"What the hell is this?"
Noah stood at the edge of an entirely different section of the forest, staring ahead with a mixture of confusion and fascination.
He had finally passed through the seemingly endless woodland of towering trees, only to find himself standing before something even stranger.
A forest of mushrooms. And not ordinary mushrooms.
They were enormous.
Some stood three or four meters tall, while others towered high enough to rival small trees. Their thick beige stalks rose from the damp earth, supporting broad umbrella-shaped caps covered in irregular white patterns.
Noah slowly stepped between them, looking around in amazement.
"Now this really looks like some fairy-tale forest."
The deeper he walked, the stranger the scenery became.
Huge mushrooms surrounded him from every direction, their overlapping caps blocking much of the sunlight and casting pale shadows across the ground.
"Damn... There was some cartoon movie with tiny blue creatures that used mushrooms as houses, wasn’t there?"
Noah muttered thoughtfully, remembering something from his childhood. Those memories didn’t belong to Noah Eldritch. They belonged to his previous life on Earth.
Back when his greatest concerns had been school, games, movies, and deciding what he wanted to watch after getting home.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
Shake...
Noah abruptly stopped.
"...Hm?"
His smile disappeared. He slowly turned his head toward the right. One particular mushroom stood several meters away.
Noah narrowed his eyes. "Was that my imagination..."
He stared at it suspiciously.
"...or did that mushroom just move?"
Nothing happened. The giant mushroom remained completely still. Noah continued staring at it for several seconds.
Then he made the wisest decision he could think of. He turned around.
"Fuck this. I’m not taking any chances."
And ran. The instant he started running—
SHAKE!
Every mushroom around him suddenly trembled.
Noah’s eyes widened.
"Of course!"
The enormous caps began violently shaking.
Puff! Puff! Puff!
Clouds of fine powder erupted from beneath them. White dust poured into the air from every direction, rapidly covering the entire path in a thick haze.
"Shit!"
Noah immediately raised his forearm, covering his nose and mouth as he sprinted forward. Unfortunately he was already too late. Some of the strange powder had entered his nose.
"Cough! Cough!"
Noah coughed violently. His throat burned. Then something even worse happened. It felt as though his blood had begun boiling inside his veins.
"What the—?!"
Then came the itching. Noah’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. It started around his neck. Then his arms. His chest. His back.
Within seconds, almost every part of his body felt as though thousands of tiny insects were crawling beneath his skin.
"F-FUCK!!"
The urge to scratch himself was unbearable. Noah clenched his teeth and forced himself to continue running.
Mana surged toward his legs.
Boom!
His speed increased sharply. At the same time, a thin layer of frost spread across the exposed portions of his skin.
The cold slightly numbed his nerves. But only slightly.
"Who the hell designed these things?!"
He continued sprinting through the mushroom forest. Behind him, more gigantic mushrooms began trembling.
Puff!
Another cloud of spores exploded into the air. The entire forest seemed to have awakened.
Noah lowered his head and ran faster.
He couldn’t keep his mouth covered anymore. He needed both arms for balance while sprinting through the uneven terrain.
Which meant, "Cough! Cough! FUCK!"
He inhaled even more spores. The itching intensified. His eyes watered. His skin became increasingly red beneath the thin layer of frost.
RUMBLE!
The ground beneath him suddenly trembled.
Noah’s expression changed.
"Wait..."
His right foot sank. Then his left.
Squelch!
Within seconds, both legs had sunk almost to his knees.
"What?!"
Noah looked down. The previously solid ground had transformed into thick, muddy sludge.
"No fucking way!"
A swamp. The mushrooms hadn’t merely released poisonous or irritating spores. They had somehow altered the ground beneath him as well. And he was sinking.
Noah immediately stretched out his hand.
CRACK!
Ice erupted beneath his submerged feet. Instead of trying to freeze the entire swamp, Noah concentrated his mana into a single structure. A thick pillar of ice formed beneath him.
It extended downward until it struck solid earth.
BOOM!
The pillar rapidly expanded upward.
Noah was launched out of the swamp.
"Whoa—!"
His body flew several meters through the air.
He twisted himself awkwardly before crashing onto solid ground.
Thud!
He rolled twice. Then immediately pushed himself back onto his feet.
He just run.
Mana flooded into his legs again. Noah shot forward. His breathing became ragged.
His skin burned. His entire body was screaming at him to stop and scratch himself.
"Just a little farther..."
Through watery eyes, he finally saw it. The end of this damned mushroom forest.
"Just a little more!"
Noah pushed himself harder.
PUFF!
Another enormous cloud of spores erupted.
"NOPE!"
He lunged forward with everything he had.
Thud!
Noah crossed the boundary and crashed into the ordinary forest beyond. He rolled across the grass several times before finally stopping.
For perhaps two seconds there was silence.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!!"
Noah began furiously scratching his arms. His whole body. Anywhere his hands could reachThe itching was maddening.
"ARGHH! WHY DOES IT ITCH SO MUCH?!"
His nails dragged across his skin hard enough to leave red marks. Realizing he was going to tear his own skin apart if he continued, Noah forced himself to stop.
"Cold... Cold!"
Mana surged from his core. A thin layer of ice rapidly formed across his entire body. Coldness seeped into his skin. It helped but barely.
Noah collapsed onto his back. For the next ten minutes, he simply suffered.
Clenching his teeth and rolling his body around. Occasionally scratching himself before desperately forcing his hands away again.
The unbearable itching began to fade. Noah remained sprawled across the ground, staring blankly at the canopy above him.
"Haah..."
His chest rose and fell rapidly.
"Haah... haah..."
His clothes were dirty. His hair was a mess. His skin was covered in red scratch marks. There were even tears at the corners of his eyes.
But Noah had survived. More importantly he had preserved something precious.
Noah slowly raised one trembling fist toward the sky.
"I..."
His lips quivered.
"...I fucking did it."
A tear rolled down his cheek.
"I didn’t scratch my crotch..."
For several seconds, Noah simply lay there in solemn silence, appreciating what might have been his greatest achievement since arriving in this world.
Then he covered his face with both hands.
"Fuck..."
He had been stabbed, burned, thrown through walls, and almost eaten alive.
Yet today Noah learned something important. There were forms of suffering that could rival pain itself.
And apparently unbearable itching was one of them.
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