This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

In the underground ruins that had lain silent for countless ages, liveliness finally returned.

Thorin and Gromm dragged the lizardman into a relatively intact domed structure, while the Frost Wraiths chasing them multiplied from one into a whole group.

The two dwarves braced themselves against the rust-covered bronze gate, pushing it shut little by little with their shoulders.

The hinges let out a piercing groan, and several shattered metal components fell away during the process.

Gromm glanced at the battered base of the hinges, where most of the parts were already missing.

“This door won’t hold for long.” He then turned toward the lizardman. “Barok, you holding up?”

After being dragged the whole way, the lizardman looked utterly miserable—half his body had lost a large number of scales.

He bared his teeth and grimaced. “I mean… is there any chance I could’ve just run on my own? It’s only my tail that’s broken…”

“……”

“H-ha… haha,” Gromm awkwardly patted the lizardman on the intact side of his shoulder and helped him up. “Hey, it was an emergency. Don’t sweat the details…”

A heavy impact suddenly rang out from outside. The bronze door shook violently, green rust flaking down in showers.

Thorin looked around. “Doesn’t seem like there’s any other exit.”

Gromm pointed toward the stone stairs spiraling upward deeper inside the hall. “Then we can only head further in.”

The interior space was even more vast than they had expected.

Towering furnaces were scattered throughout the hall. Rusted transmission chains hung down from the dome, and some sections of the walls still bore dark scorch marks from smoke and fire.

“I never knew there was a dwarven city underground in the northern lands!” Barok exclaimed, enduring the pain.

“Forget you—I’m a dwarf and I didn’t know either!” Thorin said excitedly as he darted between the furnaces, feeling as though he were uncovering history itself.

Gromm kicked aside a piece of metal debris at his feet. “This looks like a forging site, but it doesn’t seem like it was for making weapons or armor…”

Boom—boom—

The pounding on the door continued without pause.

“Thorin, stop poking around those antiques!” Gromm shouted at the crouched figure in the distance. “We need to find a sturdy room and hide until help from the Fungus Bastion arrives!”

“Come look! Look what I found!” Thorin’s excited voice rang out from behind one of the furnaces.

“I said we need to hurry—” Gromm was about to scold his companion for not knowing priorities, but when he rounded the furnace and saw what lay before him, all his words caught in his throat.

On a shattered base lay the remains of a metallic construct.

Its humanoid upper body was covered in dull rust. The ends of its arms were fitted with vicious claws and rotating saw blades.

Even in its incomplete state, one could imagine the destructive power it once possessed.

Most importantly, embedded in the chest of the metal puppet was a magic crystal. Though its luster was dim, it still retained its intact prismatic shape.

“A metal puppet—what’s so special about that?” Barok asked, confused.

“A war automaton?” Gromm bent down in disbelief. “But it’s completely different from the ones I’ve seen in the Deep Furnace Clan…”

“Magic-crystal driven—what else could it be but a war automaton? This is an ancient war-automaton forge!” Thorin stroked the patterns on the metal shell in excitement, his voice trembling.

War automatons were a technology that had almost been lost.

The Deep Furnace Clan still retained a batch of them, but those were treated as trump cards—every one destroyed was one less forever.

Although the dwarves’ Hall of Inheritance still preserved the profession of “Golemancer,” modern craftsmen could at best create low-level constructs meant only for hauling stone.

But the one Thorin had found—just from its intricate joint structure and murderous armament—was clearly a true machine of war.

Gromm snapped out of his shock. “It’s an incredible discovery, but right now staying alive comes first!”

From the direction they had come, the thunderous sound of the main gate being smashed apart echoed through the halls. Reluctantly, Thorin could only follow them deeper inside.

They passed through several areas in succession, but none were suitable for hiding.

At last, they entered a massive warehouse.

Inside were over a hundred identical metal war automatons, piled together like a sleeping army of steel.

However, these once-mighty machines were all badly corroded by rust.

Worse still, the gigantic gate at the warehouse entrance had long since collapsed, making it useless for blocking the pursuing Frost Wraiths.

“We’re done for…” Barok slumped helplessly to the ground.

Gromm tore off a rusted, serrated arm from one of the automatons, preparing to fight to the death.

Thorin, meanwhile, dove into the pile of automatons and vanished from sight.

Boom—boom—boom—

An ice-crystal puppet, trailing waves of cold, stepped into the warehouse and quickly locked onto the living heat sources within.

“Damn it, I should’ve brought a shield and weapons to work!” Gromm cursed aloud, but patiently waited for the Frost Wraith to make the first move so he could counter.

Just before the clash—

A relatively intact war automaton suddenly burst out from the wreckage!

The magic crystal in its chest emitted unstable light—the very magic crystal Thorin carried with him as a spare component for his staff.

“Get it!” Thorin shouted from within the ruins.

Under everyone’s astonished gaze, the automaton swung its right arm—its saw blade no longer rotating—straight at the Frost Wraith.

Crack—

Ice crystals exploded in all directions as the Frost Wraith was cleaved cleanly in half, shattered chunks scattering across the floor.

“Woohoo! Amazing!” Gromm and Barok shouted in excitement, seeing a glimmer of hope for survival.

But their joy came too soon.

The shattered Frost Wraith rapidly began reassembling its icy body, and more Frost Wraiths were closing in from the distance.

Even worse, the automaton’s miracle-performing arm wobbled a few times in midair. The rusted joint finally gave out completely, and the entire arm crashed to the ground with a clang, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Deprived of its main weapon, the automaton was quickly surrounded by two more Frost Wraiths and soon became completely inoperable.

“Gromm! Thorin! I’m really glad I got assigned to the same dorm as you guys. You’re the best friends I’ve ever had. I hope in the next life we can all be mushroom folk together!”

After rattling off his last words in one breath, Barok curled himself up, waiting for death.

“Ooooooh—fight to the death!” Gromm roared, swinging the serrated limb he’d ripped from the automaton and charging at the Frost Wraiths.

Boom—!

The metal ceiling shattered. A deafening explosion echoed through the entire warehouse as a massive burst of magic instantly obliterated the nearest Frost Wraiths.

The shockwave reversed, flinging Gromm back and slamming him into the lizardman.

Amid the smoke and dust, Norris piloted a Jida as it slowly descended through the gaping hole blasted open by a resonance cannon.

On the Jida’s back, jet puji puffed out bursts of thrust, providing what seemed to be rather unstable lift.

The resonance cannon on its shoulder was recharging, streams of gathered magic glowing at the muzzle.

“We’ve found the three workers. All alive!”

A second resonance shot screamed out, reducing several incoming Frost Wraiths to nothing under the magical bombardment.

The sole survivor was easily shredded when Norris swung the drill on his right arm.

Through the broken dome above, Gromm and the others could hear continuous explosions outside—it was clear the Jida units were clearing out the surrounding Frost Wraiths.

Norris frowned as he looked at the Frost Wraiths whose ice-crystal bodies were beginning to reform again. “These things won’t die… looks troublesome. You three—can you still move? If you can, follow behind me and retreat!”

The lizardman had been knocked unconscious, but that wasn’t a problem.

Gromm grabbed one of his ankles, Thorin took hold of his arm. “We can, we can! Commander, please clear the way—we’ll keep up!”