Spring (1)
The vitality mushrooms Father Raccoon had given me never made it to the auction house.
It wasn't that I didn't trust him.
I simply figured I needed an expert's opinion on whether the effects he'd described were real, and whether they'd do any harm to a human being.
After all, it was a mushroom, of all things.
I could just ask Starlight Princess, right?
Allfather was busy these days and rarely logged into the Gallery, so he was out. That left Starlight Princess. Come to think of it, hadn't I asked her to analyze a mushroom before, too?
So I opened the Gallery.
Father Raccoon gave me some mushrooms.
He says they're good for, ahem, male vigor, so I need to get them verified.
I don't know much about mushrooms, and that's been weighing on my mind.
If it were an herb I could tell at a glance, but with a mushroom, just pinch off a small piece and send it over.
That one was poisonous.
It had every compound in it that's bad for the human body.
So that was that. Thanks for the heads-up. A mushroom that practically advertises do not eat me is a dangerous thing — and an unassuming little mushroom is no better. The safest rule is simply not to eat any mushroom you can't identify.
You could freeze them, I suppose...
Are you planning to eat them yourself?
I'll have the results for you shortly!
Having once nearly met disaster after eating eel, I'd decided it was best to keep any kind of vigor supplement at arm's length. Anyone from the outside world might not understand, but I had no way of predicting what eating that mushroom would do to me.
Besides, no matter how well it had worked for Father Raccoon, there was no guarantee the same effect would carry over to a human.
Well, he did give them to me as a gift, though...
Snake it was, then — roasted over the fire. I ate it together with the raccoon family. It was my first time eating snake, and honestly, it wasn't bad at all. The texture was surprisingly decent, and the flavor ran closer to chicken than anything else. There was a faint fishy edge that even fish hadn't given me, but a pinch of salt buried it completely.
"Keng!"
"Kying! King!"
"Kkiing."
The raccoon family looked utterly satisfied once I'd sprinkled salt over their portions. They alternated between the salted and unsalted pieces, then settled on devouring only the salted ones with obvious relish.
They'd probably never had someone season their food by hand before. This was as good as a promise: keep helping me, and this is what you get. The raccoons seemed to catch the meaning, too, because they started holding out their meat and asking for more salt. How could anyone resist that?
I filled my belly properly with snake for lunch.
It's packed with compounds that do wonders for a man. Completely non-toxic, too.
Whoever the wife of the man who takes it may be — she'll be a very happy woman.
I let out a wry laugh without quite meaning to. Whoever she was, she was one lucky woman. It wasn't about eating something like this, after all — it was about having someone there beside you. However good the effect, in the end you needed a person to share it with.
I buried the bitterness and thanked Starlight Princess. Then I got in touch with the fixed nick I'd already had in mind.
Or is he gonna steep it in booze again?
I've already gotten plenty from you.
PraiseTheSun was the type who simply could not resist anything good for the body. Tell him it worked wonders for a man, and he'd grab it by the fistful, no questions asked.
If you ever need anything, just say the word.
Setan — the land of the dark elves, the land of the rich. A nation built in the desert much like the Middle East of Earth. Piecing together what I'd overheard on the Gallery, its culture and social undercurrents seemed awfully similar, too.
Usually a lot around then. You expecting one over there too?
So — any clothing or tips that work well against sandstorms?
But honestly, best policy is just not going outside.
It's for being prepared, just in case.
How many do you want?
One adult-sized, and the other five on the small side, please.
Honestly, I don't think they need them?
You'd probably just make them more uncomfortable.
Ever seen one of those videos of a dog in shoes?
Now that was an apt analogy. I'd seen that video myself, too — the dog so bewildered that all four legs moved independently of each other. And at the end of the day, dogs have paw pads; they don't need shoes.
The same went for the animals of the Four Seasons Forest. Just as Wonmo had thrown himself into hibernation preparations well ahead of schedule, they'd adapt to whatever unexpected change came their way without missing a beat.
Plus I've got Bbarmbo on watch.
With Wonmo's instincts and Bbarmbo's warnings, I could prepare for anything.
And so I received one dust-storm mask from PraiseTheSun. It was a stark, snow-white face covering, woven — it seemed — to guard against the desert's brutal sun.
No telling whether yellow dust will actually come.
Even setting spring aside, a sandstorm could blow in at any time. I'd watched with my own eyes as the landscape and terrain across the river reshaped themselves in real time. In the worst case, a storm from over there could cross the river and reach me.
Surely it won't erupt a volcano while I'm sitting in a volcanic zone or something?
If it did, I'd die screaming without ever knowing why. That was a little terrifying. Still, the fact that this cave bore traces of long, long habitation suggested such catastrophes were rare — or so I chose to believe.
I spent the rest of the day preparing as thoroughly as I could for the season to come.
"Kyuuu..."
"Oh! Wonmo. You're up?"
Wonmo had woken from his hibernation. That groggy, half-asleep face of his was unbearably cute. The short winter had slimmed him down, and I missed the round, chubby cub he'd been before.
So I fed him right away — there was a bit of snake meat left over. In my heart I wanted to buy him a enormous hunk of meat at the auction house, but he'd only just woken from sleep. Stuffing a big meal into him on an empty, shrunken stomach could upset it, so something light was the right call.
"Nom nom. Nom."
"Tasty?"
"Kyu!"
Snake meat in his belly, Wonmo started perking up. I scooped him up and rolled around with him for the first time in ages. Just that alone made my chest feel warm.
"Wonmo. I've got some neighbors to introduce to you."
"Kyu?"
After a good long rolling session, I decided it was time to introduce him to the raccoon family. The weather was still brisk, but it was thawing little by little — and perhaps because of that, Wonmo only shivered faintly at the chill without retreating into the cave.
"Okay, say hello. This is the raccoon family. This is Father Raccoon, this is Mother Raccoon, and this is Baby Raccoon."
"Kyu?"
"Ke, Keng!"
"Kkiing..."
"..."
Despite my perfectly gracious introductions, the reactions split down the middle. Wonmo tilted his head with pure, innocent curiosity — while the raccoon family was terrified. Father Raccoon at least managed a stiff, forced greeting; the others most certainly did not.
Baby or not, Wonmo was an Owlbear — an apex predator. Beneath that adorable exterior beat the heart of a ferocious beast. To a raccoon family that trembled even before a snake, there was simply no other way to feel.
As long as he doesn't register them as food, we'll be fine.
Would that actually hold, though? If Wonmo saw them as prey and lunged, I'd stop him on the spot. It would break my heart, but I'd have no choice but to move the raccoon family elsewhere. A cruel choice — but a necessary one if the two sides were ever to coexist.
And so the introductions concluded...
"Kyuuu! Kyu!"
"Kkiing! Nging!"
...and Wonmo went tearing around the yard with Baby Raccoon on his back, absolutely thrilled. Food or predator instincts be damned — he'd made a friend, and his smile was pure sunshine. Baby Raccoon, for his part, was frightened at first but adapted within moments.
Good. Very good.
As long as I kept Wonmo well fed, no disaster would strike.
Neighbor introductions complete, I logged into the Gallery and made a post. Something this cute simply couldn't be kept to myself.
Every so often someone dropped the emergency-rations joke, but for the most part, people simply adored Wonmo and Baby Raccoon. Satisfied, I checked the time — still hours to go before evening.
I scrolled further. A best post had caught fire, and the title alone was enough.
It seemed to be about Kadir, so I clicked in — and the thread was on fire. Why is Kadir coming up now?
The Wizard King, Kadir, was a famous enough figure to get name-dropped on the Gallery all the time. And just recently, hadn't NecromancyIsLove mentioned him to me? A rumor this hot was bound to stir my curiosity.
So Kadir had thrown another log onto the fire. The Holy Kingdom had already been in an uproar over the Ludwig affair, and now the meeting records had been dragged into the light as well.
Dogs and pigs, huh...
It seemed that wherever you went, there was always someone who regarded their own countrymen as less than human. I let out a dry snort and closed the Gallery. Best not to log in for a while.
Will things have quieted down by the time I make it out of here?
Or would the Holy Kingdom be burning to the ground by then? I honestly couldn't say.
After switching off the Gallery, I turned my head toward the yard.
"Kyuuum!"
"Kkiiiiiing!!!"
Wonmo was tossing Baby Raccoon up into the air and catching him, over and over. For Wonmo it was all in good fun — but from where Baby Raccoon sat, it must have felt like staring into the face of death. Father Raccoon and Mother Raccoon chittered frantically, as if begging them to stop, but it did no good at all.
"Hey! Park Wonmo! That is NOT okay!"
I scrambled to rein him in. We still had a long way to go, this kid.
"Prrt."
"..."
Ludwig remained atop his giraffe, gazing coolly down at the animal blocking his path.
"Prrrrt."
"Hm."
The creature standing in his way was a horse. Or rather — a horse mottled with white and black, the beast known as a zebra.
A holy knight astride a giraffe, and a zebra barring his way. It was, truly, a standoff unlike any other in creation.
A dangerous one, it seems. To bear markings so conspicuous out on the open savanna.
Tap, tap—
At that, Ludwig gave his mount a light nudge with both legs, and the giraffe obediently moved its feet and walked on. Ludwig's peculiar adventure was very much still in progress.