"It's time to go, why are you still in a daze?"

The soldier's warning startled the solar engineer to his senses, and after looking around, he realized that he was still in the camp, and the expedition with a large number of scientists was ready to set off, and now he was waiting for one.

The Sun Engineer smiled awkwardly, quickly strapped his bags, and entered the team.

But after that, instead of talking and laughing like the others, he was silent and thinking about what he had just experienced.

He saw hallucinations, even real enough that he thought they were reality.

Ever since he came to this homeship that was infested with a large number of strange plants, his experience of that virtual world had appeared in front of him from time to time, making him feel as if he was in that world again.

He had wondered if the hormones secreted by these plants were causing him to hallucinate, but his hazmat suit had not been taken off since he put it on, and he had asked his teammates if they had noticed anything abnormal, but he seemed to be the only one with the anomaly.

He also looked at the data of the environmental instrument unconvincedly, although he was the engineer in charge of the artificial sun, he could barely understand the tables and figures, and the result was that everything was normal here.

The atmosphere here is even better than that on the "Song of the Dawn" homeship, and according to one biologist, the air level here is very close to the level of the "home star" in the historical record.

Theoretically, they could live a normal life here, and they wore protective suits, just following the long-standing "Alien Exploration Manual" guideline of "never take off your protective suits at any time".

Now that no one else is abnormal, the solar engineer is increasingly puzzled by the hallucinations that have appeared in him.

According to the Extraterrestrial Exploration Manual, he should report his anomaly to his superiors at this time, terminate the expedition immediately, and treat him.

However, he did not do this, but followed the team.

In one of the few moments of entertainment on the Homeship, he had also seen some power sources about "alien expeditions", and generally this would lead to two consequences, one was that their team was in a big crisis and the other was that he was about to receive a boxed lunch.

He has a clear understanding of this image, and he also understands that his behavior of not following the "Extraterrestrial Exploration Manual" is a serious violation, but he just doesn't want to stop.

He always felt that the tall tower covered with vegetation was calling him, as if he had an important mission that he had never done before, and if he didn't go, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

The numb life of the past has taken on a beautiful color for a long time, and the adventurous spirit that should not have appeared at his age has also burned again, and he finally chose the latter between living inactive and dying brightly.

A scientist who was near the solar engineer suddenly felt an indescribable change in this person, and the whole person seemed to be changing to another level.

But when he looked closely, he didn't feel anything abnormal, and in the end the scientist could only attribute it to his own delusion.

So the expedition set out under such circumstances.

In order to prevent predation by these translucent plants, they are sprayed with a special potion that temporarily repells predators.

According to the theories of the scientists who studied the potion, they are now seen by these plants as walking herbicides and are instinctively disgusted.

The scientist also researched another potion, which had the opposite effect of the potion on them now, which was to make them "walking stool" in the eyes of the plant, able to attract the plant, but this potion was rejected by everyone.

However, for the purpose of "bait" that might be needed, they still brought a small amount of this potion with them.

As a result of the new mission assigned by the government, their original route of action has also changed, from the initial direct trip to the "control tower" to the search for all information related to the "fire chaser" along the way.

So they had to take a very tortuous route to cover every area of the homeship.

The first area they came to was the "Armed Security Zone", which was the core of the defense inside the homeship, controlling the ship's internal automatic attack system.

This is also the hardest-hit area, where the translucent vegetation suspected to have a strong connection to the "Fire Chaser" appears to have engaged in a firefight with the guards of the Homeship.

However, as they delved deeper into the area, they found that it seemed to be a little more difficult.

"It's ......"

A soldier on the tour looked at the corpse in the rubble with a surprised expression after clearing a piece of rubble that was not wrapped in plants.

They didn't see any corpses along the way, and it was assumed that they had been devoured by these predators, but there were still intact corpses here, which was somewhat unusual.

The autopsy expert immediately came forward to confirm the situation and soon discovered something astonishing.

"The wounds on these corpses...... It seems to be caused by our own weapons. ”

This incident instantly silenced everyone present, originally they thought that this homeland ship was attacked by the "Fire Chaser" to become like this, but now it seems that there may be a shadow of "inside" in it.

The atmosphere of the adventure, which had been relatively relaxed, suddenly became solemn, and everyone no longer smiled, but moved on to the next area with silence.

The second area is the "Research Zone", which is home to a large number of laboratories where all the technology that has influenced their civilization comes from.

The sun engineer wandered aimlessly with the team, but when he saw a laboratory that was also covered with a lot of plants, he had a strange idea of "wanting to take a look".

At this time, the exploration of this area had also begun, so he applied to his superiors for the right to investigate.

Although he wondered when the solar engineer would be interested in participating in the expedition, his request was approved out of trust in the quality of his first-class engineer.

So the solar engineer entered the laboratory, and as if he had been there before, he drove through the dark rooms with ease, and finally came to a small room that was not very deep and not invaded by plants.

It wasn't until he picked up a worn-out diary in the small room that he woke up from a dream and looked around with a little horror.

He felt as if he had just been hypnotized, and by the time he came back to his senses, he had already arrived in a different place.

However, before he could think about why he was here, the diary in his hand caught his attention.

His curiosity swelled like never before, as if there were countless voices in his head urging him to open the diary.

He seemed to be hallucinating in front of his eyes, and he was once again in that primitive world, surrounded by fresh air and green vegetation.

Eventually, he opened the diary.

[I'm Frost, a general scientist studying genetics]

[If you are interested in reading literature, then you may have heard my name, "Once Upon a Time" was written by me]

[You may think that those fragments of the virtual world are synthesized and produced by me with the help of my imagination and the investigation of some video records]

[But in fact, those pictures actually come from me, or rather, each of us's genes]

[Our life, our birth, our genes all originate from a plant, a giant tree of life]

[As they are now called, they are called - Fire Chasers]

(End of chapter)