Jack-o'-Lantern (1)
The jack-o'-lantern was the quintessential pumpkin monster, a creature practically synonymous with Halloween.
Its defining traits were a viciously jagged, grinning mouth and gaping, hollow holes for eyes and a nose. True to the "lantern" in its name, its innards were completely hollow, radiating a warm, flickering light from within. If the lore I was familiar with held true, they rarely caused real harm to humans, usually content with harmless mischief and pranks.
"Kyaaaah! Kyaaaaah!"
"What on earth is that?"
Of course, harmless mischief assumed a normal size. The pumpkin head looming before my eyes boasted the sheer volume of a decent-sized house. It was menacing enough to swallow a full-grown man in a single gulp, and the screech tearing from its maw was an ear-splitting shriek straight out of a horror film.
It certainly felt fitting for a fantasy world, yet anxiety instantly crept up my spine. How the hell are we supposed to kill something like this?
Unlike a beast, this thing was a plant. It had no obvious vitals to target. While fire was considered the universal counter to all flora, the real question was whether a conventional flame would even scratch a creature of this scale. On top of that, another nagging doubt lingered in the back of my mind.
Father Raccoon wouldn't have just handed me something dangerous... right?
Every herb and mushroom Father Raccoon had brought me so far possessed extraordinary medicinal properties. Because of that track record, I had planted the seed without an ounce of suspicion. Who could have guessed that burying it would summon a full-blown pumpkin monster? A desperate, naive thought crossed my mind—could this be one of those cases where it looked terrifying on the outside but turned out to be docile and sweet?
Boom!
Right as that thought crossed my mind, the jack-o'-lantern defied all laws of physics and launched itself high into the sky. How a gargantuan mass like that managed to leap into the air was beyond me, but I didn't have time to ponder it.
"Hoo-oo-ooh!"
The pumpkin snapped its head back, drawing in a massive breath.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!"
It unleashed a rapid-fire barrage straight from its gaping mouth. The projectiles hurtled downward at blistering speed. Fortunately, they weren't too fast to track, allowing me to predict their trajectories and weave out of the way.
Th-th-th-thud!
"Kkyu-oo!"
"Ppi-eeek!"
The rest of the animals scattered in a hurry. When I glanced down at what had actually struck the earth, my jaw dropped.
"S-Seeds...?"
What the jack-o'-lantern had fired were none other than giant seeds—each comparable in size to the massive seed I had planted in the soil. And that wasn't the end of it.
Squirm. Wriggle.
The moment they struck the ground, the seeds began burrowing into the dirt under their own power. Panic surged through me, and I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"G-Ggobongi! Dig those up! Quickly!"
"Understood!"
"Wonmo, Tyrano, you guys too! If those things take root, we're done for!"
"Kkyu!"
"Ppi-ee!"
Spurred on by my frantic orders, my animal companions scrambled across the clearing, frantically yanking out the burrowing seeds. Luckily, the seeds squirmed into the earth at a relatively sluggish pace, allowing us to rip them out of the soil just in the nick of time.
Thud!
The immediate threat of the seeds was averted, but the jack-o'-lantern was still very much alive. Its massive, bloated frame crashed back down to the ground.
Swish!
In that exact instant, Ludwig charged forward like a guided missile, wielding his Mithricon Sword before anyone even realized he had drawn it. While the animals and I had been occupied with the seeds, he had quietly prepared his strike.
A faint, luminous green galaxy began to ripple along the length of his blade. A razor-sharp film of condensed energy wrapped around the metal like a shimmering coat. It was the Aura Blade—the devastating technique he had demonstrated to me several times before. Born from the synergy of the mana-conductive Mithricon Sword and pure Aura Blade mastery, it could sever solid steel like warm butter.
Slash-slash-slash!
Ludwig made a single, fluid swing of his arm, yet dozens of silver-green sword arcs blossomed through the air simultaneously. It was a flurry so blindingly fast that my dynamic visual acuity could barely track it. Even without being able to circulate his internal mana properly due to his physical condition, he could still unleash speed like this. It made me wonder, not for the first time, just how monstrously powerful this man had been out in the wider world.
Thud! Splat! Crash!
Under Ludwig's concise, ruthlessly efficient assault, the house-sized jack-o'-lantern was cleaved into neat, diced chunks. A monster of such horrifying proportions had perished anticlimactically in a matter of seconds. Just as I let out a sigh of relief, thinking the ordeal was over—
Float...
The diced chunks of orange flesh hovering on the ground lifted into the air.
Clack! Snap! Click!
Like pieces of a reverse puzzle, the fragments snapped together, reconstructing the giant pumpkin head right before our eyes. Ludwig and I stared in stunned silence, our eyes wide with disbelief. The moment the final chunk locked into place, the jack-o'-lantern's mocking, jagged grin flared to life once more.
"Kyaaaahhh!"
At the creature's deafening screech, Ludwig took a bewildered step back. I was every bit as dumbfounded. When Ludwig had minced the thing to pieces, I had gotten a clear look at its interior.
It was literally just an ordinary pumpkin inside!
There was nothing unusual in there, save for a few stray seeds. There was no spirit core, no heart, no nucleus whatsoever. How in the world had it reconstructed itself?
Boom!
While questions swirled in my mind, the jack-o'-lantern took flight once again. It seemed intent on repeating the same bombardment pattern. Just as I raised my shield to brace for the incoming salvo—
CRACK!
"Hoo-oo-ooph... Guk?!"
Mid-inhalation, the leaning jack-o'-lantern was struck squarely by a projectile and plummeted out of the sky. Something had shot it down cold. Whirling my head around to find the culprit, I didn't have to look far.
"Gwoo-oong."
Largo stood there with a clay brick clamped firmly between his teeth. He had evidently whipped that absurdly long neck of his like a trebuchet to hurl the brick at high velocity. A literal living catapult. Thanks to him, a major headache had been averted.
Crash!
The jack-o'-lantern crashed to the turf upside down. There was no way we were letting this opening slip. Ludwig and I bolted toward the crash site in unison.
The creature was squirming in frantic confusion, struggling to right itself—its sheer bulk making nimble recovery impossible.
Flash! Slash-slash-slash!
Ludwig initiated the assault, once again hacking the oversized pumpkin into dozens of neat slices. The finishing blow fell to me. Swelling my blunt club of dense aura to monstrous proportions, I brought it crashing down onto the pile of chunks. Not with the intent of cutting, but to utterly pulverize it into paste.
BAM! CRUNCH! SPLAT!
The diced pieces were reduced to an unrecognizable, mashed pulp. It seemed a terrible waste of pumpkin, but survival came first; you had to put out the fire at your feet before worrying about the rug.
Having been hacked to bits and crushed into porridge, there was no way it could pull itself together now. Looking down at the orange mush, I muttered under my breath.
"...Did we get him?"
"You absolute idiot!"
Ludwig's furious roar exploded right next to my ear. Startled by the sudden barrage of rage, I jerked around to look at him. He was glaring at me with wide, horrified eyes, as if I had just uttered the most forbidden blasphemy known to man.
Only then did the cold realization hit me. I had uttered the ultimate jinx.
Float... Drift...
The karmic retribution was instantaneous and devastating.
The pulped, mashed pumpkin paste began to levitate off the ground, knitting itself back together fiber by fiber. Why was this damn thing regenerating? If it were an animal, I could at least rationalize it. After all, the saber-toothed tiger had possessed a core comparable to a Dragon Heart, granting it absurd regenerative capabilities. But this thing was a plant. There was no soil attached, nowhere for it to draw water or nutrients.
Wait, could it be drawing power from the earth? No, that can't be it. It doesn't even have roots...
The realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. Roots! It didn't have roots!
My eyes snapped toward the garden plot where the seed had first sprouted. It was an outrageous hypothesis that defied all botanical common sense, but this was a fantasy world—and worse, it was the Forest of the Four Seasons, a primordial death trap where even fantasy common sense was routinely tossed out the window. Relying on textbook logic here was a fool's errand; following raw survival instinct was the only way to stay alive.
"Old man! Keep that bastard busy for a second!"
"Where are you going?"
"I've got an idea! Guys, stay behind me just in case!"
Dropping my sword and shield, I seized a shovel and sprinted toward the garden plot where the seed had originally been planted. Driving the metal blade into the dirt, I shoveled with frantic urgency.
And then—
"Found you!"
Barely a few spadefuls deep, my shovel struck the jack-o'-lantern's underground root system. By some incomprehensible supernatural mechanism, the roots buried in the garden were constantly piping nutrients and vital energy directly to the airborne pumpkin head.
What is this, a Bluetooth root? At this rate, someone was going to invent a Bluetooth showerhead next. Shaking off the ridiculous thought, I clamped both hands around the thick taproot.
Rustle!
Plants had an instinct for self-preservation, and this one happened to be a monster. The moment my fingers gripped the root, a thick vine whipped out from the dirt, lashing violently to constrict my body. It aimed straight for my windpipe, but I ducked my chin just in time to deflect it.
"Hey! Ggobongi! Grab this!"
"Oo-oh!"
"You guys grab one too!"
I barked orders at Ggobongi and the little ones. As hands, paws, and jaws locked onto the writhing roots and vines, I threw my weight backward and roared with everything in my lungs.
"PULLLL!!!"
"Kkyu-oo-oo-oo!"
"Ppi-ee-ee-eek!"
Whether it was anchored absurdly deep or simply exerting supernatural suction against the earth, the root refused to budge, even against the collective haul of a grown man and four magical beasts. Behind us, Ludwig was desperately parrying and suppressing the flying pumpkin head, but there was no telling how long he could hold out.
Whip!
"Ghk!"
To make matters worse, another rogue vine burst from the soil. Correctly identifying me as the ringleader, it wrapped tightly around my throat. The constriction tightened with bone-crushing force, spots dancing across my vision as the air was cut off.
Even so, I refused to let go. Through the coarse fibers beneath my palms, I could feel the animals tugging with every ounce of their little bodies, refusing to quit. If we failed to uproot this thing now, there was no telling what nightmare it would unleash on the shelter.
Crack!
Our desperate struggle finally bore fruit. The telltale, subterranean snap of tearing root fibers vibrated through my grip. I could feel the creature thrashing in blind panic to keep its hold, but it was already too late. The earth had surrendered its grip. Gagging for air, I forced out a choked shout.
"Now! P-Pull!"
"UWOOOOOOH!"
Riiiip! Rattle-snap!
With one final, coordinated surge of monstrous strength, the main root yielded. The constricting pressure around my neck grew violently desperate for a heartbeat, but momentum was entirely on our side. The entire root ball tore free of the loam with an earthy squelch.
Shluck!
We tumbled backward as the stubborn root of the jack-o'-lantern ripped completely out of the ground. It squirmed in the open air like a living serpent, but what proved truly shocking was what was attached to the root crown.
"Kieeeeeeek!"
It wasn't a standard root cluster at all—it was a miniature jack-o'-lantern, radiating a brilliant, luminous light. The tiny pumpkin beneath the soil had been remotely piloting the colossal head in the sky all along.
Regardless, the core was exposed. All that remained was pest control.
SMACK!
"Gyeck!"
I planted a solid right hook straight into the mini jack-o'-lantern dangling from the root. It let out a pathetic, squealing shriek. Just like an Adult Mandrake Root, it clearly possessed a nervous system capable of feeling pain. That made our job remarkably straightforward. Turning to my primate disciple, I gestured toward the writhing pumpkin.
"Ggobongi! Beat this guy senseless!"
"Oo-oh!"
When it came to bare-knuckle pugilism, Ggobongi's mastery far surpassed my own. Which meant—
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
"Kweck! Gyeck! Kyuuu-eck!"
It was treated to a world-class beatdown like a suspended speed bag. Seizing the opportunity to vent weeks of pent-up stress, Ggobongi hammered the miniature pumpkin with rhythmic, ecstatic fury. With every devastating blow the gorilla landed, the constricting vine around my throat slackened. Farther out, the gargantuan pumpkin head Ludwig had been fending off shuddered helplessly, twitching in place as its central processor took critical damage.
Slump...
Under Ggobongi's relentless barrage of martial arts strikes, the entire root went limp. The squeals from the core faded into silence, the creature clearly knocked unconscious. When I inspected its surface, the glowing eyes, nose, and jagged mouth had vanished completely, returning to smooth, featureless orange rind.
Deciding it had suffered enough, I signaled Ggobongi to halt.
Bleh.
Right on cue, something tumbled out from the center of the unconscious core's stem. It was a smooth, lustrous bead radiating a soft orange luminescence. By all appearances, it was an Inner Core—a Neidan. What stunned me was its volume; it was roughly the size of half a fist. Gulping this down whole would choke a person to death.
The Neidan is great, but could this root itself be useful? I wondered, eyeing the dormant core. With its spirit core expelled, it might have reverted to an ordinary pumpkin root. Even so, there was a high probability that the flesh was packed with supernatural vitality. The giant fish had been the same way—creatures that harbored an inner core rarely went to waste.
"#$%@^?"
With the battle over, Ludwig strolled over and muttered something unintelligible, pointing a finger toward the clearing. Following his gaze, I looked back at the giant pumpkin head. With its root severed, the colossal terror had transformed into an utterly ordinary, stationary pumpkin—just one that happened to be the size of a mansion.
How were we supposed to use something that massive?
"Well," I sighed, wiping dirt from my chin, "we eat it."
"Eat?" Ludwig mimicked the word, blinking.
"Yeah."
Since ancient times, pumpkin had always been considered a supreme winter delicacy.
"Maybe we can make some steamed pumpkin later."
Winter food supplies had just gotten a massive upgrade.