This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

The banquet hall of Forgefire City was filled with long tables laden with food—whole roasted rock lizards, honey-soaked ribs, and the indispensable dwarven strong liquor.

The dwarves attending the banquet tore at chunks of meat, hugged barrels as they drank deeply, and stomped out charging dances to the beat of drums. Their laughter was rough and unrestrained.

Inanna sat quietly at the center of this swirling revelry, utterly out of place.

The earlier conflict had ultimately been resolved without turning into violence, thanks to the mediation of the dwarven king’s envoy.

After returning to Forgefire City, the dwarven king even generously declared that, just as Bardo had said, the Binding Ring was the rightful spoils of the victor and therefore belonged to Inanna.

If Lin Jun hadn’t known that the envoy had been observing everything from the shadows from start to finish, he might truly have believed the dwarven king was, like Bardo, a forthright hero of genuine temperament.

This noisy banquet before them was both a celebration of reclaiming the Moltenfire Dungeon and a send-off for the delegation.

Bardo had long since tossed the dispute out of his mind. Now, only strong liquor remained in his eyes.

He downed a cup, and Number Four puji followed suit, pouring a cup straight over his own mushroom cap.

Whether puji could get drunk was anyone’s guess, but the bench and the floor were already thoroughly soaked.

Half-drunk, Bardo slung an arm around the dripping Number Four and slurred praises about its “great drinking capacity.”

He also wanted to clink cups with the Sword Saint puji.

Elvien didn’t mind Bardo’s straightforward nature, but had absolutely no interest in having liquor poured over his head, so he dodged without hesitation.

With no choice, Bardo staggered over to Inanna, raising his cup high.

“A toast to warriors! Let those… hic… cowards all piss off!”

Not far away, several members of the Deepfurnace Clan looked livid, but didn’t dare say a word.

Seeing this, Bardo laughed even more heartily.

Inanna lightly clinked her cup with his.

When Bardo saw that her cup contained fruit juice, he shook his head regretfully and muttered, “Such a brave warrior… pity she’s a woman who can’t drink.”

Then Bardo picked up a nut-like fruit from the mountain of food on the table.

“Here, try this! The real good stuff from our mountains—Lava Thornnut!” He shoved it into Inanna’s hand, urging her to taste it quickly.

Inanna cracked open the hard shell, revealing the flesh inside, and popped it into her mouth. Her brows lifted slightly—it really was good. The taste was about on par with Delicious LV4.

“It’s very good,” she praised politely.

“Right? Hahaha!” Bardo said smugly, sloshing his drink. “I’ve tried your delicious mushrooms too—pretty good, sure. But compared to these thornnuts that’ve soaked up the essence of the mountains… heh, they’re still just a little short!”

At that moment, a damp, liquor-stained fungal tentacle gently tapped Bardo on the shoulder.

Bardo turned his head groggily and found himself face-to-face with Number Four’s mushroom cap.

Inanna didn’t care much about Bardo’s comparison, but Number Four absolutely did.

It coiled up a nearby table knife and spent ages failing to cut off its own tentacle. In the end, it could only trot over to the Sword Saint puji to borrow his sword.

The Sword Saint flicked his tentacle. No one around even noticed him draw the blade, but a thin layer from the tip of Number Four’s tentacle had already been sliced off.

Number Four immediately coiled the fungal slice and held it straight up to Bardo’s mouth.

This utterly absurd move shocked half the alcohol right out of Bardo.

“W-What are you doing? You want me to eat this?” He stared at the slice, his face scrunching up.

The tentacle pushed forward again, unwavering.

Under the curious and barely suppressed laughter of the surrounding dwarves, Bardo put on a “there’s nothing I haven’t eaten” expression, pinched the fungal slice, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The next second, Bardo’s eyes bulged like bronze bells, as if struck by lightning named “Delicious.” His whole body went rigid, and a string of meaningless noises spilled from his throat.

“Mm! Oh! Ooooh!”

His feet slipped.

Before everyone’s eyes, the dwarven war hero flailed backward and fell straight into a huge wine barrel, liquor splashing everywhere.

Glug glug…

The barrel tipped over, amber liquid pouring out. When the wine finally drained away, half of Bardo’s body was still stuck inside the barrel, only his legs left sticking out, while thunderous, rhythmic snoring echoed from within.

Puji—

Number Four planted one stubby leg on Bardo’s backside, puffed up its round mushroom cap, and set its tentacles on its hips (if that counted as hips), striking a victor’s pose.

Nothing was more delicious than puji.

Watching from the side, Inanna finally couldn’t help herself and covered her mouth as she laughed softly.

The surrounding dwarves froze for a moment, then burst into even louder laughter. The banquet’s raucous atmosphere reached a new peak at that instant.

When Bardo finally woke from his hangover, the delegation had already left Forgefire City and begun their journey home.

The people were gone, but the aftershocks remained.

All of Forgefire City became bustling, with craftsmen and laborers from every clan rushing to prepare for the full reclamation and redevelopment of the Moltenfire Dungeon.

During this time, a small incident occurred—the Deepfurnace Clan Patriarch’s residence was robbed.

The thief didn’t break into the heavily guarded treasury, but completely cleaned out the outer hall and the patriarch’s private study.

Precious jewelry, rare runic stone tablets, even the patriarch’s staff inlaid with a small pure S-rank magic crystal—all vanished without a trace.

Only overturned cabinets and the patriarch’s livid, fury-darkened face were left behind.

On any normal day, this would have been headline news that shook the entire city.

But now, with everyone’s attention fixed on redeveloping the dungeon, aside from chaos within the Deepfurnace Clan itself, few outsiders truly cared.

…

Inside Inanna’s carriage within the delegation.

The Knight puji extended a mycelial tentacle, probing into a gap somewhere between his mushroom cap and body, rummaging about with soft rustling sounds. Soon after, several items were tossed one by one onto the cushioned seat.

A finger-thick S-rank magic crystal, a luminous pearl emitting a gentle glow within the carriage, and two metal ingots of unknown type that clearly looked valuable…

“These things… where did they come from?” Inanna widened her eyes, curiously picking up the warm, glowing pearl.

“Picked them up,” Lin Jun replied calmly. He hadn’t attended the banquet.

…

This trip had yielded a full harvest.

Of course, that didn’t refer to the scrap metal picked up from the Deepfurnace Clan.

The patriarch’s staff had only been set with a tiny S-rank crystal—what a pauper.

The real gains were the sealing method and the Fire Elemental Lord.

The Fire Elemental Lord went without saying. Now it was basically like Inanna’s Pokémon. By activating the Binding Ring, she could release part of it at will.

Although she couldn’t forcibly control the Fire Elemental Lord once it was released, as long as Inanna asked for help, how could a core already dyed pink possibly refuse?

Of course, given that the Fire Elemental Lord’s indiscriminate high-temperature domain was currently something only the blessed Inanna could withstand, careful consideration would be needed in real combat to avoid friendly fire.

The other gain was the sealing function of the Binding Ring itself.

Lin Jun’s original plan for this trip had been to obtain a sealing method to bring back and restrain the Frost Elemental Lord in the north, so it wouldn’t keep lowering the temperature and affecting Puji Fort’s development.

Who would have thought the dwarves had no sealing arts at all—only a usage manual for part of the Binding Ring’s functions.

Fortunately, Lin Jun happened to have an extra Binding Ring on hand.

That water elemental from the Tidal Sanctum had vanished into the mist before he ever even saw it, leaving behind a damaged Binding Ring, which Lin Jun had picked up.

The damage wasn’t severe. With reference to the Fire Elemental Lord’s ring, it should be repairable. Once fixed, he could stuff the Frost Elemental Lord inside as well.

When that time came…

Holding two elemental lords, and with the Sword Saint already having “fallen,” Inanna’s strength might very well contend for the title of strongest combat power among humanity.

Looking at Inanna, who was rubbing faces with puji and only barely reaching the diamond tier thanks to nourishment from the Water of Life—

Switching perspectives, humanity’s future… might be a little worrying.

…

Time rewinds slightly, back to when Inanna was still inside the dungeon.

“Are you serious?” Veyra, with puji on his head, grabbed the adventurer’s shoulders tightly.

“Serious, serious! An elf that beautiful—I couldn’t be mistaken! Hey… Veyra, calm down a bit, you’re gripping too hard, it hurts…”