The Life, Death, and Relife of the Mushroom Mage

Chapter 2

After all, they were a sorcerer of spores.

Now, they could avoid the plot.

Because they really, really hadn't wanted to encounter the plot.

The DeVilles would fall in seven years, and they would be far, far away from the fallout. They were all fucking horrific people, anyways, and Mally held no affection for them. Georgina DeVille was the villainess in the manhwa The Saint's Life, vying with the Saint for the place of Duke Harwith's wife, and Mally had killed Georgina literal weeks before the fateful ball where all three of them met each other. In fact, she was supposed to leave for the capital today, for the debutante ball where all the young ladies turning fifteen this year gathered to make their social debut in high society.

Georgina met the son of the present Duke Harwith there, and Mally was not going to be doing that. No, sir. Not them. They were entirely uninterested in the trappings of a noble life, given that they were literally nonbinary, and nonbinary people didn't fit in that world. Furthermore, their family was horrific and traumatizing. They still remembered their brother killing a puppy when they were six year olds and taunting them to cry. They had beaten his ass for that, sent him sobbing to his mother, and, well.

There was also the fact that Georgina was an illegitimate child.

There was also that.

Ripped from her mother's breast as a baby, she was raised among the scum of the earth, who got away with literal murder. She was not going to be doing that. Her two brothers had tormented her for being illegitimate on a regular basis, and her stepmother had poisoned her multiple times. She had survived each time, and over the course of her life, had come to sympathize with the character of Georgina.

Maybe they could give her a happier ending this way.

Georgina in A Saint's Life had never had any magical aptitude, but magical aptitude was a nebulous sort of thing in this world. It typically revolved around the four elements, though there were other specialties, but Mally had figured that if they were reincarnated, transmigrated, whatever, they probably had an aptitude for life and death magic. So, naturally, to mushrooms they turned. Because that was obviously the correct answer. Never mind how many mental gymnastics they had to do to get to that point. And mushrooms had turned out to be the right call, because Mally was very good at it, and had the additional bonus of being very knowledgeable about mushrooms. Not that it counted in this world, because all of the mushrooms were different, but Mally knew enough.

And, so, Mally had learned. And learned. All while pretending to have no magical aptitude at all, and it had paid off. While their brothers had both boasted powerful fire magic, Mally had honed the magic of mushrooms to an art. As Georgina, they had trained with the knights to learn how to wield a sword, and at night, they snuck down to their hidden workshop to learn about mushrooms.

Caesar probably wouldn't take this lying down, but there was no way Mally Mack could be tied to the murder of his daughter. It was preferable to dying by being beheaded.

Mally grinned to themself as they made it across the bridge and stepped onto the dirt road. They had done it. They had really done it. They faked their own death and escaped. They had worn a potion to mask their scent, so the dogs couldn't track them, and they had made it out. They were free.

They couldn't stop the excitement from boiling up. It was wonderful. They were so happy. They were so incredibly happy. This was great. Now, they just had to make it to the capital.

"I think I'm gonna name you Rat," they said to the paint horse they had bought, and it snorted. Rat was a gelding, and would carry them to the end of their journey. If he didn't die, but he was only five, and had many years left to live. He was specifically bred and trained for adventurers, and they were so excited. They felt like a real adventurer with him at their side.