This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

Tie’E carried the main force of the mercenary group and Tanaka’s clone as they dove underwater together, but a portion of the members were still left behind on the ship to stand guard.

After all, the ship itself, as well as the employer who had stayed behind, still needed protection.

As for the possibility that the employer might turn around and sell them out, or even get them killed?

Tie’E had hardly considered that at all.

After all… why would that happen?

On the entire ship, aside from a dozen ordinary puji that just wasted mana potions and the two employers, everyone else was his own people.

As long as his side didn’t harbor ill intent, the employer should already be thanking the heavens. How could they possibly be betrayed by the employer instead?

If anything really happened to them underwater, the brothers left on the ship would definitely not let it go.

However, the already-dead Tie’E never found out that—

Not long after they entered the dungeon, the very members he believed “would not let it go” had already united in agreement, turned the ship around, and sailed back the way they came.

They had no idea what had happened.

Their memories were still stuck at the celebration after the previous job ended. By the time they came back to their senses, they found themselves drifting on the open sea.

Only a few of them remained, along with two equally bewildered outsiders.

At first, they surrounded the two outsiders, trying to force answers out of them.

Since they were outsiders, even if they hadn’t done anything, interrogating them wouldn’t cost anything.

But the other party produced a pass stamped with the seal of an Imperial Marquis.

That was enough to make the mercenaries back off. They didn’t want to get involved in that kind of trouble.

Then, they encountered monsters emerging from the fog.

The number wasn’t large, and they were dealt with quickly, but that lingering sense of unease put everyone on edge.

They were short on manpower, didn’t dare dive underwater casually, and the environment itself made them uneasy.

So after discussing it, the snakefolk decided to first find a way to reach land and leave this dangerous sea area, then figure out what had actually happened later.

And so, the ship departed these waters early.

That was why, when Louisa burst out of the dungeon and returned to the sea surface, all she saw before her was endless fog and an empty expanse of ocean—

not even the shadow of a ship.

Inside the cabin, Tanaka tightly clutched the stump of his severed arm, his body trembling uncontrollably from pain and lingering fear.

“That puji… it’s different. Completely different! Vassal control—doesn’t that skill mean there’s someone behind it, controlling it? Who is it?”

Giro shook his head.

“You’re doing it again, saying nothing,” Tanaka muttered under his breath. But when his gaze swept over the scattered white fur at the foxman’s feet, he realized that this was probably the price of Giro’s ability.

Seeing how Giro looked one step closer to becoming a bald fox, Tanaka swallowed the curses that had reached his lips, clenched his teeth, and waited for the tearing pain at his arm to slowly subside.

What he didn’t know was that this time, Giro truly didn’t know either.

Across countless foresight fragments, Giro could only be certain that behind the fungal carpet and the puji, there existed some kind of will.

He had even heard that presence speak within the mycelial network, and knew that all the parasitized beings addressed it as “Boss.”

But what exactly was that will?

What race did it belong to?

Where was it hiding?

He had no answers.

The only thing he could be sure of was this: if he did nothing, then two years from now, the entire world would head toward its end in the hands of that existence.

This time, he hadn’t managed to completely unseal the seal, but under the circumstances back then, there was no room to pursue a perfect outcome.

Using his ability so frequently had already pushed his body to its limits.

Temperance was never meant to be used like this.

Forcing it out like this was burning through his lifespan every single time.

Giro could clearly feel that if this continued, he probably wouldn’t live much longer.

But… he had no choice.

Some things—if he didn’t do them, then no one else ever would.

The sun slowly sank below the horizon, and utterly exhausted, Giro fell asleep right on schedule.

Perhaps it was overexertion, perhaps the worries buried deep in his heart finally overflowed—he had an incomparably vivid nightmare.

In the dream, he once again returned to the moment when he first used Temperance, and glimpsed that terrifying end…

…

“Mom, when is Dad coming back?”

“Dad went with the uncles to fight the bad mushrooms. He’ll be back later. Xiaoyu, be good and finish your dinner first, okay?”

“Oh…”

Giro stood in the shadows not far away, looking at this lizardfolk mother and daughter.

The mother’s face was forcibly calm, but grief she couldn’t hide lingered in her eyes.

The “Dad who went to fight the bad mushrooms” she spoke of was likely one of the members of the Fourth Counterattack Regiment that had just been completely wiped out.

And the dinner she mentioned was nothing more than half a piece of black bread, hard enough to hurt one’s teeth.

Ever since people discovered the true purpose of the Mushroom Garden and broke away from it, they could no longer obtain food from the fungal carpet. The food crisis had loomed over everyone ever since.

But this torment wouldn’t last much longer.

The last sanctuary on this continent was about to fall as well.

The giant bell atop the tower suddenly rang out, its dull toll crushing down on everyone’s hearts.

The puji are here!

Before the bell finished ringing, the pale golden barrier that protected the fortress and prevented the fungal carpet from eroding it shattered before everyone’s eyes, breaking crisply into a sky full of golden fragments.

A blood-colored sky rolled in from the horizon, rapidly polluting the heavens.

Seated upon a Throne of Blood, gazing down at this insignificant fortress, was the marshal of the Mushroom Garden who had dragged the world into an inferno—

Mad Blood Louisa.

Beneath the blood curtain stretched a densely packed puji army as far as the eye could see, its numbers far surpassing any war recorded in history.

And at the very rear of that massive host, an enormous shadow like a mountain slowly advanced. Just its outline alone was enough to make even the bravest warriors’ legs go weak.

On Giro’s side, only this lone fortress remained, along with a final mixed force of survivors from all races, totaling barely over ten thousand.

At this suffocating moment of despair, the one who stepped forward was the Demon King!

Carrying vast magical power, he charged straight into the blood curtain.

The destructive shockwaves of the battle swept out like a storm, forcing Giro to cling desperately to the wall just to avoid being blown away.

However, having only fused three bodies—

and with the third one still incomplete—the Demon King ultimately couldn’t defeat Louisa.

In the stalemate, the Black Dragon King, the Jida Envoy, the Great Mage Mushroom, the Sword Saint Mushroom…

one by one, the great generals under the Mushroom Garden joined the battlefield.

Under the combined assault, the Demon King couldn’t hold on for long. His body finally exploded into a rain of viscous liquid that scattered across the land, never able to gather again.

In the dream, Giro collapsed heavily to his knees, his fingernails digging deep into the dirt.

Endless regret nearly tore him apart.

It was all because of him—because he acted far too late, far too late, failing to unseal all of the Demon King’s seals in time—that the world fell into such utter ruin.

In a daze, he heard the lizardfolk little girl, protected in her mother’s arms, cry out happily in her clear voice:

“Mom! I see Dad!”

…

“You know how precious a sanctum-level combatant is? Even if things were urgent, couldn’t you have cut off his other arm instead? Did you really have to smash his head? And you didn’t even find the ship…”

Lin Jun grumbled nonstop as he controlled the knight puji, using its tentacles to poke Little Pig’s forehead again and again.

And “Mad Blood Marshal Louisa,” at this moment, was obediently squatting in front of the puji, head slightly lowered, like a little girl who had done something wrong and was meekly taking a scolding, not daring to retort.