The Forest of Mushroom Golems (1)
Despite the suddenness of the situation, Catherine assembled the subjugation force with remarkable speed.
On the surface it looked like a slapdash scramble, but the reality was anything but. From team compositions and supply lists to carts, carriages, and the laborers who would support the force, every detail was handled with thorough care.
Given that the number of adventurers alone easily surpassed Fungusby's entire population, not to mention the wagons for supplies and loot recovery and the throng of hangers-on eager to handle chores and claim a share, the whole enterprise should have been impossible. Yet Catherine's outstanding administrative skill, backed by money, rank, and reputation, made the absurdity happen.
Still, as the saying goes, the resolve one feels entering the privy is rarely the same as the resolve felt leaving it. The moment she began issuing actual orders, a few people flipped like a palm and pushed back—men who valued pride over their own lives, whose overflowing blood ran inversely proportional to their knowledge.
The ordinary response in such cases was simple enough. The dead tell no tales. A charge of lese-majesty against a noble, a clean removal of heads, and no one outside the parties involved would have uttered a word of complaint. Those few lacked the skill or even the rank to matter.
Catherine did not answer that way. She knew the habits of adventurers far too well.
"I don't care if she's the lord of the land—she doesn't even know how an adventurer's hat sits on a—"
"Huuuuuh!?"
"Shut your mouth! Hahaha, this idiot's so uneducated he just spouted something rude."
"Whoa, gutsy in front of the Great Spirit of the Cold Wave. Looking to become an ice statue while still breathing?"
"What? Great Spirit of the Cold Wave? I feel like I've heard that somewhere…"
"For fuck's sake, even if it's been a while, how do you not recognize a former S-rank adventurer!?"
"Senior. We'll discipline the junior properly. Please look kindly on us."
"Come on, it was over a hundred years ago. He might not know."
"This bastard still doesn't know how to reflect!"
Yeah. I figured it would go exactly like this.
Catherine squeezed her eyes shut against the black mark of her past that had chosen this exact moment to reappear and announce itself.
"Well… you handled that rather skillfully," Narke murmured in quiet admiration as she surveyed the square.
"It's not as if I have no experience. I ought to be able to read a room at least this well."
"E-experience?"
"It means I used to live as an adventurer myself, back in the day."
"…Excuse me?"
Narke's eyes went round as a startled rabbit's at the revelation she had never imagined. Come to think of it, the adventurers who had just been backed down had been talking about the Great Spirit of the Cold Wave. An S-rank adventurer? Lady Atanitas?
Catherine shook her head at the bewildered look on Narke's face.
"It was a long time ago—before I was a sage, before I was an archmage."
"W-wait, calling an S-rank adventurer 'just something from the old days' is a little too impressive, isn't it!?"
Adventurers were supposed to be those who explored uncharted wilds untouched by civilization, cleared dungeons, and hunted dangerous monsters. In practice, most of them were closer to all-purpose errand-runners under the Adventurers' Guild, taking any job that paid so long as it wasn't assassination or open warfare. That image was not entirely wrong.
True adventurers who actually adventured did exist, of course. They were simply a minority of the whole. Those who had clawed their way out of the grubby errand-boy life, earned a measure of recognition, and won the right to pick and choose their contracts—C-rank and above—were the ones who fit the romantic picture. And A- and S-rank adventurers stood at the very peak of that minority. Across Europa, custom treated them as nobles in all but title, their skill alone granting them that respect.
Catherine found Narke's starstruck gaze uncomfortable. To her, the adventuring years were nothing but a black mark on her history.
"Winterhome already has a former smuggler on the books. A mere S-rank adventurer is practically common around here."
"Excuse me!?"
"You've seen him often enough, haven't you? The middle-aged man who trails after Young Master Godwin."
"V-Victor, you mean?"
Narke blinked rapidly.
"He was a smuggler?"
"Clients and rivals alike used to call him the Smuggling King—half respect, half envy."
Victor was the living definition of Winterhome bluntness: a man who poured out his unvarnished opinions without a single polish, even toward nobles far above his station. At the same time, the common verdict held that he never lost basic courtesy no matter how low the other party's rank, and that he treated everyone with genuine warmth.
"I can't even picture it."
"Everyone has at least one past like that. You're an elf and a necromancer yourself, aren't you?"
The square, which had been pure chaos with people streaming every direction, began to settle into order. Non-combatants like Karem were directed to the village shelters, while the self-defense corps and anyone able to fight took up weapons and headed for the palisade. Laborers stacked supplies into ox- and horse-drawn wagons; the adventurers named as squad leaders busily assembled their teams.
In any trade, a senior is a figure of dread. Even those who had resisted to the last found their mouths forcibly shut by seniors appalled that anyone would show disrespect to the retired great senior's renown (or rather, her black history). They had no choice but to form up.
It took less than an hour for the subjugation force to finish its preparations. Fully loaded supply wagons and empty carts waiting for loot stood in the center, ringed by adventurers who arranged themselves more or less by squad as an escort. Catherine pulled Narke along and climbed into the carriage at the heart of the formation.
"I won't waste words. The target of this subjugation is right there in plain sight."
Catherine brought her staff down with a sharp crack and fixed her gaze on the deathly aura that writhed faintly black against the sky beyond the palisade.
"The sooner the source is removed, the larger the bonus waiting for you. Do not let empty pride outrun your actual skill. That is all. We move."
With that she sat down at once. The entire force, expecting the usual long-winded speech from the high personage in command, faltered for a beat. Only when Catherine rapped her staff against the carriage floor again did they finally start rolling.
"L-Lady Atanitas… is it really all right to end it like that?"
"End what?"
Exactly what I was thinking.
The laborers trailing the force, the adventurers trudging along, even some of the priests who normally ground their teeth at the mere sight of Narke—this once, every one of them found themselves agreeing with the necromancer.
"W-well, a speech is supposed to raise the force's morale, or lift the atmosphere, or… something like that, isn't it?"
Narke held her ground and stated her opinion without flinching under Catherine's stare. The adventurers all nodded along in agreement.
At the words "morale" and "atmosphere," Catherine stroked her jawline in thought. Even so the column advanced steadily until it halted before the palisade gates that were already swinging open for them.
"Fine. Decision made."
She flicked her fingers.
"Upon successful completion of the subjugation, I will pay an additional bonus equal to the reward money itself! As a further bonus, every by-product other than the primary objective of the force belongs to you lot!"
The force heard her voice with perfect clarity. Those waiting for the gates to finish opening stared at one another, murmuring, trying to process what they had just heard—then erupted into a thunderous cheer. The self-defense corps and villagers who had been watching the forest from the wall had no idea what was going on, but they raised their hands and cheered as well, determined to boost the force's spirits.
"Mm. As expected, this is the sovereign remedy for adventurers. Nothing's changed from the old days. Hm? What is it, Narke? Your face looks strange."
"I-I just… I was expecting something a little more inspiring, I suppose."
"Ha. For adventurers, this has always been the sovereign remedy."
Catherine grinned and made a circle with thumb and forefinger. Even Narke understood the meaning.
"Nothing in the world makes an adventurer work harder than this. I guarantee it. Experience speaking."
"C-certainly."
Narke watched the faces of the force as the gates finished opening and they stepped into the forest. The very people who had agreed with her a moment earlier—priests who claimed to serve the gods with pious devotion—were now singing the praises of Catherine's generous heart.
Of course, even that uproar faded completely by the time the column entered the trees.
Even the smallest subjugation force ordinarily sent scouts ahead to detect threats and clear the path. Catherine, however, appointed no scouts. Strictly speaking she had designated scouts—but the ones currently operating were not adventurers.
"L-Lady Atanitas! Squeaky and Twitty's vision shows a pack of mushroom golems—"
"Direction and numbers?"
"F-front. One large, two—no, three medium. The rest are small."
Seated beside Catherine and gripping her staff with both hands, Narke blinked pale eyes that glowed with a soft light. Her body rode with the column, yet her gaze traveled with the swarm of tiny skeletal rats scuttling through the surrounding woods and underbrush. It was, in effect, a mobile surveillance network.
Catherine immediately relayed the information to every squad leader. Naturally the leaders were less than pleased to receive intelligence without a single proper scout on the ground. Moments later they felt the truth of her words with their own bodies.
"Good gods, they're really coming!"
"Keep your heads! They're trying to crush us with sheer mass!"
"What kind of men are you!? If that's all the strength you've got, just cut the thing between your legs off!"
"Lightning Arrow!"
An ambush launched from the mushroom golems' main force. The subjugation party, already braced, met the assault cleanly, annihilated the attackers in return, and tore out their cores. A living radar, pure and simple.
Narke's usefulness did not end there. She climbed down from the carriage for a moment, pushed through the adventurers, and approached the wreckage of the golems.
"A gold coin for the boatman of Acheron,"
"A bone for the wolf of Nastrond,"
"A lump of flesh for the beasts of Duat."
As Narke tapped the earth with her staff in a steady rhythm and intoned the words, the walnut-sized bodies of the golems shrank a little further, took on a grayish cast, and began to move. The mid-sized Akusare mushroom golems that had been left behind for lack of time or space to harvest their cores rose again and joined the force as living meat shields.
At that point even some of those who had shunned her for being a necromancer started to revise their opinions. A handful of mage-path adventurers, in particular, twitched with curiosity they could no longer suppress and edged closer to Narke.
"I thought necromancy only worked on creatures that once possessed souls. How can you raise golems?"
"Th-the cores are steeped in undead energy—death qi. You could call it a bit of a cheat. It's a little different, but bluntly speaking I just hijacked the control rights."
"Control rights?"
"I-it's similar to puppetry, if you—"
"Ah. Marionettes?"
Hesitation vanished from the force's movements. Real-time awareness of the surrounding situation. Mushroom golems deployed in the direction of approaching enemies, first strike delivered. While the force's own golems tangled and delayed the foe, the adventurers poured on coordinated fire without pause. Any truly massive mushroom golem that might have inflicted serious damage was silenced in a single stroke of Catherine's magic.
Naturally the golems Narke reanimated were expended in every fight. But fresh ones were replenished after each ambush, so the net loss stayed at zero. Casualties among the adventurers themselves were all but nonexistent—aside from a few who had been caught in stray blasts or who had charged ahead on pure glory-seeking. In fact the adventurers, who had never experienced a subjugation this safe, were beginning to feel almost awkward. A hunt this comfortable was simply unheard of.
"Forgive me for closing my eyes to a lesser injustice in order to prevent a greater one."
"Mmph! Mmph-mmph! Mmph-mmph-mmph!"
"The scales of justice and judgment are equal for all—"
The priests, of course, displayed a full range of reactions. Yet with only a few exceptions the prevailing mood was one of resigned acceptance. No matter that she was a necromancer, the plain fact was that she stood at the forefront of reducing the force's losses and was currently contributing more than anyone else in the entire party.
When the sky began to darken the column halted where it stood.
"H-haaah… I've never kept them running this long before—"
"You've done enough. Rest."
"I-is that all right?"
"It's time those others started earning the money we've spent on them."
The adventurers obeyed without a word of complaint. It was indeed time to earn their pay. On a suitable clearing they set up camp, clustered together pitching tents and lighting fires, then eyed one another before settling the watch roster. Catherine and Narke, naturally, spent the night in their private carriage.
"To think we had to stop halfway through that delicious lunch and fill our stomachs with hardtack and jerky…"
"Tch. J-just thinking about it again makes me mad."
"Well, the situation was sudden, so it couldn't be helped… Still, maybe I should start carrying a few self-defense magic tools around with me."
"E-even that much?"