While helping unload the radishes from the sled, Go Okrim noticed the strange, wriggling "radish" in Snowball No. 1's mouth.

    He exclaimed, "What is that? A hybrid between a mutated radish and a mutated octopus?"

    "Damn you! Who do you call a hybrid!" the radish snapped back.

    Hearing the radish talk only deepened Kim Haru's understanding of Snowball No. 1's remarkable control over his bite strength. Despite being clamped in Snowball No. 1's jaws the entire way back, the radish was still full of energy, its voice as strong as ever. Clearly, Snowball No. 1's teeth hadn't inflicted the slightest harm.

    From now on, Kim Haru thought, he could let the Cyro Wolf carry things like this for him.

    Go Okrim, amazed by the talking radish, exclaimed, "Kim Haru-hyung, this thing can actually talk!" Sёar?h the n?vel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    The radish retorted, "Of course I can talk! If you can talk, why wouldn't I be able to?"

    Go Okrim, unfazed, began speculating, "Could it be that a mutated radish's structure is different from other plants? Why is it the only one that can talk?"

    "Damn it! I already told you, I'm not a radish! Don't lump me in with those inferior species!" The radish's voice was growing increasingly hysterical.

    "Then what are you?" Go Okrim asked.

    "Why should I tell you?" the radish shot back.

    "Then you're a radish," Go Okrim declared.

    "I am NOT a radish!"

    "You're a radish."

    "I am NOT—"

    And so, the two devolved into an absurdly childish argument, with Go Okrim deliberately teasing the radish to provoke it.

    Kim Haru ignored their squabble and focused on cleaning and storing the rest of the radishes in the granary. Only when everything was tidied up did he turn his attention back to the mutated radish.

    By then, Go Okrim had already extracted the radish from Snowball No. 1's mouth. The radish, of course, tried to escape, but the eleven other Cyro Wolf surrounded it and Go Okrim, their curious eyes locked on the squirming radish. They looked ready to pounce at any moment, as though awaiting a signal to bite and see what it tasted like.

    Faced with this overwhelming lineup, the radish trembled and stayed perfectly still, allowing Go Okrim to flip it over and examine it as much as he pleased.

    Even in such a predicament, the white radish hadn't forgotten to build up some aura through its words. "I—I'm not going to tell you what I am!" it exclaimed, trying to maintain its tough stance.

    Kim Haru pulled over a stool and sat down. "Well? Have you figured out what it is?" he asked.

    Go Okrim's eyes sparkled. "Kim Haru-hyung, I think it's a ginseng!"

    The word ginseng left Go Okrim's lips, and the white radish's rambling, curse-laden tirade came to an abrupt halt.

    "Wha—what? How do you know what I am?" it stammered, clearly shaken.

    Kim Haru raised an eyebrow.

    Well, what do you know? It really was ginseng.

    Go Okrim, on the other hand, was over the moon. "Wow, I was just guessing! I didn't think I'd actually get it right. Hyung, I'm amazing, aren't I?"

    "Very impressive," Kim Haru praised, earning a satisfied grin from Go Okrim and a stunned, disbelieving look of defeat from the ginseng.

    "How did you guess I was ginseng?" the ginseng demanded, still unwilling to accept the truth without an explanation.

    Go Okrim pointed to the white radishes that had been left outside and then to the ginseng itself. "Well, if something looks a lot like a radish, most people would just guess it's ginseng, right? It's not like it matters if the guess is wrong."

    The ginseng was speechless.

    It just… couldn't accept it.

    Now that its identity had been exposed and with all the dogs around eyeing it hungrily, the ginseng Cyro Wolf escape was impossible. It had no choice but to answer every question posed to it honestly.

    As a result, Kim Haru was astonished to discover that this ginseng's most notable difference from other mutated plants was that it had started showing signs of gaining sentience even before the apocalypse.

    "Back then, other than not being able to move or talk, my thoughts were perfectly clear," the ginseng boasted proudly at first, before its face fell into an expression of deep frustration. "Who would've thought that all I did was sneak a peek at humans' television and stay up late one night? Then I went to sleep and woke up to find the whole world changed."

    Not only had the air and soil become filled with strange, foul-smelling contaminants, but the surrounding plants had all mutated too. They were no longer quiet and docile but instead extremely aggressive. As for the animals, they had grown larger and started developing bizarre abilities.

    If it hadn't seen zombies later on, the ginseng would've thought the entire world had gained sentience along with it.

    But the apocalypse wasn't any better than the idea of universal sentience. Summers were unbearably hot, winters were bitterly cold, and the mutated virus in the air, water, and soil made it nearly impossible for the ginseng to progress further along its path to full sentience. Even now, all it could do was barely manage to talk.

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    It couldn't even defeat a single dog.

    To make matters worse, it was looking more and more like a white radish.

    Thankfully, it still had some tricks up its sleeve. Whenever it found a place to settle down, it would plant white radishes around itself that looked just like it. When enemies dug up the other radishes, it would use the chance to sneak away.

    But the skill that had always worked flawlessly before had completely failed this time, thanks to a pack of Cyro Wolf.

    Looking at the ginseng spirit, grumbling nonstop with its little body brimming with complaints, Kim Haru grew increasingly intrigued.

    He had to keep it. No matter what, it had to stay!

    Kim Haru wasn't particularly fond of ginseng itself. Whether this ginseng spirit was a century old or a millennium old didn't matter to him—he wasn't eyeing it as food. What he craved was its radish-planting expertise and, most importantly, its ability to talk.