This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

According to Aiden’s assessment, once the demons broke Earthpeak Fort[“土峰堡”] they would very likely turn their attention straight toward Redstone City.

Redstone City, though it brought in a fair sum as a trading hub, was not a major military stronghold—otherwise Alama would not have entrusted it to the Silverthorn Squad.

In plain terms, Aiden judged that Redstone City’s defenses wouldn’t hold long; it might fall before the Church reinforcements could change the situation.

As for Nova and the others’ much-hoped “decapitation plan,” Aiden remained reserved.

After all, he had never seen the relic’s true power with his own eyes, so the success rate was hard to estimate.

In short, letting events run their course was too risky.

If the Core fell into demon hands, reclaiming it would be orders of magnitude harder.

“Can we just steal it?” Lin Jun really wanted to complete the mission.

Aiden shrugged helplessly. He was an illusionist, not a thief.

Besides, the Silverthorn Squad already had a high-rank assassin like Night Owl—trying to show off stealthy theft in front of her would be like demonstrating a craft in front of a master.

The Mycelium Carpet was still laboring to spread toward that direction, but obviously couldn’t cover Redstone City within a few days.

Without the Carpet’s support, neither a forcible seizure of the Core nor effective assistance in defending the city was feasible.

So did they just have to wait for Redstone City to fall into chaos, wait for the Silverthorn Squad to exhaust themselves in battle, and then swoop in to retrieve the Core in the confusion?

Lin Jun hated that plan—the uncertainties were too many.

Not right…

Lin Jun ran through his thoughts again and suddenly realized a key point.

He didn’t actually need to help Redstone City hold the walls—he only needed to make sure the demons didn’t hit Redstone City before the Church reinforcements reached Three Mountains City.

Redstone itself wasn’t strategically crucial; the demons were attacking it to clear surrounding human positions before the decisive battle at Three Mountains City.

In other words, if they could cause the demons some other trouble and delay them by two or three days, that would buy the time needed to get the Core as planned.

There was a plan worth trying. Lin Jun wasn’t certain of success, but there was no real loss in attempting it; if it failed they could fall back to Plan B.

At Lin Jun’s instruction, Aiden used illusion magic to change his appearance and began quietly searching Redstone City’s markets and warehouses for certain specific materials…

…

Earthpeak Fort’s walls had already collapsed. Charred banners lay tossed among smoking ruins; the air reeked of blood, dust from magic detonations, and a faint, lingering stench of corpses.

A hunched goblin dragged a bloodstained sack larger than himself, laboriously collecting corpses from the field.

As the lowest rung of the demon army, ordinary goblins received minimal rations—sometimes goblins themselves became food. After large battles, the goblins were the ones who finally ate their fill.

Even among demons, scavenging corpses was distasteful, but goblins only cared about filling their bellies; nobody respected a goblin for refusing to eat carrion.

Many other goblins on the battlefield likewise gathered food; the lucky ones might find discarded gear and hit a small jackpot.

Of course, not every goblin thought about the future.

A little way off, among collapsed walls, two goblins were horsing around, emitting shrill, crude laughter.

They kicked a round, rolling thing between them like a ball across the burnt earth and rubble.

The “ball” was caked with mud and clotted dark blood, but its human shape could still be recognized—strands of graying hair matted with gore identified it as the fortress lord’s skull.

The two goblins argued roughly over who could kick it further, having a grand time.

The hunched goblin had no interest in joining them; in a few days both of those jokers would be among the hungry.

A moment later the hunched one pulled a gleaming dagger from a pile of ripped flesh and rags.

He eagerly wiped the blade with his filthy cloth, making the smear of blood look almost decorative, and admired it over and over.

Suddenly he froze.

Something was off.

He watched the other goblins, but the shrill laughter had stopped.

He turned and found the two goblins nowhere to be seen.

They’d left? That quick?

Hesitant, he stepped forward two paces and saw the skull that had been kicked like a ball, lying alone among the rubble.

Then he heard an almost imperceptible “pssh” sound, like some viscous liquid shifting.

The hunched goblin looked toward the sound and went pale with terror.

A black patch glued to the ground was slowly writhing, already devouring more than half of some goblin—only a half arm remained exposed.

The goblin was still alive; its fingers flailed at the air but grasped nothing.

With a soft thud the last arm was swallowed by the blackness.

The patch seemed to pause, then moved toward the hunched goblin.

Terrified, the goblin dropped his heavy sack and screamed, tumbling and crawling toward the camp in a frenzy.

A while later a drunken pig-soldier bearing a wine jar returned to the ruins with a trembling goblin.

After a perfunctory look around, he kicked the hunched goblin so hard the creature’s leg snapped.

“Useless trash…” the pig cursed, drunk, complaining that this hallucination had caused him to be sent on this errand by the captain.

He’d cut down two human soldiers in the daytime fighting; now was the time to enjoy spoils, not chase some “black patch.”

Halfway back the pig glanced behind—his goblin companion hadn’t kept up.

Could he have kicked it to death?

Suddenly the pig realized he might have; his drunkenness sobered halfway. If he had actually killed it he’d be punished.

He paced and peered at the place where he’d kicked the goblin, seeing nothing. Confused, he stepped—then his right foot sank into a sticky shadow.

An irresistible force dragged his body downward. He struggled desperately, but could not pull his foot free.

“Help… someone help!!!”

A pig-like scream echoed over the ruins, soon attracting attention from the nearby demon encampment.

…

On a cliff some distance from the demon camp, a scout Puji sat atop an abyssal magic circle, acting as an information receiver.

Aiden crouched at the edge of the circle, carefully sustaining the mana flow and occasionally downing a mana potion to replenish his reserves.

Soon a blurry form rose slowly from the circle.

[Race: Shadow Worm (scrapped scheme)]

[Level: LV5]

[Skill: Dissolve Shadow LV2]

Go!

The Puji raised a short leg and kicked the freshly formed shadow-worm off the cliff, then severed the connection.

These shadow worms summoned from the abyss instinctively crawl toward living creatures and drag prey into shadows to devour.

And where living things gathered most densely was, naturally, the demon encampment.

The abyss-summoned throwaways would dissipate on their own once the summoner cut the connection and mana ran dry—very handy.

However, the shadow worms were still weak; despite a first-strike lethality mechanism, their small size meant they could only cause minor disruption.

Lin Jun planned to keep using this magic circle, to comb the abyssal region and see if he could summon something more powerful.