The Life, Death, and Relife of the Mushroom Mage

Chapter 3

They probably should have recognized the livery outside, too.

It was the goddamn FL and ML.

Fuck.

The saint approached their table, and they bit their lower lip hard.

"Hello," she said, her voice like a breath of sweet spring air, and Mally glanced at the duke, or, rather, the duke's son, as his father hadn't died yet. "I apologize for the imprudence, but would you mind sharing your room with one of my men? We don't entirely want to pitch our tents in this rain."

"That's fine," Mally replied, as cool and collected and calm as they could possibly be, because at least they weren't sharing a room with one of them. 'And there was only one bed', their ass. They were not about to be shipped by cosmic interference with the damn ML.

... Though now that they thought about it, they had always thought he was a little fruity.

"Wonderful!" Artesia said and clapped her hands together with a big smile, and Mally internally cringed.

"Yeah, great," they said, and Artesia practically skipped back to the counter, all sunshine and rainbows.

"The young man agreed!" she said cheerfully. "May we pay you now?"

Edwin was staring at Mally, and they felt sweat under their collar at his direct attention on them. They didn't like this.

"You agreed rather easily," he said suspiciously, and Mally rolled out their shoulders.

"What, you thought I was going to argue about it?" they asked, and he frowned at them.

"Yes," he replied, and Mally laughed.

"I share rooms all the time. It's the pains of traveling," they replied, and Edwin blinked.

"So, you travel often?" he asked, and Mally nodded.

"I'm an adventurer. Of course I travel often," they replied, and Edwin's eyes narrowed.

"An adventurer? At your age?"

"I'm older than I look," Mally replied cryptically, and his eyes narrowed even more.

"Huh," he said, and then he turned aside. "Well, thank you for your kindness. I would hate for one of my men to sleep in the stable."

Crisis averted. Mally just had to act cool and composed until this storm passed, and then they would be home free and never have to interact with these people again.

... Come to think of it, should they be heading to the capital? It was... Well, it was where everything in canon happened. Even so, if Mally ran, they may run into even more issues. What if the plot got derailed to a dangerous degree? What would they do then? If they were far away from it, and couldn't keep an eye on it, then they might be waking up to a nasty surprise. No, it would be better to be in the capital, just to keep an eye on the plot.

Self assured of themself, they sat back in their chair as the matronly innkeeper brought them a steaming bowl of stew and some bread.

"Thank you," they said gratefully, because they had been eating jerky and cheese and bread all day. A hot stew would set them right to sorts.

"You're welcome!" she said cheerfully, and they dunked their bread into the steaming hot soup and soaked up the thick broth. They took a bite, and suddenly, the saint herself was sitting down at their table.

"Where are you traveling?" she asked, with a glance in the direction of the duke, and he swallowed down his bite of bread. Oh, so she was avoiding him. Wise choice, based on the original plot, though ultimately futile. She had been here for what, a year? They'd been here since they were four.