A list of characters that appear in Little Mushroom. All names and terms are taken from the published English translation, unless noted otherwise.
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Main Characters
An Zhe
- Voiced by: Sun Lulu (Audio Drama)
- Affectionate Nickname: Although it's said with his dying breath, An Ze does seem to affectionately call An Zhe "little mushroom".
- Amnesiac Hero: Invoked/feigned. When he returns to the base and runs into a few people who knew An Ze, he pretends he got amnesia from falling in the forest and doesn't remember anything.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: Happens to him twice, courtesy of Lu Feng. Lu Feng is at least kind enough to wipe the blood off of An Zhe the second time it happens.
- Character Title: He is the titular "Little Mushroom".
- Determinator: Is willing to enter a human base who are on constant lookout for xenogenics like him in order to retrieve his spore.
- Dismemberment Is Cheap: An Zhe finds that he can tear off some parts of his limbs and then regrow them easily.
- Disney Death: He appears to have died in the explosion of the secret xenogenic base as Lu Feng tried to reach out for him. But it's shown three years later that his spore grew up into a copy of him with his memories intact.
- Dissonant Serenity: Is mentioned by many during times of crisis like Judgement Day that he appears eerily calm. Some have even gone on to say it was like An Zhe was just observing everyone else around him, or like he wasn't really part of what was happening.
- Dude Magnet: An Zhe has the appearance of a nineteen-year-old An Ze, who is noted to be very pretty. This has gotten the attention of multiple men, Lu Feng included. An Zhe however, is pretty oblivious to most of it.
- Dude in Distress: An Zhen finds himself in a lot of precarious situations that he can't get himself out of due to An Ze's body not being that physically built. This is something even Lu Feng points out, which An Zhe can't really deny.
- Friend to All Children: He's kind towards children and later on even gets a job in teaching a small class of kids.
- Identity Impersonator: He takes on An Ze's identity as well as gaining some of his memories, which helps him to understand the human boy better along with the emotions of the people around him.
- Kindhearted Simpleton: Since he's a mushroom that only recently gained a human body, he doesn't have a full grasp of human emotions and comes across as more innocent and simple-minded than the norm in a post-apocalyptic setting, which some people find refreshing but others try to take advantage of.
- MacGuffin: An Zhe wears a bullet casing around his neck, as it was the only thing left behind after his spore was taken, and the only clue he has on where his spore could be. Lu Feng later finds out that the bullet casing belongs to him.
- Meaningful Name: An Ze decides to call him "An Zhe", with the "zhe" meaning "snap", after An Zhe tells him how he gained consciousness when his stem snapped and he wanted it to fix so he could live.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: The third floor of the underground Black Market An Zhe finds work in is known for hiring sex workers, which he is initially unaware of. Lu Feng initially believes he's a male escort until he finds out An Zhe just helped make Mr. Shaw make human-like dolls. Other soldiers around him take an interest and try to get him to sleep with them, with An Zhe replying that he already has someone (a trick Mr. Shaw taught him).
- Mister Seahorse: Sort of. When he regains his spore, he grows it inside his body as if it was his own child and the agony he feels when it reaches maturity and begins breaking free from his body reads a lot like the painful process of giving birth.
- Nice Guy: An Zhe is overall kind and polite to the people he meets, unless he has a good reason for not trusting them.
- Obliviously Beautiful: Downplayed. An Zhe has a very pretty looking face, but doesn't quite understand the degree of human attraction. He has to actually be told he's pretty, which is why many soldiers ask if he's a sex worker.
- Oblivious to Love: It takes him a long time to realize that Lu Feng has grown romantically attracted to him. But, given it is Lu Feng, it is hard to tell what he's feeling any time.
- Papa Wolf: A somewhat odd variant. An Zhe is willing to brave going into a human base just to retrieve his mushroom spore, which is basically his child.
- Poisonous Person: He believes he is this after he runs from a mutated Anthony, with Hosen passing out due to accidentally ingesting some of his hyphae. His hyphae are actually non-lethal and merely cause the person who consumes them to fall unconscious for several hours.
- That Man Is Dead: Played with. When Josh confesses to "An Ze" that he always loved him, An Zhe doesn't reply. Not only because he knows he's not the real An Ze, but he knows Josh left An Ze for dead. While An Zhe never says these words, him coldly brushing off Josh can be read as this.
- Trademark Favorite Food: He becomes quite fond of the potato stew that gets served in the human base.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: His absorption of An Ze's blood and genes enables him to shift into a human form that looks exactly like An Ze's and he can also turn part or all of his body into thin white hyphae to escape sticky situations or move around more covertly. In the extras, he discovers that he can also take on the forms of many other animals and plants by absorbing their genes and can even shrink his hyphae form into a size small enough to be put into Lu Feng's pocket.
- What Is This Feeling?: When he begins experiencing human emotions like grief and love, he's confused by them and frequently can't put a name to them.
- Your Days Are Numbered: After An Zhe fulfills his biological need as a mushroom to find and raise his spore to maturity, his body begins slowly deteriorating with no way to halt or stop it.
Lu Feng
- Voiced by: A-Jie (Audio Drama)
- Awesomeness by Analysis: He seems to be able to tell if anyone is infected simply by looking at them, which is one of the reasons he became the Arbiter. This leads him to keep a close eye on An Zhe even after the latter passed all of the official inspections because his intuition still senses something suspicious about him. His friend even reports to Collin that Lu Feng's assessment of possible xenogenic infectees was 100% accurate, compared to all other judges and previous Arbiter who only had around a 80% or 90% success rate at best.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: He seems to get a bit surprised or annoyed when he believes An Zhe is a male escort, and also shoots one of his bullets into the air when Josh refuses to let An Zhe go.
- Dark Is Not Evil: He wears a dark military uniform and is basically seen as a demon by most of the people in the base. With An Zhe and his mother, he shows a softer and more caring side that's hidden beneath the man who has to make hard choices to keep what little bit of the human population there is alive.
- The Dreaded: Everyone in the base is terrified of him and most of them view him as an unfeeling monster who has the power to kill whoever and whenever he pleases regardless of whether or not his judgement can be proved right.
- I Will Wait for You: Waits three years in the epilogue for An Zhe's spore to fully grow into a new version of him.
- Iconic Item: His gun that that he always keeps by his side. When he parts with it by secretly putting it into An Zhe's backpack, it's a wordless sign of how much he's grown to care about An Zhe.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He will kill people he suspects are xenogenics without hesitation, but he will also risk his life to protect innocent people with a similar lack of hesitation. He also grows fond of An Zhe and ultimately chooses not to kill him even when he learns of An Zhe's true nature.
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: He judges and then kills whomever he sees as a threat to the base, mutated or not.
- Kick the Dog: To protect the base, he won't hesitate to shoot elders, women, or even children.
- Not So Above It All: As cold and aloof as he can be, he also has a playful and teasing side that comes out increasingly often around An Zhe.
- Patricide: He killed his father after the latter returned from an expedition, believing that he had become mutated. had gained a mutation. He only learns later on that the man he killed was the father he had never met before, but still sticks to his authority as the Arbiter.
- The Stoic: He speaks calmly and clearly, rarely batting an eyelash when he judges who to kill. This cold demeanor does lessen a bit around An Zhe.
- The Tease: He often teases An Zhe, which regularly frustrates the little mushroom.
- When He Smiles: His features become noticeably more handsome and soft when he smiles, something that happens the most around An Zhe.
The Outer City
An Ze
- Voiced by: Su Shangqing (Audio Drama)
- Affectionate Nickname: In his few conversations with An Zhe, he seems to affectionately call him "little mushroom".
- First Friend: Is the first friendly human An Zhe comes across.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: He gets stabbed through the chest by a xenogenic bug and slowly dies from his wounds as An Zhe watches over him.
- Last Words: Him begging An Zhe not to go to the human base and telling him he was just a little mushroom.
- Left for Dead: After being stabbed by a xenogenic in the forest during an expedition and calling to his friend Josh for help, Josh left him out of self-preservation.
- Nice Guy: What little we see or hear of him shows he's a kind and generous person. Even when his friend abandons him to save his own skin, An Ze is initially angered, but soon cools down and knows that he was basically dead weight to the group since he was stabbed by a xenogenic. Even as he lays dying, his last words are him begging for An Zhe to not go to the human base out of fear that he would get caught.
- One-Steve Limit: Although their names are written differently, An Ze and An Zhe's names sound very similar.
- Plot-Triggering Death: It is due to An Ze's death that An Zhe is able to gain a human body and leave his cave to find his spore.
- The Promise: He and Josh made a promise to each other that they'd always look out for another. Josh ends up breaking this promise when he leaves An Ze to die in the forest. An Ze, for the most part, forgives Josh for this, knowing he was dead weight at that point.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He's already dead by the the beginning of the story and we only learn of his brief conversations with An Zhe through flashbacks. However, he's the entire reason An Zhe knows of the existence of the Northern Base and can assume a human form to be admitted in there.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: His past isn't fully disclosed, other than that he wrote poetry and mainly kept to himself.
- Younger Than They Look: He's about nineteen years old, according to An Zhe, but Hosen initially takes him (or, more accurately, the human form An Zhe based on An Ze's) to be younger.
Josh
- Voiced by: Gu Jiang Shan (Audio Drama)
- Dub Name Change: He was called "Josey" in the Chinese version.
- Love Confession: When An Zhe returns to the base, Josh, believing An Ze had returned safe declares that he still loves him when he runs into An Zhe for the second time, but An Zhe doesn't reciprocate.
- My Greatest Failure: When he sees "An Ze" again, he tells him he deeply regrets leaving him to die in the forest. An Zhe doesn't accept his apology and keeps on avoiding him.
- What You Are in the Dark: In spite of promising An Ze that he would look out for and protect him, he ends up abandoning An Ze to save his own life.
Vance
The leader of a small group of mercenaries who are the first humans An Zhe runs into while traveling to the Northern human base.
- Big Brother Instinct: He's immediately protective of An Zhe when he sees him, and later tells him he had a little brother who he looked after who was around An Zhe's age. However, he's dead since he was killed by the Arbiter.
- Dramatic Irony: After losing two of his team members, he jokes that when he and An Zhe return to the Northern base, maybe he'd be the next to die. Not soon after setting foot in front of the gates, Lu Feng immediately shoots him dead on the spot. It's also dramatic that both he and his little brother were killed by the Arbiter.
- Foreshadowing: When An Zhe wonders if he should have told Vance about seeing the blood on the shell of the bug which later caused Anthony to mutate, he tells An Zhe not to worry about it and explains that some people hide their injuries because they desperately want to return home even if they might be infected. When the two of them arrive at the base, Lu Feng shoots Vance on the spot and reveals that his corpse had a tiny puncture wound on it, causing An Zhe to realize that Vance would have mutated himself sooner or later.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Lu Feng shoots him right as Vance is warning An Zhe not to look at the Judge too closely.
- Sacrificial Lamb: His abrupt death at Lu Feng's hands establishes early on in the story that Anyone Can Die in this post-apocalyptic setting and that Lu Feng will not hesitate to kill anyone he perceives to be a xenogenic, no matter how sympathetic or outwardly healthy they seem.
Doussay
A sex worker in the district who stumbles upon An Zhe and gives him work through Mr. Shaw.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: An Zhe makes note of her large chest, and it certainly helps in her particular profession.
- I Have This Friend: She tells Mr. Shaw that a friend of hers is madly in love with the Arbiter and wants a doll made of him. Mr. Shaw is hesitant to go through with the commission, but does it anyway. When he and An Zhe attempt to go and deliver the doll, a neighbor tells them the woman who lived in that apartment was Doussay herself.
- The Oldest Profession: She's a prostitute in the black market area, and is noted by many to be one of the most beautiful women there.
- Rescue Romance: Lu Feng saved her once when she was in front of the gates and he killed a xenogenic close to where she was. However, it's clearly one sided on Doussay's part and Lu Feng kills her when he notices her showing signs of mutation.
Scott Shaw
An old man who works in the third level of the black market district, making realistic life-sized dolls for customers who are willing to pay for it.
- Alliterative Name: Scott Shaw.
- Dirty Old Man: Whenever An Zhe is around, he mentions how the kid has good looks and could easily nab a high-ranked person in the base to look after him. He also keeps mistaking An Zhe and Lu Feng as a couple, calling Lu Feng An Zhe's "man". After a while, An Zhe comes to the conclusion that Mr. Shaw doesn't have much else on his mind.
- Shipper on Deck: He believes Lu Feng and An Zhe are a couple, despite An Zhe trying to convince him nothing was going on between the two.
- Hidden Depths: After the xenogenic beetle raid, Mr. Shaw parts ways with An Zhe, saying he should probably go visit his paramour.
Poet
A man imprisoned for spreading the reason why the world is the way it is today, and revealing the effects it had on various bases that fell.
- Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: He found the reason behind the xenogenic mutants growing and how that affected others bases that fell. Him spreading this information led him to be jailed for life.
- Longer-Than-Life Sentence: Because of his knowledge, he was imprisoned for life, but manages to be freed thanks to An Zhe's help.
- Mr. Exposition: He gives An Zhe and the readers the backstory of how the world fell after 2020, as well as what happened to the other bases that were overrun by xenogenics.
- Only One Name: He asks to be called "Poet" and nothing else.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: After a few chapters of being introduced, he parts ways with An Zhe when they safely make it to the sixth district and remarks that he'll probably try and look for his boyfriend or see if he gets thrown into prison again. Given what happens after, it's highly likely that he got Killed Offscreen by the nuking of the Outer City.
Doctor Ji
A doctor and scientist of the Northern Base.
- Covert Pervert: He begins to make a lewd remark at one point about how if he had a pretty young thing like An Zhe, he would tie him to his bed, before Lu Feng gives him a Death Glare and he hastily changes the end of his sentence to say that he'd dissect him.
- Determinator: Keeps communications open with both the Underground Base and the Highland Research Institute during the climactic battle in spite of suffering from the excruciating pain of losing an arm and half of a leg. When he's told that the base needs to hold out for thirty more minutes before reinforcements can arrive, he replies simply, "It will be done."
- Nice Guy: Is consistently kind to An Zhe and even goes out of his way to make sure that An Zhe gets evacuated to safety with him by naming him as his personal assistant. Even when he's upset at An Zhe for his theft of the spore they were researching, he still prevents the angry military officers from shooting An Zhe dead and tries to give An Zhe a chance to resolve things peacefully without the officers resorting to torture to try to force a confession out of him.
- Professor Guinea Pig: In the epilogue, he's mentioned to have volunteered himself as a test subject for the scientists to experiment with frequencies on, which paid off when they found a frequency that enabled the regeneration of his lost limbs.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Is the closest thing Lu Feng has to a friend in the base, despite him frequently heckling or teasing him about how aloof and uptight he is.
The Main City
Si Nan
One of the children An Zhe teaches in the Main City.
- Black Eyes of Evil: One of the first signs that he's mutating into a xenogenic is his eyes turning an unnatural black color.
- Child Prodigy: Completes the exams much faster than anyone else and gets a perfect score on them.
- Creepy Child: Is noted to be unnervingly silent and emotionless compared to the other children even before he mutates into a xenogenic.
- Heroic Willpower: Only a partial case, but after he's mutated into a xenogenic, Lily's visits help him regain his human consciousness for brief periods of time, which is very rare for a xenogenic to be capable of.
- Only Friend: He and Lily seem to be each other's only friend.
- Public Secret Message: After he mutates into a xenogenic, he's unable to speak to Lily and only makes tapping sounds on the glass screen during his brief periods of lucidity. The other characters eventually figure out that he's actually tapping out a secret message to Lily to "go back" to the Garden of Eden.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never shown what happened to him after the main characters evacuate to the Garden of Eden. An Zhe tells Lily it's possible that Si Nan might be brought to the Garden as an important research subject, but he doesn't reappear there at any point.
Lily
A little girl An Zhe meets in the Garden of Eden.
- Creepy Child: Like her friend Si Nan, she's unusually quiet and emotionless for a child her age. This is likely because she was raised and sheltered in the Garden of Eden her whole life and is also secretly a xenogenic like Si Nan and Madam Lu.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: She has deep knowledge of the Rose Doctrine as well as being unfazed by her friend turning into a bee after somehow being infected by a xenogenic. This might also be a side effect of her secretly being a xenogenic herself.
Madam Lu
Lu Feng's mother who works in the Garden of Eden and is one of the women working under the Rose Manifesto to provide the base with a supply of embryos.
- I Die Free: Tragically subverted. She believes that becoming a xenogenic will allow her to finally escape from the base and the Rose Manifesto's stifling rules, but she gets only a fleeting moment of true freedom at best before her human consciousness is completely subsumed by the Insect Queen xenogenic's instincts to infect everyone in the vicinity. As Doctor Ji sadly observes, she wanted more than anything to be freed from her role as a just a reproductive womb for the base, but the Insect Queen she mutated into was just as much a slave to its reproductive instincts.
- I Just Want to Be Free: She admits to being weary of having to live as a baby-making machine under the Rose Manifesto's rules and wants nothing more than to finally have the freedom to venture outside the Main City. She even considers becoming a xenogenic to be a preferable fate to her current one, if it means that she'll be able to finally fly away from the confines of the base.
- Stepford Smiler: She initially appears to be an amiable woman who's content with her duties in the Garden of Eden, but later reveals that she harbors deep sadness and bitterness about the base killing both her mother and lover and forcing her to live a life comprised of only making as many babies as possible and has become so disillusioned with humanity in general that she plans to give it up in favor of becoming a xenogenic.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: She fell in love with a man outside of her Rose Manifesto reproductive duties, but he ended up being killed under suspicion of being a xenogenic.
Highland Research Institute (Warning: unmarked spoilers past this point)
In General
- Foil: To the Northern Base. Instead of being a base ruled by fear and intimidation where anyone under the slightest suspicion of being a xenogenic is instantly shot dead, it's a base where all xenogenics who have retained their human consciousness are welcomed with open arms, there is no hierarchy that gives a select few power over everyone else, and everyone treats each other with warmth and compassion.
- Outcast Refuge: Serves as a sanctuary for both the Fusion Faction members and xenogenics who retained their human will but can't return to the human bases without being immediately killed.
Pauli Jones
The head of the research institute and a member of the Fusion Faction who also became the first Arbiter long ago.
- The Atoner: He deeply regrets the mass deaths he caused in the past by first accidentally letting a xenogenic the Fusion Faction was experimenting with escape and poison the Northern Base's water supply and then helping create the Trial Court system and executing half of the base's population as the first Arbiter, and he's been striving ever since then to make up for them with the creation of the research institute as a refuge for xenogenics who have nowhere else to go.
- Defiant to the End: When things are at their darkest, he laments that all of humanity's attempts to survive or even understand the workings of the universe have been like trying to scoop the moon's reflection out of the water with one's hands, but concludes that he still wants to continue trying to scoop the moon out of the water for as long as he can.
- The Extremist Was Right: In spite of the Northern Base condemning his and the Fusion Faction's experiments and theories that humanity's best chance of survival lay in becoming xenogenics themselves as insane and foolish, the ending shows the Fusion Faction's vision coming true with many humans willingly undergoing mutation to become stronger xenogenics.
- Foil: To Lu Feng. Instead of being a cold and aloof Arbiter who can unhesitatingly shoot dead numerous people for the greater good, he's a warm and friendly ex-Arbiter who defected from his role because he couldn't bear the guilt of killing countless people who might not have been truly infected.
- Parental Substitute: Becomes this to An Zhe, who he treats like his own son.
- Removed from the Picture: After he defected from the Northern Base, his name was scratched out and his photo was removed from the base's display of Arbiter portraits.
- Science Hero: His extensive research proves to be vital to saving humanity in the climax, as he's the one who realizes that the mutations can be stabilized if the Simpson cage he built transmits a completely stable frequency over the surface of the Earth.
Tang Lan
A friend of Hubbard's who is mentioned in the first volume as having died while protecting Hubbard and the rest of their team. The second volume reveals that he survived and mutated into a xenogenic, but one who didn't lose his human consciousness and became a loyal member of the Highland Research Institute.
- The Big Guy: He's one of the strongest inhabitants of the research institute and is seen helping Pauli subdue a xenogenic who became violent after losing his human consciousness and defending the institute from mutant animals during the climactic battle.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: He was set to become a well-off military officer in the Main City along with his best friend Hubbard, but an untimely illness caused him to be sent to the Outer City instead where he grew up into an embittered delinquent until Hubbard reunited with him.
- Never Found the Body: He and Hubbard both mysteriously disappear after the ending battle, but the other characters assume that the lack of found bodies for them mean that they're probably still alive somewhere else. The extras reveal that he and Hubbard fell off a cliff during the battle with him trying to slow down their fall with his damaged wings, but leave it ambiguous if they managed to survive or if they died and their bodies were simply located too far down the cliff for the other characters to find them.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Him being mutated by an especially powerful beast gave him the ability to change parts of his body into animal ones, like growing wings from his back for flight or turning his fingers into claws for hand-to-hand combat.
