CH 55

Author’s note: This chapter is a little gruesome. There is a summary at the end for people who might not be good with this sort of thing.

Rihalzam fell flat on his back.

Suddenly there were a lot more people passing by, and their eyes focused on him.

Something oozed out of the bruises on his face. A tiny mushroom that was as black as the bruises themselves. As it fell off his face and into the ground, it sank into it.

And as if waiting for this signal, a sudden change occurred in Rihalzam’s body. His eyes rolled back, and his body began to spasm like it was jumping, before the swelling in his left leg rapidly disappeared.

“H-hey, are you all right!?”

Asked one of the passersby, who received no response from Rihalzam.

Mushrooms began growing out of his whole body, just like the first one, and his whole body was soon covered with black lumps.

Some grew bigger, and some fell from his body while they were still small. The ones that fell burrowed into the ground, out of people’s sight.

Rihalzam’s body stopped shaking, and he suddenly got up.

People around him screamed. He looked around, but the only eye that was not covered with mushrooms soon looked at his hands, and saw mushrooms growing out of the fingertips of his index fingers.

They began squirming, and burrowed inside the fingers. The mushrooms burrowing inside him carved out his flesh and occupied the spaces left open.

The same thing happened in the palms of his hands. And then the arms. And then the torso. Even the face. The flesh in Rihalzam’s upper body was being replaced with mushrooms.

But it was still definitely Rihalzam’s shape and face. Even the bruises were intact. But the only thing that was unchanged were his eyeballs.

In the meantime, Rihalzam’s legs seemed to be melting into myxomycete. His upper body suddenly dropped, halving his height in one go.

It looked as though mushrooms were growing out of slime.

People’s screams turned to angry roars.

“A monster!?”

“No, that’s a demon! It took the shape of a human!”

“It’s this thing’s fault those armored salmon attacked from the sky!”

There was deep resentment in people’s voices.

“Kill it!”

“Kill the demon!”

“Kill it quickly!”

“Call the army!”

“No, if it’s a demon we should call the knights!”

“What about the alchemists?”

“There’s only wounded apprentices. Hey look, it’s moving.”

Rihalzam sensed the extreme hostility directed at him, and sensing danger, began to move. And from the gaps between the mushrooms that formed his body, spores were spewed out.

“Oh no, is that poison?”

“Poison! Run run!”

“Kya! Don’t push!”

“Let me through!”

“Me first!”

Everyone ran away in panic after confusing the spores for poison, and Rihalzam quickly found himself alone again.

“I, hu, man. No, de, mon.”

He struggled to speak after his tongue was replaced with mushrooms, but there was no one around to listen anyway.

《Summary》

Rihalzam was turned into a mushroom monster by the shaman, and was persecuted as a demon by people around him.