Chapter 3 – A Duke at Bay

“Say that again.”

Duke Alaric St. Clair’s knuckles whitened around the arm of his mahogany chair. The wood groaned under the pressure.

Cold sweat gathered at the nape of Steward Edmund’s neck, but he enunciated every word.

“After Perrin and Roderick lured Lady Elara away in your name, they went first to the Amethyst Deep. They have since crossed the border and fled into the Veiled Empire. Judging by their route, they are most likely seeking refuge with Duke Severin Voss.”

“Damned traitors! Damned Vampires!”

The solid armrest shattered in Alaric’s grip. Blood-red flame churned in the duke’s eyes.

“Elara is still alive. Her Tracking Sigil remains, and the Vengeance Mark has not transferred. I’m going to save her.”

“Your Grace!”

When the duke seized his greatsword and made to leave without another thought, Edmund had no choice but to shout.

“The moment you depart, Severin will bring the Crimson Knights down on Highfort Keep. If the keep falls, there will be no defensible ground behind it. Your duchy will not be the only territory in danger. The entire Southern Federation will be exposed.”

“And you would have me stand by while Elara dies?”

Flagstones cracked beneath Alaric’s boots. Webs of fractures spread across the floor as the aura of an LV70 human, one of the most powerful alive, forced Edmund to one knee.

“The Diamond-rank adventuring party Silverthorn Company is operating nearby. We can commission them privately to search the Amethyst Deep for Lady Elara. Here at Highfort Keep, you can create the appearance of leaving. When Severin takes the bait, you can strike him head-on and repay this attack.”

By the time Edmund forced out the last word, he was close to collapsing.

The pressure gradually receded. Alaric sat once more, raised one hand, and condensed Elara’s tracked coordinates into a crystal. He passed it to his steward.

“Do it. Tell those adventurers that if they bring Elara back alive, I will give them a city.

“But if anything happens to my daughter...”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

* * *

Far below, in the Mycelial Garden of the dungeon depths, Elara knew nothing of her father’s search. She stood at the edge of the Breeding Zone, watching the scene before her with mounting horror.

Beside a deep slime pit, a hollow-bodied Puffcap had arrived with a load of ordinary mushrooms. As it tipped the mushrooms in, one of the Slimes sprang up, latched onto its leg, and dragged it over the edge.

The other Slimes swarmed it in the next instant, sealing the Puffcap inside a quivering mass.

The trapped creature was still struggling. It looked as though there might be time to save it.

“Evan! Evan, your Slimes are eating a Puffcap.”

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Evan was busy, but he spared the scene a moment of attention.

“I know. I’m sending a new Puffcap to replace it. I told you the Breeding Zone was dangerous. Stay away from it.”

Elara wanted to explain that this was not what she had meant. Then the Puffcap inside the Slime stopped moving and began to dissolve, and she swallowed the words.

The underground world was a cruel place.

* * *

It truly was cruel, and Evan was never idle if he wanted to survive it.

At best, a Puffcap possessed enough Intelligence to find its own way after receiving an order. Both breeding and mining required Evan’s constant supervision. Worse, monsters regularly harried the borders of the Mycelial Garden.

Even with Cognitive Coordination LV5, managing everything strained him.

Finding enough attention to show Elara around had been a rare luxury. He had not shown it, but Evan was delighted to have someone capable of conversation. At the very least, he no longer had to talk to himself to keep his command of language from fading.

After the tour, however, he had been forced to leave her to explore on her own. A swarm of Ember Gnats was approaching the garden’s border, and he needed all his attention there.

The insects resembled mosquitoes but were slightly larger than Puffcaps. Their average level was around LV20.

They were far from the strongest monsters in the area, but they were unquestionably among the most troublesome. They could fly, they were agile, and they traveled in swarms. Whenever they found an isolated Puffcap, they skewered it on their long mouthparts and carried it away. In the early days of Evan’s development, they had been his greatest enemy.

By now, he had perfected a response.

As the Ember Gnats descended in formation, several Puffcaps whose caps had been modified into nozzles sprayed a cloud of slime ooze. The substance was both adhesive and corrosive. Any gnat it touched lost the ability to fly and tumbled to the ground.

Beds of purple mushrooms released hallucinogenic spores across the landing zone, incapacitating the fallen insects.

After losing seven of their number, the surviving Ember Gnats fled without looking back.

Evan knew they would learn nothing from the defeat. They would return.

Armored Puffcaps moved among the unconscious gnats and finished them one by one. The monster carcasses were then hauled into the Mycelial Garden as fresh fertilizer.

[Sin of Greed triggered.]

[Skill Plundered: Heat Resistance LV5 → LV6]

An upgrade.

Excellent. Once Heat Resistance rose a little higher, Evan could try slipping through the Magma Fiend Lair and see what lay on the stratum above.

He opened his Status Panel.

[Species: Fungus: Mycelial Sovereign]

[Level: LV42]

[HP: 420/420]

[Mana: 8045/12450]

[Racial Traits:

Mana Harvest (hyphae draw mana from the environment to provide a steady flow of XP)

Corpse Feeder (decomposes corpses for nutrients and XP)]

[Permanent Effects: Mycelial Network Link]

[Skills: Puffcap Creation LV5, Mana Storage LV4, Mana Sense LV4, Bind LV3, Spore Cannon LV6, Precision LV4, Mimicry LV2, Storage Sac LV4, Mycelial Network LV6, Thrall Command LV6, Cognitive Coordination LV5, Airflow Sense LV6, Heat Resistance LV6, Dodge LV6, Peck LV7, Hallucinogenic Spores LV4, Chitinous Shell LV4, Digestive Ooze LV3, Rolling Charge LV5]

[Titles:

Sin of Greed (Unique Title): randomly plunders a skill or permanent boon from a corpse

Gnatbane: damage against gnats increased by 10%

Hero: ignores Species Level Cap; grants one random Special Title or skill (Used)]

Evan’s Status Panel did not even list conventional Stats. His true body looked like an utterly ordinary mushroom, and having only 420 HP at LV42 was proper for a mushroom. Elara’s total of more than 3,000 HP was absurd.

His unusually vast Mana reserve included the entire Mycelial Garden.

The most ridiculous part of the panel was the Hero title. Even Evan found it impossible to take seriously.

How did a mushroom end up with a title like that?

He had never seen his Summoner. Perhaps it had been a deranged Archmage or a Deity with an appalling sense of humor. One fact, however, seemed beyond dispute: whoever had done it was not right in the head.

Who deliberately summoned a Hero in the form of a mushroom?

Still, Evan owed everything to the title. The Hero privilege had given him Greed, and Greed allowed him to steal skills from underground monsters and use them to arm his Puffcaps.

He had gone from fleeing Slimes determined to make a meal of him to cultivating territory in a corner of the stratum. The journey had been nothing but hardship.

Without Greed, he would probably have become monster dung long ago.

So why had he been summoned as a mushroom?

The question had become an obsession, second only to reaching the surface.

...

With the Ember Gnats dealt with, Evan finally had time to see what the newcomer was doing.

Ah.

She was stealing freshly mined Amethyst Crystals.