Reincarnated as a Mushroom?-Chapter 54 - 53: “Crimson Tendrils, Caught in the Act”

Chapter 53: "Crimson Tendrils, Caught in the Act" freeweɓnovel-cøm

Kimchi was... smug. A particular flavor of smug, the kind only a hyper-competent sword-wielding cuddle freak could achieve after six solid hours of manic, obsessive architectural labor. She’d been working non-stop, no food, no breaks, no self-care—just pure love-fueled momentum, carving out a battlefield with the tenderness of an over-attached war wife.

And godsdamn, was she proud.

She’d tailored the course specifically for Irvine. It was nostalgic. Familiar. A deliberate emotional ambush designed to lower his guard and tickle his memory glands. A cruel kindness.

All while continuing to rehearse her "natural speech," a slow-motion rebellion against the psychic chains once embedded in her throat. Her voice, still mechanical and clipped, was now laced with burgeoning inflection. Practiced humanity.

Out loud, to no one but herself, she muttered:

"Hm. Kimchi believes Irvine-love will feel warmth in this layout. Yes. Scent of past combat. Textures he enjoys." Her face bloomed in delight. "Only thing left: retrieve two queen’s guards to place psi-dampeners. Mutation must not interfere. Cannot risk drones going gooey again."

She figured she might as well drop off Crystal’s second body while she was at it. The thing had started flopping around mid-construction—too limb-y to ignore, too precious to leave behind.

Kimchi hoisted Crystal’s extra form like a sack of stolen grain, one arm slung over her shoulder, and made her way toward the queen’s chambers. Upon arrival, she diplomatically informed two of the towering psionic executioners of her intentions.

"Request: relocate to training chamber. Erect dampening ward. Prevent malevolent overflow. Subject: Irvine."

The two behemoth guards acknowledged with stiff nods and peeled away in perfect synchronicity, departing toward the warroom. Kimchi would never admit it, but vocalizing her intentions made the process way less painful than trying to psionically mind-message those psionic stonefuckers. No searing migraines. No flashbacks. Just cold, professional silence.

And then—

Then she saw it.

As she rounded the corner into Irvine’s sleeping quarters, her eyes locked onto the colossal mass of Crystal’s main body looming over his bed.

She was moving—not in the regal, lazy undulations she typically used when being extra dramatic. No. She was jittering. Twitching. Writhing like a freshly caught squid in the throes of bad decisions.

Kimchi’s breath caught. Was it possession? Hive dissonance? Was her Queen unstable again?

But no... there was no wild energy. No overflowing psionic bleed. Nothing hostile.

So she crept closer.

And that’s when the smell hit her.

That intoxicating, maddening, shamefully familiar aroma. The elixir of the gods. The pinnacle of organic biology. She could taste it in the back of her throat. Her pupils dilated.

Irvine was still asleep.

And Crystal—her sovereign, her unkillable mind-mother—was sampling the merchandise. Again. But this time, she had gone full psycho-gourmet.

Kimchi dropped the second-body sack like a hot meteor and crept forward, heart pounding with something too feral to name. Was it arousal? Was it indignation? Was it envy?

Yes.

Yes to all of it.

Crystal didn’t even notice her. Too deep in the act. One glossy tentacle curled upward, dripping with Irvine’s blessed ichor, and slid into her mouth. Her eyes rolled back.

She had been at this for hours.

It had started soft—one taste, two—but the longer Irvine slept, the bolder she became. Now she was harvesting directly, siphoning, altering his hormonal flows to induce production spikes. Her tongue was practically a milking machine.

"MY QUEEN, STOP!"

The scream came from inside the room, sudden and sharp—directed not at Crystal’s core, but at the tendril still latched to Irvine’s soulpole.

Kimchi’s protective instincts kicked in like a combat override. She teleported from standing to straddling Irvine’s chest in a heartbeat, legs locking into a martial brace. Her thighs were shields. Her hips a wall. She was the final line of defence between her mate and erotic war crimes.

Her face twisted with horror. She couldn’t attack Crystal. She literally couldn’t—even years of partial independence hadn’t stripped away her baseline reverence. But she also couldn’t not protect Irvine.

She was trapped in an emotional catch-22 of psionic hierarchy and girlfriend madness.

Crystal paused.

Finally.

She blinked once. Realized what had happened. Realized she had tunnel visioned so hard she missed Kimchi entering the room.

Still sucking the tail end of a now-dry tendril, Crystal gave one final luxurious slurp before—sighing with orgasmic serenity—settling her bloated body into a resting position.

She didn’t even look embarrassed.

With a breathy chuckle, she shunted her awareness away from her core body and into the secondary form Kimchi had dumped by the door.

Her limbs twitched. Her humanoid frame sat up with a grunt.

"Why am I wet?" she asked calmly. "And why does it smell like sediment and shame?"

Kimchi, meanwhile, had completely forgotten she was sitting on Irvine’s head.

Still straddling him protectively, she leaned forward and hissed, "You were draining our mate’s seminal energy in his sleep. That is sacred time. He requires full-body rest for augmentation recovery. What the fuck were you doing? And—how did you do it without waking him up?"

Crystal blinked. She almost felt guilty. For half a nanosecond, she thought maybe Kimchi was more mature. More restrained. Maybe Irvine was right to admire her development.

But then—

Then Kimchi’s voice cracked with repressed curiosity. The kind that betrayed not moral outrage... but envy.

Ah.

There it was.

"I see," Crystal said, her smile returning. "You don’t mind that I did it. You mind that I got there first."

Kimchi looked away. Said nothing.

And the hivey girl talk began.

—

Meanwhile, in a completely different layer of reality, I was busy spiraling into cosmic psychosis.

I’d just settled into sleep. Lucid dream prep in full swing. I had my "fuck reality" playlist queued in my brain. But then—

Yank.

The Origin dragged me inward.

Ripped my consciousness straight into Mindspace like an impatient child summoning their favorite action figure.

It hadn’t been long since my last trip here, but something was wrong. Something in the air. In the temperature. In the... emotional humidity.

I felt feelings that weren’t mine wafting through the ether. Not thoughts—feelings. Dense and sticky and coalescing into visible clouds.

One of them floated toward me.

I should have dodged it.

Instead, like the dumbass I always am, I reached out and poked it with my projection hand.

Big mistake.

"Hahahaha—HAHAHAHA—OH FUCK HAHAHAHAHA!"

It hit me like huffing liquid insanity. Every single emotion in the bubble bled into my core. I felt everything. Lust. Rage. Delight. Despair. Curiosity. Adoration. Terror. It was like chugging Onyx’s entire brain in one gulp.

Psychosis hit me like a goddamn train.

And right before I mentally exploded, I thought: Who the hell does this remind me of?

The answer arrived with hands.

Three-digit, clawed, and unsettlingly maternal.

Two of them reached out from the void and yoinked me from the emotional storm, dragging me back into clarity with the force of a psionic mother bear saving her idiotic cub.

"Oopsie~" Onyx giggled, her voice purring with green-eyed madness. "You weren’t supposed to enter for another 28 seconds. Silly Origin. You just couldn’t resist peeking at yourself, could you?"

Oh. Fuck me.

That’s why the cloud felt familiar.

It was hers.

"Onyx," I growled, still reeling. "Could you maybe explain what the ever-loving cunt just happened? You know I can’t interpret your FateGremlinSpeak when you’re like this."

She leaned in, kissed my projection’s nose, and smiled like she’d just slaughtered a dozen timelines.

Then the chains wrapped around her limbs tugged downward—ritual restraints—pulling her back into place. Her green eyes flickered dark, returning to black.

Her voice flattened. Monotone.

And yet, somehow, still tender.

"Forgive me, Irvine. I was... excited. These past two weeks were flawless."

"Agreed," I muttered. "Relaxation. Love. Psionic snuggles. Peak peace. But seriously—what’s with the emotion clouds? Why is my dream realm a horror weather report?"

She tilted her head.

"I had a vision yesterday. Fuzzy. Blocked by anti-psionic fields. Likely the queen’s guard. I saw... something. Orchid will need me tomorrow. So I am purging my unstable feelings in advance."

"Purging. As in ejecting them into my Mindspace."

"They must be released somewhere."

I groaned. "How long are they gonna float around? I’d like to not reenact ’The Shining’ inside my skull again."

She gave a wistful smile.

"The one you touched was the largest. It contained nearly every emotion I have. Except for one."

I paused.

"Which one?"

"My love for you. That... is untouchable. I will never remove it. I cannot remove it."

I stood still, soaking in her words.

No jokes. No sarcasm.

Just warmth.

I gave her a gentle nod, letting her return to her ritual. She needed to stay in her mutation state until the time was right. Just talking to me had undone too much progress.

So I drifted deeper into the dreamspace, toward the Origin that had summoned me.

Along the way, I passed Sapphire’s sleepy projection curled beneath the great symbol.

She sensed me instantly—teleported with gleeful surprise—then licked my entire vision.

"Hey there, chonky girl," I muttered, rubbing her cheeks. "You’ll get your playtime soon. Promise. Right now I’ve got to go figure out why I just derailed my own sleep. Though I have a very good guess."

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