Reincarnated as a Mushroom?-Chapter 59 - 58: Where Pain Becomes Doctrine and Devotion

Chapter 58: Where Pain Becomes Doctrine and Devotion

Time, within my Mindspace, had a funny way of stretching. A single moment of silence could yawn into eternity. A quiet breath could last for what felt like days. So when I say Onyx refused to let me wake up for "a while," I mean that in the way a glacier refuses to melt under moonlight—slow, immovable, obsessive.

She was glued to me. Not figuratively. Her body was wrapped around mine like some obsessive, biomechanical compression blanket with emotional issues. Every inch of her frame curled around mine like a jealous parasite that’d mistaken affection for fusion.

Crystal probed into my Mindspace once out of worry—probably after realizing I hadn’t come up for air or quips in a while—but upon sensing the emotional wreckage and the full-body cuddle siege I was trapped in, she respectfully backed out and muttered something about "clingy Stalkers and their terminal spooning disorders."

Fair.

Still half-sinking into Onyx’s limbs, I kept one hand gently stroking the arm wrapped tightly across my ribs.

"So..." I began softly, "do you feel coherent enough to tell me what actually cracked your skull like a melon in a microwave, sweetie? Or do you need to cry on my clavicle for another eon?"

Her body flinched—an instinctive, traumatic spasm. A reflex born not of shame, but of memory. Whatever she was about to tell me, it had left claw marks inside her.

"...Okay," she whispered, tightening her embrace. "My love... I’ll tell you."

The vibration of her voice against my chest sent a strange pang through my ribs—tension, sorrow, and a touch of something heavier.

"When you commanded me to return to your Mindspace," she said, "and my emotions came rushing back... something else came too. A vision. Not one of those standard-issue Hive foresights. No. This one was different."

She shuddered. Her chitin creaked.

"It was like a mirror from a worse timeline. I saw myself—truly saw myself. I didn’t hesitate. I lifted you from the water while you were weak. And then... I drove my blade through your chest."

A single drop of fluid hit my forehead. Then another. Her tears—not metaphors, not data proxies—actual tears fell from above.

"I cut the vision short. Forcefully. Before it could finish. I think... I had to. Because if I’d seen more, I might have broken something vital."

Her voice cracked.

"My psyche... couldn’t handle it. The possibility that I—I, your protector, your shadow, your Stalker—could be the one to destroy you."

I felt her body beginning to quake again, the tremors rising with each syllable, so I did the only thing that made sense in a world this insane:

I wrapped my arms tighter around her, repositioned her head to my chest, and started stroking her tentacles like a nervous dad soothing an eldritch therapy dog.

"Shhh. Shhh. You ridiculous, overwrought, lovely little murder machine," I whispered. "Nothing happened. It was just your stupid precog trying to scream through the cocoon fog. It finally got through once you returned to a familiar place."

She nodded slowly against my skin.

The motion was barely perceptible, but it meant everything.

And so, I spent a week—an entire subjective goddamn week—trapped in a loving death-snuggle, coddling her fractured ego and massaging the crazy back into alignment.

It worked.

Mostly.

---

During that time, while my mouth was soothing her, my mind was chewing on her vision like it owed me rent.

She almost killed me.

Because of a fucking training mishap.

That stung.

I’d died before. Not metaphorically. I’d been there. I’d seen what came after. I didn’t want to go back.

Not yet.

So I made a promise to myself in the soft, slow silence of Onyx’s recovery: I’d double my growth rate. No more procrastinating. No more hoping Kimchi’s lesson plans would do all the work. My psionic strength and my physical prowess had to evolve together—like a two-headed monster doing pushups inside a black hole.

As I plotted training regimens and power route enhancements, I became vaguely aware of Onyx watching me. Not the way someone watches a loved one. No. This was deeper. This was spiritual hunger mixed with scientific curiosity.

She stared at me like I was both microscope slide and messiah.

Because in her mind, she’d failed.

She hadn’t been my cloak.

She’d been the blade.

That failure—it scratched something ancestral in her. Something primal and forbidden.

Then, something terrible happened.

She had a thought.

A dangerous one.

What if...

What if the order that forced her to act like a blade hadn’t come from within?

What if it had been implanted?

She knew the consequences of such thoughts. Every member of the Hive carried within them an immutable thread of loyalty, hardcoded into their genome like a divine watermark. To question a superior was to court agony.

The moment she began to dig down that path—her head snapped back. Pain cracked through her skull like lightning through glass.

Thoughts of betrayal scraped the inside of her bones.

But she didn’t stop.

Her body shook. Her hands trembled. But she kept thinking.

If I serve only Irvine... that’s not betrayal. He’s our King. He commands the Hivemind. Technically. He’s the center. My everything.

The agony beneath her skin writhed like a living parasite—sniffing for treason, testing her thresholds.

Then—

It stopped.

As if the Hive itself exhaled.

The pain dissipated.

And a new law was born.

She was allowed to disobey the Queen... if it meant serving the King.

Her loyalty had shifted—but not broken.

Her mind returned to the moment. Her three fingers slid gently through my hair. I blinked, snapping out of my planning trance, and tilted my head upward to meet her gaze.

She was smiling.

A real one.

Not manic. Not forced.

Joyful.

But—

Her eyes had turned green.

Not emerald. Not neon.

A deep, wet green.

The kind of green that meant someone had just made a decision.

"...You good, sweetie?" I asked carefully. "You’re glowing a bit mossy."

She giggled. Actually giggled. Like a happy psychopath watching a blender commercial.

"Yes, my love," she said. "More than good. For the first time in forever, I know—without foresight—what our future holds. And I love it."

I decided not to ask questions.

Crystal warned me hard about asking Onyx for glimpses of the future. Something about timelines, insanity, and dimensional implosions. So I smiled, nodded, and returned to my mental To-Do list.

---

A few hours later, I deemed her restored. No more suicidal shame spirals. No more emotional paralysis. Just the usual obsessive affection and mild sexual tension.

So I excused myself to find food.

With a goodbye kiss and a double check on her stability, I left.

And behind me, Onyx’s smile widened.

She wandered my Mindspace with a spring in her step, dragging her chains like happy ribbons. A few minutes later, she arrived at her second favorite spot—the prison-sword-shrine of Kiya, the other cohabitant of this neural zoo.

"Oh Kiya," Onyx cooed, lounging beside the blade. "Why must our love hurt and feel so good at the same time~?"

The sword, being a sword, said nothing.

It did, however, vibrate with deeply offended metal energy.

"Oh don’t be like that~" she sang. "Still sulking just because you couldn’t even scratch me in our little duel? Come now. You’re a Queen. Don’t pout."

The sword’s chains rattled.

"You know we want the same thing, don’t you? To be near him. Always. To protect him. To feel him beside us as the stars burn and civilizations fall."

The sword paused.

Listening.

"I may have fucked up," Onyx said, voice softening. "But I learned something. Something huge."

The chains stilled.

"We only need him. We don’t need the Hive. We don’t need the Queen’s edicts. He’s our King. Your King. Doesn’t that excite you?"

The sword shivered.

A shadow rose from it.

Huge. Hollow. Ghostly.

The outline of a woman made of holes and hunger. Fragile. Fading. But full of fire.

The shadow nodded.

Then vanished.

Onyx’s grin became a rictus of delight. Her mandibles clicked open in glee.

"Perfect~ We shall serve him alone. Together. No Queen. No system. Just our King."

At the center of my Mindspace, the Origin stirred.

If it had a face, it would’ve been giving them side-eye.

But it trusted them.

Onyx, insane or not, had always had its back.

So it said nothing.

Though it did flinch when she turned and shouted, "Thank you, sweetie~!"

The sword rattled in amusement.

I, meanwhile, was elsewhere.

Munching on what I hoped was a Ker’min burger and sipping a warm bottle of carbonated sin.

And suddenly—

I shivered.

Like I was being undressed by a concept.

I glanced sideways.

Saw no one.

Shrugged.

The two most unstable things in my world weren’t with me, so it had to be fine, right?

I kept eating.

Blissfully unaware of the oath that had just been made in my name.

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This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦