Satsuki Shannon Wants to Die! Volume 1

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7183-0424-6
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Shannon Wants to Die!

Shannon is a totally normal, mortal mage, and certainly not older than she looks-at least, that's what she's convinced her new friend, Kyle, into thinking. Cursed to live forever and fed up with her immortal coil, Shannon wants to...well...die! Unfortunately, nothing has worked-not poisonous mushrooms, not falling from cliffs, and certainly not old age. But that doesn't mean Shannon has given up. If there's a will (and perhaps a dreadful dragon, a toxic tincture, or some deadly dungeon traps), there's a way, and Shannon is committed to her search for the sweet release of death.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Satsuki, Ao

Weitere Mitwirkende

Falmaro

Plowman, Olivia

Leseproben

Chapter 1: Eaten by a Dragon

“Oh, thank you, Kyle!” the girl who had fallen from the cliffs—apparently called Shannon—said with a pleasant smile.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “It’s no trouble.”

They were on their way to Kyle’s village so Shannon could stay with him. Fate was strange; he’d never imagined making this trip with someone who’d fallen from the cliffs. Any kind of traffic into town was rare; it was a big deal when someone came from outside the village. Bringing in someone who had was monumental.

But maybe this kind of thing happened all the time outside the village.

Kyle had lived his whole life in one place, so either way, Shannon was a wonder of the outside world. His immense curiosity was only natural.

“After all,” he continued, “I couldn’t just leave you there, Ms. Shannon!”

“You’re so nice, Kyle!” Shannon said, vigorously ruffling his hair.

“Stop that!” he protested, brushing away her hand, though he wasn’t as annoyed as he let on. Rather, it embarrassed him for some reason.

“Someone’s bashful!”

“N-No, I’m not!”

Shannon looked at him, a smug smile spreading across her lips. Intuiting that she was teasing him, Kyle briefly cleared his throat and started the conversation over again. “A-Anyway, Ms. Shannon, who are you?”

He had a mountain of questions he wanted to ask her. She was an undeniable bundle of mysteries. First of all, why had she fallen from the top of the cliffs? And second, how had she survived without a scratch?

“I’m a traveling mage.”

“A-A mage?!”

Shannon nodded.

“Wow!” Kyle exclaimed. Curiosity surged inside him. “Mages really exist!”

“That’s your reaction? Of course we exist. I mean, look at me!” Shannon grasped her robe and spun around. He’d thought of it as a black coat at first, but upon closer inspection, he realized it a robe—a mage’s garb. “Is this the first time you’ve met a mage, Kyle?”

“Yeah! There aren’t any mages in the village. We do have an old magician, though.”

“Even a magician can be interesting.”

“Well, he’s not actually very good,” Kyle admitted. “The other day, he said he was going to make doves fly out of his mouth, but what actually came out was the dinner he’d had the night before.”

“Oh my!”

“A-Anyway, you’re the first mage I’ve ever met! This is awesome. And you’re on a journey and everything!”

There were far fewer mages in the world than there used to be. Of course, you could still find them in cities, but in Kyle’s village, at least, they only showed up in fantastical stories.

“Yup,” Shannon replied. “Just makin’ my way around the world.”

“Wow,” Kyle breathed. “It’s really unusual to see a mage so deep in the mountains. Most people don’t come to my village.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. People rarely leave either. It’s not like there’s some law saying you can’t get out, but everyone just stays in the area for some reason.”

Way back when, the villagers’ ancestors had pioneered the mountains, and the people who lived there now loved the land and would never dream of moving away. Of course, some people would venture out from time to time, but there had never been an instance where someone had left for good.

Kyle’s grandparents’ generation had a remarkable attachment to the region. They deliberately led simple lives, untouched by knowledge of the wider world—as if knowing nothing of the world beyond their village were a virtue. Of course, their lives were happy, so perhaps it was the right choice for them; they certainly hadn’t attracted any unnecessary problems.

Still, with no fresh breezes blowing through, the air in the village always smelled stale.

“To be fair, this place is smack-dab in the middle of nowhere,” Shannon said. “The nearest town is five days out, and getting down the mountain is a real pain too.”

“It sure is. That’s why we don’t even get peddlers very often. I do always look forward to when they show up with a bunch of rare stuff, though.”

Shannon nodded to herself. “I bet. You’re probably starving for some information and entertainment. Mm-hmm. I don’t think there was a village here the last time I came around. I wonder when it was established?”

“Huh?” Kyle blurted, his brow furrowing. That was a joke, right? “Ms. Shannon, when were you here last? I’m pretty sure my village has been around for at least two hundred years.”

Shannon tipped her head, a vacant expression on her face. “Oh, really? That long ago? Over two hundred years...” She paused. “Then I guess I just didn’t come across it.”

Despite his confusion, Kyle laughed. “Yeah, of course you wouldn’t have found it. No way you were here two hundred years ago.” Maybe Shannon simply had an overabundant sense of humor. That seemed like a skill a young mage might develop on her travels—a way to make others feel at ease around her. “Well, anyway, this area’s really hard to navigate. The mountains are vast, and you have to go through ravines. Even I’d get lost if I didn’t know the way, and if I did get lost, they’d probably never find me again.”

“We sure have walked a long way. My feet are all swollen.” Shannon stopped and massaged her calves, then said in a whiny tone, “I want a bath...”

Kyle laughed. “Mountain paths seem really challenging for girls. Can’t you use magic to fly?”

“Alas, flight magic is outside my area of expertise. It’s a pretty unique kind of magic where you just float—” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Hey, you’re looking pretty excited there.”

“I am excited! I’ve never seen magic before. Ms. Shannon, what kind of magic do you—” Kyle turned his head and spotted Shannon picking a mushroom that had sprouted from the roots of a tree. The mushroom was a light, mottled blue. Panicking, he stammered, “W-Wait! Ms. Shannon, stop! That’s dangerous!”

“Huh?” Shannon pointed at the mushroom in her hand. “This?”

“That’s a bugshroom—a poisonous mushroom! It looks a lot like a holoshroom, which is really tasty, but these ones can kill you!”

“Oh, you’re quite the expert, Kyle.” In contrast to Kyle’s fluster, Shannon was calm. Maybe she was accustomed to dangers like this from her travels. “Are you a mushroom scholar?”

“Well, I’m not a scholar, but I’ve learned a lot about mushrooms. I’ve foraged lots of wild vegetables and medicinal herbs on my dad’s say-so, so I know a good amount about this stuff.” He couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. Nobody in the village would be impressed by this knowledge, so this unprecedented chance to show off to a traveler like Shannon made him happy despite the strangeness of the situation. “At any rate, you should get rid of it. It would be really bad if you accidentally ate it. We have tasty mushrooms at my house, anyway.”

“But I’ve already taken a bite.”

“Yeah, that’s why— Wait, what?! You ate it?!” With his heart in his throat, Kyle hurried to Shannon’s side and looked at the bugshroom in her hand. Sure enough, there was a bite mark on it. He looked up at Shannon next and saw that her mouth was moving slightly as she chewed. “N-No! You have to spit it out now!”

Shannon, however, didn’t appear concerned. Without hesitation, she gulped, and Kyle realized that she had swallowed the bugshroom.

.

“Ahhh!” he screamed. “Th-This is bad! What am I supposed to do?! I need to...um...!”

Shannon hummed. “But this is pretty good. You know, there’s really nothing to worry about.”

“O-Of course there’s something to worry about! That mushroom is super toxic!”

As he spoke, he watched Shannon anxiously, but her expression remained undeniably nonchalant. Her condition didn’t seem to be changing at all; usually, someone who’d eaten a bugshroom would go instantly numb and then, over the next few seconds, start panting and vomiting.

“Huh?” Kyle said slowly. “You’re...not going numb or anything?”

“I’m perfectly all right.” Shannon cleared her throat, puffed out her chest, and patted her torso. “See? I’m fit as a fiddle!”

“Wh-What?” For a moment, he floundered for words. “That’s strange...”

Perplexed, he looked back at the mushroom. It really was difficult to tell bugshrooms and holoshrooms apart, but the pattern on this one was, without a doubt, that of a bugshroom. Yet Shannon had proven right in front of his eyes that it was safe to eat.

“Why in the world...?” he muttered.

“Looks like this mushroom was a bust.” Shannon giggled and shot him a broad grin.

Kyle, for his part, furrowed his brow, the very picture of confusion. He murmured, “That’s so strange... I’m really careful about mushrooms. I thought I knew them all, but...maybe I was wrong?”

He hung his head sadly. Shannon patted his back. “There, there—it happens! Don’t worry about it.”

“Y-Yeah, you’re right,” Kyle said after a moment....