This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

“Are you idiots completely useless?” The captain of the guard’s low roar echoed through the narrow back alley. He pointed at the limp male corpse on the ground, so angry his hands were shaking. “How many times did I emphasize it before we moved out? Arrest only. No injuries. Did all of you take my words as wind in your ears? What is this now? Say it!”

“Captain, this… this really isn’t all our fault.” A young guard shrank his neck, his voice full of grievance. “They put out all the candles inside themselves. It was pitch black, couldn’t see a damn thing. The moment we rushed in, they panicked and knocked over the pot. This guy slipped on the mushroom soup himself, and just had bad luck—his head smashed into the edge of the table… We didn’t even touch the corner of his clothes.”

“Then couldn’t you have used your brains?” The captain jabbed a finger at the subordinate’s forehead. “Twenty-some of you block the doors and windows—where could they possibly fly off to? Did you really have to charge in like wild boars and scare them?”

He found it impossible to calm his anger.

City Lord Fahl had personally warned him beforehand: “Don’t cause trouble.”

What he thought would be a chance to show merit had instead ended with a death. He had no idea how he was supposed to report back.

“How about… we quietly bury him?” A sharp-looking guard beside him stepped half a pace closer and suggested in a lowered voice.

“Idiot!” The captain shot him a glare. “If he has family, or friends in the army, and they go asking at the city lord’s residence, wouldn’t everything be exposed? What, are you planning to grab his whole family and silence them too?”

“Captain, I already checked.” That guard wasn’t flustered at all. He leaned in closer, his voice even lower. “This guy was a recent recruit to that ‘Puji Worship Cult.’ A refugee who fled from the western fallen zone. In Mordu he had no relatives, no acquaintances at all.”

Hearing this, the captain’s rapid breathing finally eased a little.

He didn’t speak immediately. His fingers rubbed at the stubble on his chin as his gaze shifted between the corpse and his men.

Seeing the captain waver, the guard pressed on. “Captain, let’s just toss him onto the fungal carpet outside the city, cover him with some grass and dirt. In less than three days, the mycelium will have eaten him down to an unrecognizable skeleton. Then we lock up the other cult members separately. After some time passes, who’s going to remember there was ever such a person?”

“Mm…” The captain squeezed out a vague sound from his throat.

Three days later, Lin Jun received a sticky soul.

…

This was the second time Lin Jun had encountered a soul with such peculiar properties. And this one was even stickier than the last.

Although it was still continuously detaching, it could at least remain attached for over a minute.

Lin Jun reacted quickly and stuffed it directly into a spare cannon-fodder puji body belonging to the numbered puji.

It actually worked!

However, this newly reborn, freshly hatched puji was extremely panicked.

It seemed to want to scream, but puji had no vocal organs.

It unconsciously yelled “ahhh ahhh” wildly within the fungal network while flailing its short legs and running around.

Lin Jun tried to calm it down, but that only made it run faster.

Just as Lin Jun lost his patience and was about to take back control of the body, it stepped into empty air first.

Its short legs slipped, and the round mushroom body rolled down a slope. With a dull thud at the end, its mushroom cap cracked in two against a rock.

Dead.

As the corpse was decomposed, its soul emerged once again.

This time, however, the stickiness was far worse than before. After a short while, it slipped free of Lin Jun’s control and vanished into space.

Lin Jun was honestly speechless. How could there be someone with nerves this bad?

Look at the Sword Saint—when he first became a puji, he was only startled for a brief moment before calming down.

This one? From hatching to falling to death, the entire process consisted of nothing but “ahhh ahhh” and running around. He didn’t leave behind a single useful piece of information.

Even though Lin Jun didn’t manage to ask anything, the mere existence of this case proved that humans could indeed turn into puji.

The key lay in the source of that soul’s stickiness.

Lin Jun located the corpse, buried in a dirt mound outside the city.

Although he couldn’t rewind the scene like reviewing surveillance footage, with the fungal carpet’s coverage-based perception network and information-eavesdropping ability, following the trail wasn’t difficult.

The Puji Worship Cult?

Deep in the dungeon, a woman named Julia, even while imprisoned, continued muttering toward a cluster of mushrooms in the corner. “Puji God, bless me… may your mycelium guide me…”

No, who are you?

Who gave you permission to privately establish a religious organization centered on puji without authorization?

The feeling was like being a perfectly normal student attending class, only to suddenly hear that someone at school had set up a fan club for you.

Hm… thinking about it carefully, it actually didn’t sound that bad?

So, was it faith?

Could faith create connections between souls?

Ever since acquiring Inspiration, Lin Jun’s understanding of souls had deepened considerably.

Souls were strange things. They seemed to be right there, inside everyone’s body, yet once they left the body, they became independent entities that were extremely difficult to interfere with.

Lin Jun could capture souls through Greed, but only the surface layer that represented skill proficiency.

Once the skills were consumed, the remaining pure soul was something Lin Jun could no longer affect.

Souls had always been mysterious. While inside a body, they had a fixed position.

But once they left, spatial location lost all meaning.

Like the Frost Elemental Lord that was currently searching the ruins for the pink puji.

Back then, Lin Jun had clearly summoned it near Redstone City using a puji. Yet when that puji body was destroyed, following the brief moment of soul contact during the summoning, it instantly crossed more than half the continent and appeared in the extreme north.

That was because the coordinate of Lin Jun’s portion of the soul changed at the instant the puji died.

Souls clearly operated under a completely different set of rules.

And now it seemed that faith had special significance for souls.

No wonder gods loved religions.

Lin Jun recalled the skill Holy Barrier he had obtained when decomposing those church warriors.

The church warriors could form interlocking holy light shields to block attacks, but when Lin Jun used it himself, it was a flimsy screen that shattered at a touch. Thinking about it now, was that because of faith?

Did the power of that skill come from the Lord of Light?

It seemed that, for gods, the connections established through faith had far more uses.

Lin Jun wasn’t so arrogant as to think he could rival gods, nor was he particularly interested in turning everyone into puji. The Sword Saint was an exception.

But none of that prevented him from being interested in faith.

In truth, he was interested in any knowledge related to souls.

More and more information pointed to one conclusion: the most important thing in this world was the soul.

And right now, there was ready-made material in front of him.

A faint rustling sound interrupted Julia’s prayers. She opened her eyes and saw the fungal carpet in the corner spreading at a visible speed.

Then, a cocoon slowly emerged from it.

“Puji… God?”