Qiong panted lightly, crouching down to adjust the crude wooden peg serving as his left leg.
After losing his limb, the tribe had fashioned him a makeshift prosthetic. It barely supported walking, but comfort was out of the question. Over time it tilted awkwardly, forcing him to stop often and readjust.
Living as a cripple was truly inconvenient. Simply making it to the entrance of the dungeon’s upper levels left him breathless.
This time, he had come looking for the Pujis.
It was a reckless gamble. Not only was the terrifying Kith still rumored to lurk within the dungeon, but Shou had warned that these Pujis themselves might not be friendly.
Yet the tribe’s food supplies were dwindling. Whether they migrated south or stayed, they would have to venture here eventually.
Better for him—a cripple of little worth—to test the waters, rather than risk the healthy warriors.
Shou would never have allowed it. So Qiong slipped out alone.
But deep inside, he couldn’t shake a strange intuition: perhaps the Pujis weren’t as fearsome as Shou believed.
The air grew warmer as he stepped into the upper levels.But only a few steps in, his peg-leg slid. He lost balance, his lone hand catching the ground just in time to prevent a nasty fall.
When he lifted it, sticky strands clung to his palm.
“Mycelium?”
Brushing away snow, he saw the ground was covered in a mat of fungus. Just days ago it hadn’t been like this!
Balancing carefully, he continued. The slick surface was treacherous for a one-legged man.
Soon, he stumbled upon a bizarre sight.
A group of Pujis stood in the distance. One especially plump Puji was pulling mushrooms from its belly, scattering them across the ground.
From hiding, fat grubs wriggled out, greedily devouring the fungi.
While they fed, other Pujis crept in, suddenly ensnaring the fattest grub with tough mycelial tendrils.
In moments, it was bound tight like a writhing dumpling, dragged into the shadows by several Pujis.
“The Pujis… they’ve reached the upper level?! Are they… breeding these things? Do they… eat meat?”
His stomach growled nervously. Hopefully only grub meat…
When he turned, he froze. Two Pujis stood before him, seemingly out of nowhere.
His instincts screamed caution. But when his eyes met their round, almost dopey forms, an overwhelming sense of warmth and familiarity washed over him, smothering fear.
“Yo, Qiong!” A familiar voice spoke directly in his mind. “Come to see me?”
The two Pujis flanked him, gently steadying his wobbly body with soft tendrils, half-supporting him as they guided him toward the fortress.
As they neared the middle levels, he hesitated. “But… what if we run into Kith…”
“Kith? Don’t worry. Kith moved out.”
“Moved… out?” Qiong was stunned.
“Yeah! No idea why. Just up and left! Hmph, some neighbors are so cold. Lived beside each other so long, and not even a new address. How are we supposed to visit and catch up? You won’t treat me like that, will you, Qiong?”
“O-of course not…” he forced a weak smile.
He wasn’t a fool.
Kith hadn’t “moved.” It had been destroyed. In mere days.
The Pujis were even more terrifying than Shou had warned.
But thankfully… they were kind to him?
Inside the fortress, there was indeed no trace of Kith. Instead, fungus carpeted everything, with busy Pujis scurrying about.
They led Qiong to a budding mushroom grove, then ladled him a bowl of steaming mushroom soup from a tunneler Puji’s body.
It wasn’t tasty, but it brimmed with mana—a treasure in his eyes. He savored every drop.
Oddly, his appetite seemed greater lately. Or rather, his hunger for mana had grown. Why, he didn’t know.
From a nearby mushroom house, a gray figure poked its head out—Gray. Its eyes met Qiong’s for two seconds before it withdrew.
Qiong was amazed.
Dragons, vampires… all coexisting with Pujis?
But where had they all come from?
After finishing his soup, the Pujis seemed eager to let him try sleeping in a mushroom house. But Qiong, awkward and hesitant, finally voiced his request.
…
“You need mushrooms? Enough to feed three hundred demonkin?!”
Qiong rubbed his lone hand nervously, unable to meet their eyes. “Y-yes. We used to scrape by hunting in the upper levels, but the monsters… they’re fewer now. And with the Pujis here…”
“With us here,” the Puji’s cap tilted in a very humanlike gesture of reluctance, “I’d love to treat you, or even host Shou. That’s nothing. But feeding three hundred? Even for us, that’s no small demand.”
Its tendrils spread helplessly. “You saw yourself—I’ve got a whole brood of hungry Pujis to feed too…”
Qiong’s shame pressed him down, his face buried in furs.
He knew how outrageous his request was.
They had saved him, and now he begged more of them.
But his tribe had no choice. He could only stand there, clenching his teeth.
“However…” the Puji’s tone shifted slyly.
Qiong’s head snapped up, a spark of hope lighting his dim eyes.
“Giving that much away would break even me,” the Puji’s tendrils tapped like an abacus. “But… if you work for it—trade your labor for the mushrooms—then it’s no problem at all!”
“M-me? Work?”
“Of course!”
And so began an experience like a dream.
For the first time, Qiong stepped through a warped rift glowing violet.
For the first time, he entered a place so warm it nearly made him sweat—a world apart from the icy north.
There, in a cavern of glowing grass and mushrooms, the Pujis entrusted him with over twenty little ones to command!
The sensation of leading Pujis was surreal.
He clumsily yet earnestly joined them in harvesting firefly grass.
He fought alongside them, driving off waves of grotesque monsters that strayed into the cave.
Two days later—
He had earned what the Pujis called “26 Contribution Points.”
With them, he redeemed an immense pile of mushrooms—far beyond what one man could carry.
For their first partnership, Lin Jun even arranged free delivery: a chubby Puji swallowed the mushrooms whole to carry them, while a tunneler Puji came along to provide heat.
When Qiong finally returned after three days missing—hobbling on his peg-leg, flanked by the massive Puji hauling food—he walked straight into Shou, who had been about to leave camp to search for him personally.
Staring at the scene, Shou’s voice was thick with disbelief:
“Qiong… what… exactly have you been doing these past three days?!”