This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

On the fungal carpet clinging to the cliff face, a newly born puji broke free from the mycelial bonds.

The moment its form finished shaping, its stubby fungal legs kicked once and its body obeyed gravity, falling downward.

The gale howled through the gorge, buffeting its cap until it flapped wildly with soft puji sounds.

It was not alone; under the night sky countless puji of varying shapes fell together.

Below, demon arrows and spells wove a web of death, striking upward.

A scale-armored puji at a nearby spot was instantaneously carbonized by a leaping arc of electricity; a fat variant was pierced by several arrows and toppled like a torn sack; even stealthy individuals were accidentally set aflame by a misfired fireball and became blackened husks.

This newborn puji was not spared either.

An arrow penetrated its fragile fungal body and ended its brief life. From birth to death, the valley-mouth puji’s average lifespan was only six seconds.

But its mission was complete.

Its corpse slammed into the ground, mycelium splintering outward. At the same time a dense purple cloud of hallucinogenic spores burst forth.

…

“Intercept! Don’t let any of them land! They’ll explode!”

“Watch your feet! Mind the holes!”

“Mages! Purge spells—dispel this fog!”

“There are spores all over the ground—how are we supposed to purify this?”

“Wind—useless. These puji corpses keep releasing the fog. We can’t clear it!”

Since stepping into the puji-claimed gorge, the demon soldiers felt as if they’d plunged into a nightmare.

Pujis fell like a storm from the sky, and new attackers constantly poured out from holes in the ground—endless.

These puji didn’t just self-destruct on contact; even if killed in advance, their remains became new sources of toxic mist.

Only complete immolation could stop the spores.

But the flame mages in the army were overwhelmed by the sheer tide of puji.

They couldn’t burn them all—there were simply too many.

Those with strong resistance, like the trolls, fared better and suffered less impact.

Next, Sigmund’s units had some access to antidotes and could hold out a bit longer.

The worst off were Vilaris’s goblins.

Precious antidotes weren’t for them; their small stature put them squarely in the densest fog. So far most of the fallen were those green little ones.

When they collapsed, they were often trampled into indistinguishable pulp by the chaotic retreating feet of their own troops before the poison finished them.

Sigmund watched the scene and felt his twitching eyelids—this, and not having even met the humans in earnest yet?

He looked up at the half-formed puji still clinging to the fungal carpet above and felt the absurdity—these all grew within a day?!

A force with such terrifying production speed—how could the intelligence bureaus have merely classified it as an “ordinary threat”?!

This was clearly a strategic-level power.

Sigmund had no way of knowing what blunder had occurred in the intelligence division, but the dire battlefield forced immediate response. “Vilaris! Release the burrowers!”

At his order, countless low-rank contracted burrowers poured out like a tide.

These eyeless crawlers used sharp limbs to cling to rock faces and began climbing upward at astonishing speed.

Simultaneously, elite bloodborn warriors took to the air like swarming bats.

That tactical pairing had originally been reserved for seizing treacherous cliff walkways; now it was being used prematurely to clear puji attached to the cliff fungal carpet.

The outcome was uneven. The bloodborn performed adequately—blood control techniques cut down the forming puji one by one, and though they occasionally suffered counterattacks, losses remained controllable.

The burrowers, however, met catastrophic ends.

As melee units, no matter how fast they were, they had to press against the puji- and fungus-covered rock face to attack.

So amid a series of explosions, vast numbers of burrowers were shredded into pieces intermixed with fungal debris and fell from the wall.

Farther off, human defenders watching the scene felt a spark of hope ignite over that faintly glowing fungal carpet.

Against the airborne bloodborn, human archers and mages on the rear walkways began targeted sniping.

Those walkways occupied awkward positions that the ground forces couldn’t effectively support.

Unless…

A diamond-rank human mage hovered midair and unleashed a shockwave that slit a bloodborn’s protective blood shield. Two arrows then slipped through the gap and pierced the vampire’s body, sending it tumbling, powerless.

The mage breathed a short sigh, a hint of a smile forming—only to be cut off by an urgent shout from a comrade.

He spun and barely glimpsed a grimly swift figure flash past before the world spun.

A single blade beheaded the mage. Vilaris landed on the cliff face without slowing, grazed by incoming arrows, and slammed into a walkway.

After a flurry of metal noise and screams, four human fighters on that walkway lay in pieces.

As she gathered to strike another walkway, several huge rock cannons screamed in and forced her to change course and fall back.

“How can I let you wreck this?” Lorenzo emerged from the opposite walkway, sword and staff in hand, hair and beard bristling. “This terrain favors me.”

“Hey—” Vilaris cut him off and struck, launching like lightning. The two tangled midair.

Despite the lack of leverage and the constant interference of arrows from both sides, Vilaris held the upper hand. Lorenzo resisted more stubbornly than last time, avoiding quick defeat.

Below, Sigmund watched Arama at the center and did not personally intervene. He coldly observed the whole battle and, after a moment, actually ordered the retreat horn to be blown.

“Damned fat bat!” Vilaris snarled at a somewhat embarrassed Lorenzo as she was forced to fall back.

As the demon army began a tide-like withdrawal, human lines erupted in thunderous cheers.

Among the many survivors, the most eyes were not on the stalwart Lorenzo or the duke Arama at the center, but on the pink-haired girl who had stayed at the rear: Inanna.

Those gazes mixed astonished disbelief, grateful relief at being saved from doom—and a heat like worship, as if they were looking at the embodiment of hope.

…

“Fat bat! Why are you retreating?!” Vilaris lunged forward with a slash.

Sigmund’s blood shield shimmered and easily blocked the blow. He spoke calmly: “You should concern yourself with the army’s real condition. Casualties aren’t catastrophic, but consumption far exceeds expectation. Even if we force a breakthrough of those mushroom defenses, fighting Arama’s main force afterward will cost far more.”

“So you’re going to stop?” Vilaris narrowed her eyes, sneering. “You’ve delayed so long—how will you answer to the prince?”

“The war continues. I already have a way to deal with those puji.”

“Fine. I’ll wait.”

“She’s got rotten colleagues!” In Sigmund’s mind his roommate’s voice piped up: “Little Xi, you asked the right person—nobody knows puji better than me! Cut off the fungal carpet outside the valley—remove their mana supply—and puji become rootless drift. No big deal!”

“Hope your intel’s reliable.” Sigmund’s trust still had its limits.

“Relax—helping you helps me too! Besides, humans already found that weakness. Easy verification—you just suffered by acting late!” the roommate’s tone sounded earnestly sincere.

Sigmund nodded, thinking it over.

He retrieved a vial, sipped a little blood—rarely had he gotten practical help from his roommate in addition to tasty blood—and the gloom of today’s failed attack lightened a bit.