"Tourist visas, all fine." The guard at the Mushroom Fortress gate finished checking the documents with practiced efficiency and handed the visitor handbook back to Vera along with four visa cards. "Please note you may not stay beyond seven days. Enjoy your visit."
Standing just inside the gate, Fayling looked around. "So this is the legendary Mushroom Fortress! So many people. Feels even livelier than Oath City!"
"It is. And pricier than Oath City." Vera, now the head of his household, winced inwardly at the cost of those four tourist visas.
No. 5, perched on his head, tapped him with a tentacle. "That's not quite right, Vera. Prices are higher right now because there's a big event on."
"A big event?" Vera thought of the harvest festival back in Oath City and found himself curious what an event here might look like.
Fayin shrank behind Vera, watching the streams of demonkind passing by with wide, nervous eyes.
That was understandable. In most people's minds, demonkind meant the Empire, humanity's enemy.
Even Vera himself felt a flicker of unease, though since No. 5 had gone to the trouble of inviting them, he kept it from showing.
Only Sirian seemed genuinely at ease. All those demon eyes looking their way, and he didn't seem to notice.
They exchanged their currency at a designated booth for a paper tender called "contribution gold," then followed No. 5 on a tour: the Bell, the Puchi hot springs, a bowl of the hot spring mushroom broth that turned out to be delicious. Fayin picked up a locally made Puchi figurine that glowed with seven-colored light.
By dusk they had drifted, still laughing and talking, to Puchi Plaza at the heart of the Mushroom Fortress.
A crowd had already gathered. City guards ringed the area keeping order against any crush.
"Hold on." A guard stepped into Vera's path. "The plaza is at capacity. No Puchis allowed in. Please check yours in at the storage area over there."
Vera started to say something, but a tentacle covered his mouth.
No. 5 spoke to the guard through the mycelial network. "Not an ordinary Puchi!"
The guard blinked. "Ah, a mushroom-folk. My apologies, I didn't expect a mushroom-folk to be traveling with visitors who have no mycelium at all..."
The guard glanced at the glowing Puchi in Fayin's arms. "That one too?"
"Yes, yes!" No. 5 said, and to prove it controlled the figurine to give its cap a cooperative little nod.
The guard waved them through.
They found a decent spot in the square. Vera looked toward the enormous Marshal Puchi statue at the far end. "Biggest statue I've ever seen. Though those are..."
"Dragon horns," Sirian said.
"Dragon horns?!" Vera looked again at the dozen-plus massive horns and swallowed.
His domain had been lucky: the dragon plague had never struck it directly. But for a long stretch, dragons were a constant presence passing overhead, and the days had been a knot of dread. Lately the dragons had disappeared, and people had assumed they'd all gone back to their lairs.
Apparently at least some of them had ended up here.
The sun dropped below the horizon. Decorative mushrooms across the plaza began to glow, one after another, but still the event hadn't begun.
Fayling finally asked: "So what exactly is this special occasion? And why hold it in a plaza?"
Nobody had a chance to answer. A commotion broke out at the back of the crowd.
It pushed closer from behind, then a group of Puchis forced their way through, splitting the packed crowd apart and carving a straight corridor all the way to the stone stage at the center.
From the far end, a richly dressed woman walked the corridor without hurrying. When Vera caught sight of those crimson pupils, he realized she was a vampire.
"What's going on?" He was wedged in the crowd, craning to find the others who had been pushed away from him.
He spotted Fayin across the gap.
In the chaos, Fayin had stumbled out of the crowd, falling directly in front of the vampire. She clutched her rainbow-glowing Puchi to her chest and scrambled to push past the Puchis blocking the way, reaching down to pick it up.
Her fingertips hadn't even touched it when a foot came down.
The Puchi exploded. Mycelium fragments scattered across the ground.
Fayin froze, not yet processing what had happened.
Vera had already shouldered out of the crowd and appeared at her side.
Clang!
The curved blade never cleared its sheath; the scabbard itself caught Elinore's follow-up kick.
"She just got in the way by accident. There was no need for this." Vera's voice was low, anger pressed down under it.
Elinore said nothing. She leaned into the block with slow, steady force. Just when Vera's grip was about to slip toward the hilt, the Puchis on both sides surged forward and separated them.
Elinore gave a cold snort, stepped over the scattered mycelium fragments, and walked on along the corridor.
---
"You're not hurt, Vera?"
"I'm fine."
"Disgusting!" Fayling glared after Elinore's retreating back. "Demonkind is demonkind, all the same! We've been here all day and I almost started thinking they'd changed!"
Vera glanced around and dropped his voice. "Fayling, not here."
Too late.
"Not a fan of that." A half-demon nearby turned to look at them, cold light in his eyes. "What do you mean, 'demonkind is demonkind'?" The other demonkind around them looked over too. A bead of cold sweat ran down Vera's temple.
Getting into a fight here was a losing proposition no matter how it went.
He kept his hand near the hilt and worked through how to talk his way out, but the half-demon's next words stopped him cold.
"We're fungal folk. That one who just crossed you, no mycelium, no connection, she's the demon. And anyway," he lifted his arm to show the neat tracery of mycelium there, "she's the main course of tonight's event. Put up with a little trouble. We've been putting up with her for months."
"Main course?"
---
Up on the stage, the Marshal Puchi stepped down from its mobile throne and warmly linked a tentacle through Elinore's arm, guiding her toward the grand velvet-draped seat at the very center.
"The seat of honor?" Elinore tilted slightly, letting a suitably flattered expression rise to her face. "Boss, how could I presume to sit here?"
"Don't refuse," Lin Jun said, voice warm and sincere. "Tonight is Little Pig's promotion ceremony, but you are the star. We'll be introducing you to every fungal folk here shortly. This seat is yours."
Elinore stopped resisting. She wore the look of someone graciously accepting an honor and settled into the chair.
She passed Louisa on the way. The corner of Elinore's mouth lifted. Her eyes swept toward Louisa with undisguised satisfaction.
Louisa lowered her gaze and didn't look back.
The Marshal Puchi clapped its tentacles.
Norris walked onto the stage carrying the Yellow Book, his heels striking the stone with steady, measured steps. He set the book on the stand at the stage's edge and activated the amplification spell beneath his feet.
"Thank you to all Mushroom Fortress residents, and to our alliance guests who have traveled to be here." Norris's voice, magnified by magic, carried clearly across the entire plaza. "Before we begin, allow me to introduce tonight's star: Elinore."
Several beams of light snapped on at once, all of them trained on the seat of honor. Elinore lifted her chin, letting the light fall directly on her face, her expression composed and regal.
"The name alone may not bring her to mind immediately, but I believe everyone has heard of her in some form. She is one of the Empire's Twelve Pillars, the largest vampire slave-owner in the realm, the principal supplier of bottled blood, the proprietor of the blood-livestock facilities. Duke Elinore."
The words landed.
Vera and the others, who had spent the last few seconds puzzling over why the tailless lizardman's voice sounded faintly familiar, went rigid.
"An Imperial Duke? Elinore?" Fayling breathed it out before she could stop herself, keeping her voice low, but the shock in her eyes was impossible to hide.
Across the crowd, most of the visiting tourists wore the same stunned look. The Mushroom Fortress residents were calm, expressions unchanged, having evidently known for some time.
"To help everyone understand Elinore better," Norris reached into a box beside him and produced a recording crystal, holding it high, "let's look together at some things she's done that are worth remembering."
The crystal lit up. Images played across the night sky above the crowd.
Cells. Slaves. Blood-draining. Slaughter.
Scene after scene of documented cruelty unfurled across the glowing sky. Slaves chained like livestock, blood drawn from their veins, faces blank with despair. Those who ran or resisted were tortured to death and thrown into pits. And then there was Elinore herself, seated in an elevated chair, holding a glass of deep red liquid, smiling down at a pair of siblings being forced to fight each other for having tried to escape.
The crowd began to stir. Even Mushroom Fortress residents who had heard about it in advance went silent at the sight of it.
"This... isn't that my recording crystal?" Elinore came half out of her seat, the ease gone from her face. She turned to the Marshal Puchi. "Boss, what is this?"
The Marshal Puchi reached out a tentacle and patted Elinore's head. "Don't panic. Settle down and watch to the end. You'll understand."
Soothed by Lin Jun's gentle assurance, Elinore straightened back into her seat. But those eyes of hers, flickering and restless, gave away everything she was feeling.
(End of Chapter)
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