The Brewery Boss Is a Mushroom

[A story about a mushroom parodying the career-building genre]

Ambitious BOSS x His workaholic subordinate

Crows feed on carrion, and fungi grow on dead wood.

Then one day, Gin realized

that the person who had promoted him was actually a mushroom.

Among other things, it had initially demanded lab-grade beef extract peptone medium, was fond of potato soup, and liked damp places.

And sometime later, white mushrooms started popping up in the cracks and corners of the organization. Small, edible, delicious, but poisonous.

*

The mushroom is a white inkcap, a fungus that shifts between being poisonous and non-poisonous. It's edible at certain stages, and delicious when it looks like a shaggy mane. Once the edges turn black, it'll poison you.

More than that, it's an ambitious mushroom that wants its roots to penetrate the whole world and its spores to spread everywhere. Even after turning into a human, it still wants the same thing.

But there are too many restrictions on being human.

So it set its sights on a top executive in a certain black-clad organization. The man was near death, his body poisoned by all the drugs he'd taken. The mushroom secretly infiltrated his brain.

The mushroom became him.

The moment it opened its eyes, everyone else called it, "Boss."

The mushroom was satisfied, but it wasn't enough. Its goal was to spread its spores and roots across the whole world.

Later, it set about resolving the organization's legacy issues, recruiting talent and promoting key personnel.

What? Only doing shady business? No, no, think bigger.

According to the law engraved in mushrooms' genes through generations, when you grow in a dark, damp corner, you never get sunlight. Of course, at first you fend for yourself and get by just fine. But by the time you've grown big enough to attract attention, you've already gained the ability to absorb sunlight, and there's no need to care about those dark corners. That's your chance to enter the game!

The mushroom would make the transition from black to red, get a seat at the table, take over the whole market, and spread its roots across the world!

But...

It seemed that a few of its subordinates had discovered it was a mushroom.

They even cooked mushroom soup right in front of it!

How dare they! What a provocation!

Gin: "Boss, if we don't deal with this, the organization will be overrun by fungi."

Mushroom: So what? Have mushrooms ever hurt you? Don't make that nasty soup. I want potato and beef soup.

Gin: The kitchen sent over beef stewed with potatoes.

Mushroom: ...You did that on purpose.

And one more thing.

The mushroom doesn't need informants. Its spores are scattered across the whole world. Anyone who has ever been in the organization, even undercover agents or people who've run away, carries countless spores and leaves a dense trail of their movements. Its spores have taken root in every other organization, red, black, or white.

Want to go undercover? You're more than welcome.

Its spores are the most useful of all.

Written 2026.1.8 01:03, screen recording as proof

Theme: Stay grounded like a mushroom, quietly taking root and growing