Tututututu- A strange sound rang over Ituri jungle. It was a Chinook the East Africa headquarters in Kisangani had sent out in a rush after receiving orders from Adam, the CIA head of operations. The pilot and co-pilot were nervous. They had no choice but to fly low over the canopies in order to find the edos in a jungle where the canopy was extremely developed.

  There were countless of birds living in the canopies. The birds, surprised by the tandem rotor’s wind, flew up in a black cloud. Babababa- The few which were sucked into the rotor were torn to pieces.

  “God damn!” The pilot swore in annoyance.

  They were so close to getting into an accident with a single wrong maneuvor, he didn’t need the birds causing a more chaotic scene. This was the fifth circle he was making. He felt like his eyes were going to pop out of his face.

  “Pound, there!” The co-pilot shouted.

  “Ok!”


  The Chinook, after confirming the edos’ location, swerved and lowered its altitude. The Shadow team equipped with the most modern equipments rushed to drop. The Chinook hovered 80 feet up in the air. The fast rope was thrown overboard, and Shadows dropped down in rows.

  “Billy, run!” Steve shouted.

  Billy was his pet’s name, a persian cat.

  “Kuuh!”


  A muscular man who was nearly as big as Samedi leapt to his feet and flung his body outside the helicopter. Bang- Billy landed lightly on the ground. His strong man-made muscles and compressed stents withstood the shock easily. No-one cared about the 20 Shadows.

  Whoooosh- The Chinook rapidly increased its RPM. The Chinook which delivered Steve, mechanic Haunter Billy, and a team of Shadows increased in altitude and flew in the direction of Kisangani.

  There were hundreds of monkeys which gathered, but their loud cries and bites were the loudest. Their green furs closer to black had camouflaged to the dark forest, and made it hard to spot with the human’s eyes.

  Olonge and Kidamba sprinted to an abinisia tree, and attached themselves to it. Samedi stared at the Pygmies who had hunched down, covering their heads, and suddenly came to an awkward realisation. He glanced at Black Mamba’s expression. Now matter how he saw the situation, it seemed like he caused some kind of trouble again.

  “They’re all ill.” Black Mamba mumbled.

  When apes gathered, they became more brave, but that had its limit. The monkeys’ conditions weren’t that good either. There were bald patches of fur as though a parasite was within them. He could also see several with exposed red skin. Those who were in the process of losing hair had red eyes as though their irises were filled with blood. He suddenly recalled the midge ur which was contaminated by the mango bug.

  “Te ka-i noon ta ba sa ha da ku duru noon daka. (Bad monkey. Get sick if you touch.)” Olonge shouted.

  The Pygmies of Ituri jungle knew through a long time of experience that those green monkeys (they are in fact brown) carried a scary illness. Olonge even tried to use his entire body to explain, but Black Mamba and Samedi had no way of knowing.

  “Stop it, dude, enough.” Samedi said in askance.

  His anger only grew at the lack of understanding. Olonge, who couldn’t understand Samedi either, rolled his eyes around. Yahweh, who disturbed the construction of the Tower of Babel was truly smart. The lack of communication is a critical method of dismantling cooperation.

  Several days later, the american SEALS which enters Ituri jungle will be effected by an unknown virus. Called Ituri’s curse, they were the first to meet the Ituri monkeys, hosts of Ebola, in mankind’s history.

  Rumble- Some unknown things flew out of the trees and to their direction in dozens. Samedi stood before Black Mamba and swung his Squeaker. Clang- Bang- Crack- All kinds of ringing rang. The jungles’ fruits scattered on the ground. Not only fruits, there were rocks, sh**, and snakes.

  “What strange bastards. This damn jungle doesn’t have a single normal thing about it.”


  Black Mamba grabbed the back of his neck. Monkeys were meant to instinctively avoid snakes, but these bastards were using them as throwing weapons.

  “You damn bastards!” Samedi shouted.

  The sky suddenly turned dark as though they understood him. Hundreds of fruits and rocks flew in, in variety. The power behind those objects, with added gravitational weight, was immense. They would suffer a moderate injury if hit. Olonge and Kidamba were right to hide in fear.

  Samedi swung the Squeaker as though he finally found something to do. But no matter how much he swung, he wasn’t able to prevent all hundreds of flying objects. What fruits passed Samedi’s defence, Black Mamba slapped away. He couldn’t figure out a way to get rid of all those bastards at once.

  “Samedi, this is embarrassing. Let’s avoid them for a moment.”


  “Samedi’s going to go mad, mad!”


  Black Mamba and Samedi attempted to get away, but the monkeys’ attack didn’t stop. They followed them around throwing fruits, rocks, and feces. It was chaotic, and offending.

  Slap- A green snake landed on Samedi’s face. Ukikikiki- Several monkeys laughed cheekily.

  “Argggh!”


  Samedi took out his MAG. Black Mamba left him to it. The monkeys had very well asked for it. Dududududu- Sounds of heavy gunshots rang through the jungle. Bullets of 4,600 J poured out at a rate of 1,000 per minute.

  Crack- Crash- Branches and leaves were torn off loudly. The monkeys who had been throwing things fearlessly began to fall from their perches. Kueh- Kuegh- The monkeys cried. Dududududu- The MAG continued to fire. Monkeys fell from the sky.

  Samedi shot rounds between three pauses which came automatically. The sound of the machine gun, monkeys’ scream, and bullets racking through wood made his ears ring.

  “I should make him hold an automatic grenade launcher or a M61 Vulcan.”


  Black Mamba made a dissatisfied face. Samedi didn’t pair well with machine guns. It was like making Hang Woo carry a Godachi (small dagger). He looked better swinging the Squeaker around.

  Samedi had wasted 300 rounds on 20 monkeys. Machine guns are area-suppressing fire arms. That much was an average skill, but to the sniper’s eyes it was very ineffective. Samedi had much more to go in order to catch up to Emil’s skill.

  The monkeys went away like the tides after the fierce counter-attack. Kiii- Kuek- Kuek- Their cries grew further away. Black Mamba shook his head from side to side.

  “This place is driving me nuts!”


  This was one crazy jungle. Even monkeys were provoking them. He checked the monkey which had dropped to the ground. Its weight was around 5-10kg, with a dark brown matted fur, sharp fangs, and strong arms. He couldn’t tell its species but it was a normal monkey overall.

  Olonge and Kidamba chattered using their hands and feet. Black Mamba sighed. Since Ulumbo wasn’t here to translate, he couldn’t tell whether those monkeys had rushed at them to take revenge for their friends’ death, or if humans had provoked them to attack.

  The objects the monkeys had thrown were all over the floor like the petals on May’s wind. Stones, feces, branches, fruits, and dead snakes with their bellies bursted open were most of them.

  The fruit which looked familiar was a brown gold coconut, smaller than a papaya. Fruits harder than the size of an adult’s fist, fruits which looked like a donut but heavy, and fruits which looked like tangerines but were black were all something he never saw before. The only similarity was that they were all hard as rocks. Monkeys truly were on the smarter side.

  “Isn’t that a machine gun going off?”


  Major Macffi turned to look at first lieutenant Louis.

  “You’re right, sir. It’s a mid-ranged machine gun.”


  “Don’t be ridiculous. Are you saying that the Pygmies came up with a ranger unit or something?” Steve scolded for no reason.

  He was in a completely foul mood. The pilot who mistook the terrain had dropped the operations team off on the wrong edos. Steve had freaked out after checking his GPS once the Chinook disappeared.

  The marked Devil’s Spring (the Cenote swamp where Black Mamba killed the serpent) was 15km away. They were in a bad situation where they had to move two days towards biakutu through his horrible jungle. They rolled their feet, but the bus, no, helicopter had disappeared.

  “Are you doubting my ears? I definitely heard gunshots in the south-western direction.”


  Major Macfi’s eyes grew narrow. Steve felt offended. He was the operation’s commander. Those Shadows were being too prideful for people meant to be his hands and feet.

  “So? Are you saying we need to chase after that sound? The mission point: Devil’s Spring is north west.” Steve shouted.

  Their mission was to retrieve the servant, not to investigate that gun or cannon shot. He didn’t want to spend another minute in this damned jungle. He had only been here for 30 minutes, but his uniform was soaked in sweat.

  “Commander, this is barely 13km away from Devil’s Spring. Can you be certain that those bastards have nothing to do with this incident?”


  “…..”


  Major Macfi continued to make his argument. Steve couldn’t say anything about it, as the argument was logical too.

  “Why don’t you head towards Devil’s Spring, Major, and I’ll track them down with group B?” First Lieutenant Louis offered.

  Major Macfi agreed, nodding his head.

  “Ok, Major, leave the satellite phone open at all times.”


  Steve agreed. There wouldn’t be a large difference to their forces if one shadow team falls out. Billy was with them after all. First Lieutenant Louis disappeared dragging 10 members of Shadow Team B. Humans can’t look into their future. This was how the fates of Shadow Team A and Team B came to differ.

  Samedi opened the yellow fruit the size of an adult’s fist. There was plenty of yellow sap within its hard shell, somewhat like an orange juice.

  “Ula, labayaga!”


  Olonge and Kidamba’s eyes grew wide. Pipin’s shell was so hard to the point it had to be opened with an axe. The Bodun who could crack open its shell with a single hand was amazing.

  “Pipin!”


  Kidamba pointed at the fruits and mimicked the actions of drinking. It seemed like the fruit’s name was pipin. Samedi tried it, and handed it over to Black Mamba.

  “Oh, this is good.” Black Mamba exclaimed.

  It was a refreshing sap which tasted like cucumbers. Kidamba picked up two pipins and pushed it towards them. Samedi smiled, and tapped them open. Olonge and Kidamba drank it as though their lives depended on it. Their guide was a coward, and frustrating, but it was still nice to see a comrade be happy.

  Excited, Samedi poked the coconuts with his finger. Samedi’s expression creased. He tried poking them more with his fingers, but the coconut didn’t budge. Black Mamba smiled. While Samedi could dig a hold through an Asian coconut, Ituri coconuts were like rocks.

  When Black Mamba poked it open with his thumb, a hole appeared. A rock-hard coconut won’t be able to withstand the Billion’s Water Armour. Samedi’s expression grew solemn. He had grown stronger after being eaten by the monster, but he still couldn’t be as strong as his master. He felt useless as a guard.

  “Wakil, why don’t we store the saps in our water bottles?”


  “No, fruit juices rot easily. It will be better to take the fruit with us.”


  The humid air was also a problem. Parasites would increase by the billions by a day. They had lost a few hours because of the monkeys, but since they found something else to replace hibitor, it wasn’t a loss. Olonge filled an empty backpack with pipins and coconuts. Kidamba brought over the fruits shaped like a donut. It was a large fruit seemingly 2kg heavy.

  “What is that?”


  “Kamansa Uhrumbi!”


  The heavy Kamansa Uhrumbi fruit also had a hard shell. Black Mamba swung down with the blade of his hand and cracked it open. Its white juice smelled like a watermelon, but it didn’t taste like anything.

  Black Mamba later learned that Kamansa Uhrumbi meant ‘can you break this too?’ in Bantu. They Kamansa Uhrumbi the Pygmies call kadam warapura was a fruit called Ompallokarfom in Europe. Whether it’s Kamansa Uhrumbi or Ompallo kratom, it tasted horrible all the same.

  Whether the pipin or Kamansa Uhrumbi are their names, or whether he understood the Pygmies’ accent correctly was left unknown. But there was one true fact. There were more inedible fruits in Ituri jungle than edible fruits. Human livers weren’t able to digest fruits monkeys or chimpanzees could eat.

  “Oh, lahu lahu!”


  Olonge jumped up and down. Kadambaraf was a fruit elephants liked to eat. It was so hard gorillas couldn’t break it open. God was great. Respect poured out for him endlessly.

  Most tropical fruits come from eastern asia. And representative tropical fruits like durians, lime, mango, mangostin, and breadtrees were mostly from southeast Asia. The second group, guava, sapodila, avocado, dragonfruit, pineapple, and papaya are from south America. There aren’t as many African fruits as one might think. The representative fruits are camel date palms, Governor plums, Karanda, Tamarin, and melons.

  Its plantations started to become widespread as trades between continents increased too. For example, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines was the source of coconuts, but it spread to all tropical regions around the world like Africa, South Africa, Oceania, and more.

  Also, confusion occurred because of the different names people called it by region. In Ituri jungle, there’s around ten names for the cuvuner plum gathered naturally. In Africa it’s called cocowi, the Governor’s Plum in England, Purunier in French, Ekdeflacolti in German, Ugulessa in Switzerland, Takopa in Thailand, and Biton Golden in the philippines. That was how far its farm spread, and how beloved it is by the whole world.

  Olonge and Kidamba didn’t even glance at the other fruits aside from the three. When Samedi grabbed a nice-looking fruit, Olonge frowned and shook his hand.

  “But it looks good.”


  He stubbornly took a bite, and frowned heavily. Samedi though it would be better to drink pee than eat this piece of s***.

  On the morning of their second day, Olonge turned around and around in his spot. He made one round and waved his hands, another round and shook his hands. He looked just like an ant without its antlers.

  ‘Aha, this man’s lost the way!’