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“RAWR.”
“Yes, yes. Please wait a moment.”
Agnes kept her eyes on the picture book even as she stroked Ciel, nestling at the foot of the sofa. Pictures of people being attacked by monsters. The hero who defeated the monsters with the help of dragons. In the end, the princess is rescued, and it’s a happy ever after.
Agnes continued flipping through the pages. She could hardly believe that the fairy tales she’d heard since childhood were actually true. But now that she knew of Crest Bearers and their magic and strength, not to mention the fact that they could summon sacred beasts, she could no longer write the stories off as mere fantasy.
The last page of the picture book concluded with a happy marriage between the hero and the princess. She’d read this tale many times and enjoyed it, but now she felt oddly unsatisfied.
The fairy tale princess was loved and protected by the hero and lived happily ever after, but was that okay?
Agnes gazed at the pages and smiling characters before closing the book with a heavy sigh.
“Oh, Agnes. There you are.”
“Claude.”
At the sight of the beautiful young man with stunning blue hair, Agnes put her book down on the table and stood up.
“Were you reading?” he asked.
“Yes, but how come you’re here?”
“I don’t need a reason to want to see you, Agnes. But actually, I do have something I want to do with you today. Let’s go and see the new house!”
“…Pardon?”
Claude took a confused Agnes by the hand and led her out of the Lefort residence.
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“I could have shown it to you after it was completed, but I wanted to get your opinions as well.”
Even in the carriage, Claude’s excitement was palpable. But Agnes was more reserved.
A mansion renovated by a mushroom fetishist. Agnes was imagining nothing other than a complete mushroom mansion. Having to live in a place like that… Egh.
Claude said he wanted Agnes’s input, but if the place was already covered with mushrooms, she’d have to ask him to remove them. Anyway, she at least hoped Claude would try to get her opinion before decorating with toadstools.
“It’s close to the royal palace and the Lefort residence, so it’ll be very easy to get around, especially for you,” he said.
“Thank you, Claude.”
Agnes appreciated Claude’s attention to detail. However, she had a feeling he wouldn’t be so flexible when it came to fungi.
“Well, here we are.”
The carriage came to a halt. Agnes trembled a little, expecting to encounter a hellish nightmare—she should have spoken up against mushroom decorating when Claude first started talking about renovating a house for her.
Ah, but the renovations were already underway from the moment she and Claude had met. No doubt it would have been too late, anyway.
And if she took mushrooms away from Claude, he might just die. She’d have to draw a firm line in the mycelium all while accommodating Claude’s mushy proclivities to a certain point.
Feeling like she was headed to the guillotine, Agnes nervously let Claude help her down from the carriage.
Would the mansion be mushroom-shaped? Could she at least ask for caps with muted colors? Beige at the very least! She lifted her eyes with trepidation, her heart sinking, to see an ordinary building with white walls and a dark blue roof.
“Oh, it’s shaped like an actual building…”
Maurice, standing guard by the door, crumpled with laughter over Agnes’s gasped remark.
“Right. I knew it… It’s boring, isn’t it? Perhaps some eye-catching mushroom statues… Or perhaps the roof itself should be shaped like a mushroom cap.” The mushroom freak, mistaking Agnes’s surprise for disappointment, started rambling things that were a terrible affront to tasteful design.
“No, no! Keep it like this, please!” she pleaded. “It’s a perfectly acceptable mansion, one that doesn’t offend public decency at all! I love it!”
“Oh… Well, all right. If you would rather it stay like this, Agnes.”
Even though they hadn’t even stepped inside yet, Agnes was already breathless with anxiety. Yikes. If she wasn’t careful, the entire mansion would be transformed into a mushroom before she could blink.
“Well then, shall we go inside?”
“Lady Agnes, have courage!” Maurice’s whispered words of support made Agnes’s heart sink.
A dark pre-mush-nition?
…Oh, she wanted to go home.
Weak, Agnes stumbled through the front doorway, Claude tugging her by the hand and Ciel headbutting her heels.
“I particularly like the high ceilings in the entrance hall,” Claude said.
“Wow, it’s beautiful with the sunlight coming in.”
The entrance hall was spacious with a beautifully polished white marble floor. High ceilings opened up to the second floor, its walls beautifully decorated with stained glass windows and elaborate molding.
“Isn’t it? I slightly changed the window placement so that the sunlight would have even greater impact,” Claude boasted.
“Never mind the placement, is that stained glass in a mushroom motif?” Agnes asked in disbelief.
“It seemed a waste of such lovely sunlight not to use it to express the beauty of mushrooms through the medium of stained glass!”
Yes, the stained glass filled the room with beautiful rainbow rays. The way the colored light poured down was spectacular, but the shapes cast on the walls were of mushrooms.
Red cap, white cap, polka dot cap… Agnes could only see fungus.
In this hall of shining mushrooms, the place didn’t really feel like a person’s home.
“It was a little difficult to place the windows just so that the mushrooms would always be reflected on the floor of the entrance hall,” Claude said, sounding very serious.
“Ack! Yes, there are images all over the floor too! The first thing you see when you open the door is mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms!” Agnes cried.
That was why the floor was white marble—to better display the mushrooms.
A white-capped Mycena chlorophos popped up on the elaborately colored floor with a loud pop, only it wasn’t glowing since it was daylight. And anyway, weren’t there already enough glowing mushrooms here?!
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Claude quickly plucked the mushroom that Ciel was attempting to bat and handed it to a servant.
Agnes wondered where all the specimens were going, although that was hardly the pertinent issue at the moment. She needed to be careful, or she’d end up living inside an actual mushroom.
“I’m glad you like it. Now, let me show you around,” Claude said gallantly.
“Why do those words fill me with fear?!”
Agnes did not exactly “like” the front hall! Even so, Claude seemed blissfully unaware of that fact and continued down the hallway with a light step.
“The wallpaper throughout has a white vine theme. You can see it where the sunlight hits.”
“Um… Does the light reveal hidden mushrooms, or something? Like, in all kinds of shapes and sizes?”
“Actually, I wanted mushroom-themed wallpaper everywhere, but Gerome stopped by to see it and said I really shouldn’t. I went with this simple vine pattern instead.”
Agnes had a guardian angel. Next time she saw Gerome, she would have to thank him.
“He told me I’d better keep the walls neutral as I had all this mushroom furniture ordered. He’s right; a proper balance is needed to highlight their beauty.”
Nope, not a guardian angel. Simply someone who had bargained for a slightly less terrible deal on Agnes’s behalf.
“If you’re talking about balance, I think there are already too many mushrooms in the entrance hall,” Agnes quipped.
As if on cue, a line of mushrooms sprouted along the wall. The brown-capped Ganoderma applanatum showcased ring grooves resembling tree rings alongside the semicircular rose-colored Fomitopsis rosea.
“Ah yes, a mushroom chair would be good too,” Claude nodded.
“MORE mushroom furniture?!”
Then, with another explosive sound, a pure white spherical Calvatia nipponica blocked the hallway. Agnes wasn’t sure why it chose to sprout just then, but it ended up blocking the corridor to the rest of the house, which was something of a relief.
“I-I’ve already seen the interior, now I want to see the garden!” she cried.
The inside was a complete mushroom fest.
Agnes wanted to get some fresh air—and away from mushrooms for a minute.
“Really? Well then, let’s go out into the garden.”
When Claude led her out of the building, Agnes took a look at the garden and breathed a sigh of relief.
Phew. It’s a completely normal garden.
For a moment, she’d been terrified to find herself in a garden where only mushrooms grew, but that wasn’t the case. Some of the flowers were planted in beds that were a bit mushroom-shaped, which was tolerable. Compared to the inside, as long as it wasn’t a mushroom garden, she had no complaints.
“What do you think?” Claude asked.
“It’s fine, except for the shape of the flowerbeds. The flowers are pretty, though. It’s actually a lovely garden.”
“Good. I actually wanted everything mushroom-shaped, but Xavier said it wouldn’t be a garden so much as a mushroom patch.” Claude sounded a little bit despondent. Still, Agnes didn’t have it in her to console him.
Agnes was going to have to live here, too. Too much compromise Claude’s way would lead her down the path of doom.
Anyway, Xavier had come to her aid too, it seemed. He was a prince, a Crest Bearer, but also a very sensible sort of person. She’d have to thank him, too. She was grateful to her future in-laws.
“So, I also had them put in a special tilled patch especially for growing mushrooms!”
Noooooooooo!
Claude beamed at Agnes, who could only scream internally.