This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 247, Section 246: The Culprit
The undeniable facts allowed the guild to firmly occupy the moral high ground, leaving the opportunists with no choice but to accept it, no matter how unwilling they were.

Perhaps a few lucky individuals will still try to steal mushrooms out of the managers' sight, but that is now the duty of the patrolling guards.

Beside a mushroom field whose boundaries had just been demarcated, Far, Inanna, and others stopped to observe.

Inanna gently shook the knight in her arms, Puji, at the fungal carpet beneath her feet. This time, only a few small mushrooms sprouted on the carpet, appearing sparse and weak.

"As expected, it cannot be infinitely proliferated..." Witnessing this scene, Far's face showed an expression of "I knew it," which was more in line with his understanding of the world.

After all, this was the third time that mushrooms had been stimulated on the same fungal carpet. If they could still sprout mushrooms continuously, it would truly overturn his common sense.

It seems that Miss Inanna, with the help of the knight Puji, can achieve amazing effects similar to large-scale natural magic on the creep.

However, the cost is similar to that of natural magic: it prematurely depletes the nutrients and magic contained within the fungal carpet, causing it to subsequently fall into a prolonged state of stagnation.

However, unlike ordinary plants, the recovery speed of the fungal carpet is much faster. Even so, this is ultimately an emergency measure, not a long-term solution.

We can't really expect Miss Inanna to solve the horrifying food crisis by running around with her knight every day.

“Miss Inanna, we are very grateful for your assistance this time,” Far bowed solemnly to Inanna, “whether it was consolidating our control or persuading those unreasonable adventurers.”

Inanna glanced at the four guards Eric had sent, then subtly approached Far and lowered her voice, saying, "In your report to the Duke's mansion, make sure to explain in detail why I must stay here!"

Far looked at her with some surprise, then immediately understood: it seemed that this duke's daughter wanted to take the opportunity to play outside a little longer.

Far could not afford to offend Inanna, so he nodded in agreement.

Inanna smiled at him for the first time: "Also, I don't want to live in the guild."

“I will arrange for people to build you a residence immediately,” Farr readily agreed. “What specific requirements does Miss have?”

Inanna's biggest wish, of course, was to live directly in a mushroom house—a mushroom house that was soft and snug against her body, practically her ideal home. Unfortunately, this was on the ground, so she had to make do...

The reason why the group had started discussing whether to stay at the guild or nearby was that not long ago, the team that Fal had sent to explore the current state of the dungeon had returned and brought him surprising news—the situation in the dungeon had actually begun to improve!

Except for the first floor, where the condition is still quite bad, the cracks decrease as you go down, and the cracks are continuously self-repairing!

Far was both happy and heartbroken about this.

The restoration of stability in the dungeon is undoubtedly good news for him and the guild in the long run, meaning a steady stream of resources will be produced again, not to mention the increased mushroom production.

However, in the short term... his incorrect predictions led to a series of setbacks.

The high premiums he paid for hoarding low- to mid-tier materials resulted in huge losses, and the decision to relocate refugees further emptied his savings.

This series of "miraculous moves" has severely damaged both the Silent Wind Town branch and him personally!
The source of all these misjudgments points to one person—the so-called magic array master, Guge!
"That good-for-nothing!" In the guild leader's office, where he had just barely managed to clean up the visible mycelium, Far was gritting his teeth as he wrote a report to send to headquarters. In the report, he denounced Guged as unworthy of his position, arguing that none of the key information he provided was accurate, causing the guild to suffer significant losses, and that his actions were simply unforgivable!
He once again strongly requested that headquarters send a genuine team of experts to conduct an authoritative assessment of the current state of the underground city, and he especially emphasized that it was imperative to eliminate Gug, this fraudulent master who deceived the world!
……

The news that was of utmost concern to the adventurers in the surrounding area was the miracle that the dungeon had successfully repaired itself from the brink of collapse, which spread rapidly among the crowd like wildfire.

The adventurers, who had been complaining about the Duke's family and the guild, immediately put aside their grievances upon hearing the news and rushed into the dungeon.

However, what awaited them was not easy wealth, but a solid blow to the head!
This period of inactivity without frequent human activity has led to a surge in the number of monsters in the dungeon, making it far more dangerous than ever before.

To make matters worse, after the "great exchange" in the rift, a large number of monster "exchange students" emerged on each level.

The second floor is infested with poisonous flying mosquitoes, the third floor with gold coin worms, and even the fifth floor is teeming with highly venomous lizards and crustaceans that shouldn't be there...

Faced with these unfamiliar and ferocious monsters, the unprepared adventurers immediately experienced the bitterness of a lack of information.

Those with slightly better luck retreated in a disheveled state, while those with worse luck died silently in some corner of the dungeon, their bodies collected only by the diligent Puji.

The new challenges have weeded out a large number of weak teams. Now, only truly powerful and experienced adventurers are qualified to continue exploring in the face of unknown threats.

Among these adventurers, one group stood out from the crowd. They quickly descended to the lower levels, seemingly oblivious to the valuable materials along the way.

Leading the group was a swordsman, followed by a hunter and a mage. What they had in common was that they all owed a huge favor to the "good-natured" Vera...

Unlike other adventurers seeking wealth, they came to find Vera and her companions.

Vera and her companions' last eyewitness report was that they entered Silent Wind Town, before the mushroom-picking craze had fully taken off.

But since then, Vera and the others have vanished without a trace.

The swordsman who discovered Vera's disappearance searched the town of Silent Wind and the surrounding forests while asking adventurers for information, but to no avail.

Based on his understanding of Vera, the other party shouldn't have abandoned the refugees and gone to live a carefree life in other cities, so this disappearance is very strange.

After thinking it over, he figured it was very likely that he had entered the dungeon—although he couldn't understand why he would have entered the dungeon at that particular time.

Therefore, as soon as news of the dungeon's reopening spread, the swordsman promptly contacted two other people, forming this temporary search team. Their primary targets were the fifth and sixth floors.

First, go to the sixth floor, where Vera often goes, to look for clues. If you don't find anything, return to the fifth floor to participate in the Puji lottery.

The reason it's a lottery is that everyone already knows that Puji dismantles adventurers' corpses and takes their equipment. If they draw something that represents Vera and the others, then they can only accept the fact that Vera has died in the dungeon.

However, when they got down to the sixth floor, they found Vera and the others sitting around the burrowing creature, happily drinking delicious mushroom soup...

(End of this chapter)