This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 217, Section 216: Want to work here?

Qiong took a few breaths, squatted down, and fumbled to adjust the angle of the rough wooden stick that served as her left foot.

After he returned home with his broken leg, his tribe made him a simple prosthetic leg, which he could barely use to walk. But don't expect any comfort. After using it for a long time, it would tilt to one side and he would need to adjust it from time to time.

Being disabled is indeed very inconvenient; just trekking to the entrance of the upper level of the dungeon left him breathless.

He came to find Puji this time.

It was a pure act of self-destruction, not to mention that the terrifying Qis was still entrenched in the dungeon, and as Shou had said, those Puji were probably not benevolent either.

However, the tribe's food reserves are running low, and whether they migrate south or continue to live here, they will inevitably have to come to the underground city.

Rather than sending those still-healthy soldiers to take risks, it's better to let this useless cripple scout ahead.

He knew that Gari would not agree to this idea, so he secretly went out on his own.

Moreover, deep down, a vague intuition lingered: those poops... perhaps... weren't as terrible as Shou thought?
The surrounding temperature had risen slightly, and Qiong had already stepped into the upper zone.

However, after taking only two steps, his prosthetic leg slipped, and he instantly lost his balance. His only remaining right hand managed to brace himself against the ground at the last moment, barely preventing him from falling over in a disgraceful manner.

When he removed his hand, it was covered in a sticky mess...

"Mycelium?"

I swept away the thin layer of snow around me and discovered that the ground was covered with mycelium!

It wasn't like this just a few days ago!

He carefully maintained his balance to avoid falling again, as the slippery ground was extremely unfriendly to someone with only one leg.

He hadn't gone far when he saw another bizarre sight.

A group of Puji stood in the distance, one of which was particularly fat and kept pulling handfuls of mushrooms out of its belly and scattering them around.

The phlegmon, which had been hiding in every corner, emerged and greedily pounced on the mushrooms on the ground, feasting on them.

Just as they were engrossed in their meal, the other worms quietly surrounded the fattest lipworm among them!
Several tough mycelial tentacles shot out, instantly wrapping around and tightening around it!
The unfortunate liposome writhed in vain, quickly becoming a struggling "zongzi" (a type of rice dumpling), and was dragged into the shadows by several puckers...

Puji can come to the upper level!
Is this a form of aquaculture?
These little poopy creatures... do they eat meat?!

"Gulu——"

Hopefully they only like to eat lipworms...

After watching the entire feeding process, Qiong came to her senses and found that two Puji had somehow appeared in front of her.

My inner voice is reminding me to be vigilant!
However, when my eyes actually fell on those two round, even somewhat "simple-minded" puppies, an indescribable, almost instinctive sense of intimacy strangely overcame my wariness.

"Yo, Sora!" A familiar inner dialogue. "Want to come play with me?"

Two little fungus creatures flanked him enthusiastically, one on each side, and gently supported his swaying body with their supple mycelial tentacles, helping him regain his balance and almost half-carrying him, leading him towards the castle.

Just as they were about to enter the middle level, Qiong stopped and hesitated, saying, "Um... what if... we encounter Qi Si..."

"Keith? Don't worry, Keith has moved."

"Move...move?" Qiong asked in astonishment.

“Yeah!” A puffy creature mimicked a shrugging gesture with its tentacles. “I don’t know why, they just suddenly moved away! Sigh, some people are just so cold and heartless. We’ve been neighbors for so long, and they didn’t even leave a new address. I can’t even find a place to visit and catch up! Qiong, you wouldn’t do this to me, would you?”

"Of course not..." Qiong said with a forced smile.

He's not stupid enough to just move out.

It's only been a few days?

Keith, who almost wiped them all out before, was eliminated?
Qiong now realizes she was wrong; Puji isn't as scary as Kari said, but even scarier than Kari described...

Fortunately, he's been relatively kind to himself?
Upon entering the castle, there was indeed no trace of Keith. Instead, mycelium grew everywhere, and busy little creatures would occasionally run past.

Puji led Qiong to the half-finished mushroom forest, then scooped a bowl of steaming mushroom soup for him from the body of a burrowing Puji. The mushroom soup wasn't exactly delicious, but it contained magic, making it a rather precious food in Qiong's eyes, so he didn't waste a single drop.

Moreover, Qiong also felt that her appetite had increased recently, or rather, her need for magic power had increased, but she didn't know why.

In the mushroom house not far away, Xiao Hei, noticing the stranger, poked its head out and met Qiong's eyes. Two seconds later, it shrank back—a dusty, unremarkable creature.

Qiong, however, found it very magical.

Dragon people, vampires... they all seem to be living with Puji...

However, Qiong couldn't quite understand where they all came from.
After finishing the mushroom soup, Puji seemed to want him to experience sleeping in a mushroom house, but Qiong couldn't linger any longer and made his request with a slightly awkward manner.

……

"They need mushrooms? And... enough to supply the rations of nearly three hundred demons?!"

Qiong awkwardly rubbed her only remaining hand, too embarrassed to look at Puji opposite her: "Y-yes. I used to be able to barely make ends meet by hunting in the upper areas, but the monsters... are getting fewer and fewer, and now..."

Now it's been taken over by the Puji again...

“Qiong,” the cap of the Puji mushroom swayed slightly, mimicking a human-like awkward posture, “I would be happy to make friends with you. Treating you to a meal or entertaining Shou would be a small matter. But three hundred people… that’s not a small number for the Puji family.”

The mycelial tentacles shrugged helplessly. "As you can see, I still have a huge bunch of hungry little creatures to feed at home..."

Qiong lowered her head deeply in shame, almost burying her face in her fur coat.

He himself felt that this request was extremely unreasonable.

The Puji saved him, but instead of repaying him, he took advantage of the situation and made even more demands...

But the tribe doesn't seem to have many options right now, so he has no choice but to stay here.

"However..." Puji's tone suddenly changed, leaving room for negotiation.

Qiong suddenly looked up, a spark of hope instantly igniting in her dim eyes as she stared intently at Puji in front of her.

“Giving away so many for free is something even I, with my ‘assets,’ can’t afford.” The tentacles tapped like a small abacus. “But… if you’re willing to do something for me, exchanging your labor for these mushrooms… then the situation is completely different! It’s no problem at all!”

"Is there... anything I can do to help?"

"Of course!"

For Qiong, everything that happened next was like falling into a bizarre and fantastical dream.

For the first time in his life, he witnessed and passed through a spatial rift that was twisted with a dark purple light!

For the first time, he set foot in a place so warm that he almost broke out in a sweat, a world apart from the frigid North!

There, he was led by the Puji to a cave with mushrooms and glowing grass. To his disbelief, the Puji gave him more than twenty little Puji and made him lead the team!

The feeling of directing Puji was also very strange for him.

In that warm cave, he clumsily but earnestly collected firefly grass with the Puji.

They fought alongside the Puji again, defeating two waves of strange, ferocious monsters that wandered over here!

Two days later.

He obtained the "twenty-six contribution points" that Puji mentioned, and then used them to exchange for a mountain of mushrooms that far exceeded his ability to carry alone!

For their first collaboration, Lin Jun thoughtfully prepared a free delivery service for him—a chubby little guy stuffed all the mushrooms into his belly and helped him transport them back to the tribe.

To keep warm, I also brought along a self-heating burrowing dog.

When Qiong, who had been missing for three whole days, returned to the tribal camp with his not-so-flexible prosthetic leg and the giant Puji following behind him, he bumped into Shou, who had set out to find him himself.

Looking at the puffy behind Sora, Kari's voice was filled with disbelief: "Sora... what... what have you been doing for the past three days?!"

(End of this chapter)