This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms

Although the first exploration team had been wiped out, once Ern mobilized the personnel from both demon encampments, the underground situation was quickly mapped out—and the presence of pujis was confirmed.

“Pujis?” Vissarious reclined on his seat, asking languidly, “You’re certain it’s those mushrooms?”

“Absolutely, Your Highness.” Ern knelt on one knee. “They are burrowing beneath the battlefield on a massive scale, stealing corpses and breaking them down into mana and nutrients. I suspect that—”

“You worry that humans are controlling them behind the scenes, yes?”

“My lord is perceptive.”

“It isn’t hard to guess. You know about the Goldcrest City puji-tamer incident. But…”

He lifted a hand. A thin thread of blood shot from his fingertip, pulling a scroll from the rack behind him. It drifted lightly to Ern’s feet.

“You probably don’t know the details of the Battle of Dragonroar Valley yet. Read this—Sigismund sent an explanation.”

Ern unrolled the parchment and skimmed it quickly. His expression twisted oddly.

“These pujis… are truly capable of this?”

Endless numbers, endless methods, no fear of death. That part he could still accept.

But when he reached the final section—where they supposedly could not be killed, and one blast collapsed an entire gorge like some giant beast-puji—

Ern’s first reaction was pure disbelief.

“To be frank, I also find it dubious.” Vissarious let the blood retract and rolled the scroll back up. “I’ll still need this later when I report to His Majesty. The pujis Sigismund describes differ far too much from the threat level shown by the ones in Goldcrest City. Whether these mushrooms are truly unusual, or someone is just making excuses for their humiliating defeat…”

Ern raised his head. “My lord, truth or lies—only a test will tell.”

Vissarious nodded. “Hm. My thoughts exactly. I leave this matter to you. But do not grow careless. I do not want any more unexpected setbacks.”

“Yes, my lord!”

……

Ern soon experienced firsthand the true meaning of the report’s phrase: endless numbers, endless methods, no fear of death.

Never in his life had he expected to be issuing poison-resistance potions to goblins—and three bottles each, no less.

But after several rounds of intense clashes, the entire underground network had been completely saturated with deadly hallucinogenic spores.

Even the exposed tunnel mouths spewed purple toxic mists. Without the potions, the goblins would be marching to their deaths.

Accompanying the goblins were a number of demon pets and twenty elite bloodborn.

Ern repeatedly warned the bloodborn commanders: if the situation turned unfavorable, retreat immediately using the goblins as cover.

But the situation was worse than expected.

Of the twenty elite bloodborn who went in, only six escaped alive.

The accompanying goblins were nearly wiped out.

According to their reports, the goblins were utterly outmatched by the pujis.

At first, they could maintain a two-to-one or three-to-one exchange rate.

But as casualties mounted—and with no idea how many pujis were still waiting ahead—goblins, who were never brave to begin with, quickly broke in spirit. Even executing deserters on the spot did nothing to stop the collapse.

Without cannon fodder, the bloodborn themselves were in danger.

The narrow tunnels forced them to remain in bat form. Aside from Blood Manipulation, most of their other abilities were unusable—their combat strength greatly reduced.

The pujis would emerge from side tunnels to block their escape routes, or even self-destruct to blow passages apart.

Anyone who failed to escape immediately was left inside forever.

The first assault was disastrously costly and achieved nearly nothing. Ern changed tactics at once.

He remembered the information from Sigismund’s report—mycelium feared non-magical fire.

After sending a small team to test the claim—and confirming it was true—Ern immediately gathered every drop of fire-oil available in the army. He even requested an emergency supply shipment from the rear lines.

Massive amounts of fire-oil were poured into the tunnels. At his command, a roaring blaze surged downward.

Columns of dark smoke erupted from every tunnel mouth, alarming the defenders in Tri-Mountain City so much that they maintained high alert for half a day.

But when the fire-oil finally burned out and Ern’s troops descended to inspect the damage, they discovered something infuriating:

The tunnel structures had been altered.

All the fire-oil had drained into cleverly dug pits, completely wasted.

Ironically, the thick smoke from the fire had replaced the original poisonous spores—temporarily clearing the underground of toxic contamination.

But not by much. Now, to enter the tunnel network at all, soldiers needed mages to cast Breath Spell on them.

What infuriated Ern even more was that the follow-up scout teams were ambushed by pujis seeking revenge.

The losses were small, but the message was clear:

His fire attack strategy had completely failed.

Clearing the underground pujis with large-scale military force was clearly unrealistic. The army’s primary objective was still to breach Tri-Mountain City.

Wasting excessive manpower underground would play right into human hands.

Since they couldn’t eradicate the pujis, Ern switched to a defensive stance, focusing on destroying the tunnels that approached the demon camp.

He personally led mage units, collapsing shallow tunnels with Earth Tremor, flooding key nodes with Mudswamp, and using Stone to Sand to disintegrate reinforced tunnel walls.

He also set up a large number of simple but effective sensing arrays around the camp, ensuring that any puji attempting to dig closer would be detected and eliminated immediately.

Truthfully, Ern had only encountered pujis on the level of those from Goldcrest City—and already found them extremely troublesome.

He sincerely hoped Sigismund’s report was exaggerated to avoid blame.

Otherwise, the future would be unbearable to imagine.

Fortunately, after he destroyed the tunnels near the surface, the pujis finally seemed to have quieted down.

They still stole corpses from the battlefield, but at least they no longer operated near the demon camp.

However—what Ern did not know was this:

Deep underground, several newly fattened burrower pujis were being nurtured… and even a few numbered pujis had been dragged over to participate.

Lin Jun did not expect these little ones to contribute much in such an oversized war. He mainly wanted to let them witness a major battle for once.

Otherwise, being chased and eaten by Gray every day would only train them in hide-and-seek, not actual combat.

And when they heard the Mushroom Lord needed them, the puji clan became ecstatic—each one eager to rush out and kill enemies for their lord!

Especially Number One and Number Two puji.

Neither said a word, but both were clearly burning with competitive spirit.

……

Above ground, the demon army continued its fierce assault on Tri-Mountain City’s second wall.

Sword Saint Elvien had almost completely recovered—yet he did not join the defense.

He and the Archbishop were waiting.

Waiting for an opportunity.

Their plan had been to deliberately create an opening once the second wall was half-breached, luring Vissarious into making a reckless move.

But the appearance of the pink puji squad…

made that opportunity arrive ahead of schedule.