Chapter 26 – Danger on the Fifth Stratum

Unlike his frantic journey to Fenrad, Dylan’s return trip took more than a month.

He kept his face wrapped in bandages the entire way, making himself look like a mummy.

He avoided populated areas whenever possible and bought supplies only at coaching inns or villages.

When he finally returned to Hushwind, he did not linger. He hurriedly purchased provisions and entered Amethyst Deep alone.

He did not visit the tavern for information. The dungeon had been the same for thousands of years. How much could it possibly have changed in two months?

Inside, Dylan followed routes with few resources and equally few monsters. They were relatively safe, and profit was not his purpose this time.

He wanted to see that marsh again.

He did not know what he expected to find. Yet every time he imagined hiding from the world, his mind returned to the scene he had witnessed in the Treasure Chamber.

He had considered the possibility that this urge was some form of mental suggestion caused by the parasite, and that returning would lead to his complete consumption.

In the end, he had decided to come anyway.

If it killed him... then so be it.

Dylan walked down the bluestone stairway between the Fourth and Fifth Strata, a passage dozens of yards high. His heels struck the steps, and each click echoed between the walls.

His were not the only footsteps.

A party of adventurers appeared below him on the stairs.

As they passed, both sides tightened their grips on their weapons.

Caution was essential. A dungeon attracted every sort of person.

“Friend, wait.”

Dylan turned. The speaker was a young man in leather armor with a curved blade hanging at his waist.

He looked no older than twenty, yet he had climbed back from the Fifth Stratum. The youth clearly possessed enviable talent.

“What is it?”

As he spoke, Dylan descended another two steps to widen the distance between them.

The young man noticed but merely offered a friendly warning.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but something strange has happened on the Fifth Stratum. No one has figured out what’s going on yet. You’d be better off not taking the risk.”

“Something strange? Have the Parasitic Trees gone berserk?”

“No, it’s the Puffcaps.

“A swarm of mutated Puffcaps has occupied most of the stratum. We don’t understand their behavior, but people have reportedly died in there. We tried to skirt around them and reach the caverns, but every passable route along this corridor was blocked by Puffcaps, so we turned back.”

The young man truly seemed to be warning him out of simple kindness. Dylan gave him a small nod.

“Thank you.”

Then he continued down. The Puffcaps were precisely what he had come to find.

“Tch. What a suspicious freak. Vera tries to help, and he doesn’t believe a word of it.”

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Dylan had not gone far when the party’s female archer jeered at his back.

“All right, all right. It’s a normal reaction. Let’s go. We still need to check the other passage.”

The young man’s voice gradually faded behind him.

Dylan rather liked people willing to help strangers, though his approval was probably worth very little.

As for the archer’s mockery, he had long since grown too old to take such things to heart.

Three corridors linked the Fourth and Fifth Strata. This one emerged near Poisonmist Lake.

Dylan drank a Poison Resistance Potion well in advance. When he stepped out of the passage, however, he could only stare.

The lake was still there, but where was the poison?

Green mist had once covered the entire lakeshore. It was not only toxic, but thick enough to obscure almost everything.

Now Dylan could see far into the distance at a glance.

Several Puffcaps wandered beside the distant shore. Just as the young man had said, they blocked the route toward the caverns.

The poisonous fog existed because Emerald-Eyed Frogs lived here. Day after day, they spat green poison until the mist enveloped the whole lake.

Only then did Dylan realize that despite the clear view, he could not see a single Emerald-Eyed Frog.

Only a few scattered Caustic Slimes and Water Sprites remained.

What had happened here?

Dylan continued forward with growing unease.

Fortunately, the Puffcaps ignored him just as they had before. He let out a quiet breath of relief.

He crossed the Poisonmist Lake, now entirely free of poison mist, and headed toward the edge of the marsh.

His plan was to bypass the Parasitic Trees and sneak into the Treasure Chamber to see what had become of it.

When he reached the marsh, however, he encountered the same strange sight again.

The native monsters were gone. Puffcaps wandered in their place.

When the young man said Puffcaps had occupied most of the stratum, Dylan had imagined that they had simply become part of its ecosystem.

Now it looked as if they had killed every monster that once lived here.

Considering how easily those Puffcaps had slain the Parasitic Trees, that did not seem impossible.

At last, Dylan reached the stone wall. Another unexpected sight awaited him.

The Treasure Chamber was gone!

It had not merely closed again. The stone door and the entire chamber entrance had vanished.

Dylan was certain he had not mistaken the location.

As he stood there at a loss, a voice appeared inside his head.

“What are you doing? Hoping to get your hands on that treasure chest?”

* * *

Evan had been troubled lately.

Building the Mycelial Garden was not the problem. Everything on the Fifth Stratum was proceeding according to plan.

The Gnolls in the forest had become Mycelial Gnolls. Like the Puffcaps, they were puppets that obeyed Evan’s every command.

In truth, Evan was not very satisfied with them.

They consumed a great deal of energy without being especially strong in battle, and they still needed meat to survive.

Compared with the Puffcaps, their value for the cost was abysmal.

The only reason Evan had kept them this long was to study [Parasitic Fusion].

That research was almost complete. Now he was deciding whether to spend the Mycelial Gnolls in battle or bury them as fertilizer.

What actually troubled Evan was that his relationship with the humans had recently become strained.

Adventurers either detoured the moment they saw a Puffcap or attacked first. Evan had never developed the habit of letting others strike him without fighting back.

And the whole mess had begun with one idiotic adventuring party dragging a newbie through a dungeon run.

Three Copper-rank adventurers above LV25 had brought a novice female mage of only LV16 to explore the Fifth Stratum. Worse, they insisted on crossing the marsh.

It was the equivalent of strangers demanding to explore Evan’s bedroom. Naturally, he refused.

He sent Puffcaps to block their path and even fired one artillery blast off to the side so they would understand the difference in strength.

The three Copper-rank adventurers understood.

The novice mage did not.

Apparently convinced she should strike the mushroom first, she spent ages chanting Lightning Claw and then reached for a detonation Puffcap beside her.

Evan genuinely could not understand why a mage wanted to fight at close range.

When someone insisted on courting death, Evan was always willing to grant the wish.

A brilliant explosion hurled the young beauty more than five yards into the air. By the time she landed, she was a heap of mangled flesh.

The incident should have ended there. Evan had not intended to pursue the others for trespassing in his marsh and getting an innocent detonation Puffcap killed.

To his surprise, one of the adventurers charged forward with tears streaming down his face, plainly bent on revenge.

One of the other two hesitated, then followed him.

The result was predictable. Two more heaps of mangled flesh.

When the Puffcaps turned toward the last survivor, he immediately tore open a scroll and vanished.

A Teleportation Scroll!?

So those really existed.

By all the gods, Evan had never intended to silence the witnesses. Every death had been self-defense.

Judging by how other adventurers reacted afterward, however, he doubted he could ever wash his hands of the blame.

He had no idea how far the situation might escalate.

All-out war?

Or should he abandon the territory beyond the marsh and make himself less conspicuous until the commotion passed?

The moment Evan discovered the half-human, half-mushroom Dylan returning to the Fifth Stratum, an idea came to him.