Mushrooms and Memories
The sight of the necklace brought memories flooding back.
Memories from the first cycle.
“Ugh······!”
Back then, they had just finished a fight with the necromancers too.
Meyrin floated the countless corpses the necromancers had hidden using levitation magic while retching violently.
“O merciful Solia of the Sunlight······.”
The priestess Sei offered prayers for the dead and performed a ritual to drive away the evil spirits.
Tou simply picked up the corpses without a word and loaded them onto the cart.
Julian had been complaining of dizziness after only retching and now lay on the ground with a complexion nearly identical to the corpses.
“Honestly.”
Meyrin, covered in filth from moving the bodies, approached with a scornful look and nudged him with her foot.
“Hey, hero-wannabe. When exactly are you going to get used to this?”
When she deliberately pressed her foot near his solar plexus,
“Ugh······ Urgh!”
Julian, twenty-four at the time and still very much a modern person, vomited spectacularly.
“Kyaah!”
Meyrin pulled her foot back with a look of contempt.
“Cough, cough! Why the hell did you kick me then!”
Truthfully, he had thrown up on purpose, hoping to get hit.
‘Damn medieval bastards.’
For them, creating and cleaning up corpses was probably just another day at work.
Illiterate savages who didn’t even know how to read.
‘Take that!’
Bleeeeergh!
“G-Get away from me, you lunatic!”
“Oh no, a zombie! The hero turned into a zombie!”
“Where is it? I’ll take care of it. I told you it’d be better to deal with him and get the next hero instead.”
After the great corpse-cleaning commotion finally ended,
they set up camp on a nearby ridge.
“Haa. Seriously.”
When Meyrin sat down beside Julian,
he suddenly launched into a rapid-fire excuse.
“I mean, I’m fine with killing now, okay? Really. But the state of the corpses was just······ too filthy······ and there were way, way, way too many! Way too many! Damn necromancer bastards! Next time I see them, I’ll······!”
Meyrin showed no particular reaction, only smiling faintly.
“······I was the same.”
“?”
She said she had been similar.
“This helps a little in times like that.”
She handed him something to calm his stomach.
Wine the color of blood.
Drinking this after cleaning blood-soaked corpses.
“······.”
Similar, my ass.
Their tolerances were nothing alike.
What were medieval people like?
No, at this point, what were modern people like?
How could they be so fragile?
While all sorts of thoughts ran through his head,
Tap—
Meyrin brought the cup to his chin.
“Drink it. You’ll feel better.”
The night sky was packed with the moon, its white light as warm as daylight.
Beneath it, Julian’s suspicious gaze met Meyrin’s sparkling eyes—playful or something else, he couldn’t tell.
“Ah······ Fine.”
Unable to hold her gaze any longer, Julian reluctantly sipped the wine.
He wasn’t particularly strong with alcohol.
His face was probably just flushed from the drink.
A cheap sweetness lingered on his tongue.
“It’s······ good.”
“Huh? It’s not that good. Anyway, when I traveled with my master, I couldn’t go anywhere without this.”
No wonder she handled her liquor so well.
“Ahem. Is your master a dwarf or something?”
“Puhaha!? Since when do dwarves use magic?”
It was just a joke.
“An elf.”
“······Really?”
Julian’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.
He had never seen an elf at that point.
“A female elf, at that.”
“······!”
“Why? Interested?”
Meyrin’s gaze had looked strange, but it was probably just the alcohol talking.
“You’d better lose interest.”
She soon rested her chin on her hand, gazing at the moon, and spoke about her master.
“Why······?”
“Do you know what my master said when I left to face the Demon King after fifteen years?”
“······Have a safe trip?”
“She asked me to bring back some mushrooms on the way back. Said she wanted to eat them.”
“······?”
“It was a journey that might take ten or twenty years. Yet she spoke as if I’d be back tomorrow.”
“Uh······.”
“And when my mother passed away, do you know what she said?”
“Umm······.”
This was dangerous territory if he answered wrong.
“You’re just like her.”
“······Ahem.”
Was this elven black comedy?
Julian barely suppressed a hollow laugh.
“Anyway, that person probably doesn’t care about me at all. I’m just a passing mayfly······ or maybe a firefly at best.”
When Meyrin extended her finger,
Whoosh~
A firefly flying nearby landed on her pale fingertip.
“It’s nice if it’s there. If not, whatever. No······ is it really nice if it’s there?”
She looked somewhat bitter.
He vaguely recalled hearing that mages’ final goal was recognition from their masters.
“Still, she must have cared about you.”
So he blurted it out without thinking.
“······Huh? How would you know? You can’t even clean up corpses.”
Damn it······
“I just know when I see it. I’m the hero, after all.”
Meyrin grinned.
“Honestly, that’s the least believable thing I’ve ever heard.”
“······.”
Julian racked his brain harder.
“That······ that necklace!”
“······?”
“Your master gave it to you, right?”
“Ah, this······?”
It was a sparkling pendant.
“Yeah. Though it seems like she just gave me something useless. It doesn’t have any special abilities. She said it would help me find mushrooms better or something?”
“······There’s magic like that?”
“No. It doesn’t actually do anything. Weird, right?”
Meyrin pouted.
“I guess I’ll just have to buy some mushrooms on the way back.”
“Those damn mushrooms.”
Junil—well, Moon Junil—muttered while looking at the pendant the elf had given him.
Later he learned the pendant had far better functions than just finding mushrooms.
It allowed him to borrow the power of a high-ranking wind spirit that only elves could control.
Yet the thing that came to mind now was mushrooms.
“Huh? Mushrooms?”
The elf tilted her head at his words.
“No, it’s just······.”
Junil realized he had spoken nonsense and tried to backtrack.
How was he supposed to fix this?
Of all things, mushrooms. Was she misunderstanding something?
Clap!
The elf clapped her hands.
“How did you know?”
She was usually expressionless with little reaction, but now she seemed oddly excited.
“The spirits can distinguish edible mushrooms. I trained them myself.”
“······?”
What? Were all elves like this?
“Of course, they’re not as good as earth spirits. But wind spirits are pretty decent too.”
Or maybe······
“Could I ask for your name, Miss Elf?”
“My name?”
The constellations spammed nonsense.
But Junil nodded again.
“Yes. What is your name······ if I may ask?”
His tone carried more politeness this time.
Or perhaps it wasn’t politeness, but desperation.
‘Maybe······ just maybe······!’
Maybe he could reach her.
If there was any way to connect with her······
“Isilenelle. It means moonlight and memories.”
“······Ah.”
It wasn’t her.
A completely different name.
She wasn’t Meyrin’s master.
Elves just seemed to like mushrooms a lot.
“Why the face? Is the meaning bad?”
“N-No. It’s a good meaning.”
He meant it.
Moonlight and memories······
The nostalgia from that time grew even stronger.
“Isilen. Just call me that.”
“Got it. Isilen.”
Junil set aside the memories of the past for now and prepared to get down to business.
“You remember what I said at the beginning, right?”
“Yeah. You said you wanted to make a trade.”
Elves had good memories.
“Take out your items. Mushrooms would be even better.”
“Saying it like that is a bit······”
“Huh? Why?”
Ignoring the constellations’ embarrassing comments, Junil took out his items from the inventory.
Clatter.
A mountain of items obtained from the goblins poured out.
“Hmm.”
The elf glanced at them and licked her lips.
“This looks worth purifying.”
“Right?”
“How do you plan to sell them?”
He had considered receiving purified mana stones,
‘But I don’t have cash right now.’
He couldn’t even pay rent, so when would he even liquidate mana stones?
Unless the Macro Central River Grand Villa apartment got redeveloped, he needed money first.
“Pay me in cash.”
“What kind?”
“Gold coins.”
Elves used gold coins.
“Hmm······ Do they hold value in your world too?”
“Of course.”
Not because of their monetary value as currency, but because gold itself had value.
‘According to the World Tree, Bitcoin is the best or something.’
Isilen seemed to think this guy preferred gold coins and didn’t argue.
“Fine.”
Clink!
Isilen counted out several gold coins and handed them over.
Haggling here would be amateurish.
If you tried to negotiate with an elf, you’d get picked clean down to the bones.
Consider their age and experience.
The best way to deal with elves was to gratefully accept when they were feeling generous.
‘Nice.’
Even with this straightforward trade, he was still making plenty of profit.
Why?
‘Because the world is on the verge of collapse.’
Communication with overseas was cut off.
The servers had split.
A world with no dollars, no American stocks, no coins.
Domestic stocks?
(As always) worthless scraps of paper.
In times like this, one thing always came to mind.
Gold.
When the world grew dark and unstable, gold alone maintained its value.
Junil had already checked on the way here—gold prices had skyrocketed.
‘With this, I can cover almost six months of living expenses and even buy transportation.’
Honestly, if he only counted rent and food, it could last two years.
But the world had flipped upside down, so he expected plenty of expenses ahead.
“Thank you. Will you be staying here?”
“Who knows.”
Isilen didn’t give a clear answer,
‘But she’ll probably stay like an NPC.’
As long as Isilen was here, he could sell items at this spot.
Honestly, for Junil, this felt sweeter than any sub-quest reward.
‘That reward would be better for Kang Hae-il anyway.’
The pendant imbued with a wind spirit.
It was so blatantly made for a fire-type guy that the intention was painfully obvious.
‘Seriously.’
The world already revolved around the protagonist.
Now they were raising him like some golden spoon.
‘He’s going to get spoiled rotten. What is this?’
Seemed like a different style from Pam.
‘I should’ve gone with Ram instead. That Kang Hae-il, born with nothing but luck······.’
But then—
“What’s this? The porter?”
“!?”
Wasn’t that “spoiled” Kang Hae-il standing right there?
“······Ah. It’s been a while.”
“Why aren’t you answering my calls? I was going to invite you to the party.”
“Calls? I never gave you my number.”
“Didn’t you?”
Kang Hae-il scratched his head.
‘Is this guy crazy?’
He knew the guy was absentminded, but not to this extent.
“Want it now?”
Still, he was the protagonist.
Exchanging numbers would probably work in Moon Junil’s favor, right?
“Nah.”
“?”
Kang Hae-il scratched his head again.
“Can’t take the number. My phone······ I lost it. I definitely had it just a moment ago.”
That explained why the elf hadn’t reacted even when he got close.
“By the way, how did you talk to that elf?”
“Not ‘that elf.’ Her name is Isilen.”
“You even know her name?”
“Yes. I know her name and even traded items with her.”
Junil deliberately bragged.
Why?
For the constellations watching Kang Hae-il.
‘I talked to an elf~’
Junil’s stream constellations were thrilled.
Apparently they were getting teased by other constellations for chasing after an F-rank extra.
Junil drove the point home.
“She even gave me a sub-quest.”
“!”
Kang Hae-il looked genuinely surprised, as if he hadn’t known such a thing existed.
Kang Hae-il, unaware of the constellations’ frantic comments,
‘As expected, this guy’s pretty capable.’
‘Ranks really are just numbers after all.’
······That was what he was thinking.