In the main passage of Cavern 3, the bull-and-horse Pujis were busy spreading spores.
Though the mycelium carpet could slowly creep along on its own, Lin Jun clearly wanted to speed things up.
That Huang Pishu… it did have ability, but its mind was never aligned, always scheming for itself.
The passage wound its way forward, eventually opening into a desolate cavern.
Within were only patches of moss and tiny insects. Though spacious, the cavern offered almost no cover, nowhere to hide anything.
The only monsters present were a few sluggish giant snails, clinging quietly to the rock walls.
Compared to Piggy’s current struggle against the snake nest, this place felt empty and lifeless.
And no cave-dwellers in sight.
Instead of turning back at once to berate Huang Pishu, Lin Jun had the Pujis scour the place—and sure enough, they found something: footprints with three toes.
These matched the features of cave-dwellers Lin Jun had seen before.Unfortunately, the tracks only proved they had been here—not where they had gone.
Unlike the soft soil of caverns, the passages had been reinforced by earthworms, leaving little chance of imprints.
And like most deep caverns, this one connected to over a dozen passages.
Lin Jun didn’t attempt a brute-force search—he had too few spare Pujis left. The grand expedition was a bottomless pit, no matter how many Pujis he threw in.
The prints were fairly fresh, meaning the cave-dwellers had come here recently.
So Lin Jun left some mimic Pujis disguised as stones, waiting to ambush.
Two days passed. At one point, a mimic Puji was even half-devoured by a snail before Lin Jun noticed.
But in the end, his patience paid off.
Seven cave-dwellers emerged from a sloping passage, carrying a huge piece of curved bark.
Once inside, most of them crouched down and began scraping moss onto the bark.
So that was it—they ate moss. Quite fitting for their status.
But… why was one of them just standing there, not working?
That lone cave-dweller clutched a crude spear, while the others were empty-handed.
A sentry?
Since they could use simple tools, division of labor made sense.
Yet this one didn’t look like a guard.
It didn’t scan the surroundings, nor drive off snails that got too close to the workers.
It just leaned lazily against the rock wall, spear in hand, waiting idly as the others filled the bark.
One word came to Lin Jun’s mind—overseer.
Its actions fit perfectly: its presence alone was pressure enough to drive the laborers, while its spear served more as a threat against its kin than as defense from foes.
And then came proof.
One worker, scraping too eagerly at a thick patch of moss, accidentally flung a clump of wet dirt onto the overseer’s foot.
“Skreee!” A shrill, furious cry tore from the overseer’s throat.
Without even wiping off the mud, it stepped forward and drove its spear down—not at a vital spot, but straight through the worker’s tail.
“Thwack!” The crude stone tip pierced clumsily, just enough to cause agony.
The slave wailed, curling on the ground clutching its wounded tail, trembling in terror.
All the other workers froze, cowering low, not daring to breathe.
The overseer seemed satisfied.
It wiped the bloody spearhead against the moss and growled a low, threatening rumble, warning them to get back to work.
The injured slave pressed moss to its wound for makeshift bandaging, then, still shuddering, forced itself to scrape moss again—more timidly than before.
Seeing this, the overseer calmly returned to its lounging stance against the wall.
It had no idea that a “stone” only ten paces away was a mimic Puji, and that someone was watching its little performance with great interest.
And indeed, Lin Jun was intrigued.
A tribe of cave-dwellers had developed slavery!
Not the crude, one-strong-bully kind either—the overseer and slaves’ stats were nearly identical. If the slaves banded together, they could easily tear the overseer apart.
Yet faced with its abuse, they didn’t dare resist.
This meant their slavery had become a relatively complete social system.
Same species, barely any difference—yet stratified.
For Lin Jun, this was good news.
He had thought them primitive, near animal-like. But this showed they were more intelligent than expected.
So he didn’t have the Pujis seize them right away. Instead, he observed as they loaded the moss-filled bark, then, under the overseer’s command, carried it away.
A scout Puji, under 【Vassal Control】, tailed them from afar.
The cave-dwellers had 【Tremor Sense】, but only at LV3 or so.
Lin Jun’s detection skills were higher-level and longer-range. Tracking them was no problem.
The cave-dwellers ascended, passing through several barren, monsterless caverns—clearly “safe routes” scouted out by their kind.
But Lin Jun felt something odd throughout.
And when they reached a cavern riddled with earthworm-dug tunnels, he realized what it was—
Wasn’t this the place where he’d fought the earthworms?
So this was right near his old home?
The cave-dwellers actually lived nearby all along?
Lin Jun had never seen them before, so clearly they must have come with the demon tide.
Watching them climb a familiar passage, a suspicion formed beneath his cap.
Could it be…
Following them through the same old paths…
After hours of pursuit, the cavern of his old mushroom garden appeared in his senses.
So, after he left… the cave-dwellers had taken over?
But the sight before him was nothing like the mushroom garden he remembered.
The old passage once guarded by battle Pujis was now completely sealed by a massive living tree.
Its thick, vein-like trunk burrowed deep into stone.
On its surface, facing the passage, an irregular hole had been gouged open, scarred with claw and bite marks.
Several cave-dwellers with crude weapons stood guard there.
Around the entrance were traps—pitfalls covered with brush, giant rocks suspended on vines.
They weren’t well hidden—likely because their usual enemies were witless beasts.
Still, the scene resembled a primitive fortress.
Clearly, these weak cave-dwellers had not survived in the deep by luck alone.
And strangely… they hadn’t eradicated the mushrooms.
Through the living barricade, Lin Jun sensed abundant mycelium, mushrooms—and even… Pujis?