"Sorry, sorry! But we're all out of spare rooms!"
"How is everywhere full? Then how about you clear out your back courtyard for us? We brought our own tents, and we'll still pay you the room rate."
"The back courtyard's needed for the Puchis. I'm truly sorry. Go try somewhere else!"
At the door of Puchi House, Bianca turned away her twentieth would-be lodger of the day and headed back inside.
The guest rooms were all rented out, yet hardly anyone was eating or drinking in the main hall. Every customer had gathered at the entrance to the Puchi underground city.
The dead, reborn as Puchis, were coming out of the underground city batch after batch to search for their kin. After a brief spell of simmering, the news detonated across the entire United Kingdom.
In a United Kingdom that had so recently been through a brutal war, what household didn't have a relative or two dead or missing?
People surged toward the Mushroom Capital from every direction, and soon overwhelmed the city's capacity.
Bianca knew full well that the group she'd just turned away wouldn't find a vacancy at any other inn either; their only hope was to try their luck at private homes.
In truth, they were lucky just to have made it into the city at all.
With the crowds overloading it, the city's workings were on the verge of seizing up, and City Lord Farr had been forced to cap the number admitted each day.
Now, outside the Mushroom Capital, those waiting to get in packed every open field.
It was only because food was easy to come by these days; in times past, this many people suddenly crammed into one place would have meant a famine for certain.
And those who did make it in, once they'd found lodging, all made their way to the entrance of the underground city.
As for why the entrance: by one of the verbal agreements between Lin Jun and the Dukes, the Puchi underground city was now under the mushrooms' management.
"Mama, are those scaly ones the lizardmen?" a little girl asked curiously, pointing at the Mushroom Fortress soldiers guarding the gate.
"That's right!"
"And that one without a tail?"
"Lost it in battle, I'd say."
Norris, switching off with Jida and leading his underlings to play gate-warden, was by now completely immune to "damage" of this caliber.
He just felt a touch wistful: in all his long time since joining the Mushroom Garden, this was the first time he'd stood on United Kingdom soil without using [Mimicry].
The people gathered here had all picked up some news, and though wariness lingered in their eyes when they looked at Norris and the other demon-race fungal folk, there was at least no open hostility.
Their attention was fixed more on the time.
Each day, at noon and at dusk, the Boss would release ten of the Puchi-reborn.
Puchi, puchi. Sharp-eared listeners caught the Puchis' signature footsteps from within the underground city, and the crowd stirred at once, everyone shoving desperately forward.
The guards Farr had sent to help strained with everything they had, barely holding back the surging tide.
The Puchis came out. Working from the list in his mind, Norris read aloud the names of the ten Puchi-reborn.
After reminding them not to leave the range of the fungal mat, he let them out to find their families.
Two of the Puchi-reborn found their families right there in the crowd and embraced them in a rush of emotion. One of them had a tiger-folk wife who hugged him so hard he was nearly sent straight back to the Mushroom Garden on the spot.
The other Puchi-reborn had to go to the city hall first to look up information and help track down their families.
Among them, some had families who hadn't managed to get into the city, some had families too far away to have even heard the news, and some, perhaps, had no family left at all.
Either way, the Puchi underground city had become, in the eyes of all the separated, a beacon of hope.
Beneath this frenzy, the voices opposing the mycelium and the Puchis had naturally become politically incorrect.
And among those who came seeking relatives, there was a small minority who didn't much care for the rules.
A middle-aged man dressed like a mercenary suddenly shoved the crowd aside and broke through the Mushroom Capital guards' line.
"Let me in! My son was taken by the Empire in the war too; he must be in there!"
He charged forward, roaring, "Just let me in for one look! The moment I find him I'll leave!"
The guards came after him with shouts, reaching to grab his arms, only to be slammed to the ground.
The man's strength was Diamond-rank; ordinary soldiers simply couldn't stop him.
He bolted straight for the entrance of the underground city. The Mushroom Fortress Puchi Masters on guard were about to move to intercept, but Norris pressed a hand to their shoulders and stepped forward himself.
Seeing the lizardman blocking his path, the man didn't slow; if anything, he charged faster.
"If you don't want to get hurt, don't stand in my way!"
His voice was like a beast's roar as he drew the longsword from his back and held it up before him, hoping to make whoever stood in his way think twice.
Norris didn't dodge. The man rushed in close and, seeing the lizardman hadn't budged an inch, swung the blade down on him.
Clang. The longsword struck Norris's open palm with a crisp ring.
The edge failed to leave so much as a scratch on those silver-white scales.
Norris closed his grip on the blade, applied the faintest pressure, and the longsword snapped clean in two, clattering to the ground.
He extended his other hand, a sharp fingertip coming to rest against the man's sweat-drenched forehead.
The hand exerted no force, yet the man was pinned in place by Norris's killing intent, his whole body rigid, unable to move.
Norris turned his gaze from the man and swept it over the onlookers still waiting to enjoy the show, speaking slowly. "Raising the dead is the Boss's gift, not a debt owed to you. Get your place straight. The next time someone causes a scene, it won't be settled this easily."
Then his tone softened a little. "I understand your wish to find your families. But our Mushroom Fortress and your United Kingdom are still only at the verbal-agreement stage. Once the two sides formally sign a treaty, exchange will naturally open up further."
With that, Norris withdrew his finger.
The man's legs went weak and he nearly crumpled to the ground; a moment ago he had truly felt death a hair's breadth away.
Only now did the Mushroom Capital guards catch up, bracing him under each arm and dragging the deflated man away.
The noise of the surrounding crowd dropped sharply. No one shoved forward anymore; no one shouted.
As the guards returned to their posts, they found keeping order had suddenly become far less of a strain than before.
And the people began to murmur among themselves about just when the United Kingdom would formally sign a treaty with the Mushroom Fortress.
The clamor at the entrance lasted until the dusk batch of Puchi-reborn had come out too, and then the crowd slowly began to disperse.
Most went home disappointed; only a very few found the kin they'd come for and got their wish.
Watching the dejected guests slink back to their rooms, Bianca couldn't help looking toward the underground city.
If only Father had become a Puchi too...
And there, in the sunset, a Puchi stood across the street, so nervous it kept curling and uncurling its tentacles.
"Bianca… can you still recognize me?"
The broom slipped from the little shopgirl's hands. "Father?!"
"It's me, it's me. Look how big you've gotten, you've changed so much. And I, I've changed quite a bit too..." Evan was still nervously fumbling for words when Bianca rushed over and swept him up in her arms.
After his initial helplessness, Evan wound his tentacles around Bianca too, drawing envious, jealous looks from the others nearby who hadn't gotten to reunite with anyone.
Girl and mushroom stayed caught up in the moment for a good while, until Bianca made to run home with her father in her arms. "We have to go tell Mother right away!"
"Th-that won't be necessary!"
Evan flustered his way free and backed up two steps. "Just getting to hold you and say these things is enough. As for your mother… let's leave that be."
"Why?" Bianca's face was all confusion.
"You all have a new family now, after all, and I've ended up in this mushroom shape. Showing up again would only cause needless trouble."
Evan lowered his cap, looking rather forlorn. Bianca only grew more puzzled. "What new family?"
"Th-there isn't one?!"
In a room on the second floor of Puchi House, old Dylan sipped his mushroom ale, contentedly watching the father-daughter reunion below.
"Is this really all right? It's such a rare chance to remarry, and haven't you practically come to treat Bianca as a second daughter?"
The mushroom whispered in Dylan's mind. "Don't worry, I can make him vanish, plausibly and without a trace. All you'd have to do is comfort the little shopgirl a bit more afterward."
Dylan calmly took a sip of his ale and drew the curtain closed. "Boss, you said it yourself: I treat Bianca like a second daughter. What father could bear to make his daughter cry?"
"So I just spit him back out, then?"
(End of Chapter)
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