really dark when they first arrived and when it became daytime, there were other more important things for him to care about than paying attention to the ground. But as he looked at it now, he became extremely interested in it, because of how odd it was.

It wasn't odd in some crazy way, it was just that the land was totally blackened. Melting Snow thought it looked like one of those aftermath pictures of those ancient volcano eruptions that he saw when he was browsing the net that one time he was bored.

He remembered reading about how the ground would turn super hard afterward and was suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity. 'Would it feel the same way?'

As soon as the thought went through his head, he knew that he had to find out. Stopping in his tracks, Melting Snow squatted down and gave the dirt a quick poke, only to be surprised by how it felt. Using his fingers, he played with it for a bit before gathering some in his hand.

It wasn't hard like a rock as he thought it would be; instead, it felt coarse and kind of brittle. The feeling of it between his fingers was strange to him, the texture was completely different from what he was used to.

Giving in to another weird urge of his, he lifted the handful of dirt to his nose and gave it a quick sniff. When the aroma of it fully hit him, Melting Snow knew that if he could, he would have gagged because the smell it gave off was genuinely horrible.

'Oh my goodness! Why does this stuff smell so putrid,' he thought to himself as he tossed the dirt far away from his body.

Jumping to his feet, Melting Snow began wiping the excess dirt off his hands and onto his pants, wrinkling his nose at the smell that was still permeating around him.

He really wanted to get the scent out of his nose. Although he couldn't clearly describe what it smelt like, it was still terrible. And it was something that he didn't want to try actively sniffing again. Seeing that his stamina was filled back up, he once again activated his skill, hoping that the wind would clear the smell from his nostrils.

It was only after running a couple more minutes that the smell was gone, and he finally saw something different apart from the burnt landscape that had been a constant for a while now. Instead of the charred wood, he was getting used to, he could see some actual green. Although not a lot, it seemed that some specks of life actually survived.

”This is promising,” Melting Snow muttered to himself, quickly deactivating his skill. He came to a halt in front of two rows of trees that had been entirely untouched by the fire. ”It seems the fire didn't get the whole entire farm.”

As he inspected the trees, Melting Snow noticed that something was dangling from them. Getting a closer look, he could tell that it was some sort of fruit, but had no idea what kind they were.