Mushrooms and Memories (1)
Moon Junil could have killed every last one of these necromancers with his own two hands.
But why would I?
After all, who was Moon Junil?
A grade-devouring monster.
The demon of efficiency.
The man who had nearly invented a three-month crash-course for heroes.
He loathed inefficiency with a burning passion.
He might even hate it more than the Demon King.
That was simply how he was.
To him, efficiency was murder.
“G-gaaaaaaaah!”
Whoosh!
Look at all those necromancers burning right now. The dark cave blazed bright with the flames of evil men, and they danced in agony. Add in the Cool BGM and it was almost beautiful.
Efficiency was a concept far removed from aesthetics, yet when taken to its limit, it became an art form. The Constellations offered their awe.
A clear chime rang out.
Hidden Quest Complete!
🎁 Reward: 300 Feelings (FL)
The hidden quest had been completed as well. Three hundred Feelings from a single hidden quest. Gather another twelve hundred and he could buy the Narrative Trick Hwando.
Too far away? Not necessarily.
An anonymous Constellation has sponsored 10 Feelings (FL)!
An anonymous Constellation has sponsored 20 Feelings (FL)!
An anonymous Constellation has sponsored 10 Feelings (FL)!
An anonymous Constellation has sponsored 20 Feelings (FL)!
When he performed exactly what they wanted so perfectly, the rewards naturally poured in.
Not bad.
Junil felt satisfied as he watched the story coins stacking up.
The newly arrived Constellations were enjoying themselves too.
Current Viewers: 882
The number of Constellations was climbing back toward nine hundred. The fact that he was growing this much even during the Free Chapter, when nothing major was supposed to happen, carried real weight.
Good. It's good, but...
Junil looked at the corpses littering the ground.
The boss wasn't here after all.
He had thought that if the boss were hiding somewhere, only that one would remain. But that wasn't the case. All that was left were charred necromancers and the stolen corpses of their victims. They looked recently dead...
That line I overheard earlier is still bothering me.
He had caught it in passing. They were victims of the 4th Line incident. Back then, Junil had been forced to weigh lives as a hero. He had no regrets about that decision. It had been a hero's judgment.
He shook his head, erasing the thought.
Never mind. Sub quest first.
It was already over. He moved forward. That, too, was a hero's judgment.
The cause of the magi, wasn't it?
The request the elf had given him was not yet finished. Following the information obtained from Hell's Golden Bell, he had located their altar.
Step. Step.
Walking through the silent, pitch-black cave with no sign of life felt distinctly eerie.
Of course, that feeling belonged only to the Constellations. It meant nothing to Junil. He was a man who had fought inside a lich's graveyard. Ghosts and spirits were nothing more than strangely shaped goblins to him.
“This must be it.”
He had found what looked like an altar. A magic circle drawn in blood, grotesquely flickering candles, and a stone slab holding several corpses in miserable states.
The Constellations were left speechless. The cruelty demanded by black magic was at a level ordinary humans could not endure. Junil simply stood far beyond ordinary, so he felt no shock. The displeasure, however, was the same.
Good thing I burned them alive. Bastards.
Swallowing his revulsion, he stepped closer to the altar. He needed to find the cause of the magi to fulfill the sub-quest conditions, didn't he? The altar itself did not emit magi.
Where is it?
There had to be a “vessel” used to store the red mana generated by the sacrifices here.
This is it.
Junil approached the round, red object that looked like a Christmas ornament.
“Hmm? What’s that?”
Junil muttered the obvious for the Constellations’ benefit.
“Looks pretty suspicious, right?”
Without hesitation, Junil placed his hand on the orb. It was not some grand artifact that would kill on contact. It was simply a storage device used by high-ranking black mages to hold “red mana.”
The Blood Orb.
Essentially an external hard drive.
Modern people have already created something like this...?
Junil found it a little difficult to accept. Even if they had implemented such advanced black magic through A+ rank potential or the like, it still seemed strange that an ordinary modern person could summon this level of cruelty.
A clear chime rang out.
You have discovered the source of the magi!
Report back to the elf!
Junil stored the Blood Orb in his inventory and returned to the elf.
* * *
Ram rummaged through his subspace pouch in silence.
“Um… R-Ram, sir? The golf club is over there.”
Sam, feeling guilty for no reason, pointed out the golf club’s location. After all, his bold claim that the necromancers would defeat Julian had been spectacularly overturned. He had already braced himself for a beating.
At least it doesn't hurt...
Yet instead of hitting him, Ram continued digging through his subspace pouch without saying a word.
“Ah. Found it.”
Click.
What Ram pulled out was a gun.
“!?”
Sam’s eyes widened.
“It seems ordinary corporal punishment isn’t enough to straighten you out, Sam. As your senior, I have no choice but to give you a proper education… and that means taking this out.”
“Y-you don’t know what ‘proper education’ really means, do you?”
“I do. True education.”
The literal dictionary definition.
“I looked up how they deliver this ‘true education’ in that other dimension, and they said this is the best method.”
Click.
The dark muzzle pointed at Sam.
“Love’s whip. Take it, Sam.”
“R-Ram, sir! Calm down! Th-that’s not a whip! You’ll die if you get hit!”
“Then die, you bastard!”
Ram shouted, shoving the muzzle closer. Sam shrieked and stumbled backward.
“All our necromancer brothers down there are dead, but you’re trying to survive!?”
When did they become 'brothers'?
The one who had joked about the department head getting what he deserved was suddenly singing a different tune.
“Sam. Let’s die. Or at least get close to dying. Can’t lose my assistant, after all. You’ll survive a gunshot. If I go easy, you might live.”
“Ram, sir, listen. At this distance a real bullet would kill me instantly. I’m innocent here. Why did you have to put that mark on him…!”
That was the root of the problem. The mark of silence had made the necromancers’ annihilation far too easy. Of course, the bigger factor was that Julian had set the stage so they had no choice but to answer, but Sam still hated the mark with a passion.
“What? Blaming the mark now? Let’s see who you blame after you get shot.”
“R-Raaaaam!”
Sam tried to calm him again.
“B-but we still haven’t broken a thousand viewers. They’re just extras. Slightly more noticeable extras! Look at the filter the Constellations use to watch Julian.”
Sam pointed at one corner of the monitor. This was the world as seen through the Constellations’ eyes. Julian’s face was drawn with absurdly simple graphics. The system had decided that rendering a mere extra in detail was a waste of resources.
⊳ Simple line drawing
⊳ Minimal facial features
⊳ Low rendering priority
“Even if that guy finished one sub-quest, it won’t amount to much. The viewer count is still stuck under nine hundred, isn’t it!? That’s all thanks to the meticulously designed Storyboard 3.0 system I put together! I did everything I could!”
“Yeah. Got it.”
Ram nodded at Sam’s passionate speech, then pulled the trigger.
Bang!
A lump rose on Sam’s head.
“I’m dying! I’m gonna die! Ow ow ow!”
As expected, the gun had been loaded with a very soft rubber bullet. This was how fights between Story Fairies usually went. Pure theater. Just like Sam’s over-the-top screaming right now.
“I’m dead! I got shot!”
“Quit exaggerating. Next time I might actually fire a warning shot.”
“…R-Ram, sir!”
Sam was more terrified by the word “warning” than the gun itself.
“I’m sorry! Ram, sir! I was…!”
“Sigh. Enough.”
Ram sighed and pushed away the clinging Sam.
“I know. That bastard… is as cunning as they come.”
“Exactly! He’s crazy! We should never have gotten involved!”
“Who would have thought he’d use the mark to slaughter them? But I actually saw hope in that move.”
“Huh?”
What was he talking about? Had Sam’s hopeful thinking infected Ram?
“The fact that he resorted to such a sneaky trick means that if the necromancers had actually worked together, he would have lost, right?”
“…!”
That was true. The only reason Julian had gone to such lengths was because he would lose in a straight fight, wasn’t it? Under normal circumstances, that would have been the logical conclusion.
That’s true, but…
Sam still felt uneasy. The way Julian had struck that Sagosul pose while clearly enjoying himself had looked far too relaxed. As if burning them all at once was simply less annoying than stabbing them one by one. And also…
Was he just trying to look insanely cool?
Who was he even performing for? Yet Sam couldn’t shake the feeling. It had definitely been showmanship.
“We still have one card left.”
“Wh-what…”
Sam was afraid. Was Ram seriously suggesting they provoke Julian again? Honestly, it probably wouldn’t even work.
“The necromancer boss.”
“Th-that’s…!”
Wasn’t that supposed to be saved for Haeil?
But madness swirled in Ram’s eyes.
“Sam. It’s the first time. The first time that guy has shown any weakness.”
“Weakness?”
Burning necromancers alive while striking the Sagosul pose was weakness? Wasn’t that the opposite of weakness?
“He overused his luck too. This is entirely possible. Since he took the Blood Orb, that boss should be furious. Taking out one extra at full power? Honestly, which Constellation would even notice?”
Ram was talking about causality. The more natural the flow, the fewer coins it cost to steer the story.
Jingle!
“Send the boss. Strengthen it.”
“!”
Ram had given the order. Send the necromancer boss out early. A boss that was too strong might create a sense of discomfort for the Constellations, but—
“They’ll just think, ‘Oh, so it was a boss power meter~.’”
If the extermination target was an extra, the story became much easier to accept.
“But, Sam.”
“Yes?”
“What’s the sub-quest reward?”
“Ah…”
“It’s not something that helps in combat, is it?”
He asked because it would be troublesome if Julian suddenly became stronger here.
“Well…”
Sam looked even more troubled by the question.
“It was originally supposed to go to Haeil, you know…? So I prepared it as legendary grade… Aaaaaagh!”
Bang!
Bang!
Ram’s gun kept spitting smoke.
* * *
The elf who met Junil’s eyes blinked blankly.
“Why are you back?”
It was an absurd question.
“Didn’t you ask me to find the cause of the magi?”
“I did. So why are you still here? Why haven’t you left?”
“I went and came back.”
“No way.”
The elf looked genuinely surprised. It was a rare sight. Having lived so long, she had seen every kind of situation imaginable.
“I don’t sense any magi at all. Besides, not much time has passed since you left. Are you trying to trick me? Do you think we measure time carelessly?”
“……”
It seemed the elf had been tricked by humans more than once due to her loose sense of time.
Whoosh.
Seeing was believing. The moment Junil took out the Blood Orb, she staggered backward.
“You already… brought that thing?”
The elf blinked rapidly.
“Just… what are you?”
Junil briefly wanted to strike the Sagosul pose, but since he wasn’t wearing the mask, he regretfully abandoned the idea.
“I’m just a porter. With slightly better-than-average luck.”
“Porter?”
The elf tilted her head, decided it must be human slang she didn’t know, and let it pass.
“Anyway, well done.”
She accepted the Blood Orb and the light spirit she had lent him. Then she reached into the bag beside her, pulled something out, and held it toward him.
“Your reward.”
“This is…”
“The Wind Spirit’s Pendant.”
When the elf gently shook the pendant, a wind spirit emerged and gave a playful wink.
A faint smile brushed across Junil’s lips.
It’s a familiar face.
He knew the value of this item better than anyone.