This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 403, Section 402: We Need More Puji
"They retreated? They... just retreated like that?" On the city wall, a soldier covered in soot leaned against the crenellations, gazing at the snake-man army gradually disappearing into the distance, and murmured in disbelief.

The next second, a wave of ecstasy swept across the entire city wall.

"We survived! We won!"

"Hahahaha! What a load of bull, what kind of demon race is this? Nothing special!"

"See that? My self-destructing 'poof' blew a snake-man's tail to smithereens!"

Everyone was cheering, but the most excited were the Puji Masters. Others were less involved, and of course, they didn't really want that sense of participation anyway.

Angela leaned against the cold brick wall and let out a long sigh of relief.

Her tense nerves finally relaxed, and she realized that her hand holding the sword was still trembling slightly.

Not long ago, she had prepared herself to die in battle, after all, she had no interest in experiencing the life of a slave.

To be able to survive now...

"The Puji Master is quite useful," she murmured to herself.

Of course, this "usefulness" refers to the potential of the emerging profession itself, not the group of people under her command.

These Puji Division soldiers, participating in combat for the first time, perfectly exemplified what it means to be a "new recruit."

Lacking any tactical skills and discipline, they become flustered and disorganized once they engage the enemy.

Today's victory was entirely due to the inherently troublesome nature of the Pokémon, Puji.

Not only the Puji Masters, but even the crossbowmen on the city walls performed poorly.

Judging from the snake-men's corpses, fewer than twenty actually died from arrow wounds; instead, quite a few were accidentally killed by friendly fire.

Even with such chaotic coordination, they still managed to repel the seemingly invincible snake-man army!

This is enough to prove the enormous potential of the Puji Soldier unit.

Angela thought that if the snake people had disregarded everything and prioritized attacking the city to kill the Puji Master, it might have been a better choice.

But clearly, even they themselves don't fully understand the characteristics of the Puji Masters, let alone their enemies.

In short, we escaped a disaster!
temporary……

"These poops... is there any way to replenish them?" Viscount Knight's voice pulled Angela back to reality.

This lord has clearly begun to consider subsequent defense issues; the halving of the number of Puji has made him feel very insecure.

Angela and the other commander looked at each other in bewilderment; they had no idea!
The original Puji Master commander has all run away.

There was no other way, so they finally called in a few Puji Master squad leaders to discuss the matter.

"Go to the Puji Dungeon and feed the creep with monster corpses, and the Puji will grow."

"How can we go back to the dungeon now?"

"What about the fungal carpet in the city?"

"That won't work... I heard that the growth of Puji depends mainly on the magic power of the environment, and the magic concentration on the surface isn't high enough..."

"Feed more corpses?"

"Where are there any monster corpses now? We can't risk encountering a demon army by going out to look for them now, can we?"

"It doesn't seem to say that the corpse has to be a monster, does it..."

The group discussed amongst themselves, but eventually fell silent, their gazes all turning to the corpses of the snake-men outside the city.

Using the corpses of enemies to cultivate one's own fighting force is a perfectly natural idea, and no one would feel any psychological burden about it.

Not only were all the snake-men's corpses collected, but the piles of Puji remains below the city were also carefully recovered and transported to the fungal carpet inside the city, where they were spread out evenly.

As for the few winged people who died in battle, and the remains of the defenders who were killed by magic or spears on the city walls, they were buried in another part of the city.

Without Lin Jun using magic to accelerate the process, the decomposition of the fungal carpet was not particularly fast.

Angela and the Viscount and others come to visit several times a day.

Fortunately, no other demon forces came to the vicinity in the following days.

On the first day, fine mycelium quietly covered the surface of the corpse like a spider web, and tiny mushrooms began to sprout around the mycelial carpet.

The next day, the mushroom colony had noticeably increased, with even a few tempting "delicious mushrooms" mixed in. These fungi, nourished by corpses, went unnoticed during the day, but were secretly picked by two unscrupulous orc soldiers at night, becoming their midnight snack. On the third day, change finally arrived. From the nearly half-decomposed pile of corpses, the first newborn Puji poked its round body out. Around it, more nascent Puji forms, not yet fully formed, were emerging from the fungal carpet.

When a Puji master successfully established a mental connection with the newborn Puji, everyone present breathed a sigh of relief.

In the days that followed, newborn babies sprouted up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

Before the corpses were completely consumed, the number of lost Puji was completely replenished, and even slightly exceeded.

With their fighting strength restored, everyone's hearts, which had been hanging in suspense for many days, finally settled down.

What they didn't know was that, in terms of magic power alone, the magic power generated from breaking down more than a hundred snake people couldn't produce more than three thousand Puji. The shortfall was naturally subsidized by Lin Jun.

There's no way around it; Jin Gu Cheng is the first appearance of a Puji Shi, and the better the performance, the more attention they will receive later.

Lin Jun accepted the loss in terms of magic power, treating it as buying skill proficiency with magic power.

A few days later, another group of demons arrived outside Golden Valley City, but their numbers were still fewer than those of the snake people.

After leaving dozens of corpses in a probing attack, they quickly withdrew.

For a long time afterward, no demons came to Golden Valley City; instead, many humans came.

Jingu City was able to hold out because of the presence of the Puji Masters, but other nearby towns didn't receive the same treatment and fell one after another under the attack of small groups of demons.

Because the demon forces were scattered, every time they broke through a settlement, some survivors were able to escape, and some of them eventually made their way to Golden Valley City.

Refugees and defeated soldiers continued to pour in.

The arrival of these people did not bring much substantial improvement to the combat strength of Jingu City; on the contrary, it made the already strained food reserves even worse.

At the same time, Jingu City's goals have become even bigger.

The birdmen in charge of reconnaissance have recently discovered that many demon scouts have been spotted in the vicinity.

The reason why Jin Gu City was able to make the enemy give up on the previous two occasions was not because they were more powerful than the enemy.

Both groups of enemies could have taken Jingu City if they had fought fiercely, but they chose to retreat simply because they felt it was not worth the risk.

But now, with the influx of refugees, the "value" of Golden Valley City in the eyes of the demons is rapidly increasing.

Angela realized that it probably wouldn't be long before this city became a target worth taking at all costs in the eyes of the demons.

“The worst-case scenario,” she said in a low voice, her gaze sweeping over everyone present, “is that several demon armies could simultaneously besiege the city.”

Inside the council chamber, besides Viscount Knight and his colleague who was the commander of the thousand-man squad, there was a new face: Baron Morton.

He escaped wounded from his own lost territory, his troops almost wiped out, but he himself survived by sheer luck thanks to his diamond-level strength.

“We need more Puji Masters,” the Viscount said.

Angela cautioned, "We tried symbiotic mycelium before. Although the success rate wasn't as high as in the dungeon, it could still create new Puji. But we don't have any extra corpses to cultivate Puji now."

The viscount's fingertips moved slowly across the map, finally stopping at a marker on the west side of Golden Valley City.

Warriors Cape Bay, a small port that once had frequent trade exchanges with Golden Valley City.

"That area fell a few days ago," Baron Morton reminded him, as his territory was nearby and he knew all too well the extent of the area's fall.

Viscount Knight slowly shook his head: "It is precisely because that place has fallen that we must send people there."

“Viscount, you mean…” Angela vaguely guessed his thoughts, but still found it hard to believe.

“We need corpses,” Viscount Knight’s voice was eerily calm, “more corpses.”

Baron Morton jumped to his feet: "Are you insane? Those are human remains! You actually want to use them...to..."

"They're dead!" Viscount Knight suddenly raised his voice. "But we're still alive! So many people in the city want to live! Without enough 'puji,' we can't hold off the next attack! Then, everyone will die!"

Baron Morton opened his mouth, but ultimately sat back down in his chair and said nothing more in rebuttal.

Viscount Knight surveyed everyone present, his voice regaining its composure: "It will take at least two days to travel there and back... Who will go?"

……

Meanwhile, a large ship was slowly moving along the coastline.

(End of this chapter)