This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

As Inanna swayed left and right in the stiff, shamanic steps, puji sprouted from the fungal carpet beneath her feet at an incredible speed.

The newly formed puji would detach themselves from the patch that spawned them and start wandering erratically through the valley. The northern soldiers mostly watched in stunned silence, whispering among themselves at the unprecedented sight.

But the Puji Masters were nearly dumbstruck.

As professionals, they knew how long puji normally took to be born. Even with corpse-fertilized soil acceleration, nothing could explain this pace.

While most were still in a daze, the deputy regained his wits first.

He eagerly began organizing men, guiding the newborn puji, trying to establish mental links and bring them under the Puji Masters’ control.

Arama, who watched everything unfold, felt only a huge question mark spinning in his head: is this even plausible?!

“Maybe… some nature-magic-like method?” Lorenzo rubbed his chin, searching his knowledge for an explanation.

But when the two exchanged a look, both still felt uneasy.

As a duke, Arama knew some of the speculations about puji, but facing demon pressure, those risks had been ignored for now.

However, allowing Inanna to keep a few puji as pets in the safety of the ducal manor was one thing; watching what seemed like a bizarre, closely bound-to-some-unknown-power “birthing ritual” in the middle of a battlefield was an entirely different level of severity.

Arama grabbed Inanna’s deputy and lowered his voice, demanding to know what was going on, but the deputy only looked baffled and innocent.

“Probably… Miss Inanna’s untapped talent?” the deputy scratched his head and guessed uncertainly.

“Talent?” Arama’s brow furrowed deeper.

“We didn’t even know Miss Inanna could command those storm elementals before we came!” the deputy tried to make his point more convincing. “Maybe these… these are other talents she just never had the chance to show.”

The deputy figured that compared to summoning a thousand storm elementals, accelerating puji production a little felt less outrageous.

But when the deputy finished, Arama’s headache only worsened. “Wait—are you saying those storm elementals outside weren’t lured by your ruse, but brought by Miss Inanna herself?”

They had thought the reinforcements used some trick to divert the disaster toward the demons. Now it turned out it might be his own daughter’s doing?!

He looked at Lorenzo. “Can the favor of elementals achieve that?”

Lorenzo thought a moment, then shook his head.

That type of skill had historical records, but nothing suggested it could reach this extent.

The deputy, boldly speaking his mind: “My lord, if I may be frank—I think Miss Inanna truly has talent. She was overprotected, never given a stage. She could be a genius who brings victory!”

Watching the deputy grow increasingly animated, eyes shining, Arama opened his mouth but found himself unable to name the tangled feelings inside.

Lorenzo, who had a clearer perspective as an observer, patted his old friend’s tense shoulder and soothed him: “Alright, Arama, this isn’t necessarily bad. At least it increases our combat strength now. I think the fellow’s got a point—you did keep your niece too sheltered. Look at my two brats; I threw them out to toughen up ages ago.”

Arama: …

Lin Jun had actually been exercising considerable restraint.

What he was producing now were merely replacement cannon-fodder puji for the Puji Masters to make up for losses.

If he had truly let loose, he could have spawned puji in sheets like dumplings—“pop pop pop”—streaming out in waves.

To avoid frightening the valley’s inexperienced inhabitants, he deliberately throttled production and paced the birth rhythm.

Poor the pink puji had to keep hopping a bit longer.

And Lin Jun’s behind-the-scenes work went far beyond merely replenishing puji.

Thanks to accurate intel from agent Little Xi[“Sigmund”], he knew the battered demon host needed to rest, but the valley only had one day.

Tomorrow night, Sigmund would launch another assault. Given the valley’s current defenses, the next fight would likely be brutal; holding the line was far from certain.

So while everyone’s attention was captured by Inanna’s strange dance and the newborn puji, Lin Jun was frantically spreading mycelium along the ground and cliff faces.

Covering the entire valley in time might be impossible, but blanketing the chokepoint on the floor and both rock faces was child’s play for him.

Thus, to onlookers, as their pink-haired commander tirelessly bounced about, the fungal carpet visibly devoured the valley entrance and the stone walls…

Three moons of differing hues hung high in the night sky, their cold light glinting off the polished armor of the reassembled demon host. After a day’s recovery, the army had regained its edge, ready to launch a final, ferocious assault on Dragonhowl Valley at a command.

In the grim silence before battle, Sigmund stood before his lines and, unusually, initiated a mental exchange with his roommate.

“You were a puji master before, weren’t you?” he asked.

Unexpectedly, his roommate’s reply carried a depth of chill as if it oozed from a crevice of the abyss: “You… seek to probe my origins?”

Sigmund paused. “I just saw those puji on the field yesterday and my mind made some associations.”

“Little Xi,” the voice softened a touch into its usual tone, “my identity is a super-duper top secret. Anyone who learns it won’t fare well. Just know this—we share this body, and we are tied by fate. Despite our little spats, I’m on your side.”

“A world-ending secret…” Sigmund fought the urge to roll his eyes; in his view, the roommate simply feared being manipulated through past connections. “What if I insist on digging?”

“You will die.” No anger, no threat—just a flat statement—but Sigmund felt the roommate’s seriousness clearly.

“Even if it’s mutual destruction?” he tested.

Silence swallowed the reply; the voice cut off and gave no further answer.

“I understand.”

After the brief mental exchange, Sigmund raised his arm. “All troops, advance—into the valley!”

Ten minutes later, leading the vanguard, Sigmund witnessed an eerie scene.

The valley mouth—once strewn with loose rock and defensive works—was entirely covered by a fungal carpet. On top of it, clumps of bioluminescent mushrooms sprouted like weeds, casting multicolored, hazy glows that interwove into a dreamlike tableau.

The sight nearly made Sigmund order a retreat to confirm he hadn’t taken a wrong turn—but Dragonhowl Valley had no side paths.

It hadn’t looked like this just a day ago?!