We all turned toward the darkness at the same time, but the torchlight found only trunks, ferns, and trembling leaves. Whatever had taken the spider was already gone. Branches rustled somewhere deeper in the forest, followed by the low creak of wood shifting beneath something heavy, but a few seconds later, even that faded.

“It’s gone,” I said. “Whatever it was.”

“Well, that was terrifying,” Anja said.

Kevin continued staring at the empty ground. “My loot…”

“One fewer spider to worry about,” Ambrosia said, sounding far more relieved than Kevin.

We returned to the trail and continued toward the city. Kevin stayed near the front, while I kept watching the darkness behind us. Whatever had been following the party never showed itself again, and by the time the city gates finally came into view, Ambrosia’s steps had slowed into a tired shuffle.

“Ahhh, I’m so tired.”

“I wish this game had teleportation,” I said.

“Right?” Kevin agreed.

“Actually, you can rent a carriage,” Anja said.

“I’ve only seen those carrying people around the city. I don’t think they go into the forest.”

Kevin looked back toward Viridian Basin. “So if we want to return to that place, we have to fight through all those mobs again?”

“Yep. At least they’re good for loot.” I opened my inventory and glanced over the materials packed inside. “Our bags are almost full.”

“That is true.” Kevin opened his own inventory. “I should be able to make something from the Forest Hermit shells and the snail shells.”

“And we collected [Massive Slime Sludge] and [Massive Slime Cores],” Ambrosia added. “They might work for stronger potions. Maybe even that healing bomb Cloud mentioned, now that we have puffball mushrooms too.”

“Not bad for our first team expedition,” I said. “We came back alive, filled our inventories, and discovered a hidden map.”

“Sounds successful to me,” Anja said.

“Then we should celebrate. How about a small party tomorrow?”

“With what food?” Kevin asked.

“We already have the main course. The pig.”

“It’s a boar,” Ambrosia corrected.

“Right. I might know someone who can cook it.”

“Éliette?” Ambrosia asked.

“Yep. She’s a chef. I’m sure she’ll know what to do with it.”

“The fried-fish lady?” Kevin asked. “I trust her with any food.”

“No objection from me,” Anja said.

“Then it’s decided. I’ll ask Éliette to prepare it, and we’ll meet tomorrow evening.”

We agreed to confirm the time once I finalized everything with our chef, then said our goodbyes near the fountain. Anja logged off first, followed by Ambrosia and Kevin, and I logged off soon after.

Back in my apartment, I ordered takeout and stepped onto the balcony while I waited. By the time the food arrived, I was still thinking about the talking mushroom, the hidden portal, and the village beyond it. I ate dinner while scrolling through my Project Babel feed, but there was still nothing about what Myconese was or how we were supposed to unlock it.

After finishing, I logged back in. There was no point sitting around wondering when the Grand Library might have the answer.

The fountain stood along the route, and as I crossed the plaza, I noticed Éliette cleaning her stall beneath the purple-and-cream umbrella. The fryer had already been emptied, and most of the containers had disappeared from the counter. She was wiping down the table before closing for the night.

“Hey, Éliette!”

She looked up and smiled. “Hey, Cloud. How was your adventure?”

“You’re not going to believe what happened. We found a talking mushroom in the forest.”

Éliette laughed. “Are you sure you didn’t breathe in too many spores while you were out there?”

“Maybe. More importantly…” I selected the boar carcass from my inventory and materialized it on an empty section of paving beside the stall.

Éliette jumped back, then quickly moved closer and crouched beside it. “Whoa. It’s a boar with antlers.”

“Do you think you can cook it? None of my friends have Cooking or Butchering skills, and I’m pretty sure you could turn it into something better than a dead animal occupying one inventory slot.”

Éliette examined the carcass with a professional seriousness that made me feel slightly better about dropping an entire monster boar in front of her stall. “This is a rare cooking ingredient. Preparing the whole thing should give me quite a lot of XP.”

“My party wants to celebrate our first successful expedition tomorrow. Could you prepare the boar and enough side dishes for a small party?”

“How many people?”

“Four, including me.”

Éliette looked over the carcass again. “I can do that. I’ll work out the final cost once I know how much of the meat is usable, so you can pay me tomorrow.”

“My budget is somewhere between one and two thousand credits.” I paused. “Preferably much closer to one thousand.”

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. Since you’re providing the main ingredient, it shouldn’t be too expensive.”

“As long as my friends and I get our fair share, you can keep some of the food for yourself too. I don’t think anyone would complain.”

“Then we have a deal.”

A friend request appeared in front of me, and I accepted it. “You’re not going to take the pig and disappear, are you, Eli?”

“I am a professional cook registered with the city,” she said, placing one hand against her chest and lifting her chin proudly. “You can count on me.”

“Speaking of professional cooking, can you prepare a Sulfurblast mushroom?”

“That is a good question.” Éliette looked upward as she thought about it. “Normally, you don’t. Why would you want to eat one?”

“It’s a long story.”

I did not want to reveal too much about the hidden map until we understood what we had found.

“You would have to neutralize the acid inside the mushroom first, I suppose,” Éliette said. “Only then might it become edible.”

“Might?”

“It explodes, Cloud. I’m not promising anything.”

“Good point. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Éliette stored the boar carcass and returned to cleaning the stall.

“You’ll be here tomorrow in the same place, right?” I asked.

“Most likely, but I usually need to gather supplies and cook before I open. I’ll message you when your food is ready for pickup.”

“Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Eli.”

“Good night, Cloud.”

I left the fountain and continued toward the Grand Library. I expected to find Shosuke behind the front desk, but Gloria was working tonight instead.

She sat in a quiet reading space between two rows of shelves, holding an open book in both hands. A warm hanging lamp cast soft light over the pages and the stacks surrounding her seat. She wore a crisp white blouse beneath a fitted dark vest, with the sleeves rolled neatly to her forearms and a black ribbon tied at the collar. Her long black hair fell over her shoulders, and her thin glasses caught the light whenever she shifted to turn a page.

Gloria was completely absorbed in the book. She sat perfectly still except for the occasional movement of her eyes or fingers, surrounded by shelves, loose pages, and small towers of books. She looked less like someone working inside the Grand Library and more like someone who naturally belonged there.

She did not notice me enter, so I quietly crossed the reading space and sat down beside her.

“Hi, Gloria.”

Her shoulders jumped. She looked up from the book and blinked behind her glasses. “Mr. Cloud. When did you arrive?”

“Long enough to be surprised to see you tonight.”

“Yes, it is me tonight. The library staff change shifts from time to time.”

“Looking beautiful as ever.”

Before she could respond, I opened my inventory and selected the violet I had been carrying. The flower materialized between my fingers. It had wilted slightly during its time inside my inventory, and the edges of a few petals had begun to curl, but it had retained most of its purple color.

“I brought you something.”

Gloria’s eyes widened. “For me?”

I held out the violet. She stared at it for a moment before carefully accepting it between both hands. A faint flush spread across her cheeks, and she adjusted her glasses despite them already sitting perfectly straight.

“It’s a little more withered than I remember,” I said.

“It is still lovely.” She looked down at the violet again. “Thank you, Mr. Cloud. I was not expecting…”

Her voice trailed off. For once, Gloria seemed unable to find the appropriate response. She carefully placed the flower on the table beside her book, then straightened her posture and folded her hands in her lap.

“Anyway, Mr. Cloud, how may I assist you tonight?”

I glanced toward the nearby shelves, then gestured for her to lean closer. “Talking mushrooms,” I whispered.

Gloria leaned toward me. “Mr. Cloud, why are we whispering?” she whispered back. “The mycology books are located on the first floor, just behind the statue.”

“I need something more specific. Is there a book about talking mushrooms in Viridian Basin?”

Gloria considered the question. “Allow me to check.”

She rose from her seat, retrieved a tablet from the front desk, and began searching. I waited while rows of text passed across its surface.

“We do have one book that may be related,” she said after a moment. “It is not currently displayed in the public collection. I will have to retrieve it from storage.”

“Hopefully I’m not causing you any trouble.”

“Oh, no. It is no trouble at all. The library rotates parts of its collection because the public shelves have limited space.” She placed the tablet on the desk. “I will return shortly.”

Gloria disappeared through a door behind the main desk. When she returned, she carried a thin book with both hands.

Unlike most of the volumes inside the Grand Library, this one had clearly been made for children. Its cover was wrapped in faded green cloth, and worn golden letters formed the title across the top. Beneath them was a colorful illustration of a tiny mushroom with stubby arms and legs standing inside a ring of green-capped mushrooms, waving frantically at an adventurer.

Little Shroom and the Fallen Queen

I looked from the cover to Gloria. “This is what you found?”

“It is the only story in the library that mentions a talking mushroom inside Viridian Basin.”

“And it’s a children’s book.”

Gloria adjusted her glasses. “Would you prefer that I return it?”

“No. Let me take a look.”

I opened to the first page. The illustration showed a young adventurer entering a forest with a sword at his side and an oversized backpack hanging from his shoulders.

His name was Colin.

According to the story, Colin had entered Viridian Basin while searching for a road through the southern forest. He crossed streams, climbed over enormous roots, and continued deeper into the basin until the trees around him became larger than anything he had seen before. Eventually, he reached a quiet clearing surrounded by towering trunks, where a perfect circle of small green-capped mushrooms grew at its center.

Colin approached carefully.

Golden light appeared within the ring, and a tiny creature emerged from its center. It had a plump cream-colored body, two stubby legs, short arms, and a spotted orange cap that nearly covered its face.

Colin drew his sword.

The creature raised both hands. “Please don’t hurt me!”

Colin nearly dropped his weapon. “You can talk?”

The mushroom stared back at him. “You can understand me?”

The little mushroom’s name was Pip. Pip explained that he lived in a secret kingdom hidden deep inside Viridian Basin, where mushroom people built their homes among enormous trees.

The kingdom had once been peaceful. Its ruler, the Mushroom Queen, had been known throughout the forest for her kindness. She listened to anyone who came before her throne and never allowed a mushroom beneath her protection to go hungry.

Her people loved her.

Then, one day, the queen became ill. A strange black growth appeared beneath the edge of her cap. Thin black threads crept beneath her skin and wrapped themselves around her body. They reached her thoughts and whispered into her mind until she could no longer tell which ideas belonged to her.

The kind queen stopped leaving the palace. She ordered the kingdom’s gates closed and forbade anyone from entering her chambers. A few days later, black threads began appearing beneath the skin of other mushrooms. Those infected could hear the queen’s voice inside their minds.

At first, the voice sounded gentle. It promised safety, peace, and freedom from fear. Soon, it became impossible to ignore. The mushrooms’ own thoughts slowly disappeared beneath hers, and one by one, the queen consumed the minds of her loyal subjects, adding them to her own.

Then her ambition extended beyond the kingdom.

The mushroom people called the sickness the Black Plague.

Pip had resisted the queen’s voice long enough to escape through the mushroom circle.

“Could you help save our queen?” Pip asked.

“Can she be saved?” Colin replied.

“She was kind before she became sick. If only we could cure her…”

“Then the sickness is our enemy,” Colin said. “The queen is still trapped inside it.”

I turned the page. The next illustration showed Colin and Pip studying an old map near the mushroom circle. According to Pip, an ancient story spoke of two legendary relics capable of cleansing the Black Plague.

The first was named Terbina.

It rested in the heart of a frozen lake.

The second was named Clotrim.

It waited inside a volcano.

I looked up from the book. “Are you sure this is a children’s story?”

Gloria glanced at the illustration, then folded her hands neatly in front of her. “Many old children’s stories were written to make dangerous lessons easier to remember.”

“That’s somehow more concerning.”

I continued reading. Colin and Pip left Viridian Basin together. Their journey carried them far beyond the forest, through frozen mountains and across burning lands.

The next several pages covered the entire adventure in detail, so I skimmed them. There were illustrations of Colin and Pip crossing a frozen lake, slipping between broken sections of ice, and reaching Terbina at its center. Several pages later, they climbed the side of a volcano and crossed streams of molten rock to reach Clotrim.

I skipped to the part where they returned.

Together, Colin and Pip carried Terbina and Clotrim back to Viridian Basin. Pip activated the mushroom circle, and golden light carried them into the hidden kingdom. The queen’s infected subjects attacked the moment they entered.

The next few pages showed Colin fighting his way through crowds of mushroom people covered in black threads. Pip remained beside him, guiding him toward the palace while resisting the queen’s voice inside his head.

I skipped ahead again.

Colin eventually reached the throne room and confronted the Mushroom Queen. Black threads covered her body and stretched throughout the palace, connecting her mind to every infected mushroom in the kingdom.

Colin used Terbina and Clotrim together. One relic severed the threads binding the queen to her people. The other cleansed the black growth from beneath her cap.

The threads withered, and the queen fell from her throne. When her eyes slowly opened again, their natural color had returned. She looked upon her people and realized what the sickness had forced her to do. The mushrooms gathered around her, relieved to hear only their own thoughts again.

The queen recovered, the Black Plague disappeared, and the kingdom reopened.

When it was time for Colin to leave, Pip walked with him to the mushroom circle.

“Goodbye, Colin,” Pip said. “I hope you get lost in our forest again someday.”

Colin smiled and stepped into the golden light.

A notification appeared in front of me.

[Lore XP +1000]

I closed the cover. Beside me, Gloria watched with quiet expectation.

“Well?” she asked.

“Looks like I found exactly what I came here for.” I tapped the cover with one finger.

“I am glad,” she said with a smile.

I reopened the book and returned to the illustration of the Mushroom Kingdom. The image showed rounded houses built along enormous trunks, wooden walkways wrapped around the bark, and rope bridges crossing the spaces between the trees.

It looked remarkably similar to the village we had seen through the hidden portal.

I activated the camera function on my portable UI and took a picture of the page. Then I sent it to Kevin, Ambrosia, and Anja under a single title.

The Mushroom Kingdom