The irrefutable proof left the Guild firmly holding the moral high ground. Even the most unwilling opportunists had no choice but to accept.
A few reckless types might still try sneaking mushrooms under the overseers’ noses, but that was a matter for the patrol guards to handle.
Beside a newly designated mushroom field, Fahl, Inanna, and the others stood observing.
Inanna shook the Knight Puji lightly over the Mycelium Carpet at her feet. This time, only a few small mushrooms sprouted sparsely and weakly.
“As expected, it can’t be forced infinitely…” Fahl’s expression carried no surprise, only confirmation. This was much more in line with his understanding of the world.
After all, this was already the third time the same Carpet had been provoked into sprouting. If it could keep producing endlessly, then his worldview would truly be overturned.
It seemed that Lady Inanna, through the Knight Puji, could induce the Carpet to mimic the astonishing effects of large-scale natural magic.
But the cost was the same as nature magic—it overdrafted the Carpet’s stored nutrients and mana, leaving it languid afterward.
Still, unlike ordinary plants, the Carpet recovered much faster. Even so, this was ultimately just an emergency method, not a long-term solution.
One couldn’t seriously expect Lady Inanna to run around every day with her Knight Puji, single-handedly solving the food crisis.“Lady Inanna, we are deeply indebted to your aid,” Fahl said solemnly, bowing to her. “Both for consolidating control and persuading those unreasonable adventurers.”
Inanna glanced at the four guards Erik had sent to protect her. She stepped closer to Fahl and lowered her voice. “Then in the report you send to the Duke’s mansion, you must describe in great! detail! why it is necessary for me to remain here.”
Fahl gave her a surprised look before understanding immediately. So the duke’s daughter wanted to use this as an excuse to stay out and play longer.
Naturally, he could not offend her. He nodded in agreement.
For the first time, Inanna smiled at him. “Also, I don’t want to live inside the Guild.”
“I’ll have men build you a residence right away,” Fahl said smoothly. “Do you have any specific requirements, my lady?”
What she wanted most was, of course, to live inside a mushroom house—those soft, body-cradling walls were her idea of a perfect home. But alas, this was the surface world, so she would have to make do…
They were even discussing where she would stay because only recently, the team Fahl sent to survey the Dungeon had returned with shocking news—the Dungeon was actually improving!
The first floor was still in rough shape, but the deeper they went, the fewer rifts there were, and they were still closing on their own!
To Fahl, this was both a relief and a bitter blow.
The Dungeon’s recovery meant endless resources again in the future, not to mention mushrooms.
But in the short term… his wrong predictions had wrecked him.
Speculative hoarding of low- and mid-grade materials had left him with massive losses. His decision to relocate refugees had drained his private coffers dry.
A whole chain of “genius decisions” had left both Silentwind Town’s branch and himself severely weakened.
And the source of all these miscalculations pointed to one man—that so-called master of magic circles, Gug!
“That fraud with nothing but an empty reputation!” In the branch leader’s office, barely cleaned of its visible fungi, Fahl gnashed his teeth as he wrote his report to Headquarters.
In it, he denounced Gug as utterly unworthy of his title. Not a single piece of his “key information” had been correct, leading to catastrophic Guild losses. His actions were beyond forgiveness!
He once again requested that Headquarters send a real expert team to assess the Dungeon’s state—and stressed above all that Gug must be stripped of his false title and banished from the Guild’s affairs.
…
Meanwhile, among the surrounding adventurers, the miracle of the Dungeon’s self-repair spread like wildfire.
Those who had been cursing the Duke’s house and the Guild instantly dropped their complaints upon hearing the news. They packed up in haste and rushed toward the Dungeon.
But what awaited them was not easy profit, but a heavy blow!
The gap of time without human activity had allowed the monsters inside to multiply explosively, making the Dungeon more dangerous than ever.
Worse still, after the “great exchange” of rifts, monsters had spilled across layers in droves.
Venomous midges from the second floor, gold bugs from the third, and even poisonous lizards and carapace worms wandering the fifth floor where they never should have been…
Faced with these unfamiliar and vicious enemies, the unprepared adventurers quickly tasted the price of ignorance.
The lucky ones fled battered but alive. The unlucky ones vanished quietly, their corpses left for the tireless Pujis to clean away.
These new dangers culled many weak teams. Now, only the truly strong and experienced could continue delving deeper.
Among them, one party stood out. Unlike the others, they hurried toward the lower floors, ignoring valuable materials along the way.
At their head was a swordsman, followed by a hunter and a mage. What they had in common was that each owed a huge favor to the “good-natured” Veyra.
Unlike the rest, they weren’t here for profit. They were here to find Veyra and her companions.
The last sighting of Veyra’s group had been them entering Silentwind Town, before the mushroom frenzy truly began.
After that, it was as if they had vanished without a trace.
The swordsman, realizing Veyra was missing, had searched Silentwind Town and the nearby forests, questioning adventurers everywhere—but found nothing.
Knowing Veyra, she wouldn’t just abandon the refugees and run off to another city. That made her disappearance all the stranger.
The only explanation left was that she had gone into the Dungeon—though he couldn’t fathom why at that particular time.
So, as soon as word of the Dungeon’s recovery spread, the swordsman gathered the other two and formed this temporary search party. Their priority target was the fifth and sixth floors.
They planned to start at the sixth, where Veyra often went, and if they found nothing, return to the fifth floor for a Puji “lottery.”
The reason it was called a lottery was simple: everyone knew Pujis consumed corpses and took equipment. If they drew an item belonging to Veyra, they would have to accept that she had died in the Dungeon.
But when they reached the sixth floor, what they found instead was Veyra and her companions, happily sitting around a burrowing Puji, enjoying bowls of delicious mushroom soup…