Aki dragged his body along as he kept walking.

The rumbling within his stomach had entered a different octave and he had yet to find anything edible. He tried eating the grass but his instincts made him realize that it had no nutritional value.

Endless grass in every direction was beginning to become a tiring sight.

He had walked for so long that time seemed to be irrelevant.

Aki knew that at least 2 days had passed.

But he didn't feel too dehydrated.

He didn't dwell on this though and decided to simply count his blessings.

Eventually his legs gave out and his head collided with the ground.

His eyes wandered, searching for anything that could sere as food before the locked onto something.

A singular mushroom in a lifeless plain. It was a putrid green with a suspicious aura, purple spirals littered the body of it.

There were no questions to be asked as he lunge forward with all the strength in his body.

Mouth already open, he hurriedly gulped down the mushroom.

"How delicious!"

He felt strangely happy as some of his hunger was quelled.

Standing up he realized that there were more mushrooms ahead of him.

Failing to resist the newly existing urges in his body he ran towards the mushrooms and ate all of them with more enthusiasm that he thought he could possibly conjure.

With each strange mushroom, each with a different color. More happiness began to fill his body. His hunger had also began to subside.

A grin lined his face, he was smiling from ear to ear.

Happiness like he had never felt before.

Aki began frolicking through the warped fields. The sky had turned pink and the sun became a huge yellow, smiling mushroom.

The grass was mushroom, the air was mushroom, Aki was mushroom.

His body literally turned into mushroom.

In this mushroom form Aki kept frolicking until he came upon a giant castle.

A ginormous wall with spiral patterns surrounded the castle.

He could see flying mushrooms that levitated using their cap.

Ignoring the less than subtle signs that he shouldn't try to enter he frolicked towards the entrance of the castle.

As he approached the gate everything began to make even less sense.

Space seemed to warp and stretch. Frolicking became flying. Colors started to fluctuate.

Once he reached the gate itself it seemed to be illusory.

Yet as he tried going through it his body was repelled backwards and he was sent flying.

"Control!"

He didn't let this stop him. Aki made fire blast from his stem and send him flying above the gate.

As he floated through the sky above the gate he could see the surroundings of the castle.

The front had a ginormous garden with "Trees".

These trees had mushroom stems and leaves that looked like mushroom caps.

The branches were also stems too.

Each mushroom was a light red color with a number of pink sports.

The grass and dirt in the garden were also completely pink, creating a scenery that could burn the eyes from the brightness.

From behind Aki the sun had also begun to frown after he bypassed the gates.

He continued to float downwards until he reached the entrance of the castle.

The door was seemingly nonexistent as he floated through it.

Inside the castle the amount of space was impossible.

Beyond the door was an entire kingdom.

Mushroom people walked down the streets engaging in different activities.

Mushroom children played soccer, mushroom adults bought goods, mushroom thieves pickpocketed unsuspecting mushroom persons, mushroom guards chased down those same mushroom thieves.

It was a true mushroom kingdom.

Albeit fairly standard. The only thing that could make it stand out in a crowd of kingdoms were the mushrooms growing from cracks in the buildings.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

As he floated through the air his mind was so empty that it was almost no different from being unconscious.

It was a miracle he could still think. Albeit that thinking was extremely limited.

With a dopey smile on his face… stem he kept drifting and drifting.

…

Despite floating for such a long time Aki had failed to reach the castle at the center.

Every time he got close, it felt like the castle got further.

Space itself seemed to seem to stretch in order to keep him away from it.

But then he suddenly point his stem at the castle.

"Control!"

He enthusiastically launched a concentrated blast of fire at the castle causing a loud boom to ring out.

All of the mushroom people turned to look at the source.

As their gazes landed on Aki the fireball collided with space. Revealing an elastic bend inside of it.

it continued to stretch but failed to accommodate the fireball and it tore.

Aki quickly flew through this gap and the castle was finally within acceptable limits.

Ignoring the guards and surroundings he soared through the sky and crashed through a window.

He rolled on the ground before stopping to look up at his surroundings.

Aki could see a mushroom wearing a coat and holding a small bag.

It was kneeling facing two mushroom thrones.

On these thrones was a mushroom dressed in regal robes adorned with mushroom caps that glittered like gems.

On the other was a Mushroom in a poofy, complicated dress with gold, red and, blue accents.

Each of them had a small green crown on.

Both of them turned to look at the new visitor.

"Guards!"

As it extended its stem pointing in the direction of Aki a giant gas cloud emerged in front of them.

It quickly quelled and from within these giant clouds came massive suits of iron armor.

Each of these suits had an overly large sword in hand which was closer to being a sharp club than anything.

They quickly began charge towards him while floating.

One of them was a bit faster than the others and made it to Aki first. He then swung his sword downwards onto Aki.

Reacting quickly, Aki got up and flipped over and mid flip sent a fireball at the guard from his stem.

This completely shattered the armor.

From this broken armor a dead mushroom could be seen.

Sparing no mind to the rest of the guards approaching Aki gracefully dodged past all of them, taking advantage of their bulky nature.

He then readied himself and attempted to strike the king using his head.

However once he collided with the king a strange, nonexistent barrier blocked him.

"I summon you- God of Mushrooms Ezuki!"

The crown on the kings head began glowing brightly until it enveloped the entire room.

Aki was then jerked forward and sucked into something.

The light disappeared revealing the new area.

Despite having no source of light the surroundings were visible.

It looked to be some strange kind void.

Every other second strange unidentifiable symbols seemed to drift past.

In front of Aki was a massive Mushroom.

Looking at it gave him such a terrible headache that he almost returned to clarity.

He could estimate it to be around 100 meters tall.

The mushroom had a constantly fluctuating color to it.

It's "Eyes" shifted towards Aki.

Aki's head immediately fully cleared. The strange high disappeared and his body returned to normal.

"I offer you an accord."

Although Aki had just woken up he immediately organized his thoughts and began to analyze the situation.

The mushroom he had ate some unknown time ago was clearly not normal. Considering the headache he was experiencing while looking at the being and its similar nature to that tentacle he assumed the two were connected.

Although he couldn't put together a reason for encountering these two things it didn't matter.

He allowed his expression to convey his listening and the mushroom continued speaking.

"Simply utter Praise be to Ezuki, and I will give you dominion over all plant life."

"No."

"I know such a deal see-"

"Huh."

Aki's blunt refusal seemed to cause a change in the creature.

"So be it…"

Purple gas filled the void and Aki's consciousness flickered.

…

"I wonder if he's dead?"

A sharp stick poked the side of Aki's drool laden face.

He quickly jolted up and looked around.

"Ah!"

Hearing the short scream he turned to look in the direction of it. The owner of the voice was a young girl who seemed to be around 15. She had green eyes and long blonde hair put up into a pony tail and a modest linen dress. At her side was a small basket with what looked to be strawberries in them.

"So you were alive…"

With a slightly flustered face she quickly gathered herself, got up, and dusted off her dress.

"Hey there, uh… I should probably introduce myself first"

"My name is Jane, what about you?"

"Aki"

At this point he had finally begun standing up and wiping the drool off of his face. Aki noticed that his newly obtained sword was still on his back.

Keeping an awkward smile and trying her hardest to prevent any awkward silence she kept the conversation going.

"What brought you here?"

"Don't know, why?"

His poor social skills became evident at this point but she went with it.

"It's just that… passing through the Trint forest is pretty difficult for one person"

"Your beat up body clearly shows that you saw that but kept going so you must've had some reason"

Aki was completely uninterested and didn't intend to follow up and whatever was about to happen but before he could walk away.

That strange sensation began in his head.

His body became almost liquid and he couldn't hold himself up. He could feel everything inside him begin to melt even without putting up any resistance.

Considering that it shut down his resistance off of his thoughts alone he decided that trying anything further was futile.

As he thought this his body returned to feeling solid and his insides lost that feeling of being melted.

When he looked up at the girl he saw an slightly amused face that quickly returned into a forced smile.

"You obviously aren't doing too fine"

"Since you were going to Tinder anyway I'll show you a safe route"

"Getting some sleep on a real bed should be plenty enough."

"If you have the money, of course"

She picked up her basket and began to walk off.

And Aki quickly trailed behind.

…

As he trailed behind her Aki noticed a small ornament on her hair tie. It looked to be a small ball of yarn.

Curiously, he asked-

"Where did you get your hair tie from?"

"My mother made it for me a long while back"

"Ha… I wish I could go back…"

She let out a soft sigh.

Jane looked back and saw Aki's confused face.

"Ah, I suppose you wouldn't know, in the past 5 years the Third Brother began extorting our village."

"If he doesn't get what he wants he takes women and girls replacements for… you can imagine what."

"The capital has been ignoring any messages we send for help because dealing with the Third Brother would cause conflict with the Eldest"

"What does the Third Brother refer to?"

She stopped abruptly before turning to him.

"Formally he is known as the Goblin Lord of the West."

"But most people call him Third Brother"

She turned around again and began walking

"As you can imagine there are other brothers in different directions."

"The eldest refers to the North Lord, second brother refers to the East Lord, and youngest refers to the South Lord."

"Before I keep talking do you really want to know where each of them are?"

"My throat is getting kind of dry."

"Yes"

"Ha… of course"

"The home of the Third Brother is around 15 mounds west of Tinder."

"The exact location of the Eldest is unknown but he is some 50 mounds north of the capital."

"The Second Brother wanderers the east of the empty plains, most believe that his home is deep in the Fog forest though."

"As for the youngest I haven't picked up anything about him"

Over the course of her explanation quite a bit of distance had been covered and they finally made it to a clearing.

Aki could see a fairly average sized village which seemed lively on the surface. Kids ran around through paths. People sold goods to passersby.

But beyond the veil of normalcy there was definitely a sense of foreboding.