The Life, Death, and Relife of the Mushroom Mage

Chapter 6

Artesia took several deep, calming breaths as she shivered and shook. It felt like bugs had crawled under her robes and taken up residence beneath her skin. It did not feel good. She did not like this.

There were dead bodies outside her carriage. Dead bodies, and all she could see in her mind's eye was Mally, ripping out a man's throat. She could see the foam at their mouths, the blackened veins, the way they trembled and fell. Mally had killed them.

So had her paladins. Everyone had killed for her. Because that was their job, and it was now someone's job to kill to keep her alive. That was what they had taken their oaths for. That was what they were meant to do. She didn't...

She didn't want to be this important, she realized. She had never once wanted to be this important, and now she was. People were willing to kill people to keep her alive. It was... it was horrific. She was horrified. She was shaking, trembling, and she wondered why this happened to her, why this happened to little Hye-Su, the girl who dreamed of being transmigrated into a novel right up until the moment she was reincarnated into the very novel she died reading.

It felt wrong. Twisted. She was someone worth killing another person over, and she never wanted to be that person. She never wanted to be that person. And Mally...

Mally was the confusing one.

Fungal magic.

Able to wipe out an entire band of bandits in one fell blow, without even batting an eye. Why wasn't Mally in the book? Where did Mally come from? She knew there would be impressive extras, but she didn't remember even a light mention of Mally in the novel. She didn't remember anything like that, and this was a major event. Even meeting Edwin was a major event, and there was no mention of a solo traveler that had to share a room with a paladin. Where had Mally come from?

They were just an extra, she realized.

This was what extras were capable of. Wanton death and destruction, and she found that she was terrified. She had asked Mally to come as a buffer between her and Edwin, but now Mally was gone with Edwin, and she didn't understand what was going on. This was terrifying. This was utterly terrifying. She didn't like this. She didn't like it at all.

"My lady, are you alright?" Lisa asked, and Artesia took a deep, trembling breath in. She came into Artesia's body the moment Artesia was discovered as the saint and whisked away to the temple. There had been no time to plan, no time to strategize, or even run away. And she had tried to run away. Three times. The paladins found her every time and dragged her back, and she had learned that was a dead end.

She had to follow the plot, even to her demise.

She didn't know how to scheme her way out of this. Already, she had run into Edwin and started up the first death flag. Now, she was just going to be dealing with this. She had to go to the capital. The plot was not allowing her to escape. She would have to follow it through, if she ever wanted to go back home, and she hated it. People were killing for her. Killing.

There were dead bodies outside her carriage.

"My lady?" Lisa asked, and Artesia gave her a teary smile.

"I think I'll be fine," she said as tears welled in her eyes. "I'm... I'm fine, yes."

"You're about to cry, my lady," Lisa said, and Artesia hiccuped.

"I'm sorry, this is all..." she trailed off as she realized this was a violent world. This was a very violent world. And Edwin would be back soon. She would have to contend with that, as well. She couldn't avoid the death flags, and she was beginning to get stressed out.