Logan was fond of mushrooms and made a mean mushroom risotto, but even he had his limits. This was as if a mushroom had mated with a noxious giant toad and spread its mutated offspring around the forest. They were everywhere. Each mushroom varied in size—normal sized button mushrooms, larger odd-shaped mushrooms growing on pine trees, and the most bizarre of all—toadstool-shaped red mushrooms that had grown waist height and were as round as a barrel. What made it even more creepy was the mist that clung to everything, shrouding the whole clearing, turning it into something out of a dream.

Logan used [Idiot’s Inspect] on a mushroom that swayed closer to him as he passed.

[Noxious Mushroom: Level 3]

The thing was alive! “Jack, get ready,” he said, grasping his baseball bat with a firm grip.

“We found you!” said one of the people in the clearing as he strode towards them. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt and in his early 20s, he was tall and slender, his face covered in blond stubble. But most alarming of all was the large cleaver in his hand.

Four other people followed behind him. One woman was around the same age, her pixie-cut emphasizing her high cheekbones. She wore a yellow sundress, white open-toed dress sandals showing off yellow nail polish. Her outfit looked even more glaring juxtaposed against the crowbar balanced in one hand.

Further back, a girl in her late teens filmed everything with her smartphone and followed on the heels of a middle-aged couple. She wore red shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, a dangling silver necklace looking dim in the mist. The teen stumbled, not watching where she was going as she filmed with a glazed, amazed look in her eyes.

Cleaver-kid looked eager. “I thought we’d taken a wrong turn. This mist sure came in fast. We saw you at the resort and we could tell you weren’t like the others. All the other tourists care about is getting home. We’re the ones in the know. The System told us to advance and grow, and that’s what we mean to do. You’ve already leveled, haven’t you?”

Logan took a closer look at the kid.

[Thomas Bertone: Level 1]

Thomas was the only one that had a level; the others were still at zero.

“We don’t want any trouble,” said Logan. “We’re just here for food.”

The older couple looked interested at the mention of food, and they strained to see what was in their grocery cart. “We didn’t know there was a store back here,” said the woman. She was wearing dress pants and a long-sleeved blazer as if she’d just walked out of a business conference.

“Forget the food!” said cleaver-kid. “Tell us what you’ve learned. What did you do to level?”

Logan looked at Jack. “Killed some shit,” he said dryly.

Thomas gestured with his cleaver enthusiastically and Logan took an alarmed step back. “That’s what I’m talking about! See, we’ve got to kill things, guys! I told you I have the deets. Follow me and I won’t lead you astray. We can start with these mushrooms. They’ll be an easy XP gain.”

“Careful,” Logan warned and pointed at the level three mushroom. “These aren’t simple mushrooms. If I’ve learned anything, expect the unexpected, especially if they’re already leveling. It’s level three which means it had to kill something to get that way.”

“Don’t worry, boss!” said Thomas, creeping up to the swaying mushroom. “The boys in my chat group are saying this is like a video game. There are no consequences! Stretch to the limit! If we die, we’ll just re-spawn. We don’t have to,” he jumped, taking a flying leap at the lurching mushroom with the tip of his cleaver held out at a downward angle, “worry about getting hurt—Ah, shit!” His heel landed on a slippery bit of grass, and he went flying as if he’d slipped on a banana peel, tipping over onto his back at the same time the cleaver went flying.

“Kid! Be careful!” shouted Logan.

It was too late.

The cleaver fell like shrapnel—tip first. It landed on the worst possible place—the kid’s throat, cutting through skin and tendon, blood spraying everywhere.

The mushroom bloomed as if it were releasing its spores, swaying with a drunken tilt just as the kid let out one last gurgling gasp, the light fading from his eyes.

The teenage girl screamed while everyone else stared. The older man seemed to recover from his shock first and rushed forward to press his hand against the kid’s gory throat, but there was no saving from that type of injury. “Sheila, call 911!”

“Call 911?” the businesswoman said, her voice high. “And what do you think they’ll do? No one is coming to help us, George!”

“What did he mean?” asked the girl in the sundress, still in shock. “Was he right? Will he come back?”

From a sliced throat? He looked pretty dead to Logan. Wincing, Logan had to look away. Just how jaded was he becoming that the sight of death barely fazed him? If he wasn’t careful, there could be a point where he was at risk of losing his humanity.

The teenage girl lowered her phone, her chin wobbling. “Mom,” she said. “I don’t like this.” Her breath rasped, sounding as if she couldn’t get enough air, and at first Logan thought it was because she was upset, but then Sheila came over and ran her hand over the girl’s back.

“Sammy, take slow breaths, even breaths. You need to be calm.”

The man gave them a worried glance and got up from the corpse, brushing his bloody hands on his shirt. “We only followed that kid because he said he had a way to help Sammy. She has asthma and we ran out of her medication. Do you think that store would have any medical supplies?”

The woman in the sundress gave the body a wide-berth and wrinkled her nose. “Should we say a prayer or something?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Fuck, now Logan felt guilty.

“This isn’t our problem, Logan,” said Jack with an indifferent look at the dead kid. “We need to get back to the boat.”

Logan threw him a troubled glance. They’d never been close. Logan didn’t know whether Jack had always been this way, or if the death of his family had hardened him, but his attitude was concerning. There was no reason they couldn’t stop to help, especially if these people were this defenceless.

“Look,” said Logan to the couple. “The kid wasn’t wrong. There may be a way to help your daughter without medicine, but it’s dangerous and I have no guarantee that it’ll work. You saw what just happened. This is life and death.”

An increase to his constitution attributes had helped speed up the healing process, but what would it do to a pre-existing medical condition? Logan didn’t want to get their hopes up for no reason.

The woman clutched her daughter’s shoulder with a tight grip. Her expression was tense with worry before she hardened. “No one is going to help us. Even if we find a pharmacy, how long do you think that supply will last? If you have a solution, we’ll take it.”

Logan gave them a measured look. “All right,” he said. “But let me test something first. The kid might have had the right idea, but even though these things look like regular mushrooms, you can bet your ass they have some other advantage. That thing didn’t grow to level three by luck.” Despite cleaver-kid literally stumbling over it and giving out free XP.

Logan gripped his baseball bat and inched closer to the mushroom. Everyone else backed away, giving him a wide berth. The yellow sundress girl bounced on the balls of her feet and gripped her crowbar in a ready position, while Jack aimed his shotgun, his face expressionless.

There was something odd about cleaver-kid’s corpse. At first Logan thought dirt clung to the body, but on closer examination he could see small filaments… like veins growing over the corpse, creeping closer to the spilled blood and absorbing it like a sponge. A mushroom was essentially mold and it transformed dead matter into fuel. Was this thing eating the body?

Logan used [Idiot’s Inspect] again.

[Noxious Mushroom: Level 4]

It had gone up a whole level just from the kid’s death! He needed to be careful. There was something else at work here. Logan was counting on using the long reach of his baseball bat. Unlike the kid, he didn’t have to get in close to do damage. But the filaments were spreading everywhere, and it was difficult to find a bare patch of ground. Against bare feet, who knew what they would do?

Logan eyed the kid’s shoes. They were about his size. What he was about to do was beyond morbid, but desperate times required desperate actions.

“What’s he doing?” the businesswoman whispered as Logan pried the running shoes from the kid’s feet. He made sure to shake them before putting them on, wincing as his still tender missing digit brushed against the fabric. Logan took a few test steps and flexed his feet within the shoes. Without socks, he was likely in for blisters, but he’d take blisters over flesh-eating mushrooms any day of the week.

Logan dug his new running shoes into the dirt before getting down to business and swinging at the top of the toad-stool mushroom with all his might. The baseball bat made a sound as if he’d hit something hollow, the carpenter nails sticking into the fleshy skin.

The bat was stuck.

That’s all he could comprehend before the underside of the mushroom’s gills exploded in a defence mechanism, minuscule spores blooming and coating him in fine powder. It resembled the purple mist around them and only made it more difficult to see. But other than adding to the fog, it didn’t seem to have any other affect.

What a shitty defence mechanis—

Holy hell.

It started with an itch that devolved into a stinging sensation that morphed into burning, then that burning turned into acid eating into every bit of his exposed skin. What’s worse, the mushroom continued to spew spores and Logan was within its blast radius. Goddamn fungus! Any remaining fondness he’d had for the taste of mushrooms collapsed. He pulled on his baseball bat and eventually managed to pry it loose. Was the thing hissing? It really was alive!

Logan backed away from the immediate blast radius and studied his skin. He had splotches all over and each one felt as if he’d stepped into nettles, but as the seconds passed, they began to fade. His constitution stat may be working for him. As the thing leveled, its spores likely grew more powerful, but although they hurt like hell, they didn’t seem life-threatening.

Filled with new resolve, Logan got to work.

One slam, two, three—he hit the thing as if he were going to town.

By the time he finished, the fleshy bits of the mushroom might as well have passed through a food processor.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 4 Noxious Mushroom!]

Logan’s shoulders drooped. More than anything, the thing had waged a physiological warfare on him due to the unknown. At least with an animal, you knew what was coming. With the way its roots spread, who knew if shredding it to bits would kill it? The System message was his confirmation.

He turned to the others. This could work. If the cleaver-kid hadn’t been so inept, he might have had the right idea. “The spores are toxic. As you advance, the System lets you upgrade your constitution. Things that would’ve had me out for the count are survivable. The spores were painful, but not deadly.” Logan cleared his throat, swallowing. He must have ground his teeth as he was swinging the bat; his gums were sore. “But that was for me. If we do this, we need to pick mushrooms that aren’t that high leveled. And kill them at a distance. Jack, your weapon will be perfect for the kid. She can shoot from far away, out of reach of the spores, and still receive the experience.”

Jack lowered his shotgun, the barrel dropping to the ground. “The shells for this thing aren’t unlimited, Logan.”

Logan kept his voice light. “Let’s make the shot count then.” He turned away, pretending that it was settled, when in reality, he had no idea if Jack would go along with anything. Logan could only hope that the girl would remind him of his daughter. If he refused to lend the gun, Logan didn’t know what he’d do.

Logan scanned the clearing, searching for mushrooms lower-leveled yet still high enough to give the girl a level increase. She needed all the attribute points she could get.

[Noxious Mushroom: Level 2]

[Noxious Mushroom: Level 1]

The level two mushroom was violet in color and the size of a turkey pot, its toad-stool shape drooping to the left. It was tilted at just the right angle for a perfect shot. “That one,” said Logan, pointing. “Jack, can you help her?”

Jack sighed before addressing her parents. “Are you okay with this?”

In response, they both gave him room, backing up with a reassuring glance at their daughter. The businesswoman cleared her throat and coughed. It rattled as if she had something in her lungs. “We’ll—we’ll do whatever is necessary for our daughter to survive.”

To give Jack credit, his hardened exterior softened as he approached the teenager. “I’ll help you. This gives a kick, so it’s important to brace your feet. Let’s get the barrel aimed. If we do this right, it’ll be one shot, and it’s done.”

While Jack worked with her, Logan approached the woman in the sundress and pointed her attention to the other mushroom. “That one is only level one. If you use your crowbar and stay far enough away, you should be able to take a quick swipe at it and then get out of range of the spores.”

The woman looked at the mushroom and then gave him a puzzled glance. “How do you know what level it is?”

“Oh,” said Logan, rubbing the back of his neck. “I have a skill. It lets me see the name of the entity and its level. It’s come in handy lately.”

“I’ll bet,” she said before taking a deep breath that was interrupted by a hacking cough. She cleared her throat and then gripped her crowbar uncertainly, before seeming to come to some kind of decision. Letting out a scream, the woman rushed at the mushroom, raising the crowbar high above her head.

At the same time, a loud bang echoed through the clearing and the teenager cheered. “I did it!” Both the crowbar and the shot resulted in the mushrooms releasing plumes of defensive spores. Logan hadn’t realized it at the time, but beyond the immediate spoor-blast area, the plumes dissipated and added to the fog around them.

It was at that point that he realized the coughing around him was getting worse.