Before they could make a fishing net, they first had to figure out how to make rope.
Kim Haru wasn't sure how to make nylon rope, but he knew that regular rope was made from cotton or hemp.
Cotton products were no longer available, and he couldn't find any plants or animals that could produce new cotton.
So, he would have to focus on hemp.
"Is there hemp in the mountains?" Kim Haru asked Go Okrim, who often roamed the forests.
Go Okrim shook his head. "I don't know if there is. I've only used finished hemp ropes before. I have no idea what it looks like before it's turned into rope. Even if hemp were right in front of me, I wouldn't recognize it."
Kim Haru thought about it for a moment and realized it made sense.
However, it wasn't a problem.
Kim Haru grabbed some paper and a pencil.
Using his drawing skills, he quickly sketched a vivid picture of ramie hemp.
He had learned about it during one of his past artistic projects, otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to draw it so accurately.
Although hemp isn't the only type of plant, the kind that grows in the wild is usually this one.
Kim Haru had noticed that most of the plants near his small farm had wide leaves, so he chose to draw ramie hemp.
In fact, mutated silkworm silk could also be used to make fishing nets, but aside from being durable, mutated silkworm silk was an excellent insulating material.
People in the Pyeongseong Safe Zone were already short on it.
If Kim Haru used it to weave fishing nets, it would feel like a waste.
Even if Go Okrim and Kang Hose wouldn't say anything, he would feel guilty about it himself.
Why use a sledgehammer to crack a nut?
Kim Haru quickly drew five or six pictures of ramie hemp and handed them out to Go Okrim and Kang Hose.
He also gave a copy to the Ginseng Spirit and the Cryo Wolf, and even to the leader of the Unmelted Frost Bamboo Tree.
"Look around to see if there are any plants that look very similar to this."
Kim Haru himself wasn't idle either; he spent his time wandering through the mountains and forests.
The heavy snow had covered most of the plants, so Kim Haru knew that the ramie hemp he was looking for would be about waist-high, so he didn't bother checking the taller plants.
Whenever he came across anything that looked similar, he would sweep off the snow and take a closer look.
However, the result was disappointing.
What he had thought would be an easy find turned out to be much harder.
Despite looking for several days, he hadn't spotted any trace of it.
"Could it be that there is no hemp in this world?" Kim Haru began to worry.
Just as he was beginning to lose hope, Kang Hose brought good news.
"Sir, is this the plant you're looking for?" Kang Hose held out a bare plant he had pulled out by the roots.
The plant was already dead, with no leaves in sight.
The stem wasn't very thick, about two fingers wide, and felt a bit rough to the touch, like it had soft, prickly hairs on it.
Kim Haru couldn't recognize it just by looking at it, but the moment he took the plant from Kang Hose, the texture immediately confirmed that this was the ramie hemp he was looking for!
"Where did you find this?" Kim Haru asked, his face lighting up with excitement.
Kang Hose pointed in a direction. "At the foot of the mountain. I originally thought there might be none in this forest and was planning to ask people in the pyeongseong safe zone if they had seen it anywhere. But when I got to the foot of the mountain, Cresent started barking at a patch of plants. When I went over to check, I found that, apart from missing leaves, they looked a lot like the ones in your drawing."
"There's an entire patch of these, but they've all withered away," Kang Hose added, sounding a bit regretful. "It seems they didn't survive the mutation after the apocalypse."
The non-mutated plants had all withered away, but strangely, despite being dead, they hadn't rotted or decayed over time.
They had retained their withered appearance, which was an odd phenomenon.
After the apocalypse, this world had become anything but scientific.
"Let's go check it out," Kim Haru immediately decided.
He asked Go Okrim to stay behind and look after the small farm, while Kang Hose led the way.
Kim Haru brought along the Ginseng Spirit, of course.
And as always, the Cryo Wolf were coming too.
Even if Kim Haru didn't want them to, they would still follow him eagerly, and no matter how much he tried to shoo them away, they wouldn't leave.
With the Cryo Wolf acting as their transport, Kim Haru and Kang Hose quickly reached their destination.
At the foot of the mountain, the barren landscape was immediately noticeable.
Most of the plants here were withered and yellowed.
The ramie hemp Kang Hose found was no exception.
As Kang Hose had said, the area with ramie hemp was quite large.
Kim Haru speculated that it might have been intentionally planted before the apocalypse.
Although ramie is mostly wild, it is a useful plant for humans, and anything useful is likely to be cultivated by people.
Kim Haru knew a little about how to handle ramie, so he took out a sickle from his system inventory and began to strip the bark from a withered ramie plant.
His movements were not very practiced, but he managed to peel it.
Despite its dry, withered appearance, the bark of the ramie remained soft and resilient.
The only difference was that it wasn't green, but otherwise, it seemed no different from normal ramie.
In other words, this ramie was usable.
"Cut them at the roots and bring them back," Kim Haru instructed, confirming that the ramie was usable.
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