The mushrooms sprouting from the ground were so many that one Puji, caught off guard mid-run, tripped over a particularly fat one. Its round body lost balance and tumbled like a bouncing ball, crashing hard into another Puji.
The collision set off a chain reaction—two more were knocked over in the process, leaving four down at once. The encirclent of Pujis had a brief opening!
Sirian sprang to his feet, drawing the elven dagger at his waist in a flash of cold light, ready to cut his way through.
“Don’t be rash!” Phylline reacted quickly, grabbing his arm, her voice cracking.
“Calm down, Sirian! Whatever you do, don’t provoke the Pujis!” Veyra urged in alarm.
The outsider elf might not know, but the three locals certainly did.
ssing with Pujis here only ant disaster. Veyra was already regretting suggesting mushroom acceleration in the first place.
And sure enough, more Pujis were still popping out of the surrounding mycelium. In the blink of an eye, the four of them were sealed in tight.
Around their legs, mushroom caps swayed in a dense sea—close to a hundred Pujis!
Knowing firsthand the destructive power of Puji self-detonation, Veyra dared not move a muscle, sweat beading down his brow. Phylline and Fein turned pale, clinging tightly to each other.
“What… now?” Sirian asked, his dagger still in hand but lowered slightly. He had seen Pujis fight before.
“I… don’t know…” Veyra’s throat was dry. “We can only… wait to see what they want…”
Before long, the Pujis began shoving them forward with their springy, rotund bodies.
Seeing their course aid straight at the Dungeon entrance, Phylline’s voice cracked with a sob. “They’re… not planning to shove us into the Dungeon, are they…”
Wouldn’t that an perishing along with it?
Like it or not, they were now captives of the Pujis, pushed along helplessly into the first floor of the Athyst Dungeon.
The instant they stepped inside, the sight of spatial rifts everywhere sank their hearts.
Veyra muttered regretfully to the elf, “Sorry… maybe we really should’ve fought our way out earlier…”
“Are your local monsters… always this… eccentric?” Sirian asked, his tone equal parts bewildered and absurd.
“Uuuh… they’re not going to push us into the swamp, are they?” Fein whimpered, feet dragging, but the Pujis kept nudging them forward with their caps.
Yet as they were shoved deeper, sothing shocking beca clear—the spatial rifts were fewer and fewer, visibly closing!
By the ti they were herded to the sixth floor, the sight before them drew gasps.
Desolation.
All plant life was withered black, crumbling to ash at a touch. The curse had devastated half the floor’s ecosystem. Though the rifts were patched, the destruction remained.
The Pujis stopped in the center of the wasteland, pressing no further.
“What… does this an now?” Phylline asked, bewildered at the motionless mushroom horde.
Sirian’s erald eyes lit up with sudden realization.
He knelt, ignoring the thick layer of ash, placing both palms on the ground. Green light welled in his hands, but this ti it was not the Hymn of Bounty.
His soft chant wove through the air. From beneath his palms, the earth stirred, and a single frail bud of green pushed trembling through the ash—the first hint of life in this dead land.
The mont the sprout appeared, the Pujis scampered away, leaving only a few behind.
The pressure on the group lifted in an instant.
“Sirian, what’s going on here?” Veyra asked, staring at the fragile bud.
Sirian stood, surveying the scorched ground, speaking from experience. “In the forest… sotis, clever animals lead us druids to areas destroyed by wildfire or poison, seeking help to restore them. These Pujis… may be doing the sa? Asking us for aid?”
Aid?
Veyra thought it made sense—yet felt wrong sohow.
Animals at least didn’t kidnap druids to drag them there!
“So now what…” Veyra scratched his head.
Upon entering deeper floors, he realized the rift problem wasn’t as bad as feared. It was even better than when they’d fled—no rampaging monsters either.
He wasn’t too worried about safety anymore. But looking around at the barren wasteland, he thought bitterly: how long would it take working here before the Pujis let them go?
Sirian sighed, bending down to continue casting beside the sprout. “We’ll start. Let’s just hope we can find food nearby…”
Half a day later, the group wore strange expressions as they ate a shared al—mushroom soup scooped from the body of a bizarre, heat-emitting Puji…
…
Regarding the rift on the sixth floor that leaked that dreadful curse and devastated the ecosystem, Lin Jun had weighed the options carefully. In the end, he chose to seal it completely.
But for the rift on the fifth floor that connected to the Strawman Abyss, he left a tiny gap—just enough for Pujis to pass through.
That rift leaked only faint curses, its effects minor compared to the one on the sixth.
Leaving the weaker one seed enough.
And to see that elf grasp his intent so swiftly—Lin Jun felt rather satisfied.
Honestly, if the elf had been alone, Lin Jun might have parasitized him already. After all, it was rare here to encounter [Nature Magic].
But since he was with Veyra’s group, Lin Jun refrained.
From spying daily on adventurers, Lin Jun knew these three were the ddleso, conspicuous type—social butterflies among adventurers. The last people he wanted to parasite. Too much risk of exposure.
If he wished to blend into the surface world, he could never reveal his ability to parasite humans.
At first, Lin Jun had planned to keep them trapped until he figured things out, only releasing them then.
But the elf’s keen understanding spared him much trouble.
As for them noticing the reduced rifts? That was fine.
By the ti they finished their work and returned, humans would have noticed the Dungeon’s changes anyway.
And if the Pujis had “forced” them into labor?
Everyone knew Pujis punished rule-breakers—sotis with explosions, sotis by looting.
Compared to that, making these mana thieves roll up their sleeves to restore the ecosystem—this was practically charity!
What Lin Jun hadn’t expected was for his own treefolk to sohow sense this… and voluntarily leave their secret grove to help the elf.
Reviews
All reviews (0)