Chapter 7: 7

Fresh lets out a small burp and quickly turns her head away, covering her mouth in order to be polite, before taking another bite of the steaming, giant mushroom, which has been sitting over the make-shift cooking pit for a while now. She had made it, after the so-called ‘battle’. Though ‘cooking’ is also a bit of an exaggeration, she thinks to herself, looking at the small hole. She had dug it with her bare hands and filled it with magical torches.

With all of the strength in her body, she rolls the dead creature back onto the flames, to let it cook some more. The fire hisses and she wipes away the wet from her eyes with the back of her wrists.

“Y- you really are delicious, M- Mr. Mushroom,” she lies, looking at the dead creature, as she swallows down another bitter mouthful. It seemed wrong to her to not only kill him, eat him, but then to also, as a final insult, to say that he tasted bad. She can’t explain why, but she feels like she owes the monster that much, at least. Grabbing the mushroom, she turns it over again, hoping that maybe if it gets a little crunchy, that it might taste better. But as is, it tastes like dirt. Not even a little tangy or bitter. Just… dirt. But at least it’s hot and at least it fills her growling stomach.

Crying, she leans in towards the mushroom creature, sitting over the fire and takes another bite, wincing as new tears form. As she chews, she looks with wet eyes at the creature, specifically at the orange cap adorning its head. She had seen people walking outside with these. So that means that it’s worth something, right? That means that she could sell it. Through the sadness comes a bitter pride and she takes another bite from the side of the giant mushroom, before pushing him back onto the fire. She had gotten some experience points, apparently, from the fight. Not enough to level up though. But it’s good to know she thinks, as she recalls the very simple screen that had appeared after the battle.

The mushroom hisses and she turns him around, wondering if she should take the cap off? Probably, actually, if she’s going to sell it. It would be no good burnt. The edges are already a little charred, actually.

Reaching over the fire, she grabs the mushroom-cap, pressing one hand against the other side of his body and then, closing her eyes, pulls back to rip it off. It comes a little loose with a strange tearing sound, the noise akin to pulling glued paper apart. She winces and pulls again.

“Sorry!” The cap comes off and she falls backwards onto her bottom, holding it with wide, but damp, eyes. Her first loot. Her first item! Sort of. “Torches don’t count,” mumbles Fresh to the empty dungeon room.

A tiny text window pops up.

“Neat,” she looks at it, spinning the round, saucer-like growth around in her hands, before setting it down to her side. Apparently, there isn’t any ‘black-hole’ magical inventory, at least that she knows of right now. That would explain why everyone outside was carrying their stuff by hand or in giant bags. Wait… didn’t she see something about an inventory somew-

Something hisses, Fresh looks back at the fire, staring at the burning mushroom creature for a second.

“AH!” she leaps forward to pull it from the flames below. Mr. Mushroom is heavy though, even with four bites missing from him and no cap. The window pops up again with a small chime, as she heaves him to the side of the pit again and away from the licking flames. Thankfully, even if his lower body was sitting on the fire, his upper is still only mildly warm.

Panting, she sets the heavy thing down and looks. From the looks of it, there’s a cooking skill? Fresh stares down at Mr. Mushroom, who looks back up towards her. Coughing once to herself, she grabs him and spins him around to get away from his eyes, before looking back at the menu-screen. Can she do anything with this? She taps the window, but it just vanishes a moment later.

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“Hmm…” she ponders. “There’s got to be an adventurers’ guild or something, right?” mutters Fresh. There has to be somewhere she can ask about things like this. “Right, Mr. Mushroom?” She takes another bite from the back of the creature, eating a bit of the char. Now, he tastes like dirt and like ash. Great.

Fresh coughs, hitting against her chest with a fist. Taking a second to breathe and to wipe away another tear, she leans in to take another bite.

It’s disgusting, she feels awful. But eating makes her feel better. It’s risky, eating a mushroom that she had never seen before. It was even riskier, because that mushroom had never seen her before either, before this morning. Real stranger-danger. Fresh takes another bite, wincing and leaning back against the stone wall behind herself, as she looks with one eye down the way, down towards the wall of red-fog that has now vanished, opening up the path down to the next part of the dungeon.

She swallows. Should she look? Or should she sell the cap first? If she dies again, will it get lost? She supposes so, doubting that she can carry it with her through whatever inter-cosmic gateway lets her come back to life. Fresh wipes her last tears away with her shoulder, before taking a final bite out of Mr. Mushroom.

No. Her gaze turns to the staircase leading upward, in an effort to distract herself from the taste in her mouth. No. She’ll go to town again, first. She should sell the cap. It probably isn’t worth more than the equivalent of a few cents, being from such an ‘easy’ creature and just a single one. But it’s all that she has. Besides -

She swallows with a loud gulping sound.

- Maybe she can find out something about getting a class? Maybe then… Fresh looks at her meager, pale hands, which are almost translucent in the firelight.

“Maybe if I had some abilities…” she mumbles. With her low health, perhaps becoming a close-combatant is a bad plan. But… what about something else? Magic! If she could learn some simple combat spells, like a tiny fireball, then she could work with that, for starters. She could stay at a distance, where it wouldn’t matter how low her health is. Or maybe she could learn to heal? If she learned some healing magic, people would want her to adventure and fight together with them, right? She could make friends then.

Fresh likes that idea a lot.

“What do you think, Mr. Mushroom?” she asks him, with excitement slowly starting to regrow in her eyes.

Mr. Mushroom falls over and doesn’t respond.

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