After crying my fill, I notice the bird still convulsing beside me. Convulsing means it’s still alive.
It seems it only fainted from the Mandrake’s voice. Relieved that I didn’t kill it, I reach out a hand to carry it somewhere safe. Well — a root, technically.
(In the fantasy settings I know, Mandrakes have two patterns: one where hearing the voice kills you, and one where you just faint or get confused… I guess this world is the second kind?)
The moment I touch the bird’s body, I taste something. Flavor. Reasonably good flavor, actually. I’m blinking in blank confusion at this inexplicable phenomenon when the bird begins to wither, slowly, until it’s curled into something like a dried-up twig and stops moving. And immediately, that trumpet melody plays in my head.
(Could this sound be… like… a level-up sound…?)
Even raised in an orphanage, I played video games, so I know what that is. When a character grows and levels up and gets stronger, a little melody plays to tell you so — could that be what this is?
Which would mean. …I defeated this bird and gained a level.
“Ghh-MEHHH…!”
For the record, it seems the Mandrake is not anatomically built for human pronunciation, so my attempt to say “I’m sorry” came out as some sort of strange sheep noise. …I really want to be able to talk properly.
(Ugh… does this body just drain the life out of anything I touch…? This really is a monster…)
A monster — or a magical creature, I suppose. Plant roots absorb nutrients to begin with, and it seems these root sections that I perceive as my arms and legs and move around as such are organs that drain energy from any living thing they touch.
(Actually — that melody played multiple times earlier, didn’t it. Could it be… I committed mass slaughter…?)
This bird didn’t die from the screaming, but maybe different creatures have different levels of resistance to a Mandrake’s voice, and for some species, just hearing it is enough to finish them off.
I was running through the forest scattering that voice everywhere — and it hits me that I may have committed mass slaughter of any creatures with no resistance to it, and I go pale. …Well, my skin is brown, but still.
(What if there were humans among them…!?)
If it was something like me — another magical creature — that would be one thing. But if it was a human. Even as a former human, the feeling that I can’t do that — that I must not — is strong.
(Should I go back and check…?)
Behind me is a deep forest. From a Mandrake’s height, it’s a dark, forbidding forest choked with grass and trees towering impossibly overhead. Just looking at it frightens me, and the thought of going back in there to check for bodies — there’s simply no way I can make myself do it.
It seems that becoming a Mandrake has made me quite a coward. Whether that’s a trait of this species or just my particular personality as a magical creature, I can’t say.
(But what do I do now… I don’t really know how a Mandrake is supposed to live.)
I have human memories, and I was so certain I was still Hanazono Misaki right up until I saw my own reflection — that’s how intact that consciousness is.
My personality has changed in small ways, but my sense of values is still close to human.
(Humans need food, clothing, shelter… come to think of it, at the very beginning I was fine without doing anything. That was before the green person pulled me out, so I must have been underground. So if I burrow into the ground, I’ll at least have a home and food covered…?)
And there’s clearly no need for clothing on a Mandrake. Even exposing this plump, well-padded, round little body of mine, it’s just a root — there’s nothing embarrassing about it whatsoever. …Though I will say, the nutritional state of this body is impressive. The soil I was buried in to start must have been extraordinarily rich.
(My flower is very beautiful too. Yes, yes — just looking at the flower, this isn’t so bad.)
Mandrakes are plants from a fantasy world, so there’s nothing equivalent in my original world. But large pink petals layered upon each other like a rose or a peony, glowing with a faint, soft light — the effect is fantastical and beautiful. God must have granted my wish after all. …Well, granted, if you look at the lower half, it’s a clay-faced daikon with arms and legs, so I can’t exactly be delighted about it. But the flower really is beautiful. A thought about flowers blooming beautifully over buried corpses started creeping in alongside a question about what nutrients exactly I’d been growing on, so I shook my head hard and kicked it out.
(I’m a plant, so burying myself in the ground should let me rest. Oh — I don’t even need a house, I can rest anywhere. Today was exhausting, so I’ll rest first and think more after.)
The soil near the water is soft, and burrowing in isn’t particularly difficult. The moisture content is just right, and the feel of being buried is actually not bad.
Maybe I’ll live here — just as that thought drifts through my drowsiness, I’m suddenly yanked upward.
“KYAAAAAAAAAA!?!?!!”
“Grgh…!”
I let out a shriek at the sudden shock. This body reflexively screams at anything startling, so the scream is beyond my control.
Just like before, I’m flung into the air, and this time I fall with a splash into the water. The next instant, a fish with eight eyes stares at me. And of course, I scream at the top of my lungs again. The trumpet melody, naturally, is playing in my head.
(No no no no!! Scary!! Can’t I swim faster…!? If only I had webbing…!)
The moment I wish it, I find myself swimming through the water with ease, and I frantically drag myself up onto the shore. There I see the same thing as before — a giant with a green body. It seems that when this green giant spots a Mandrake buried in the ground, it has a habit of pulling it up.
(Alright. I’m decided. I’ll find somewhere safe… somewhere safe to live…! Wait — what about a human settlement? In a human settlement, monsters like this wouldn’t be wandering around…!)
The problem, though, is that I look like a monster — a plant-type magical creature. …Even if I have human memories, they wouldn’t accept a monster.
I slump my head in defeat, and happen to glance at my own hand and startle. My hand. There is now a hand where before there had been nothing but the tip of a thick root. With webbing between the fingers.
(Why…? …Because I wished for webbing?)
Can this body evolve into whatever shape I desire? I look down at the strange webbed hand, try to swallow, and end up swallowing air instead. …It seems Mandrakes don’t produce saliva.
In a room of a royal castle, in a certain kingdom. Court mage Nicolaus is staring with great intensity at a potted plant. He has been motionless in this state for over an hour, and Ritter, the knight assigned as his aide, grows worried enough to finally ask.
“Sir Mage, what exactly have you been doing all this time?”
“What do you mean, what… isn’t it obvious?”
“No, I’m afraid it isn’t obvious at all.”
“Honestly, commoners…”
The look of utter exasperation directed at him irritates Ritter a little. But the man is a universally acknowledged magical prodigy, appointed as a court mage. A knight assigned to assist him is in no position to talk back, so Ritter bites his lip lightly and kills the retort before it leaves his mouth. The entire castle knows this man is an extraordinary eccentric, and getting angry won’t accomplish anything.
“Shall I explain it in terms a commoner can follow… most magical creatures, when they grow, just get bigger. The conventional wisdom is that they’re too dim to think of anything beyond getting larger and stronger. But a magical creature with intelligence will undergo interesting evolutions.”
“Ah… an intelligent magical creature, you say?”
“Not necessarily human-level intelligence — but there are ones that think to a reasonable degree. Same as monkeys or crows; there are creatures it’s fair to call clever. …And the thing is, creatures like that can determine the direction of their own evolution.”
Magical creatures are no different from animals. Well — far more savage and less rational than animals. Magical creatures tend to grow larger and stronger the longer they live, but occasionally individuals with anomalous changes are discovered. These are called variant individuals, and Nicolaus appears to be currently researching just such specimens.
“But that is… a Mandrake, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, my current research subject. I wanted to see whether even plant-type magical creatures have some degree of intelligence. Mandrakes in particular — they vocalize, and they’re relatively close to animals, yes? …For example — what would frighten you about a Mandrake?”
Mandrakes are plant-type magical creatures. However, they’re also ingredients for full-recovery medicines, and since they can’t move on their own, they can be kept and even farmed. Rather than thinking of them as monsters, most people regard them as medicinal herbs that require careful handling.
That said, Mandrakes let out a curse-laden shriek when uprooted, and those with weak resistance to curses can die from simply hearing it. However, a pair of specialized earplugs is enough to block the sound easily. Put the earplugs in before pulling one up, and there’s nothing frightening about it at all. And since it’s a plant, it can’t run away after being uprooted — so there’s no risk of the damage spreading.
“I can’t really imagine a stationary Mandrake being scary, but… oh, one that runs around would be frightening. If you weren’t prepared to block that voice, you could end up dead.”
“Ha. Not bad for a commoner — a running Mandrake. I’d love to see that… hey, you. Why don’t you try evolving like that?”
Nicolaus, speaking to a potted Mandrake, is an eccentric beyond the understanding of normal people. A running Mandrake couldn’t possibly exist. If something like that were out there, it wouldn’t be strange for the entire ecosystem to fall apart.
(They say genius and insan— eccentricity are two sides of the same coin… but surely he won’t actually produce a running Mandrake, will he?)