This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 119, Section 118: The Viscount's Squad (Part 1)

"What a pity, they were twins!"

The lewd voice beside him made Hack turn around and glance at the three figures that were about to disappear at the end of the corridor.

He certainly knew what "what a pity" meant.

The speaker was called Short Axe, an ugly man with a centipede-like scar across his cheek, a mark left by an iron hook when he robbed caravans years ago.

Years of heavy drinking had left him with a sallow complexion, and when he grinned with his missing front teeth, the two short axes slung across his leather armor would jiggle with his belly.

Even though his physique has changed, he is still a desperate man who dares to use [Berserk] in battle and can swing his dual axes in a whirlwind.

He's just not thinking straight. He's only thinking about those two ounces of meat, and he doesn't even look at the current situation. He's still acting like he was when he was a robber...

Hark secretly glanced at Viscount Louisa, who was walking in the middle of the group. The tall vampire didn't seem to have heard Short Axe's complaints, or perhaps she heard them but didn't care.

He cursed Short Axe in his heart. In the end, if Short Axe and a few other guys hadn't been so lustful that they had played the baron's daughter to death, they wouldn't have been forced to flee to the Hermit Empire by the high bounty, let alone participate in such a dangerous operation. Did they really think he cared about so-called immortality?
True immortality is living to a certain age; having only a lifespan and then being killed is utterly meaningless!
Unfortunately, circumstances were beyond their control; once they joined forces with the vampires, they had no other choice.

The man with the short axe next to him took out a small box from his pocket, poured out a grayish-white pill that smelled of decay, and swallowed it in one gulp.

Hark recognized it; it was a quiver of death made from mourning lilies, and he had some of those in his possession as well.

Long-term use can bring the body closer to the dead, which is considered a necessary step before being transformed into a half-vampire.

That guy with the short axe is clearly taking the Viscount's promise—that he'd turn them into half-vampires if they successfully completed the mission—quite...

Hark himself took out a Quiet Death Elixir and swallowed it...

An axe suddenly whirled past him, causing Hack to stop in his tracks.

"Short axe?" Hack's voice was laced with suppressed rage.

The axe flew through the fighting Puji and Slime not far away, achieving a perfect double kill before returning to the short axe's hand.

"Why haven't you said a word the whole way? What are you pretending to be, you expert? Haha—"

Short Axe's unrestrained laughter made everyone turn to look at him, even the Viscount.

Hack didn't find it funny at all; he just wanted to slice that ugly face to pieces with a wind blade!
He quickly distanced himself from the short axe, and behind him he could still hear his muttering: "Tch, a guy who can't take a joke."

Putting aside this idiot, the others are pretty reliable and are currently discussing the unusual nature of this dungeon.

"Isn't it said that the ecology of each level of the Amethyst Underground City is different? How come there are Puji along the way, and they are even mutated species?"

“I came here six years ago, and it wasn’t like this then.”

"I heard that this place experienced a demonic tide before, so it must be the effect of that tide."

"It's so dark here..."

Huck looked around and confirmed it.

Along the way, there were fungal carpets, fluorescent mushrooms, and mutated puffballs. Regardless of the ecological level, you could see them, and they made up a significant portion of the ecosystem.

This situation reached its peak when they reached the fifth floor.

pat-

A strange sensation came from under my feet.

Lighting magic!
"what is this?"

Bathed in the orange-yellow light, everyone could see the thick fungal carpet beneath their feet, each step leaving a sticky residue.

"Disgusting!"

Someone was scraping the sole of their shoe with disgust, but the more they scraped, the more there was.

"Look what this is!" Short Axe suddenly called out to the crowd.

Hack looked back and saw that the short axe had hooked open the fungal carpet under his feet, revealing an inconspicuous... disc-shaped stone underneath?

Hack felt something was off; this stone was too perfectly regular...

"Look, it's soft!"

He kicked the short axe at the disc twice, feeling its bouncy texture; it was quite satisfying to kick. Then he stomped down—

Huck watched as the disc beneath Short Axe's feet suddenly exploded, sending a layer of dirt flying.

"what--"

Amidst the heart-wrenching screams of the short axe, several dark figures suddenly leaped out from around him and pounced on him.

Although Short Axe is a disgusting and annoying guy, it wouldn't be good to let him die for nothing.

Third-level magic—Wind Surge!
A gust of wind blew away the figures rushing towards them, and only then could Hack barely make out what they were.

"Pfft!?"

It's still a mimicked Puji!
The flying objects exploded one by one before they even landed, but fortunately no one else was hurt.

"Watch out! These little creatures are hiding in the ground!" someone warned.

Hack looked at the holes left behind by the plop as he left, and then glanced at the endless fungal carpet in front of him—could it be like this all the way?
"Ah! My legs!"

The scream of the short axe drew Hack's attention back, and he realized that this scoundrel had actually failed this time; his right leg below the knee had been blown off!

Come to think of it, this idiot stepped right into the source of the explosion; it's more accurate to say he's incredibly resilient that he didn't lose any more arms or legs.

Hack hesitated, wondering whether to give him the healing potion he always carried, but judging from his condition, it seemed unlikely that it would be of much use in the upcoming battle.

"What's that in the sky?" someone asked, pointing to the sky.

Bathed in the glow of the dome's fluorescent light, small black dots approached one after another in mid-air, seemingly some kind of flying monster. The M-shaped wings on their backs looked familiar...

"Bats?" Hack thought they did indeed resemble the bats that were commonly seen in vampire territory.

But why is this bat so fat?
Getting closer, I finally saw their true colors.

"It's Pfft again!"

Having learned their lesson, no one dares to let Puji get close now.

The magic arrows were all thrown out. These flying arrows were not fast and were easy to hit. After being hit, they all fell down...

bang——

"Damn it! Don't let them fly overhead! Huck, blow them away!"

His teammates cursed and gave orders, so Hack simply stopped using Wind Blade and focused on using Wind Surge to blow the falling Puki far away, so that no one was affected by the explosion blast anymore.

only--

"How many poops are there in total?"

Countless tiny black dots flew up and down, making Hack's scalp tingle.

Even if all of them used up their magic and arrows, they still couldn't take down so many pukei, right?
"Let's... let's go back first!"

Hark suggested loudly that since they weren't far from the stairs, they should go back and reorganize before figuring out how to deal with the strange poop.

"Need not."

Viscount Louise, who had been observing the situation with a cold eye, suddenly spoke up!

With a casual gesture, the screams of the short axe on the ground suddenly became even more agonizing, and blood gushed from his severed limb, pooling in Louisa's hand to form a blood sphere.

Then, the blood burst forth in countless fine threads that shot into the sky, precisely piercing through one after another.

Each attack that hits the health bar doesn't do much damage, but the Puji just happen to have very little health left. I wonder if she figured that out...

After the attack, Louisa's blood orbs were depleted, and the Pooji fell from the sky like dumplings being dropped into a pot. Only a few Pooji managed to escape and were picked off one by one by the archers.

It seems their crisis has been temporarily averted?

Huck glanced at the short axe, which had become a dried-up corpse—it seemed he no longer needed to worry about whether to waste a bottle of healing potion.

　Thanks to the leader of "Little Bean Turns into Edamame"
　　
　
(End of this chapter)