The Elven Royal Court Council.
With no suitable candidate yet for the position of Elf King, Queen Galadriel nominally governed affairs. In truth, this was merely a measure to steady the hearts of the people.
For important matters, she held no authority to decide unilaterally. Everything was resolved through discussions in the council with the other elves, just like this.
A young elf clad in light hunting attire deftly twirled a vividly red Delicious Mushroom between his fingers.
He surveyed the room, his voice clear and bright. “Now these Delicious Mushrooms can be picked anywhere in the forest. Their yield far exceeds that of moon trees, which bear fruit only once every three years. Most importantly, they require no effort to tend! Our children can now savor such exquisite flavor every few days. This is a gift from the forest itself. Why should we interfere with them?”
His words elicited slight nods from several other younger councilors.
Yet the elderly druid seated across from him, robed in deep brown adorned with fresh vine leaves and dried seeds, shook his head. “Then, young Elros, when you partake of this ‘gift,’ have you ever bent down to carefully examine the forest’s original skin beneath the fungal mat?”
He paused. There was no need to raise his voice; everyone’s attention was already firmly captured.
“Since the large-scale emergence of fungal mats, Moonlight Moss, which depends on specific humus layers and faint light, has completely vanished from the eastern forest districts. Shadow Velvet Moss, which thrives in dampness and shuns bright light, has likewise not been sighted again. And this is only the beginning. From our ongoing observations, of the 127 species of low-growing plants native to the understory, 43 have already declined by more than forty percent. Among them are the Song Ferns that shelter the young of forest birds and beasts, and the Root Vein Grass that stabilizes magical power within the soil.”
“But the fungal mat can fulfill their roles!” another representative from the practical craftsman faction interjected. “It decomposes deadwood ten times faster than natural decay, clears pests with remarkable efficiency, and the mushrooms it produces can feed the animals. Apart from the plants you mentioned, the forest will only grow more lush!”
“And the price?” the elder druid who had spoken first countered calmly. “Learn more about nature, young ones. The price is that the forest becomes uniform! It is efficient and bountiful, yet uniform and exclusionary. This is a dangerous sign.”
“Furthermore,” the druid turned his gaze toward Salian seated to the side. “Do you all know in what state the land beneath our very feet now lies?”
Salian rose upon hearing this. He raised both hands, and a gentle pale-blue glow flowed from his fingertips, linking to the surveillance arrays throughout the Elf Forest.
In the next instant, a vast and exquisitely detailed three-dimensional magical projection unfolded in mid-air.
The upper layer displayed the familiar tree-top city. With close observation, one could even see elves strolling along the walkway bridges.
Yet as every elf’s gaze followed the image downward, focusing on the deep soil pierced by the roots of colossal trees, what appeared was an endless web of intricate, layered underground passages. Their complexity far surpassed even the multi-tiered bridges of the tree-top city.
“All these... dug by the Puchi?” one elf asked in disbelief.
“Evidently,” Salian replied, lowering his hands. The projection stabilized in suspension. He added objectively, “However, there is no cause for concern regarding collapses or soil loosening. Those Puchi reinforce the tunnel walls as they dig. In certain ways, they even enhance local soil stability.”
Even so, no elf wished for their homeland to become a labyrinthine maze beneath the surface.
This undoubtedly posed an enormous security risk, one easily exploited by those with malicious intent.
The council’s discussion then turned to how to effectively control the spread. Yet the debate soon reached an impasse.
Fungal mats feared fire, but they were difficult to ignite. The forest itself was ill-suited to flames. Not to mention that fire could not address the mycelium within the underground passages.
Druid nature magic could handle it quite effectively. By stimulating the magical power within the mat, it would burst forth with mushrooms and then naturally wither.
But this demanded considerable effort and was a massive undertaking. Were druids to do nothing else, spending every day solely on fungal mat control?
Someone mentioned No. 1, the Mushroom Tribe representative.
Yet No. 1 could at most curb the Puchi from digging. It held no sway over fungal mat expansion.
According to the Fungus Lord’s stance, on the matter of restricting fungal mats, it neither supported nor opposed. It left the elves to deal with it themselves.
Lin Jun was not surprised by the elves’ reaction. His reasoning was straightforward.
If the elves found no solution, they would simply have to accept it.
If they did find one, it would conveniently reveal the fungal mat’s vulnerabilities, allowing him to prepare countermeasures.
In fact, the fungal mat’s spread along the kingdom’s western coast had indeed been curtailed.
The reason: an increase in slimes!
After the mist retreated, certain changes lingered. One was elevated magical density, sufficient for slimes to spawn naturally.
Combined with the region’s recent wartime devastation—vast emptiness, sparse population, no dedicated clearing—slimes proliferated easily.
They devoured the surface mat and burrowed into passages, eating everything clean along the way!
As one could foresee, another war between Puchi and slimes was on the horizon.
However, using slime control was clearly unsuitable for the Elf Forest.
Those creatures were pure pests that decomposed anything.
Lin Jun’s fungal mat at least preserved some plants. An overabundance of slimes would leave the land utterly barren—nothing remaining but slimes.
Of course, slimes were weak. Under normal circumstances, unless deliberately bred, their numbers remained low.
The west coast was a special case.
In the end, the council formally tasked the druid group with urgently developing a practical and efficient fungal mat control plan.
Yet when the two appointed druid representatives departed the chamber, the worry etched between their brows was deeper than when they had arrived.
The challenges they faced extended far beyond the technical.
Not only were they presently unsure how to address the fungal mat, what troubled them more was the recent emergence of divisions within the druid order itself.
Some druids had begun to view the fungal mat through entirely new eyes.
They believed this life form—capable of efficiently converting energy and building symbiotic networks—might represent another evolutionary path of nature’s way. Perhaps even worthy of thorough study and acceptance.
This perspective had gained a measure of approval from certain elder druids. Vaguely, there were already signs of forming a new research society.
They feared that without a proper handling method in the near term—proving the resilience and wisdom of the traditional path—these dissenting voices would only grow louder.
The two druids exchanged a glance. Both knew this was a task that could not be delayed!
...
The others had adjourned, but Galadriel could not yet retire to rest.
While internal affairs were settled through council debate, for diplomatic matters, she still represented the public face of the elves. She needed to visit the envoy and inform them of the formal discussion schedule.
On a personal level, she was also somewhat curious about Inanna.
This girl not yet twenty had earned the title of war heroine. Such youthful accomplishment surpassed even the fame of the Sword Saint at age twenty.
At least when Elven was twenty, there had been no tales of him circulating in the Elf Forest.
Upon entering the side hall where the envoy rested, Galadriel immediately spotted the strikingly pink-haired Inanna. Then her eyes fell upon the peculiar Puchi in her arms, sheathed with four swords.
For some reason, in this setting where polite greetings should have been exchanged at once, her gaze found itself unable to shift away from that seemingly rather stiff Puchi?
(End of Chapter)
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