“How are we supposed to get across? Unless you’ve sprouted wings and—” Torin’s words were cut short as sothing yanked hard at his waist!
“Waaaaaaah—!” He barely had ti to scream before his body arced through the air. Flailing desperately, he managed to grab hold of a jagged rock jutting out from the opposite cliff face at the very last mont.
Smack!
The violent montum slamd his face into the cold stone wall. His nose burned with pain, and hot blood gushed out instantly.
But he didn’t care. The thrill of survival surged through him. “Nice one, Gremm! I—”
He turned to shout his gratitude, only to see his companion’s burly figure already leaping through the air!
Gremm soared—but without enough distance to run, his jump fell short. His hand missed the cliff edge entirely, instead seizing Torin’s dangling leg!
“Ughhh—!” Torin felt himself being yanked downward by a crushing weight. His fingers scread with agony, nearly tearing free of the stone. “You bastard! Couldn’t you at least shout before jumping?!”
“Shout my ass! No ti!!” Gremm clung to Torin’s leg, panting as wildly as he was.
Torin risked a glance back. The cliff they had stood on monts ago was now packed with scarecrows. Luckily, they were just ordinary ones—if even one could throw or cast spells, the two of them would’ve been skewered.
Gremm tried climbing up Torin’s body, but the mont he moved, the rock above them groaned and cracked.
“Don’t move! It’s breaking! Grab another rock or sothing!” Torin roared.
“Grab what? It’s smooth as a miner’s arse! Nowhere to hold!” Gremm cursed.
Crack—
The stone shifted again.
“Big brother, it won’t hold us both! Maybe… you sacrifice yourself? I still need to beco the greatest adventurer! I’ll make sure your na’s carved at the bottom of the morial!”
“And I’m supposed to be naless rcenary A, the guy who croaked in the prologue?! I bet you don’t even know my surna!” Gremm snarled, scrambling higher anyway. “What you paid isn’t near enough for a death fee!”
“I can’t hold on—!”
Crack!
The stone burst.
Both dwarves tumbled together, screaming, down into the abyss.
They smashed and rolled against jagged cliff faces until, just as they thought they were finished, they landed on sothing soft…
Darkness. Absolute darkness.
“Ow! My precious beard!” Gremm wailed first, groping at his chin. His fingers brushed broken tufts, and his heart bled with grief.
Torin sprawled flat, limbs spread, sinking into the soft surface. His voice was hollow with despair. “Where are we? A deeper floor? A manor? A mansion?”
He didn’t even have the energy to bla Gremm. Life’s hamr blow felt especially unfair.
“…Doesn’t seem like either,” Gremm muttered uncertainly.
At that, Torin stiffened. He realized—the stinging pain from curse resistance was gone. Dwarves naturally had high resistance, but even so, scarecrow curses always left a prickle. Yet now it had vanished!
“Did we… get out?!” His voice cracked with disbelieving joy. But doubt quickly followed. “But… how? Why?”
Rip—!
A blinding light pierced the darkness as Gremm hacked at the soft wall with his last axe. The two dwarves clawed through the gap, then froze, jaws dropping wide enough to stuff in a dwarven flatbread.
The grim wheatfields and rotting windmill were gone.
Before them stretched a dreamscape of glowing mushrooms.
Colossal fungi towered like parasols and clouds, their caps glowing with soft light. Tiny luminous spores floated through the air, drifting in shimring streams like a flowing galaxy.
And they had crawled out of one of those mushroom-trees.
At once, Gremm ripped a strip of cloth to cover his mouth and nose. Torin quickly copied him.
Looking up, they saw the spatial rift flickering atop the giant mushroom they’d erged from.
“So…” Gremm stroked his mangled beard, voice heavy with absurdity. “We… dropped into another Dungeon?”
“Goblin!” Torin suddenly shouted.
Gremm tensed, axe at the ready, scanning—but saw only mushrooms and spores.
“No, wait… there was sothing green… tall… But goblins aren’t that big…” Torin rubbed his eyes, uncertain.
He could’ve sworn he saw a tall green figure slip behind a mushroom-tree.
“If it is goblins…” Gremm spat blood, face darkening. “Then we’ve fallen into a demon-controlled Dungeon. Out of the tiger’s den, into the wolf’s maw.”
They couldn’t go back to the Strawman Abyss. Their only choice was to test this new place.
They picked a direction and moved cautiously.
Unbeknownst to them, behind a mushroom-tree, Dylan—still confused why his boss had let outsiders through—quickly shifted back into human form…
The dwarves didn’t get far before encountering a Cowhorse Puji.
It looked harmless, so Gremm didn’t swing imdiately, only frowned. “Isn’t this one of those walking mushrooms from caves?”
“The proper na is Puji!” Torin automatically corrected, stepping closer. “But… why does this one have tentacles? A new breed?”
As they spoke, two more Pujis waddled out of the forest to join the spectators.
“What do we do?” Torin asked.
“Do? Nothing. They’re just Pujis. What, gonna eat us? Forget them—we need to figure out which floor this is.” Gremm wanted no commotion.
So they kept walking. The Pujis followed.
And kept following.
By the ti the dwarves erged from the forest, no fewer than thirty or forty Pujis trailed them in a silent procession.
They didn’t attack, rely shadowed. Completely unlike the chaotic Pujis the dwarves had heard about.
Stepping out of the glowing forest, they suddenly ran straight into the Horn Trio, fresh from their lottery draw.
“Dwarves…?” Horn stared in shock. He’d never seen dwarves in the Dungeon before—let alone ones leading a Puji parade.
Gremm’s eyes widened when he saw humans. His tension lted, replaced with sheer relief. “Humans! Actual humans!” He slapped his thigh in joy. “And Pujis too! I get it now—this isn’t demon land! This is the Athyst Dungeon!”
Torin lit up. “The so-called ‘newbie cradle,’ the ‘baby-safe, stroll-your-infant-inside’ Dungeon?”
“Exactly!” Gremm nodded hard, voice brimming with delight. “Only ten layers, monsters neatly ranked, safer than a mine! An infant-level Dungeon, through and through!”
He bellowed in rough Common at the trio. “Hey! Humans! This is the Athyst Dungeon, right?”
Dwarves spoke Common too—true dwarvish was kept only by royals and scholars—so Horn’s party understood every word.
Aie scowled, insulted by how lightly they spoke of her holand Dungeon.
Horn only frowned. Their behavior was strange, but he answered carefully. “Yes. This is the Athyst Dungeon.”
That confirmation erased Gremm’s last bit of wariness.
He eyed the slow-swaying Pujis around them, especially those blocking his way.
“Ha! Then this must be the first or second floor! Had nervous for nothing!” He laughed, all tension pouring out.
And before Horn’s group could stop him, he swung his axe flat-side down, swatting a nearby Puji like a fly.
The Puji burst apart—
Boom!
The explosion’s shockwave flung the stunned Torin clear across the field.
“You—what the hell are you doing?!”
Horn’s horrified scream cracked into a shriek.
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