I kept my eyes on the woman and the Templar. While the Templar had killed the shield-Templar, I was not entirely convinced he was on our side. He kept crying and hugging the woman.
The woman seemed to be in her fifties, so she might be his older sister. That was my guess, at least. He seemed to be somewhere in his thirties, maybe forties.
The man rubbed tears from his eyes as he stood up, and with the woman holding on to his shoulder, they approached the forest.
I decided to talk to them since they were in the best spot for me to unleash my Firespikes.
I told Taressa to assist me but not to cause unnecessary pain. She answered that if he did not resist, he would not feel pain.
"Greetings, Templar." I said in a calm voice. I think, at atleast. I was not very good with mental conversations, but I felt myself becoming better at regulating my tone of "voice."
The Templar stopped where he stood, just outside of the treeline.
"Hello? Are you the big ant?" He answered nervously, and I felt that he might be younger than I originally thought.
"No, that is Queen Taressa; I am the one in control of this mushroom territory, and I refer to myself as Mafu."
I had yet to understand the difference between myself, "Mafu," and the territory, "Fungal Fief." I knew that I controlled... everything in the territory?
Well, so far. I put a note in my mind to investigate if I did have control of everything later, as the Templar answered.
"Uh, hello, Mafu. I am Jod, a Templ-" He seemed to stop himself for a second and then continued. "A former Templar would probably be more correct now."
"Why did you kill your compatriot?" This question made Jod glance at the dead Templar and take a few breaths trying to collect himself. Then he sat down, the woman followed him and sat beside him.
"That will be quite a long story. If you do not mind, I will tell it."
I gave my agreement, and Jod started explaining. The woman was his mother, which surprised me. She must have been a teenager when she had him.
He had been scouted when he was ten years old, as the Templar Order sent recruiters to all villages, towns, and cities in the Empire every year. Recruiter was a kinder title than they deserved, as apparently they can take any child that shows potential, and the parents do not get a say in that decision.
He had been deemed to have good potential, but when the Templars took him, his father had tried to stop them.
His father had become angrier and angrier and ended up calling their god some colorful words. That led to his father being beheaded in the town square, in front of Jod and his mother.
From that day, Jod had set his sight on surviving. Surviving and returning to his mother.
He had hidden his hate for the Templars deep inside him and perfected his acting during the early training years. He had used his smile often and became known as "the Happy Templar."
He did not agree with anything their god decreed or what most of the Templars did.
But he had mostly been sent on monster hunts, killing monsters that threatened villages. Since his class gave him affinity with both dark and light elements, he was good at countering most monsters.
Monsters, apparently, often were of the dark element. Those that were not of the dark element were usually weak to it. I briefly wondered about my own resistances and looked at it.
Apparently, my weakness was physical attacks. That made sense. I guess if I were not a firecap, I would be weak to fire as well?
Anyways, back to the story. The reason he killed his fellow Templar was that his mother told him she would be killed by the Inquisition. Any attack on villages that had casualties was dealt with by the Inquisition. They would read the minds of all villagers to find out if they had any part in the killings. Even if it was due to a monster attack.
His mother, who hated their god and the Templars just as much as Jod, knew she would be killed by them if she stayed in the village.
Therefore, Jod could no longer stay the remaining five years of his forced conscription, as he would lose his mother. The other Templar was a true follower of their religion and thus would have to be killed.
It amazed me that he could make that decision in those few seconds. I think most people, me included, would take longer to make a life-altering decision like that.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"So, do you agree to have your minds read, both of you?" This time, I asked both of them. Taressa informed me that she had already read all of the woman's memories. But I wanted to see it for myself, and both of them agreed.
Taressa guided me into their minds via our mental connection, and I not only saw but felt every memory. Nothing Jod had said was untrue, and he truly hated the Templar order. I could feel that hate reverberate through my entire being.
My "mushroom" side had a sort of compulsion to make me want to expand. That compulsion was nothing against the hate Jod felt. For 25 years, all he had planned for was getting out of the Templar Order.
We also discovered that he had not committed any crimes towards any slaves and rarely was in the same villages or towns as them.
Apparently, slaves were not that common in every town. Mostly for towns on the frontier, resource-producing towns, and the four largest cities.
Jod knew of the general locations in the large towns where slaves were kept, which was a nice bonus for my future plans.
I also saw the woman, Jenna, give a loaf of bread to Kira. That act alone made me trust her. Acts that have no reward, done in secret, are truly convincing.
"I deem you trustworthy; you may enter my territory."
Jod and Jenna both nodded, in the same way, slightly down to the left. I found it kind of cute that even though they had been apart for 25 years, family still had their own quirks that were written in their blood.
---
A few hours later.
The next part of all of this had been to build up a sort of bandit camp and go on small "raids" to the nearby towns to free more slaves. However, that plan would have to change.
I had talked more with Jod. And he informed me that since he had killed a Templar that was over level 50, more would soon be sent this way. Why?
Apparently level 50 is the first "gate." It is where you get a new class choice, and there is usually one that narrows the scope of your abilities but makes you much stronger in that scope. For example, the Templar that was killed had chosen the defensive option, which was what made his shield so strong.
And from what Jod told me, level 50 was very common in the Templar Order. They even had two Templars who were level 150+. One of them, with the title "Faithful," could apparently call down God's Wrath in a light beam that disintegrated everything in a 50-meter circle. No matter what was inside. He was also a true zealot, who put God before everything.
If he were to arrive, we would all die. There was no way out of it.
And the next problem is that the towns nearby had no slaves, from what Jod knew. Only the other two frontier villages might have a few, but according to the human villagers, they had never seen a slave when they visited those villages.
So we would not be able to gain more manpower, even if we chose to stay.
Thus the only choice, according to Jod, and I have to say that I agree, is to escape through the portal and hope that we can handle what is on the other side.
From his information, the reason the human army retreated from the portal was due to attrition, not the strength of the creatures on the other side.
"I have only heard the creatures on the other side described as savages or beasts. What kind of creatures are they?" I asked.
"Large humanoid monsters. They are at least two meters tall, with dark grey skin and black hair, and they have two large fangs in their lower jaw." He looked to be in thought for a while and then continued.
"They are very muscular, but they do not use skills or spells. They use mana, but only to strengthen themselves. And they attack blindly, with disregard for their own safety."
"Do they use weapons?"
"Only primitive ones, clubs or large sticks or stones."
Hmmm. That sounded like golems? Although the fangs do not really make sense for golems, attrition warfare would make sense for golems if someone was summoning them.
I took quite a long while to think about it, while Jod and the other new arrivals sat down to eat over by my firecap fireplace.
Was there another way? I abhorred the idea of moving. It would require me to have the ants dig up my Mycelium Heart and also Demeter. Then the next question was, could I survive as just my firecap for a long time?
I had survived digging up my Mycelium Heart before, when I studied it in my fungal pool. But that was still close by. And in the same world.
What would happen when one part of my soul crossed the portal and another remained here?
I had no idea. None.
Any other plan also seemed worse. We could relocate further up north. We were southwest on the continent, and the forest stretched for a long while up north, according to Jod. But if we moved up north, we could still not rescue slaves because we would be discovered.
And it was no guarantee that whoever they sent would not have a skill to scout which way we went. So that plan is a bust.
Another idea was to dig as far underground with the help of ants and my workers and then remove all my mycelium from the forest. Then we could try to weather the storm and reemerge a few months later. Same problem here: we would gain no more manpower, and tracking skills would be an issue.
After a few hours, I called Toqlan, Jod, and Taressa.
"We will have to move through the portal."
Taressa and Jod quickly agreed. Taressa's ants had done nothing against the level 50 Templar, and she was sure she would have better luck against mindless beasts.
Toqlan did not like the plan, mostly out of worry for the kids among the beast-kin and humans. But he had come up with no other option and thus voted for the portal plan with the rest.
I ordered Jod and Toqlan to talk to the beast-kin and humans and start making a few handcarts. We needed to move supplies with us, and also my Heart.
There were things we would have to leave behind, such as the farm produce that was not yet fully grown. We would bring the seeds and Demeter, so we should be able to set up a new farm in the savage lands.
We would have to leave all the ore I had retrieved. It hurt a bit. I still had no real use for the ores, but I knew that they were the key to better equipment for everyone.
Ore was simply much too heavy, and we had no way of forging it. No blacksmith either; none of the humans were blacksmiths.
All my mushroom buildings as well; none could be moved. All my mushroom soldiers that invaded the frontier village had died, so only half of them remained. They would stay to protect my firecap.
The workers, we'd have to make new ones on the other side, as they could not be commanded by Toqlan.
I felt empty. Leaving all this behind was basically most of my progress since I came to this world. But what had to be done had to be done.
The construction of the handcarts and packing of supplies did not take long. Most of the remaining daylight, and then my people were done. We decided to rest here for the night and then dig up my Heart and go for the portal.
I spent the night looking at my territory, making sure to imprint it in my mind. This was my beginning.
I would be back.
I swore I would.
What do you think awaits on the other side of the portal?
