The Curse of the Giant Mushrooms (1)
Titles and ranks differed from nation to nation, from province to province. Family trees grew more tangled than spiderwebs or tree roots. Custom often outweighed the law itself. Feudalism wore many faces, yet the one everyone recognized first was the fief—the manor.
Whoever held one was a noble. And if a commoner somehow came into possession of a fief or manor? The lack of a title no longer mattered; ownership alone elevated them to the aristocracy.
Just as the powerful of the world were expected to hold land, so too did the Mage’s Tower that belonged to the Felwinter family possess its own domain. The difference was subtle: rather than a single private owner, the institution of the Tower itself held the rights of taxation and administration.
Catherine, who had been entrusted with that authority and was, for all practical purposes, the Tower’s current master, now had a duty to inspect the manor allotted to her—part reward, part responsibility. Even if taxes were being collected, only seeing the situation with her own eyes would let her judge the true state of affairs. Written reports were one thing; the gap between letters on a page and living reality was another.
Yet the work piled endlessly upon her desk, and she simply could not leave her post. After Olivier’s arrival the season of winter itself had become the problem; once winter ended, there was the journey to Obsidianberry. The difference this time was that far fewer soldiers and adventurers rode escort, and the manor lay only half a day’s ride away—so a single supply cart was enough.
For Karem, the preparations remained the same as always: meals and snacks for the party. Cooking tools and provisions had to be packed. With fewer people than on the previous two excursions, the load was lighter still.
“Mmm… so that’s why the baggage is so light this time?”
“Pretty much. The adventurers will handle their own food, so don’t worry. I still packed plenty of ingredients, though.”
“Then can I ask just one thing?”
“Yes?”
“Why… why was I dragged along?”
Narke jabbed a finger at her own chest. Genuine bewilderment colored every word. Karem understood her feelings completely. She had literally been seized and hauled into the carriage at the last moment—right after the handful of adventurer teams Catherine had hired joined them and just before they set out for the manor. From Narke’s perspective, Catherine stood at the absolute pinnacle of both company and academy; resistance was never an option.
Catherine accepted the shortbread cookie Karem held out. She bit into it, savoring the crisp snap, the faint salt that heightened the delicate sweetness, and the rich butter fragrance, then nodded.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Is it obvious that I get kidnapped?!”
“Undead problems call for a necromancer. Think back to the scenery outside Coldon.”
What else was there to say? It looked almost exactly like the road they had taken returning from Obsidianberry to Coldon. The only real difference was that the number of undead and the number of adventurers had both scaled up in proportion.
Karem blinked at the sudden mention of undead.
“The manor is under attack by undead?”
“The moment the messenger delivered the letter he collapsed and still hasn’t woken. Even the letter itself was barely legible beyond a few lines begging for aid against undead. Something has clearly gone very wrong.”
The Mage’s Tower—perhaps all of Coldon—possessed only one necromancer. It was time for Narke to take the stage.
“Of course I’ve lived long enough to know a thing or two about undead myself,” Catherine continued, then popped an entire saw-toothed shortbread cookie into her mouth, chewed once, and pointed at Narke. “But I can’t match the efficiency of a necromancer who digs through corpses all day long.”
“E-even so, this is too sudden! If you’d at least given me a word of warning—”
Narke’s protest was small and timid. Catherine snorted as though the very idea of resistance was absurd.
“That’s why I’m explaining it to you in person right now. ‘Corpse problems go to the necromancer,’ as the saying goes.”
“C-corpses and undead are completely different things…!”
That was an interesting claim. Curiosity stirred in Karem, but Narke had already slumped into pure despair, muttering under her breath and retreating into her own private world. Karem decided to ask about something else that had been bothering him.
“By the way, Lady Escarna.”
“What is it, kid?”
“It feels strange to ask only now, but… was it all right to leave Mary behind?”
“Hmm? You’re only bringing that up after several hours?”
“Well, it had become so natural that it suddenly struck me as odd.”
Ever since they had settled in Winterhome, whenever Catherine went anywhere Karem had always moved as a set with Mary; no one had ever questioned it. After all, when the master went somewhere, a servant did not simply stay behind without orders.
“If it were still winter and the place were half-empty, maybe. But the staff has grown. A house elf can’t abandon the Tower if there’s to be any proper management. Besides, Mary is the only caretaker the Tower has.”
“True. She’d throw a fit the moment anyone else so much as touched her work.”
“She did say she would trust me to you for a little while, since you’d served me before. Cheeky of her, talking about her own master like that.”
Karem dug a finger into his ear, certain he had misheard. This was the first he was hearing of it.
“Mary never said anything like that to me.”
“She fretted over it for ages and only reached a decision late last night, so of course you wouldn’t have heard.”
“So that’s why she’s been scowling for days?”
Catherine let out an involuntary snicker. The image of Mary groaning like a puppy staring at a forbidden treat—torn between the backbreaking labor of a mage tower that had never known cleaning or household order, and the relatively light duty of attending Catherine—still floated vividly before her eyes. She hated to give up either.
“Still, she could have just said it herself.”
“After all that agonizing she decided it would wound her pride to ask you face-to-face, so she dumped the whole thing on me. I found it rather amusing.”
“Pride?”
“She’s a brownie.”
“Shouldn’t she ease up a little on that work obsession?”
“That’s the brownie average. Average.”
Karem’s face twisted into a strange contortion—brows knitting, one corner of his mouth and half his face pulling sideways. If that was average, how saturated with workaholics was the brownie world? A race of voluntary slaves? Was this some kind of Rowling-esque wizarding world?
Even Narke, who had somehow recovered her spirits, was nodding vigorously. When an elf with far more experience than Karem himself agreed so readily, Catherine’s claim that Mary was merely average for a brownie had to be true.
“Anyway, Lady Escarna—”
“Y-you can just call me Narke, you know?”
“Hmm. Lady Escarna and I aren’t quite that close yet.”
“Cold!”
“In a few months I’ll start using your name.”
Karem folded his hands neatly on his lap and spoke with firm finality. In truth he had long since formed an inner sense of camaraderie with Narke; he only acted this way because teasing her was so much fun.
“Pardon me.”
He immediately lifted a handkerchief and wiped the cookie crumbs from the corner of Catherine’s mouth.
“So what exactly is the problem at the manor?”
“That’s precisely what I’m going there to find out.”
“Wasn’t the cause written in the letter?”
“The letter that reached me was half-destroyed. The contents are unclear, but the village headman’s seal is intact, so the document itself is genuine.”
“Still, the adventurer who delivered it—or someone—must know more.”
Catherine shrugged.
“Even the messenger only knew that undead had suddenly swarmed the village of Fungusby. Nothing more detailed.”
“Ah. So that’s why Lady Escarna…”
Catherine nodded as if to say “exactly,” then snapped up the corner of the shortcake Karem offered her.
Narke, having finally climbed out of her private fog, tilted her head and murmured,
“I-if the problem is serious, should I put up a barrier the moment we arrive?”
“A barrier? One that drives undead away?”
“Y-yeah. Similar, but a little different.”
She chewed her lip, searching for the right words.
“O-okay. You know how people use bait to lure a specific monster or animal?”
“I’ve heard stories like that plenty of times.”
“G-good. That makes it easy to explain. Undead are usually drawn to living things that hold a certain amount of life force.”
“Like how they’ll attack a passing animal but won’t chew on trees or grass?”
“R-right. Exactly that.”
Narke cupped her hands in the air as though shielding something precious.
“S-so I make a barrier that fools the undead’s senses like this. Roughly.”
“Covering an entire village—no, the farmland as well—that’s a huge range.”
“H-heh. I’m a fairly capable elf, you know? Low-grade undead that spawn naturally won’t even notice people standing right in front of them. They’ll just walk past the village thinking, ‘Oh, rocks,’ and wander off.”
“Wow. If it’s that useful, why isn’t it covering big cities like Coldon?”
A perfectly reasonable question. If something so convenient existed, why not drape it over every city at once?
“C-cities have way too many people. You can’t fool that many. And necromancy… honestly doesn’t scale very well…”
“Ah. I see.”
As a complete novice in magic—and even more so in necromancy—Karem had no counterargument. He decided to think of it as a stench so foul that no deodorizer could ever erase it.
Catherine nodded in agreement.
“Unlike other schools of magic, necromancy has been persecuted day in and day out.”
“W-well, necromancers have also committed plenty of crimes.”
“Ha! It’s just the creepy image of studying undead.”
Catherine snorted with open disdain.
“If you look at the numbers, mages of every other specialty cause far more trouble than necromancers. That’s simple math.”
“Is that so?”
“Think about it, kid. How many necromancers have you even met so far?”
“Uh… only Lady Escarna.”
“When the population is that small, who do you think causes more incidents?”
“Every mage who isn’t a necromancer?”
“Exactly.”
When Catherine crooked a finger, Karem promptly held another cookie to her lips.
“Back when I was still an adventurer, the necromancers I had to put down didn’t even fill one hand. Regular mages? Easily more than twenty. And bandit knights worse than monsters were even more common.”
In the end it was a question of proportions. The few troublemakers among an already tiny population of necromancers made the innocent ones bleed. Still—an innocent necromancer? Was there a less fitting pair of words in the world?
While Karem was lost in thought, the carriage suddenly halted.
“Hmm? Have we arrived already?”
“You said it would take half a day, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
Just as Karem moved to look outside, someone knocked on the door. It was one of the escorting adventurers.
“Forgive the interruption, Mage. You may want to step outside.”
“Something wrong? Let’s have a look.”
Catherine rose; Karem quickly tidied the space and followed close behind. The moment they left the carriage, the situation became clear.
In the distance a crowd surrounded the village. Karem frowned.
“You said it was an undead attack.”
“Did the village headman lie?”
“Come on. What village headman would have the guts to lie to his overlord?”
“Kid. The world is wider than you think.”
“Never mind that—what are those things? Giant walnuts?”
Walnuts the height of a child, walnuts that easily topped a grown man. People standing on the palisade were defending the village against a swarm of the enormous nuts.
Narke muttered at the sight.
“N-naturally occurring mushroom golems?”
“What? Lady Escarna—golems form naturally too? Wait, those are mushrooms? They look exactly like walnuts.”
At that moment a cluster of the giant walnut-shaped mushrooms broke away from the siege and thundered toward the carriage, shaking the ground.
“Enough chatter! The mushroom golems have spotted us! Prepare for battle!”
The elf adventurer who had been watching from the carriage roof gave the signal; the rest of the adventurers instantly drew their weapons and took formation.
Shortbread Cookies
(a.k.a. Costco Tin Butter Cookies)
A picture drawn by ChatGPT.