September in Dragon Gold City still clung to the tail end of summer. Bright sunlight spilled over the thin quilts Catherine had hung out to dry, drawing out a faint scent of cotton.
Looking a little weary, she gathered the bedding into a basket. Chuck happened to pass by and wanted to lend a hand, so he set his mushroom basket aside—
It was filled with mushrooms picked in the underground city, which he had brought to Catherine on his way.
Under the Starlight lord's Spore Governance Act, a special mushroom-growing area had been established in the cold, gloomy underground city, beneath the [Grave Land].
The cemetery offered an ideal habitat for the spores, creating a trade arrangement in which Dragon Gold City provided a comfortable place to live, while the spores supplied their own "houses"—the mushrooms themselves.
Over the past year, the mushrooms produced by the spores had become a specialty of Dragon Gold City, widely used in both alchemy and everyday life.
Chuck had only found a way to acquire this shipment because Catherine wanted to develop new products.
But when he saw her chilly expression, he could only swallow the joke on the tip of his tongue.
"Catherine, why not close for a day and get some rest? Forgive me for saying this, but you look a bit like my grandfather just after we buried him. Hollow cheeks, sallow skin. Nothing like the pretty young woman you were when you first arrived..."
Declining the halfling's concern, Catherine shook her head.
"Kindhearted Chuck, is there any news from the front?" Only then did Chuck understand why she refused to close, even sacrificing her morning sleep to get up early despite exhausting herself with the tavern's booming business the night before.
She simply did not want to miss any