#022
Seeing the mushroom puff up its cap angrily, I timidly shouted out. The mushroom’s main attack method was to disguise itself as a real mushroom and attack unsuspecting opponents, but when that failed and its identity was exposed, spores came next.
Prey hit by the spores would temporarily experience powerful paralysis symptoms, and then the mushroom would spew spider web-like white threads from the mouth under its cap, pulling in and swallowing the stiffened prey. And like a giant python, it would keep the prey in its body for a long time, dissolving and eating it.
Whether he heard my words or already knew, Carlisle lightly threw his body backward and waved his hand. The flames that rose from his hand engulfed not only the spores but also the boss mob, burning them up. The fire couldn’t immediately affect the main body that had crouched down its cap defensively, but it completely burned away the flying spores.
In fact, what made the spores truly dangerous was that these things floated gently through the air. Since their movement was slow and they moved in all directions, even if you blocked them immediately with something like a shield, they would fall on your head later or stick to your back. So Carlisle’s method of burning them with fire was an excellent choice that worked properly in such cases.
Now that all the spores had been burned away, the mushroom mob was as good as dead. I looked at the health bar floating above the mushroom’s head. Now I just needed to hit it a couple more times and then take it over. Of course, I’d have to pound it not just once for the final blow, but about ten times!
“Ah…”
But I froze as I was preparing to rush out.
“…It’s dead?”
Since I said it was as good as dead, the mushroom mob had actually died. The giant mushroom collapsed with a crash, spilling out various byproducts. Carlisle had only hit it once more, but that last hit had been excessively powerful. So much so that even I, who had been watching the health bar, couldn’t have predicted it.
Carlisle had an ambiguous expression. It was a face that was hard to read. Was he flustered? Or had he never intended to hand it over to me in the first place? Carlisle moved his neck this way and that as if loosening stiff muscles, then withdrew from the scene. And as he passed by my frozen side, he spoke as if bestowing a favor.
“Take whatever you want to take.”
Since it was a boss mob, the messily scattered byproducts were more valuable than anything I’d seen so far. The main reward was an expensive red diamond, and the cap fragments, being byproducts of the boss mob, were rare and highly versatile due to their strength, selling for high prices. But Carlisle seemed to have no interest in any of it, or appeared to be yielding priority to me.
‘Is he doing this because he feels bad about killing the mushroom?’
It wasn’t his personality and his expression didn’t look like that at all, but I had no choice but to interpret it that way. Though I was disappointed about the player-exclusive reward that had flown away, I couldn’t throw away even the benefits I could get my hands on right now, so I carefully went to the scene and started the work of emptying my pouch again and replacing things with better items.
‘Wait, but why…’
I was moving busily when I suddenly felt something was off and stopped my hands.
‘Why isn’t an exit appearing?’
Wasn’t that right? The exit would open right nearby the moment the boss mob died, so normally you couldn’t miss it. I looked around. Sure enough, there was nothing that looked like an exit anywhere.
The fact that no exit had appeared meant… could it be that the boss mob wasn’t dead?
“Um…”
I looked at Carlisle.
An acrid scent wafted up. He was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette, looking at me with an expressionless face. It was a cold gaze where I couldn’t feel even a hint of emotion. There wasn’t even hatred toward a former connection who had hurt him.
What was that strangely observing look…?
Just as I was about to become anxious, a small, bizarre sound from under my feet caught my attention. A slithering sound like a snake passing by reminded me of the seaweed in the cabin, making me shiver for a moment. When I looked down, I could see glittering silver thread wrapping around my ankle. It was the silver thread of the mushroom mob that pulled in paralyzed prey.
Since he had been looking at me, Carlisle must have seen this too. Carrying the unshakeable anxiety, I looked at him again. But he was still slowly puffing out cigarette smoke and didn’t seem to have any intention of extending a helping hand.
“Carlisle?”
When I called his name like a murmur, his brow only furrowed slightly.
‘Don’t tell me this is on purpose?’
All of this happened in an extremely brief moment. Before I could even reflexively raise my hoe that wouldn’t work anyway, my ankle was yanked and something covered over my head. In the moment my vision darkened, I briefly thought that Carlisle seemed to want to kill me outright rather than just abandon me.
***
What had covered me was part of the mushroom cap. A large cap fragment centered around the mouth part had been pretending to be dead while alive, then covered me when I came close. It was true to its original nature of pretending to be a mushroom before attacking enemies.
‘But hadn’t its life force been exhausted?’
Trapped inside the cap, I thought. It was incomprehensible. Originally, this game had no such thing as secondary mutations of monsters. Monsters were simple. If you kept hitting them, they’d die, and when they died, they’d drop rewards. That was all. So why?
I reached out my hand. I felt elastic walls and sticky fluid. And that sticky fluid had already wrapped around my entire body.
‘It seems like… digestive fluid?’
As someone experienced who had been inside monster stomachs several times, I could predict that much. This digestive fluid would slowly paralyze and dissolve me. So I could be properly absorbed into its stomach.
Would I be okay without any painless potions?
Right now, Carlisle was outside. But he didn’t seem to have any intention of helping me. No, rather than helping, when I thought about it again, hadn’t he deliberately pushed me to that position using the byproducts as bait? And then he withdrew to watch the spectacle? Could he really be a psychopath? Was that seemingly caring appearance actually an act?
Chills ran through me.
“Shibal.”
Thud thud thud thud.
I punched the inner wall with fury. I also stabbed down with my hoe. But the cap that hadn’t been penetrated by bullets or bombs wouldn’t be damaged by my pathetic attacks. Since items were infinite, somewhere in the world there must exist a bomb that could break this cap too, but if it were that powerful, I’d probably turn to ash and fly away along with it.
The cap didn’t budge while having swallowed me. Earlier it had at least opened its mouth to breathe, but now that it had undergone secondary mutation, it seemed to have no need for that. It had truly become an impregnable state.
Was it my imagination? My skin and eyeballs were stinging.
No, it wasn’t my imagination. The digestive fluid was starting to take effect. I was dissolving right now and there was no way to escape. The only human outside had no intention of helping me. He probably wouldn’t think to split open the mushroom until after I died. When I imagined that, my heart started beating faster. Panic was coming.
‘This is dangerous.’
The effect of calming potions usually lasted about a week, but when life-threatening situations arose, the medicinal effect would evaporate more quickly. It would be good to take one more to maintain composure, but I didn’t have any calming potions on me right now. Calming potions could only be obtained by completing specific quests, and I hadn’t properly completed any quests yet.
‘Stay calm and think. Use your head until the very last moment.’
I urged myself while taking deep breaths. How could I break something that bullets and bombs couldn’t penetrate and blades couldn’t cut? While on one hand I couldn’t shake off the pessimistic whisper that no matter how much I racked my brain, there was no clever solution, I fiercely recalled everything I had.
Hoe, herbs to give to Eira, Melbrain, wild mushrooms and several mineral ores, some remaining Small Fry Repellent. And… what else was there? Newly obtained enhancement stones, boss mob fragments I’d just picked up. The red diamond that was the boss mob reward, and…
‘Diamond?’
Being fixated on the cap’s hardness, a thought suddenly occurred to me. I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but I remembered hearing that diamonds were so hard that you couldn’t cut them normally, so you had to coat equipment with powder from the ‘same’ diamond to cut them.
‘Same’ diamond.
I rummaged through my pouch to find the items I wanted. Not diamond. There was something harder than diamond. What I pulled out was a fragment of the mushroom mob’s cap.
If you could cut diamond with diamond, couldn’t you also cut the cap with a mushroom cap fragment?
And one more thing. It would be nice if it were a somewhat stronger cap. I tightly gripped the enhancement stone I’d pulled out together, with hands that were already starting to move sluggishly.
I’d used all the enhancement stones Elmer gave me on the hoe. But while passing through the cave, several high-quality enhancement stones had come out of the rocks Carlisle had broken. Both to repay Elmer and in case I couldn’t get a weapon, to additionally feed to the hoe, I had collected all the enhancement stones without passing any by.
‘Though I never knew they’d be used at a time like this.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
