Humans, Snow-White Humans

Mushroom Man drew closer and closer, the mycelia behind her flying. Her legs were taller than the city walls; the towering defensive walls were like low fences to her, something she could step over with ease.

She lifted a leg-

"Student."

A voice came from beneath her, its tone like wind blowing through an empty valley, with an eerie, emotionless quality.

A very distinctive voice.

A very distinctive form of address.

That voice, that voice was the one that had kept echoing in her mind.

Mushroom Man's muddled mind cleared for an instant.

-Student, do you know how to play games?

-Student, go to the cafeteria yourself once you're feeling better.

-Student, want to play a board game?

Mushroom Man froze, then slowly lowered her head.

Her consciousness traced that familiar face. The human who made her feel so comfortable appeared before her, only she had become so very, very small.

Mushroom Man withdrew the foot she had stretched over the wall and stepped back outside the city, bending down deeply to gaze at the human.

She let out a muddled murmur.

"...Teacher... game... little sister."

She told the human she still wanted to play board games with her.

She told the human she had remembered she had a little sister, and she wanted to introduce them.

Mushroom Man was overjoyed. Even the pain in her body could not stop her happiness. A strand of mycelium drooped softly, wound gently around Ye Jiang's wrist, and lifted her hand. She placed a fallen blossom in her palm.

Mushroom Man wriggled her mycelia, seemingly shy.

She lowered her head to watch Ye Jiang, watching to see whether she liked it.

Ye Jiang's face never showed any expression, but she picked up the blossom between her fingers. Mushroom Man grew even happier, winding her mycelium around Ye Jiang's hand again and again.

Ye Jiang put the blossom away and tugged on Mushroom Man's mycelium. When Mushroom Man lowered her head, she told her with an expressionless face, "Are you going into the city? Don't. It's dangerous."

She told her truthfully, "I heard an S-rank Polluted is heading toward this city. Do you know what an S-rank Polluted is?"

She did not know either.

It was an unfamiliar term she had only heard in the evacuation announcement. The announcement had not explained what an S-rank Polluted looked like or when it would arrive, but its rank was above A, and an entire city of people actually had to make way for it. It had to be incomparably powerful, incomparably evil, and incomparably vicious.

With rare seriousness, Ye Jiang told Mushroom Man, "S-rank Polluted are extraordinarily powerful. Student, one of them could take on ten thousand of you, probably."

She did not know how to distinguish the strength of ability users or Polluted, but she had spent half a month with Mushroom Man, day and night, and knew Mushroom Man was very weak—weak and gentle, looking like an easy target for bullies.

Ye Jiang had come specifically to warn Mushroom Man.

She had spotted Mushroom Man foolishly heading toward City A early on. As her former board-game partner, with time permitting, she had to give her a warning.

Even if, by the standards humans had taught her, it was a Polluted, an enemy of humanity.

But Ye Jiang could sense that Mushroom Man was different. Like Invisible Man, it did not have that feeling of death that other Polluted had.

They were still alive.

Ye Jiang had her own principles.

"Student, don't enter the city. It really is dangerous," Ye Jiang told Mushroom Man.

Mushroom Man bent her mycelium, curling it into a large question mark.

Chapter 32: Humans, Snow-White Humans.

Mount Songjing.

The ten thousand steps lay silent, the sea of pines surged. The world outside was in chaos, yet this place alone seemed sunk in silence within a barrier.

A lone courtyard lay quietly on the mountaintop, its wooden structure simple and unadorned.

"An S-rank Polluted has appeared. City A is about to fall. Hell on earth will be unleashed, blood will flow in rivers, the world's order will crumble, and peace will be no more. Shi Tao of the Ability Control Bureau branch begs you to leave the mountain!"

A steady, forceful voice broke the silence.

Silence.

Above the stone steps reaching into the sky, the courtyard remained still.

"Shi Tao of the Ability Control Bureau branch has come to ask you to leave the mountain!"

The voice rang out again.

"Shi Tao of the Ability Control Bureau branch has come to ask you to leave the mountain!"

Again.

"Shi Tao of the Ability Control Bureau branch begs you to leave the mountain!"

Call after call, without stopping.

The highest-ranking leader of the Ability Control Bureau City A Branch, its branch director, stood with his back straight and his gaze resolute, raising his voice after each refusal.

Whoosh-

Wind swept across the sea of pines, stirring wave after wave.

Refusal.

Another refusal.

The courtyard remained silent throughout.

How much compassion did a monster possess?

Outside the courtyard, the branch personnel stared at the unresponsive courtyard, chilled to their cores.

This time, the monster had ultimately shown no mercy to the people of the world.

Inside the city.

"Mushroom Man is here!"

"The S-rank Polluted is here!"

"Are we...

Are we all going to die?"

Citizens ran in terror. With a glance upward, they could see the enormous Mushroom Man stopped outside the towering walls, crouching and craning her head to peer inside.

What was more terrifying than death? An S-rank Polluted that could easily kill humans, yet did not act immediately, instead looking down from above and watching them flee, toying with them before killing them.

"...What is it doing? Picking a 'lucky audience member'?"

Hell had opened just a tiny crack, and the god of death watched the pitiful caged humans through the opening with enormous eyes.

Despair.

Such despair.

"Who... who can save us?"

Outside the city walls, Mushroom Man, who had cramped her enormous body into a crouch just to catch up with the human, said, "...Little... little sister... love..."

Docile, well-behaved, and a little chatterbox with a sister complex.

Her only listener, Ye Jiang, could not make out much. All she heard was her board-game partner's constant "squeak, squeak, squeak." Ye Jiang: "..."

Keeping a straight face, she interrupted her board-game partner's extremely inefficient communication and tugged on her mycelium. "Speaking of which, student, haven't you gotten a little fat?"

Mushroom Man: "..."

Her enormous body swayed. She had suffered a tremendous blow. The human she regarded as a friend had calmly launched a rude attack on a girl's appearance.

"Squeak."

She felt wronged.

For the first time, she noticed a problem and panicked. If she had become this "fat," would her little sister still recognize her?

Little sister.

Little sister.

She suddenly grew agitated.

She had to go find her little sister. She had lingered here too long. There was not much time left.

She stood, her enormous body towering into the clouds once more. Pain made her sway, but she endured it and lifted a foot to leave.

Her mycelium was tugged again. Knowing who had caught her, Mushroom Man did not attack. Instead, she struggled with her obsession with finding her little sister for a few moments, then obediently lowered her head anyway. The person below looked up at her. She was so tall, yet those human eyes seemed able to send their gaze all the way up to her.

The human gazed at her, her pitch-black eyes unfathomable.

"Where are you going?"

"Sister... see..."

Ye Jiang: "?"

What was she saying?

"Little sister... find..."

Mushroom Man tried to explain, but she had lost her throat and was too unpracticed at imitating sounds. She could never express herself smoothly. She grew increasingly agitated, her reason and obsession fighting furiously. Suddenly, a surge of pain swept over her, and her entire body began to tremble.

It hurt so much.

She hurt so much.

What kind of feeling was it?

The Jin Family had done many things to her to assess her value, such as slicing her with knives as though cutting thin slices, but all of that had been bearable.

Earlier still, before the Jin Family captured her, when her consciousness first awoke, she had discovered she had become the lowest kind of F-rank Polluted, wandering the streets. The pain had already existed then, a pain as though something was eating away at her soul. As her soul was eroded, her rank had risen abnormally too. E-rank, D-rank, C-rank... In less than a month, without doing anything at all, she had grown this enormous.

Leave.

Find her little sister.

The obsession was etched into her bones. Pain wore away her reason. She was about to "die."

She had to hurry.

Unable to bear hurting the human below, Mushroom Man severed the strand of mycelium being held and stepped away.

She had only just lifted a foot when an immense force caught her. Enormous as she was, she was actually yanked backward and nearly fell!

"Student, didn't you hear what I said?" The human's voice drifted up from below. "It's dangerous in there."

The human had nearly made her fall. The human had caught another strand of her mycelium.

Blocked again and again, Mushroom Man's reason collapsed. Agitated and enraged, she sent her mycelia dancing wildly, churning the drifting clouds. Contamination gushed out. Her thickest, most offensive mycelia went taut and lashed viciously toward the human atop the wall, dozens firing together, their force whipping up gusts of wind.

Yet every strand missed, blasting like shells all around the human.

In the end, she could not bring herself to hurt the human.

"A rebellious phase?" Dust and smoke enveloped Ye Jiang's body, leaving only her cool voice to emerge. "Student, your temper has gotten a little worse."

The dust cleared, restoring Ye Jiang's view. To her surprise, Mushroom Man, who had thrown a tantrum all on her own, had bent over. Her mycelia bound her tightly, as though trying to restrain her out-of-control self. She trembled all over and looked to be in extreme agony.

Ye Jiang's gaze flickered.

Mushroom Man was crying out in pain.

There was no sound, but she could hear it. It was because she had heard her pained moans in the first place that she had brought her from the iron cage back to her room.

"Student, what's wrong?"

Mushroom Man said nothing. The more she used her power, the more it hurt, as though the power she used was not her own but borrowed from the devil, and some steep price was being extracted as she used it.

Despite her agony, her body was moving inside the city walls.

This time, Ye Jiang did not stop her.