Glowing Mushrooms and Cocktails

"You're awake."

Frieren's voice came from below, and Shane opened his eyes in a daze.

Thump.

Thump-thump.

A few crisp impacts cleared his bewildered gaze in an instant.

He was being held aloft by Frieren's levitation magic, suspended in mid-air, his head bumping against the hanging stalactites every now and then.

"Ouch..."

Hearing Shane's groan, Frieren lowered her staff slightly, adjusting his altitude.

"Why did you faint just now? What happened?"

Shane rubbed his still-swollen temples, lingering fear in his heart.

That final eye contact with the madman had been too terrifying; those scarlet eyes still refused to fade from his mind.

But he didn't know how to explain it. He couldn't exactly say that the other party had used some evil ritual to drag him into this world, and that he was a transmigrator, could he?

"I can't really explain it either. I was just inexplicably pulled into an illusion... and saw a bunch of chaotic, nonsensical things."

Frieren nodded after hearing this, not pressing for details.

Many powerful mages did indeed leave behind all sorts of defensive arrays in their former residences or places of death to drive away ill-intentioned visitors. Illusion magic was a relatively common type.

Shane breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Where are we going?"

"After you fainted, that room collapsed. This is the path revealed by the collapse; I suspect it must be the exit."

"Oh."

"Can you walk on your own now?"

"Ah, I'm so dizzy..."

And so, the two continued on, one floating and one walking.

It wasn't that Shane was intentionally being lazy; he was truly dizzy and lightheaded, unable to muster any energy.

They hadn't walked long when Frieren suddenly stopped, and thump, Shane's head hit a rock once again.

Before he could cry out in pain, he couldn't help but widen his eyes.

At the corner ahead of the passage, pale blue, glowing mushrooms were growing in abundance. The dreamlike, flowing bioluminescence looked like a fairyland.

Frieren set Shane down and walked over to the mushrooms.

The girl crouched down, her silver hair falling past her ears. She touched one with her fingertips and plucked it, a flash of pleasant surprise in her eyes.

"These are Ghostlight Mushrooms, a very rare magical material."

Shane rubbed his head, stood up unsteadily, and shuffled over.

"Before entering the dungeon, I heard the innkeeper say that a glowing mushroom grows here, one that can be used to brew a delicious cocktail. It turns out it's true."

Shane was in high spirits.

This dungeon trip hadn't been completely without gain after all.

He hurriedly swung his backpack off, ready for a massive harvest, but as he looked down, he saw something that made his eyebrows contort.

He doubted whether he had seen it correctly.

He stepped on it tentatively with his foot and asked, "Hey, Frieren, what are these black, squishy, fishy-smelling clumps on the ground?"

"Giant python dung."

"..."

"Ghostlight Mushrooms grow on the dung of the Venom Extreme Dragon. The giant python is a hybrid subspecies; it seems its dung has the same effect," Frieren explained.

Upon hearing this, Shane silently withdrew the hand he had reached out to pick the mushrooms, and incidentally wiped his sole vigorously against a nearby rock.

Filth, stay away from me.

"When I was traveling through the Central Kingdoms, I once saw a shop selling this material. It seemed to be... 5 silver coins per pound."

It's that valuable!

Shane immediately reached his hand out and plucked a mushroom without hesitation.

What filth? Don't talk nonsense. This is clearly a noble ingredient that remains untainted despite growing in the mud.

Having struggled in this world for three years, Shane was very clear about the price levels here.

1 gold coin could be exchanged for 100 silver coins, 1 silver coin for 100 copper coins. A loaf of black bread cost 2 copper coins, and the most ordinary inn he stayed at cost 20 copper coins a night.

There were at least three or four pounds of mushrooms to be picked here.

He was going to be rich.

The back rent and meal expenses he owed could finally be paid off.

In an instant, Shane's head stopped spinning and his legs stopped aching; he began picking mushrooms with renewed vigor.

Creeeak—

The town gates slowly creaked open.

The morning mist had not yet fully dispersed, and the guards on duty walked toward their posts at a sluggish pace, stifling yawns.

Shane's disheveled, soot-covered appearance gave the still-groggy soldiers quite a start.

After a brief interrogation, the two were allowed to pass without further trouble.

After a day and a night of dungeon crawling, Frieren was already drowsy, and Shane had to practically drag her all the way back to the inn.

As soon as they stepped inside, the enthusiastic landlady swayed over to greet them.

"Oh, Goddess preserve us, poor Shane, you must be exhausted."

However, before she could even get close, she caught sight of Frieren, who was swaying unsteadily behind Shane.

"Wait, who is this?"

The white-haired, twin-tailed elf girl was breathtakingly beautiful, dozing off as she leaned against Shane's side like a white butterfly resting upon a rose.

The landlady was left completely stunned.

"Um... she's an adventurer I met on the road. Ma'am, please open another room for me; she needs to rest."

Upon hearing the word "partner," the landlady's expression visibly collapsed, and for a moment, even her meticulously styled hair seemed to lose its luster.

Huu—

After settling Frieren in and finally returning to his own room, Shane dove headfirst into his bed.

He was clearly exhausted and desperate for sleep, yet strangely, his mind was exceptionally clear and racing at full speed.

He was completely unable to drift off.

He found himself involuntarily recalling his encounter in the dungeon; a few things the hooded figure had said weighed heavily on his mind. It was as if the person had gone to such lengths to pull him here just to win the war between humans and demons?

But hadn't the Demon King already been defeated?

Could it be that in the future, the demons would repeat the "Slaughter War," continuing to wipe out nine-tenths of humanity and reigniting the conflict?

That was certainly no good.

Most importantly, the blood and shattered limbs from those failed experiments in the past had left him with deep psychological scars. He had been summoned here by a magic circle—were there any side effects? Would the magic fail one day, leaving him to turn into a pile of mangled flesh?

Shane couldn't help but shiver.

"I remember that the madman was constantly analyzing and referencing a grimoire called the Notes of Sage Aewich. In the original story, during the trip to the Holy Capital, Heiter once asked Frieren to help decipher that book."

"I wonder if the one that was burned and the one in Heiter's possession contain the same content."

This feeling of knowing nothing about his own future, constantly worrying about being "cannon fodder" or being erased, was truly impossible to accept.

Shane hated it.

It seemed necessary to go and see Heiter.

With that thought, Shane had his next plan mapped out.

"Wait, did I forget something? What about those three glittering Legendary-tier traits of mine?"