“Lease”
At the entrance of the dungeon.
Feeling triumphant after tasting success, Horn was once again preparing to enter the dungeon—though this time, his teammates were a different group.
After the last expedition, his envious old teammates hadn’t directly kicked him out, but they had all left the party one by one, only to reorganize themselves into a “new team.”
Horn’s assessment of them was: a bunch of fools blinded by emotion.
That lucky dagger of his, the one with Agility +2, he hadn’t sold it off. Instead, he carried it proudly, boosting his combat ability.
His teammates should’ve been glad he was stronger, yet they abandoned him out of jealousy—what else could that be but stupidity?
Fortunately, Horn didn’t care to stick with those idiots anyway. With his shiny dagger, he quickly found himself a newly formed team.
Now the four of them were doing final checks at the dungeon gate.
Since the team was freshly formed and hadn’t worked together before, they couldn’t afford mistakes. Mutual confirmations before entering were essential.For example, since their party had no mage, torches—or the oil cloth to make them—were absolutely necessary.
After everything was checked, the new team finally stepped into the dungeon.
But as soon as they entered, the four were drawn to a crowd gathered along the hall’s edge.
Clearly something was going on. Otherwise, no one would linger here.
Adventurers could be called the most gossip-hungry group in existence. Nobody could resist a commotion, so naturally, the four joined the crowd.
Someone in the crowd spotted Horn—it was an acquaintance.
“Yo, Horn, I heard you hit the jackpot on the fifth floor?”
Among adventurers, rumors spread fast, especially about someone like Horn, who’d gotten absurdly lucky.
Horn didn’t hide it. He whipped out his dagger, its blade shimmering with flowing light, and spun it with a flourish, earning cries of envy.
After showing off, he asked, “So what’s everyone blocking the way for?”
And block it they did—the dungeon entrance hall connected to eight passages, but in this one four- or five-man-wide corridor, a dozen people stood jammed together.
“There’s a bunch of Puji at the entrance!”
Saying that, his acquaintance grabbed Horn’s hand and shoved him through the crowd.
Once he broke free of the press, Horn nearly thought he was hallucinating—was that… a Fat Puji at the first-floor entrance?
But unlike the fifth floor, this Fat Puji was surrounded by many ordinary Puji, all sitting obediently on a carpet of mycelium.
“What’s going on exactly?” Horn asked.
His friend shrugged—he wasn’t sure either.
Then, a voice from the crowd—apparently an out-of-towner—said something that made everyone’s blood run cold:
“Huh? Free monsters right at the dungeon gate?”
It was a warrior. As he spoke, he drew his longsword.
But the blade had barely cleared the scabbard when someone kicked him flat, and the surrounding crowd rained blows down like a storm.
“Wanna die? Go die on your own! Don’t drag us with you!”
“Damn outsider trying to get us killed?!”
“Beat him to death!”
Horn joined in, landing a few kicks. Who didn’t know a Fat Puji would self-destruct if attacked? If it blew up here, at least half the people present would die!
After driving off the idiot warrior, many realized just how dangerous it was to linger here, and the crowd quickly thinned.
Horn was about to toss a monster corpse over, just to see what would happen, but someone beat him to it—a fellow adventurer lugging a dead Fanghound ran up.
The Fat Puji extended a tendril of mycelium, stuffed the monster corpse into its body, then prodded one of the ordinary Puji sitting nearby.
The chosen Puji lit up, glowing a bright orange-yellow.
The adventurers: ???
The glowing Puji toddled after the adventurer who’d given the offering, taking four short steps for every two of his.
The adventurers: !!!
The man tentatively pressed the little mushroom’s cap—its glow flickered twice, then went out.
“Ohhh~!”
Gasps of wonder rippled through the onlookers.
Seeing this, Horn and his teammates quickly hunted a beast and offered its body. Sure enough, they received their own glowing Puji.
Everyone wanted to try the novelty, even parties that had mages among them.
On their way deeper, they discovered some rules:
The Puji would only follow within the first floor. At each stairway, a new Fat Puji waited, and another offering was needed to hire again.
If the hired Puji died—like the one their own got pinched to death by a giant scorpion on the second floor—then on the next floor, the Fat Puji ignored them… until they paid three monster corpses, at which point they got another.
Each glowing Puji could shine for a maximum of one day. After its light went out, it still followed the adventurers until they brought it back to its Fat Puji handler.
Its brightness was several times that of a torch—more than enough. One monster corpse per floor was a reasonable price for parties without mages.
The only downside was how fragile they were…
…
Lin Jun quietly watched the adventurers’ reactions.
Seeing his new service being embraced, he was quite satisfied.
After being stymied at the eighth floor, he had turned his attention back to the rift expedition.
But since last time he’d abandoned that costly carpet of mycelium there, he now had to lay it all down again.
Meanwhile, the aerial combat Puji designed for rift battles needed time to produce.
So, during this downtime, Lin Jun devoted himself to practicing array carving.
The glowing Puji were just his practice byproducts. Recycling them felt wasteful—why not put them to work?
Thus, the “lighting companion” service was born. Monster corpses were a side benefit—the real goal was to further accustom adventurers to depending on Puji.
Eventually, he wanted them so used to Puji conveniences that they couldn’t explore the dungeon without them!
Who knew? Maybe someday he could launch luggage transport, dungeon canteens, and more.
The first steps of corruption were being laid.
Of course, there were still problems.
Since each glowing Puji was handmade, quality varied. Some malfunctioned, suddenly going dark.
Fortunately, there was no “review system” in the dungeon. Adventurers had no place to leave complaints.
And the Puji service was strictly “no returns, no exchanges”—once you took one out the door, it was your problem.
——
Just as Lin Jun’s sinister plan to corrupt adventurers was beginning to take root, a convoy departed Oath City for Yafeng Town.
At its head rolled a luxurious carriage emblazoned with the sword-and-shield insignia of the Adventurers’ Guild, gold trim marking the high status of the passenger within.
Behind it followed a large wagon carrying eight clerks, escorted by four mounted Gold-rank guards.