Reincarnated as a Mushroom?
Chapter 85 - 84: Morning, With Poison Still Singing in Our Veins

Chapter 85: Chapter 84: Morning, With Poison Still Singing in Our Veins

Chapter 84: Morning, With Poison Still Singing in Our Veins

---

I came back to consciousness like a stone reluctantly surfacing from the bottom of a dream-drenched ocean. Limbs heavy. Skull fogged. Mouth dry as a desert wrapped in a drought. And most importantly—alone.

No Kimchi cling-wrapped around me. No Sophia curled at my side with predatory affection. Just me, a bed, and the echoing aftermath of Sophia’s pharmaceutical war crime masquerading as a cocktail.

Groaning like a man whose liver had filed a resignation letter, I shuffled toward the bathroom, half-mummified in blankets and regret. Morning rituals were accomplished through sheer mechanical will—teeth, face, soul, all scrubbed. I emerged from the bedroom a slightly less dead man.

Then it hit me.

A scent.

Warm. Savory. Culinary euphoria made solid. Like hope had taken up frying eggs downstairs.

Following the siren call of breakfast, I descended into the heart of Sophia’s lair, where the dining room gleamed like a showroom ad for "Functionally Tyrannical Wealth." She was already there, seated with the poise of a warlord on vacation. Mug in hand. Eyes locked onto her datapad. Smile ready the moment I entered, like she knew.

"Good morning, Irvine," she said with a softness that felt illegally domestic. "That was... one of the best sleeps I’ve ever had. Thank you."

There was no sarcasm in it. No calculated toneplay. Just the raw, sleepy gratitude of a woman who got to sleep near her obsession without dying. Love really is chemical warfare.

"You hungry?" she added, gesturing lazily to the table. "I had my chef make you something hearty."

I grunted in agreement and slid into a chair, pouring myself a cup of tea from the pot that had somehow already known to be there. I was just about to take my first sip when—

"ELIAS!" Sophia screamed like she was trying to scare away demons.

I nearly threw the cup into my face.

Seconds later, the man himself arrived.

Elias. Middle-aged. Magnificent mustache. Chef hat. Apron. Eyebrows set to "perpetually shocked." He walked in from the kitchen like he was entering a crime scene. The moment his eyes landed on me—still mostly naked, freshly post-poisoned, and seated at his mistress’s table—he stopped moving entirely.

"You summoned me, Lady Sophia?" he asked with the barely-contained panic of a butler in a vampire movie.

"Yes," Sophia said sweetly. "My paramour is famished. Fetch his breakfast, would you?"

"Paramour?" Elias echoed, his soul briefly leaving his body.

This poor man. Ten years. Ten years of silent devotion and industrial-level food preparation, never once joined at breakfast by anything but datapads and disdain. And now here I was. Nipple-out. God-touched. Sipping her tea.

He looked at Sophia. Then at me. Then at her again. Then back at me like I was the reason his pension just got cancelled.

Regaining composure through sheer professionalism and possibly fear of being turned into breakfast, he said, "Of course, my lady. Though... may I ask if he is the reason I was forced to wear a blindfold upon entry this morning?"

Sophia didn’t blink. "I am your employer, Elias. If I command you to wear a blindfold into the sun, you do it. It was to protect you from sensitive information. That is all. Now go."

Her voice was all sunshine and cordiality, but Elias was sweating bullets as he fled the room like he was escaping a hostage situation.

He returned shortly with a towering plate of food, dropped it off, and fled again, only daring one last, wounded glance at Sophia before vanishing.

I bit into a hash brown like it owed me money.

"So... you aware that guy’s in love with you, right?"

Sophia took a sip of her drink and nodded. "Of course. Most males who look upon me long enough fall into some iteration of affection. I usually convert them. Their love curdles into servitude. Elias, however, has mechanical augmentations. His genome is incompatible. The implants distort the conversion process. He would liquefy."

"You would find a poetic way to say, ’His body would fail spectacularly.’"

Sophia arched an eyebrow, voice turning coy. "Why, my darling... are you perhaps jealous?"

I scoffed. "Jealous? Of Mustache McSteelbrain? He can keep his hopeless devotion. Let ’em all love you. They’ll never have what I do. You know that. I know that. The Hive definitely knows that."

"Careful," she purred. "Try to sound any more smug and I’ll have to punish you for it."

"Stop flirting before I make you regret breakfast," I muttered, stealing a strip of bacon.

Then: a dangerous thought bubbled up.

"So... what was the ’sensitive information’ you blindfolded poor Elias over?"

Sophia’s lips curled in satisfaction. "The large blue creature that was crushing Kimchi in my living room."

I choked on my toast.

"Shit—Kimchi!"

I bolted.

Sapphire was still there, lounging like a psychic sphinx, her massive frame coiled protectively beside Kimchi—who was stirring, barely upright. Onyx lay beside them, murmuring softly. Babysitting, apparently.

Sapphire turned her head at my approach. I rewarded her with slow, deliberate nose scratches. "Good girl. Thanks for keeping the murder lizard pinned down all night. You can head home."

With a psionic flick, Sapphire vanished into my Mindspace like smoke curling back into a lamp.

Kimchi, blinking sleepily, sat up with all the grace of a drunk eel. The moment her eyes landed on me, her face bloomed into a smile so bright it could erase galaxies.

"Good morning, my love," she murmured. "Why was Kimchi trapped beneath the psionic beast when she awoke?"

"You don’t remember?" I said, gently helping her up. She immediately resumed the natural position of wrapping herself around me like a clingy scarf.

"You drank a fuckton of Sophia’s poison at my request. Got all wild and feral. Tried to go hunt random humans in the hallway. I had to deploy the cuddle cannon."

She blinked. "I remember drinking the poison. And then... sleep. Deep. Hive-hallucination level sleep."

"That tracks," I said, running my hand through her hair. "You didn’t do anything too awful. Just got a little bitey."

Kimchi grumbled but didn’t resist as I walked her back to the dining room. Onyx declined food—claimed she’d already eaten, which was either true or code for "I watched someone else eat and absorbed the memory nutrients."

I sat Kimchi down in my chair and let her keep eating my meal. Which was fine. I still had tea and hash brown crumbs. The universal currency of forgiveness.

Sophia raised her mug. "No need to apologize, my sweet. Though you’ve reminded me of a question."

I motioned for her to continue, sipping politely.

"That creature—the one who subdued Kimchi. What is it? I know it. I feel it. But no Hiveform in my memories matches it."

"Ah," I said with a smile. "That’s Sapphire. She’s... complicated. Born from a fusion of my unique psionic properties and an obscene, unethical, probably-should’ve-been-illegal amount of Crystal’s psychic energy. She’s technically... our kid?"

Sophia nearly dropped her mug.

A child.

Not metaphorical. Not cultist. Not metaphor wrapped in devotion.

Theirs.

She clutched at her chest like her heart had tried to escape.

"I use Sapphire for counter-Kimchi operations," I added. "She’s the only other living thing Kimchi doesn’t fully hate."

Kimchi tried to grumble through her mouthful of toast but knew I was right and said nothing.

We basked in weird domesticity for a few minutes before I remembered the whole reason we were talking.

"Oh, right—Soph. I need a favor. A pretty big one."

Her eyes gleamed. "If it’s within my power, it’s already yours."

"Right, so last night on the way here, checkpoint guard asked me for ID. I may have told him I was an Arcon of a planet. Think you can get me some credentials to back that bluff up?"

Sophia lit up like a villain hearing their favorite theme song.

"It’s fortuitous you told me this morning. I happen to be visiting a noblewoman in the northern hemisphere today. She owes me a rather humiliating favor—something involving blackmail, you understand. She also has exactly the sort of bureaucratic pull you need. If you come along, I’ll introduce you."

"Sounds like a hoot," I said, stealing the last sausage off Kimchi’s plate.

She nearly bit my hand off.

---

An hour later I stood half-naked and fashion-impaired, staring into a wardrobe the size of a bunker and yelling down the hall like an entitled noble.

"Sophia! Get one of your fashion cultists in here! I’m not risking diplomatic failure by picking the wrong shirt!"

I knew how to dress casually. I had a vibe. A jacket. A pair of boots. But formal? Noble-visit attire? No fucking clue.

The elevator dinged.

Two familiar presences stepped out. The air tingled.

"Apollo!!" one of them shouted, already running toward me.

"Woah. Life of the party herself. Hey, Keyla."

Keyla. Four foot eleven inches of relentless charm, with a grin that could revive the dead and new purple hair like a mood ring gone rogue. She radiated positivity like a weapon.

She, like many of the cultist women, experienced my "boon" differently than the men. The men were like drones: devoted, respectful, mildly terrified. But the women? Their emotional cocktail was more... complicated.

Keyla in particular gave off pragma and familial affection with the sort of warmth that made her feel more like an extremely sweet daughter than an obsessive cultist. Which made her easy to talk to.

Then came the second one.

"G-good morning, Daddy," said Samantha, failing spectacularly to make eye contact.

I groaned. "You’re seriously trying to Pavlov me into associating arousal with trauma, aren’t you?"

Kimchi, from behind me, growled softly.

It was going to be that kind of morning.

And I hadn’t even picked a damn tie yet.