Parasites In Will's Inn

Once I got to the door that had the wooden name tag 'Peter Williams' on it, *BANG* I broke through the door with my foot and a bit of aura, “Dash it!"

The room looked deserted, the man and lady were nowhere in sight, almost as if they just disappeared. I would have found out if any traces of them or their aura remained, but I was too exhausted to use my WPS skill.

Just as quickly as I had stepped in, without any hesitation, I rushed and stuck my head out the hall, hastily looking left and right down both sides of the hall.

But there was no one on this fourth floor, even in the rooms opposite this one as I checked them by trying the doors to every room.

I returned to Mr Williams' room, feeling exhausted and dejected, “Ha...! Ha...! Alas and alack, I've lost them...”

I raised my head in confidence and told myself, “No matter... I'm sure I'll find out what those two were doing here. It doesn't matter where they hide, I'll eventually find them.”

I took a white handkerchief from my pocket and slightly wiped away my forehead sweat with it then kept it back in my pocket just to get another cleaner handkerchief to avoid leaving my prints. The cleaner handkerchief was red and had a dragon embroidered with golden thread on it.

It was a gift for my eleventh birthday from my late mother, the former Queen of Gladia. I've always treasured it and kept it close to me, so in some way, you could say that it's priceless.

The room in which Mr Peter's office was, had two different side rooms, the first one to my left looked like a small closet of sorts and the door seemed locked.

As for the second side room to my right, that room was where his office was, it had an open doorway without a door. In the room, there were large bookshelves on opposite sides of the wall, they looked undisturbed and had collected dust.

Right in the middle of those bookshelves and with a window right behind was a large eight-drawer cedar wooden desk and chair. It had a few books on it, they seemed untouched.

Once I looked from outside the office, I gracefully walked into the office and then tried my WPS skill once again but to my disappointment, all I got was a migraine and a small energy drain instead.

I panted from exhaustion, “Ha... Ha... It seems that I'll have to do this manually.”

With my clean handkerchief in my right hand, I carefully looked through and investigated all the objects without so much as touching anything with my bare hands.

I kept looking, on the bookshelves, behind the bookshelves, in the corners of the room, but couldn't find anything suspicious. Until...

"For the love of God...! What the hell is that under the desk?” I had found something right under the desk where the window's light didn't reach, it was right there on the three wooden walls of the desk's kneehole.

I witnessed something very peculiar and most of all... Disgusting.

This was something that I'd seen a few of when I first came into this inn, the very first time Mrs Williams invited me in. It was... Mushrooms. And not just any mushrooms, there was Pleurotus ostreatus—Oyster Mushroom, was a fairly edible mushroom, Laetiporus conifericola—Sulfer Shelf, a mildly safe mushroom once cooked, and even white Cauliflower Mushrooms, edible as well.

In between those mildly safe mushrooms was the smallest yet deadliest mushroom amongst them, Galerina marginata also known as the funeral bell mushroom.

I covered my nose immediately upon seeing such a deadly mushroom. It was a typical little brown mushroom, which is why it's often confused with several edible fungi.

This fungus-type mushroom contains a type of toxin collectively known as amatoxins. These can be extremely harmful, even in small doses. The toxins do not break down after heating, termed thermostable. Therefore any toxic effects are not reduced by cooking.

Not only is it hard to spot as small as it is, but to make things worse, it's highly variable, with the cap texture — the texture of the top part of the mushroom is dependent on growing conditions. For example, the appearance of the mushroom is highly dependent on humidity, with the colour and feel of the cap reflecting the moisture of the environment it was grown.

Looking at the entirety of the kneehole of the desk, it wasn't like the fungal spores were few, no, there was an incredible plethora of mushrooms and their spores all over the bottom of Mr Peter's desk.

Not only that, the rotting of the wood that surrounded the entire underneath desk was utterly grotesque. I even saw woodworms crawling through the crevices of the wood rot.

“Urgh...!” I almost threw up upon seeing the moulds on the corners of the kneehole.

Exposure to these toxic mushroom spores would cause hallucinations, and respiratory problems and with prolonged exposure to the amatoxins in the funeral bell mushroom, one could die without even knowing why.

Amatoxins in poisonous mushrooms work by blocking an enzyme involved in protein synthesis in animal cells. It can travel through the body within the bloodstream, becoming fatal when it reaches the liver and heart.

The main symptoms reported in victims include headaches, dizziness, sickness and diarrhoea, shortness of breath, insomnia, liver and kidney failure, and in many cases, death. “However, it shouldn't be able to spawn in Gladia as our trees consist mostly of hardwood as opposed to its natural habitat, softwood. Unless...” I thought as I investigated the funeral bell mushroom from a good distance.

I felt the wood of the desk ever so slightly and thought, “Just as I thought, Cedarwood, a softwood also known as a conifer. The best habitat for such a mushroom to spawn as well. Probably imported from the southern continent. And the season's just right too...”

The funeral bell mushroom particularly favours the wood of conifer trees but has been reported growing on hardwood too albeit rare. Mushroom caps become most evident during Autumn to Winter.

As soon as I realized that, I thought, “What if this was the actual cause of Mr Williams's death? And what's worse, what if this was premeditated murder? What if... It was all planned? Who? And Why...?”

With my handkerchief still on my nose, I carefully inspected the mushrooms for any other clues, and I did notice something. I noticed that there were a few poisonous mushrooms that were plucked out from their stems, it was done messily as if the person that plucked them was in a hurry. And while I noticed that, something else under the desk caught my eye,

To my surprise, it was a long strand of hair. “Red hair...?” I uttered.

[THEY'RE PARASITES! PURGE!] An eery voice rang in my head. The voice surprised me causing me to accidentally bang my head under the desk.

"Argh! What was that?” I thought as I rubbed my aching head. “Must have been the migraine...” I thought to myself, ignoring the voice.

I collected myself and removed myself from under the desk. As I stood next to the desk, I removed my handkerchief from my nose and kept it back in my pocket.

As I kept it in my pocket, I thought, “I may have to burn this handkerchief after all this.”

After all, my handkerchief had been exposed to a lot of the toxic fungal spores under the desk and I wouldn't want the fungus to spread. I searched the drawers carefully for any other clues. But... “Ah! Nothing here!” I found nothing in any of the eight drawers.

Frustrated, I proceeded to leave the room entirely. But just before I got to the wide open and damaged door. I stopped myself and a thought crossed my mind.

“What if they were still in the room, after all, there's no way they could have seen me coming from the lobby, unless... When I came from the third-floor stairs. Yes... That makes a lot of sense. And now that I think about it, I haven't checked... The other side room...!”

My eyes sternly stared at the door of the side room on the left of the room, the closet.

I slowly approached the door to the side room, step by step. As I got to the door handle, I placed my hand on the handle and gently turned the handle. Once I turned the handle all the way, I pulled, *CREAK...* The door creaked loudly as I opened it.

“Voila!” I quickly looked inside the closet but saw nothing, only a huge pile of suits, belts and tunics in a corner of a standard full-sized walk-in closet which was 7 feet in height and 10 feet in width with at least a 100sq in area.

It was a roomy closet with shelves and drawers specifically made for clothes, yet...

“All the clothes are in a corner, piled together...” I thought.

I walked into the closet and gradually moved to the heaving pile of clothes, and said, “Shouldn't the clothes be organized in the shelves and drawers?”

I sternly stared at the clothes and said, “Now that I see it up close, the pile is bigger than me in height. So many clothes piled together, that's... So irresponsible!!? What are the inn's staff doing!?”

As long as I could remember, even as a child, I had a certain hate or should I say 'obsession' towards disorganization, disorder or any form of dirtiness. It got incredibly bad that I sometimes would even re-clean and re-organise my private chambers in the palace every single time after a maid cleaned it.

However, ever since I came to Sterilia, I'd noticed that my compulsive cleaning had reduced by so much.

I sighed, “Such a mess! I can't believe Mrs Williams would allow this to happen!? Utterly disgusting.” As I reached for the suit just on top of the heaps of clothes, the pile shook a bit, “Huh? Did it just move?”

Before I knew it, a sudden footstep sounded from behind me and before I could turn to see what it was, *SMASH* Something bulky heavily collided with the back of my head, I fell to the wooden floor from the physical shock.

Once I fell, my spectacles fell off my face, making my vision a bit blurry as I slowly drifted away from consciousness.

However, before I completely lost consciousness, I saw a beautiful female figure emerge from the pile of clothes, the silhouette was completely blurry to me at the time, but something about this figure stood out to me...

“Red... Hair...!?” I uttered before passing out.