"Rather than a magical creation, you seem more like an existence that's merged with the forest itself — like nature spirits. No wonder I couldn't sense you at first."

Banxia studied her for a moment, genuinely struck. "What a fascinating species!"

"What remarkable observational ability. You must be a very skilled mage... right?" The mushroom girl glanced at the young man's absurdly muscular frame, a trace of hesitation slipping into her trailing syllable.

"I wouldn't say skilled." Banxia wasn't being modest.

He'd read plenty of magic books, but most had been skimmed and tossed into his panel. The ones he could actually cast amounted to only a handful.

"Such a humble adventurer. I don't mind your type at all." The mushroom girl straightened up and threw him a meaningful look.

"Braving the poison mist outside to barge in here — what exactly are you after, adventurer?"

"I heard that people have walked out of the Mushroom Forest alive before." Banxia glanced over her slick, glistening body. She didn't seem like the type to resist physical company, so he cut straight to it.

"After that, a rumor spread. Cross the poison mist outside, and you can enjoy mushroom girls however you like."

"Is that so?" The mushroom girl let out a soft laugh.

Then she raised a wet finger and wagged it gently. "Still, what you said isn't quite right."

"What part?"

"Except for one merchant, no human who has ever come to the Mushroom Forest has actually died here." She put on an expression of considerable regret.

"Even the ones who collapsed from poison in the outer perimeter, we carry them somewhere close to human settlements."

"Really?" Banxia was skeptical. That generous?

"After all, every human who makes it to the Mushroom Forest is one of the possibilities for our growth. Why would we ever damage our own interests?" She seemed to catch his doubt and smiled.

"As for that merchant, he had only his own greed to blame. The enhancement from his magic potions had long since worn off, yet he kept clinging to the little mushrooms."

She brushed aside the strands of hair falling across her chest, her expression utterly innocent. "In the end, he died of exhaustion. That really can't be blamed on us."

"I see..." Banxia's expression shifted abruptly, turning dead serious. "Then tonight is my trial."

"...That was fast." The mushroom girl's eyes widened slightly.

Right before her, the young man had stripped bare in virtually a single instant, left with nothing but a pair of undergarments.

"You really are a rather formidable warrior... Truly beyond imagination." Her gaze slid across his naked torso, and a low chuckle rose from her throat.

"Bring it on!"

"Hehehe." She laughed, amused, and lightly clapped her slick palms together a few times. "Come out, little ones. We have a guest."

The words had barely left her mouth before the surrounding grass and soil began to stir.

One after another, mushroom girls emerged from the ground, from behind the trees...

...

...

He contentedly... (Nothing to be done, fifty-three violations, had to cut it all; will see about restoring it later)

"I'm starving. Let me head to the next town and find something to eat first..." He rubbed his shrunken belly.

The stamina drain over these past few days had been nothing short of terrifying. That backpack stuffed to the brim with food before he'd set out had hit empty on the very last day, only barely patching up his depleted health bar.

Thinking back on how he'd actually complained about Ai Hayasaka packing too much, Banxia now wanted nothing more than to go back and slap himself twice.

A true professional, clearly. Thought of everything.

He really hadn't thought nearly hard enough back then.

After leaving the Mushroom Forest, walking the road toward the next town, Banxia suddenly stopped.

More than his rumbling stomach, what caught his attention were the fluctuations coming from deep inside the forest along the roadside.

That disturbance, it felt like someone fighting a monster.

"Better go take a look." He muttered it to himself even as he was already moving in that direction.

Not that Banxia had any interest in stealing a kill.

He just felt that if a human was getting torn apart by a monster right now and he walked past without a second glance, his conscience would never let him hear the end of it.

"Sever—!"

The instant the monster entered his field of vision, an invisible slash had already gone out.

Broad daylight. Open sky. And this thing dared to bounce around right in front of him.

An unambiguous affront to his authority as a Monster Slayer.

Even if it was mid-fight with someone else, unacceptable.

This was a matter of dignity.

[Ding! Slain: Demon Poison Dragon. Total lifespan: 3,000 years. Remaining lifespan: 1,001 years. Lifespan absorbed.]

[Monster time held: 9,000 years. (Fusion available)]

"Hell yeah."

Banxia pulled back his hand, checked his panel, and gave a satisfied nod.

Only then did it occur to him that someone had apparently been tangled up with that thing just a moment ago.

Well. They were rescued now, one way or another.

One casual slash, and he'd genuinely saved a life.

He straightened his collar and set off toward town with a perfectly clear conscience.

"Th-That... Adventurer, sir, please wait a moment."

➤ Next: Tsundere Elf

Chapter 72 - Tsundere Elf

"Why... is the Magic Poison Dragon here?"

The blonde elf barely dodged another lunge, retreating while keeping her eyes fixed on the massive beast that had no business being in this place.

By all accounts, a Magic Poison Dragon was supposed to spend its days near the Mushroom Forest.

That land was saturated with toxic miasma and venomous creatures, perfect feeding grounds. No need to range far for prey, no need to suffer human company. It could simply entrench itself there and rot in peace.

For as long as anyone could remember, that arrangement had held. Humanity and the Magic Poison Dragon maintained a strange equilibrium, each leaving the other alone.

Yet here it was.

Fled.

The Magic Poison Dragon in front of her still wore its fangs and fury, but the blonde elf had already read something else in those clouded, slit-shaped pupils, something far more primal.

Fear.

"What could have happened..." she muttered, unease settling heavier in her chest. "What could scare a Magic Poison Dragon into abandoning its territory and running like this?"

Had something even worse been born inside the Mushroom Forest? Had that land, long marked on every map as a Human Forbidden Area, finally produced something before which even a legendary monster turned tail?

"Stop. I need to focus." The scattered thoughts were already costing her.

She mistimed a dodge. Splashing venom caught the edge of her clothes, and a wide swath of fabric dissolved on the spot. A protective talisman spared her skin, but only barely.

"If this keeps up..." She stared at the creature, anxiety tightening in her gut.

The encounter had come without warning. She'd had no time to prepare, and she was already losing ground, not dramatically, but steadily. Even if she won, it wouldn't be clean. It would be ugly.

Should she run?

The thought surfaced and died in the same breath.

There was a human town not far behind her. The defensive barriers in the south were notoriously weak. If the Magic Poison Dragon broke through in that direction, the consequences didn't bear thinking about.

"ROAR—!"

Another jet of venom. The blonde elf threw herself aside, landing in an undignified scramble.

Her gaze swept across the dragon's hide, specifically, the several sunken wounds she'd carved into it with consecutive hits. A few more solid strikes and even a Magic Poison Dragon's defenses would crack. She could work those wounds, drive into them, turn the tide.

She gritted her teeth. She'd take the hit if she had to. Trade wounds, press the advantage, end it.

Then the dragon stopped.

It abandoned its attack on her entirely, snapping its head around. Every scale along its body rose slightly, bristling, as though it had sensed something a hundred times more terrifying than the elf it had just been trying to kill.

"Slash."

A single strike split the air from somewhere at the edge of her vision.

Before she could even identify the figure behind it, the Magic Poison Dragon's head left its body, flew high, and crashed heavily onto the ground. The enormous draconic body buckled, collapsed with a thunderous impact, then slowly dissolved into black sand that the wind scattered into the sky.

"..."

One strike.

One strike had killed a monster she wasn't certain she could have beaten at full effort.

The elf turned slowly toward where the slash had come from.

A powerfully built human youth stood there, a travel pack nearly half his own height strapped to his back. He was looking right at her.

"..."

His footsteps hitched. Then, with the air of someone caught doing something they shouldn't have, he turned and started to walk away.

"Um — Sir Adventurer, please wait."

The elf moved after him quickly.

He had saved her life. Letting that go unacknowledged was simply not something royal pride could allow.

She opened her mouth to speak. The youth got there first, words tumbling out fast:

"...I wasn't trying to steal your kill. Here's what we'll do, you get credit for the dragon, and I'll throw in a coat as compensation."

Huh? What was he talking about?

The elf blinked and accepted the coat he held out. She looked down, and only then realized that most of her clothing had been dissolved, leaving a generous expanse of pale skin bare to open air.

Her face went hot. "Th — thank you," she said quietly.

She didn't refuse. She pulled the coat over her shoulders and covered the worst of it.

"Good. We're square. I'm heading out." He seemed desperate to close this conversation as fast as possible and turned to leave again.

"W, wait! I haven't properly thanked you yet."

She called out again. There was a thread of stubbornness in her voice now.

"..."

Banxia stopped. He turned back and got his first real look at her.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Pointed ears. Apparently the first proper elf he'd encountered since arriving in this world.

He blinked. "It's fine, don't worry about it," he said, keeping his tone easy. "We both got what we needed."

"Huh?" The blonde elf looked at him in confusion.

He had killed a monster without asking for anything in return. What exactly had he gotten out of that?

This world didn't have the exact proverb about small kindnesses breeding gratitude and great ones breeding resentment, but it had its own versions of the same lesson.

The elf worked it out herself after a moment.

A person like him probably rescued people all the time without leaving his name, vanishing the moment the job was done. The coat, that gesture fit the same pattern. Quiet, direct, no fuss.

He looked so solid and imposing on the outside.

And yet.

Underneath all that, he was surprisingly gentle. Clumsy about it, but genuine.

The more she saw it, the more certain she became. She was going to repay him properly.

Royal honor wasn't something you treated casually.

...

A small tavern in the town of Neig.

More than a few adventurers kept stealing glances at the corner table.

The tabletop was covered in expensive cuts of meat, disappearing at a rate that could only be called alarming. But it wasn't the youth's appetite drawing their eyes. It was the elf sitting across from him, visibly uncomfortable with the attention, and visibly the most striking person in the room.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, a refined face, and skin that looked almost luminous under the tavern's dim lighting.

Elves technically fell under the human races, but they were so rare that many people went their entire lives without ever seeing one. Let alone getting to look at one directly from across a table.

"D-don't get the wrong idea! I'm only sitting with you because I owe you, this is absolutely not a date, okay?!"

Banxia paused mid-bite. "..."

A tsundere. Of course.

What a pain. Find an excuse and get out of here as soon as possible...

He swallowed, exhaled slowly. "I already told you, you don't need to follow me around. I hunt monsters for my own reasons. I wasn't specifically trying to rescue you."

"I understand what you're saying..." The blonde elf nodded. The tips of her ears were pink.

"I genuinely feel like what you're imagining and what I mean are two completely different things." Banxia set down his lamb chop and tried a different angle. "If you really want to give me something, give me a spell related to lifespan."

"Lifespan... related magic?" She looked at him blankly.

He was so young. Nothing like the dying old nobles who scraped at every rumor about life-extension techniques. And lifespan itself was common knowledge as divine territory, something only the Goddess herself truly governed. It was why priests who worshipped her tended to outlive practitioners of equal rank in other disciplines.

Any sensible person would know that kind of demand was flatly impossible to meet.

He wasn't actually asking for a reward. He was just looking for an excuse to get rid of her.

An awkward, gentle person. She was more sure of it than ever.

"No luck, I take it?" Banxia read the expression on her face and already knew the answer. He sighed inwardly. "Then stop following me."

He'd known it was too much to hope for, that he'd stumble into an elf by chance and she'd turn out to be the elven mage the Shinomiya master and servant had mentioned, the one who supposedly knew every spell in existence.

"..."

...

➤ Next: Mushroom Girl Review Guide