CH 11

According to Lukitas’s rantings, certain knight’s orders used dragons. Literally called “dragon riders”, the relationship between humans and dragons was much more strict, and the dragons hardly got along with each other. So, his father, the leader of the order, instructed him to “stay away from them because they’re dangerous.”

However, his misfortune wasn’t over yet.

“Kue~!!”

As we were paying our respects to the Star Stone at the forest entrance, the himekoryuu rammed into Lukitas’s back. While he let out an “Uwaa!”, the three kids let out a cheer.

“You came again!”

“Himeko-chan, let’s play today, too~”

“It’s been 3 days.”

As friends who escaped together from the scary Su-monster, the himekoryuu appeared to have bonded with the three, and if they had a request in the forest, it would come along to play. As for the three themselves, they seemed happy with their first non-human friend. They did run away when the himekoryuu brought over a giant hornworm as a snack, though.

Much like the children, the himekoryuu became so familiar with Su that it completely forgot its initial fear, even touching the tip of her nose with its while going “Kue~!” Su didn’t react much, but kept her nose close to its, so maybe that was how dragons greeted each other. Dragons are kinda sorta dinosaurs, so it was like a scene out of Jurassic Park.

“What in the world is it with you people?!?! Is it even okay to take these creatures along?!”

“They came by their own will and there isn’t anything else written in the request conditions, so it’s probably okay?”

“Too vague! Uwaa– Don’t come here!” 

Who’s this noisy guy? As the himekoryuu approached him, Lukitas swung his hands, scowling harder and harder. Even if the opponent was small and flightless, it was still a dragon. While skillfully avoiding his hands, it came up to his face and kue~’d him. Lukitas’s anger gauge was rising more and more.

“Uhh, let’s get moving! We’re going a little deeper into the forest today.”

“Ouu! Lukitas, quit playing, let’s go!”

“Shut it! I’m not playing!”

“Kue~!”

“Go away!”

The lively party headed deeper than they’d ever gone before, but it was still close enough to the town that there were the usual plants and the visibility wasn’t too bad. As we went deeper, though, a thick ivy began to cover the trees. This plant, called a purple watashizuta, had giant purple leaves — up to twice as big as those of kuzu — and our range of vision was greatly reduced. For this reason, the trees were marked with ribbons and scratches at regular intervals to indicate how to get back to town.

I paused in front of a tree tangled in purple watashizuta and picked up something at its base that looked somewhat like a giant pinecone.

“I think you’ve heard about this from your lectures, but from here on, there will be almost no dead leaves or dry branches. Do you remember what to do in places like this?”

“Try not to get lost!”

“Avoid rainy days~”

“Bring firewood so you can easily build a fire.”

“Pick this stuff up, right?”

“All correct. Even if you’re carefully prepared, you’ll have to pick up flammable pine branches and seeds to make it easier in case you have to spend a night out in the cold with an injury or after an accident. The type of wood doesn’t matter as long as it’s dry, but pines grow everywhere and easily catch fire.”

For errands that took less than half a day, it was enough to bring them just as good luck charms. Many people carried them around then left them on their way back, so it was easy to find pieces of pine wood. We put the wood and seeds we found in a backpack and continued on. Also, I put two of the big pinecones into the Fikar-basket — a walking backpack.

The himekoryuu repeatedly picked up and dropped off branches, copying the other four children, while Su was being scolded by Fikar for picking up too many pinecones. A third of the basket, which was the size of Fikar’s back, was already filled. Let’s use it as tinder when we get home.

“You read the request form, right? Today, I’m requesting you to collect mushrooms. Have you ever collected mushrooms before?”1

The little adventurers shook their heads in unison.

“My father and everyone in the order said it was absolutely useless.”

“… I was told off once for playing with mushrooms in the fields.”

“I’ve only seen them cooked~”

“Mushrooms are scary…”

“Well, there are lots of brightly-colored mushrooms, but many of them are poisonous and could kill you. They look just like edible mushrooms, but eating them will make you foam at the mouth and die a painful death.”

Imagining that, the four looked very uncomfortable.

Mushrooms in this world were much more diverse than in Japan and they often used unusual colors and patterns. Many types were edible and could reliably be found on a table, but their degrees of toxicity were also very diverse, making them one of the most dangerous foods for an amateur. As adventurers, we were obligated to learn the minimum necessary and easy-to-understand things, including what threats might appear while out in the wild, taught through a mix of lectures and hands-on experience. As for the edible mushrooms, they were often collected by experts who underwent rigorous testing and had plenty of experience.

“So, don’t touch any mushrooms you don’t recognize. If something is weird, call me. Got that?”

4 people and 2 animals responded energetically.

“Today we’ll be gathering salt mushrooms, soup mushrooms, and popolicus.”

“I know salt mushrooms! They’re the crunchy ones in the kitchen!”

“I like soup mushrooms~ They’re delicious in cold soup, you know?”

“Sumire, aren’t popolicus poisonous?”

“What’s this?! Oi, why are you also collecting the poisonous ones?!”

Reacting to Leonardo’s calm remark, Lukitas snapped.

Popolicus seemed to be an old word for a fairy’s house — they grew up to 15cm tall, with the tip of their umbrella-like caps starting out red and slowly turning into orange, then pink as it went down the curve. There were two theories about this word choice: one was that the rounded shape of the mushroom’s cap allowed for a fairy to live inside, while the other was that eating the mushroom would cause you to visit the fairy’s house in a dream. Either way, popolicus contained a toxin that caused hallucinations. It wasn’t lethal, but if you put it in your mouth, your tongue would go numb and you’d hallucinate for the next 8 or so hours.

Soup mushrooms, looking almost exactly like popolicus, also had two theories about their very up-front name. One was that its fragrance and velvety texture were delicious when made into a soup, but the other was that “only those who know”2 could truly appreciate its taste.

As for salt mushrooms, they only grew on rock salt. Although rock salt was scattered here and there, it was hard as diamond and didn’t break down even when boiled or baked, so getting salt out of it was terribly difficult. Even if you licked the rock, you would hardly taste a thing. Salt mushrooms used rock salt as their foundations and quickly grew to the size of ​​a king trumpet mushroom, so many creatures ate them when they needed salt in their diets. It was an indispensable resource for many lives.

“If you eat a popolicus thinking it’s a soup mushroom, you’ll be in trouble, so practice how to distinguish them. If you collect salt and soup mushrooms and have them checked by the guild, you can take them home to eat.”

Three of the kids oo~’ed.

The image of an adventurer was one of defeating monsters and bringing back rare collectibles. Of course, there were actually many more different, humble kinds of work, but it was a good motivator while they got started.

While the three others talked about how they wanted to find a lot of mushrooms to show their parents and have for dinner, Lukitas was facing away, sulking.

I crouched down and asked, “What’s wrong?” The himekoryuu also came up to him and tilted its head, but Lukitas seemed to have learned to just go along with it.

“Nyuda makes a fuss about choosing ingredients. He won’t buy anything old or with the smallest scratch and makes sure everything is from a trusted supplier… and it takes 10 days to get to my house from here. There’s no point in picking them.”

Mushrooms were ideally eaten on the day they were collected. Depending on the type, they could only be stored for 3-5 days and magic preservation didn’t seem to have much of an effect. Soup mushrooms could be stored by boiling them in a stew of seasonings, but even that only added about a week to their freshness.

Though he was an adventurer, he was still only 6 years old, so it must have been a worrying situation for him to be traveling so far. That intimidating bodyguard was probably just nervous since his leader had asked him to take care of his son.

And Lukitas seemed to be worried that he wouldn’t have any results to show for his work.

“It’ll be okay if you dry the salt mushrooms and bring those home. If you dry them well, they’ll last for half a year. For the soup mushrooms, too, why don’t you ask if you can use them for dinner?”

“But Nyuda is very strict… he’ll probably say no.”

“I’ll come with you to ask him. And if you can’t eat them here, you can always collect them again and ask your father then. I hear that soup mushrooms grow in forests everywhere, so once you learn how to identify them, you’ll be able to find them near where you live.”

“Really?!”

Lukitas’s expression brightened.

“Then, I’m going to learn how to perfectly identify them and make dinner for my father and older brother! Let’s find them quickly, Sumire!”

Lukitas, who grabbed my hand and pulled, was full of motivation. It was pretty cute because of his age. After all, children should be honest.

The himekoryuu grabbed his other hand, but was shaken off.

“Sumire-chan~ I found mushrooms~”

“Amazing, Liliana! Where are they?”

“It’s true…”

“Let me have a look.”

At the base of a large tree, there were many fairy houses with round forms. Their umbrellas were big, graduating cutely from red to pink. The light was pale and visible, giving the feeling that fairies really did live here. Looking around, I noticed similar mushrooms growing all around.

“Sumire, are these soup mushrooms?”

“Aren’t they popolicus? They look really cute.”

“Neither soup mushrooms nor popolicus are poisonous to the touch, so you can pick them.”

As I collected one to show as a model, the kids each held a mushroom in their hands, then we all began to cut off the stems of our mushrooms with a knife, just as we were taught. I reminded them to take it slow, since their little hands were in danger. The underside of my mushroom’s cap was dyed blue, as was the part of the stem where it was cut. This was characteristic of a soup mushroom, making them easily distinguishable from a popolicus, whose features were dyed red instead.

However, I’d learned an even easier way to tell from Ludo-san. I threw the magnificent mushroom at the mouth of the himekoryuu, who had been bobbing its head in front of my hand for a while. It caught the mushroom flawlessly, chewing to savor its deliciousness. Su grumbled next to us.

Dragons had very sharp senses and supposedly had a similar taste in food to humans. As such, they tended to avoid toxins and whatever a dragon ate was generally safe for humans to eat. Some dragons liked eating rocks and poison, so it wasn’t always safe for humans. On the other hand, dragons were often equipped with strong stomachs that could handle poisons, yet often spit them out. By the way, since they preferred delicious foods, they also sought out and collected rare ingredients. Dragons were true gourmets.

“Sumire-chan, can we take more?”

“Sure. Just don’t gather other mushrooms.”

“Oi, Lukitas, let’s compete!”

“Hmph, you can’t beat me.”

“This one’s… a popolicus…”

Fikar was quickly cutting the mushrooms he found and piled them into the basket on his back. I felt sorry for Su, who was desperately pleading next to him, so I decided to give her mercy. I threw a large mushroom into her mouth, which she spat out. Apparently, it was a popolicus. 

I picked up mushrooms from here and there and chucked them in her mouth, and she quickly identified which ones she would and wouldn’t eat. It was a very effective poisonous mushroom detector. The only downside was that all the edible mushrooms were eaten.

We had been working our hands for a while when we suddenly looked up at the same time.

“KueKue!” 

The himekoryuu chirped. Su also raised her nose high in the air.

Marth, who also stood up, took in a deep breath and muttered something in wonder.

“Sumire, something smells really good… ?”