“This is an awful idea.”

Nathan winced. He’d just gotten back to the gate and told his little team about his grand plan—okay, maybe not a grand plan, more a rough idea—to save everyone.

Fuge didn’t take it so well. Gius, meanwhile, had an odd expression on his face.

“You want us to hold back against an armed force on their way to destroy our entire town,” she said. “In some vain attempt to avoid anyone’s death. You’ve lost it.”

Nathan winced. “You don’t have to be so harsh.”

“She’s totally right, bro,” Chad said. “Like, we’re gonna get slaughtered The Last Samurai-style.”

“Look,” Nathan said. “I’m not saying that if things come down to it, we shouldn’t go lethal.”

He looked at all of them in turn. Chad raised an eyebrow. Gius coughed.

“Then what are you saying, my lord?” Gius said.

“I’m saying that I don’t think that the people there want to fight either. I bet that if we play our cards right, maybe this can end without a mass slaughter.”

“Dude, what if someone dies because we take this approach?” Chad said. “What if, like, I die? You can’t have a successful raid without your best DPS.”

Nathan paused. He opened his mouth to answer when Emi spoke up.

“Someone’s going to die anyway,” Emi piped up, ever so helpfully. “We all know this. The last time we fought, several mushroom people died.”

“That’s not helping, Emi,” Nathan said.

Fuge looked at Nathan. “Are you absolutely certain about this?”

Nathan was about to respond when he stopped and shook his head.

“No, actually,” he said. “But I think this is still the best decision.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Gius said.

“Dead serious. If there’s a way to end this bloodlessly, then I want to take it,” he said. ”We’ve never had this opportunity before. We were always facing against mindless monsters—this time, it’s people.”

Gius’s eyes softened. Fuge sighed and looked up at the sky.

“Very well then,” she said. “What do you propose?”

Nathan glanced over at the gates. What could they do to non-lethally defeat an entire horde of werewolves?

“I could blow them all up,” Mara said. “Non-lethally.”

“How would you do that?” Nathan asked.

“I’m still working on the non-lethal part, but I have the explosion part down.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” He paused. “But do keep some of your barrels in reserve. If things get really bad, we’ll pull those out… no matter how much I’d prefer not to.”

She snapped her hand into a salute. “You got it, boss.”

Lupim coughed into his hand.

“Pardon, may I speak?” he said.

Nathan nodded. “Please do.”

“Well,” Lupim said. “There’s a little-known weakness that werewolves possess—“

“Is it silver?” Mara said.

“What? No. Why would we have a weakness to silver? Actually, silver is very soft and makes for a terrible bladed weapon—“

“Ignore Mara. What’s this weakness?”

Lupim leaned in, his eyes glanced from side to side, and his voice dropped to a whisper.

“Rhubarb.”

What.

“Sorry, did you just say rhubarb?” Nathan said.

“Yes.” Lupim shivered. “This is a secret amongst werewolves, never spread to outsiders before. You mustn’t tell a soul.”

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Chad glanced at Nathan. “Is he screwing with us?”

Mara tilted her head.

“That sounds reasonable to me,” she said. “I once ate a rhubarb leaf and got kind of sick.”

“I think that’s because you ate a leaf, not because it was rhubarb.”

“Okay, um, does anyone know where Sticks is?” Nathan asked.

Gius folded his hand behind his back. “Come with me.”

----------------------------------------

“You want rhubarb?”

Sticks stared at Nathan, his eyebrows furrowed together. “…why?”

They were in the meeting hall—and everyone was there. All of the council members along with Nathan’s people. And Lupim was there too, looking like he wanted to nothing more than sink into the ground.

“It’s a long story,” Nathan said.

“It’s really not,” Fuge said. “Werewolves are weak to rhubarb, apparently, and we’re being attacked by a bunch of werewolves. Do the math.”

“Rhubarb?” Vee put a finger to her chin. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

Sticks scratched the back of his head, an anxious expression on his face.

“It’s not considered one of our primary crops. We only have a little.”

“Can you grow more?” Nathan said. “You’ve mentioned druid magic or whatever, right? Can you pull that off?”

“How much are you talking?”

“Let’s say… enough for every person in this town to have two or three.”

“Gosh, to produce the kind of harvest you’re talking about…” he shook his head. “It would take everyone working together. We’d need a master druid as well—“

“Someone like me?” Gius said.

Sticks’s expression froze. He tilted his head toward Gius.

“I thought you wanted to save your magic for an… emergency.”

“I’ll keep some in reserve. But I believe this plan deserves a chance of success.”

The hardness in Sticks’s expression disappeared and he shrugged.

“Well, if Nathan and Gius are both saying it, I guess I’ve got no choice but to go along with it.”

Nathan gave a solid nod. “Thanks. Now we just need to rally the townsfolk.”

Burrau adjusted his glasses. “I have a number of people in my department. We should be able to map out an efficient route to gather everyone.”

Vee stood up. “I’ve been testing some enhanced crop growth formula.”

Papim stood up beside her, knocking her chair back.

“And I have ancient rituals passed down from the olden days.”

The two glared at each other.

Nathan stared at the council—his council—working together to save the town without losing a single life.

We might actually have a shot at this.

“You know that you’re only delaying the inevitable,” a voice whispered.

He turned his head to see Mara, a cool expression on her face.

“I’m not sure why you’re doing this,” she said. “Maybe it’s some attempt to ease your conscience or avoid what’s going to happen, but trust me, you’re going to have to kill again.”

“Maybe, but not today.”

She shrugged. “So, about those bombs?”

“Mara, no.”

“Mara, yes.”

----------------------------------------

Nathan stepped out of the gate, the entire mass of the mushroom people following behind him. In the distance, he spotted Hunter and his men readying their weapons.

And then Nathan made a sharp right.

The mushroom people marched toward the farms. Nathan stopped and gave a quick wave at Hunter.

Hunter reached up and rubbed his eyes.

Nathan’s fingers clenched. He was acting nonchalant, but inside, his heart was pounding. This was banking on Hunter being either suspicious enough or honorable enough not to attack. If they attacked, then Nathan would be forced to strike back to protect all the civilians. Why didn’t they go around the back gate? Because that might make the werewolves think Nathan was about to go for a sneak attack. No, by doing it in public like this, it gave the best chance of their intentions not being misconstrued.

But the attack never came. The werewolves simply watched, distinct expressions of unease on all their faces.

“This is incredibly stupid,” Chad said, adjusting his phone camera. “Like, legitimately. No one’s going to believe this footage is real. They’re going to say I CG’d this, and I don’t know how to CG.”

“I mean, if it works,” Nathan said.

The werewolves continued to stand around uncomfortably, looking at the ground or at the mushroom parade.

“This is so awkward. You think they’re debating if this is some weird power move?”

Nathan ignored Chad. The part that had surprised Nathan was how easily the townsfolk went along with it. Most of them were hesitant at first when Burrau’s men were running through the town, but as soon as Nathan’s name was mentioned, they all suddenly became cooperative.

I don’t have a cult of personality, right?

He ignored the fact that they’d apparently set up banners with his face plastered on them the last time he was here.

Before long, the town arrived at one of the empty fields. It’d just been recently harvested, leaving nothing but barren dirt. In a wide circle around the soil, everyone carefully spread out, ensuring ample space between individuals.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nathan looked at the grove in the distance where his flower was supposed to be…

The flower was gone.

But he didn’t have time to deal with that. Nathan was probably looking at the wrong place anyway. Gius stepped toward the center of the field, his arms folded behind his back as always, his expression still and stony.

He shut his eyes.

Nathan watched as tiny roots broke from his feet and implanted into the ground. The people in the crowd shut their eyes and roots broke out of their feet as well.

“What are they doing?” Nathan said.

“The ancient magic of the mushroom people,” Fuge said. “See for yourselves.”

The ground began to glow. Green buds opened from the roots, expanding out. The fruits swelled and expanded, their surfaces emitting a bright, otherworldly green luminescence.

In moments, the plants were at full maturity.

“Now, boys!” Sticks yelled out. “Let’s get going!”

Dozens of farmers rushed into the field and harvested the plants and stuffed them into bags. Within minutes, they were finished.

Roots popped out of the ground and made new rhubarb. Once it was done, the farmers came in and harvested it. This repeated two more times before Gius stumbled forward and barely caught himself from falling onto the ground.

Nathan looked around, most of the mushroom people were tilted over, hands on knees.

They can’t go any longer.

Nathan looked back at the bags of rhubarb. It seemed like a lot to Nathan…

And this is all assuming Lupim was telling the truth. If they aren’t weak to Rhubarb, this’ll get ugly.

“Alright, let’s head back!” Nathan yelled out. “Thank you all!”

A weak cheer came from the people and they marched back to the safety of the town. As they walked, Nathan caught sight of Hunter’s eye.

The gates shut.