This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

Sidestep, pivot, both hands flashing toward her lower back!

The instant the strange noise sounded, Aurora’s body reacted on instinct, trying to draw the pair of poison-coated cross daggers at her waist.

The result, however, was that she didn’t even manage to touch her weapons.

Having already gauged her strength, the Sword Saint had lost interest in her.

Aurora only felt a wisp of wind pass in front of her. Immediately after, an oddly weightless sensation came from her shoulders.

She lowered her head, and at the edge of her vision caught sight of two familiar arms leaving her body, arcing through the air before landing on the damp mud with two dull slaps. The fingers even twitched faintly.

After a brief moment of silence, pain and comprehension exploded at the same time.

“AAAAAH—! My… my arms!” Her shrill scream echoed through the underground chamber.

Aurora staggered backward. Deprived of both arms, her body lost its balance and crashed heavily into the pool of blood. She struggled nonstop, but without any support, couldn’t even crawl upright.

One tentacle of the Sword Saint puji coiled around an unsheathed sword, its tip unstained by a single drop of blood. It didn’t even spare the woman on the ground another glance. With a casual slash through the air, it released the bound man from his restraints.

The sudden reversal left the man, who moments ago had been drowning in suicidal hatred, completely dazed.

He stood there blankly, looking at his newly freed hands and feet, then at the screaming enemy writhing on the ground, and finally at the four-sword puji that sheathed its blade as if it had merely done something trivial.

For a moment, he didn’t know whether he should kowtow to this miraculous puji or rush forward and finish off Aurora himself.

The Sword Saint clearly didn’t care what he was thinking.

With a push of its short legs, it shot out of the basement, chasing after the main body of the cultists it sensed ahead.

Only after the puji’s figure vanished did the man snap back to his senses. Panting heavily, his gaze fell on the woman struggling in the blood, then on the cross daggers she had dropped to the floor.

He picked up the bloodstained weapons and, step by step, walked toward Aurora, who had lost both arms and now lay pale from blood loss and terror. A bright, genuine smile slowly spread across his face.

…

The delegation halted on a forest path.

“Is it really okay to let Fourteen go alone?” Inanna looked in the direction the Sword Saint had disappeared, clear worry in her brows.

Number Ten was unmoved, even somewhat displeased. “That guy who can’t tell task priorities ran off on his own. Our primary duty is to protect you. Wiping out cultists has nothing to do with us!”

Number Four, nestled in Inanna’s arms, said nothing, only wriggling restlessly.

Inanna sensed its thoughts and loosened her hold. “Little Four, I’m a bit worried about Fourteen. Can you help me go check on it?”

“Yay—cough, I mean, of course.” Number Four immediately bounced up, then forced itself to act steady, patting Inanna’s shoulder with a tentacle in an old-fashioned way. “Pink puji, leave this little matter to me.”

With that, it eagerly chased after the Sword Saint puji’s earlier path, leaving behind a string of cheerful “puji” sounds.

Seeing this, Number Ten said no more, only moving a bit closer to Inanna, magic already primed.

…

By the time Number Four set off, the Sword Saint puji had already caught up to the cultist group.

The two black-robed believers at the rear sensed something amiss and spun around. Poisoned daggers and half-formed spells never got the chance to be unleashed before their movements froze. Their heads slowly slid off their necks and fell to the ground along with their bodies.

“Another puji!” Charon turned, intending to deal with the Sword Saint puji.

An armored arm blocked him.

“My lord?” Charon exclaimed.

“You’re not its match. Command the group to scatter and retreat. I’ll handle it.”

“Scatter and retreat?” Charon couldn’t hide his shock. That meant Lord Seral didn’t have absolute confidence of victory.

Wasn’t the opponent just a puji?

“Go!” Seral barked, offering no further explanation.

He gripped the black greatsword on his back and stepped out of the formation, blocking the Sword Saint puji’s pursuit path.

Soon, only one man and one mushroom remained facing each other in the forest clearing.

Elvian felt deeply uncomfortable.

Through qi-sense alone, it was obvious that the man before him was the strongest among the cultists—perfect for stretching his skills.

Normally, he would exchange a word or two at times like this.

But a puji couldn’t speak, and the other party wasn’t in the mycelium network.

Uncomfortable.

So, without words, only the sword.

One tentacle deftly wrapped around a scabbard, drawing a blade from which water continuously dripped.

With a flick of the tentacle, a nearly transparent line of water sliced through the air, shooting straight at Seral.

Seral’s massive body displayed speed utterly at odds with its size, darting sharply to the side.

Yet the waterline, though gentle in appearance, was lethally sharp, its speed beyond expectation.

With a faint sound of metal being easily severed, a corner of Seral’s thick left pauldron was cleanly sliced off, the cut smooth as a mirror.

Terrifying attack.

Seral realized that his costly armor, before this puji, was likely nothing but a hindrance to his speed. Unfortunately, there was no time to shed it now.

Seral focused completely. Yet the four-sword puji opposite him suddenly curled into a ball?

[Rolling Charge LV10]

[Sword Extreme]

Tentacles wielding swords flailed in a blur. Wherever the Sword Saint puji rolled past, even clusters of leaves were shredded into countless pieces.

Yet Seral himself suffered little injury. He dodged in time, only blocking two slashes at the edge before the Sword Saint puji shot straight past him.

The Sword Saint puji stopped in the distance.

Hard to turn while swinging like that…

The first attempt failed, but the Sword Saint felt no frustration. He had many more combinations in mind.

Elvian only hoped the opponent wouldn’t die too quickly.

Seral’s black greatsword collided repeatedly with the Sword Saint puji’s four blades, crisp metallic clashes raining down like a storm.

Yet humiliation welled up inside Seral.

With each exchange, he could clearly feel that the opponent was holding back.

He, Seral, a Recipient of Grace, was being used as a living practice dummy by a puji!

But the gulf in strength was brutally clear.

Even when the puji used only one sword, he had to exert everything he had just to keep up.

When the other three tentacles also lifted their blades, that inhuman, bizarre sword path completely disrupted his rhythm. If the opponent weren’t deliberately sparing his life, he would already have been torn apart.

Still, he wasn’t without means of resistance. He was waiting…

Now!

The Sword Saint puji’s body compressed, then sprang forward like a released spring. At the same time, its tentacle displayed astonishing elasticity, transforming into a lightning-fast thrust aimed straight at Seral’s chest.

This strike fused the explosive force of a leap with the uncanny trajectory of a tentacle thrust—fast, precise, ruthless—sealing off most avenues of evasion.

But Seral hadn’t planned to evade in the first place!

Two longswords pierced into his chest, the impact crushing his organs and forcing him backward.

Yet beneath Seral’s visor, ghostly blue flames flared. Almost simultaneously, the same blue fire erupted along the black greatsword’s blade.

The flames carried no heat, yet radiated a chill that devoured life.

A Recipient of Grace!

The Sword Saint instantly recognized it.

A devastating horizontal slash swept toward the Sword Saint puji, still airborne and yet to land!

But the puji still had two swords left.

Blades crossed. Using the recoil, the Sword Saint puji released the two swords still embedded in Seral and slipped out of the sweep’s range.

Not without cost, though.

One of the Sword Saint puji’s short legs was licked by the blue flame. The mycelium was visibly withering and burning…

Before Seral could even smile beneath his mask, the Sword Saint puji brought a blade down and severed that part of its body.

Mycelium writhed at the cut, already regenerating at a visible rate.

Balancing briefly on one leg, Elvian grew even more satisfied with this puji body.

Aside from being a bit short and inconvenient for carrying swords, it was almost all advantages.

If a human body were touched by that blue fire, it would be quite troublesome.

With puji, it was easy—whatever got contaminated, just cut it off. It would grow back in minutes anyway.

Besides, puji bodies were light. Even with both legs gone, he could still move freely using tentacles.

This, however, spelled misery for Seral.

He had tried to trade injury for a kill—and gained nothing.

Gravely wounded, he couldn’t even serve as a proper punching bag anymore.

Sure enough, the Sword Saint puji stopped holding back. Its sword tips tapped the ground as it spun like a top, flashing past Seral.

“Death… is merely a return… the next life…” The Recipient of Grace’s head fell to the ground.

A fairly decent practice dummy—felt just a bit worse than Fifteen. The speechless Sword Saint puji silently gave his evaluation before chasing after the remaining cultists.

…

…

…

The Sword Saint puji and Number Four returned to the delegation one after the other.

The Sword Saint puji’s cap was fully unfurled. Its four tentacles still traced sword forms in the air, as though the afterimage of its recent swings lingered—it had already begun contemplating new techniques.

Number Four, however, was unhappy.

It flung itself into Inanna’s open arms, its cap drooping in frustration.

It had sprinted the entire way, only to encounter no enemies at all. Those who ran slowly had already been cleaned up by Fourteen, and those who ran fast were far beyond what its short legs could catch.

All that excitement for nothing, leaving it full of pent-up resentment. Now it could only sulk in Inanna’s arms, tentacles lazily twirling her hair as it stewed in silence.

Beside the delegation now stood more than a dozen disheveled figures.

They were the survivors—each one dazed, clearly badly shaken. Aside from the man at the front, none bore obvious injuries.

They wept with gratitude toward Inanna. “Thank you, my lady. Thank you… brave warriors of the mushroom folk…”

The rescued man first kowtowed to the Sword Saint puji, then turned to Inanna. “My name is Eugene, a poisonmaster. It was you and this mushroom warrior who pulled me back from Death’s grasp. If you do not disdain me, I am willing to offer this body and what remains of my years to you. At a single word from you, even if the road ahead is burning thorns or a frozen abyss, I will not hesitate!”