“How do we get across? Don’t tell me you’ve grown wings and can…” Torin hadn’t even finished speaking when he felt a tremendous force around his waist!
“Ahhhhhh—!” Torin only managed to let out a string of off-key screams as his body traced an arc through the air. He flailed desperately in mid-air before finally, just as he was about to slam into the cliff wall on the opposite side, barely managed to grab hold of a protruding rock edge.
*Thud!*
The massive momentum slammed his face hard against the cold rock wall, his nose bridge erupting in sharp pain as warm blood instantly gushed out.
But he couldn’t care about that—the wild joy of surviving flooded his heart: “You really pulled it off, Glenm! I…”
He excitedly turned his head to praise his companion, only to see a burly figure already soaring through the air!
Glenm was jumping in mid-air, but unfortunately, due to the short run-up distance and insufficient jump height, it was clear he wouldn’t be able to grab the edge.
“Huh?!” Torin watched in horror as those thick hands missed the rock entirely and instead grabbed firmly onto his own dangling calves!
“Gah—!” Torin felt a heavy force suddenly yanking downward, his fingers gripping the rock instantly screaming with tearing pain as he nearly got dragged down. “Bastard! Couldn’t you have given me a heads-up before jumping?!”
“Give you what heads-up! There was no time!!” Glenm hung from Torin’s legs, equally shaken and gasping for breath.
Torin struggled to look back and saw that the cliff edge where they’d just been standing was now packed with scarecrows. Fortunately, they were all ordinary scarecrows—if there had been any capable of throwing projectiles or casting spells, the two of them would be sitting ducks right now.
Glenm tried to climb up using Torin’s legs, but after just one movement, both of them shuddered as the sound of cracking stone came from above.
Torin shouted urgently: “Don’t move! Stop climbing! It’s going to break! Can’t you grab onto the rocks around us first?”
Glenm looked around: “Grab onto what? It’s all smooth! There’s nowhere to get a grip!”
*Crack—*
The rock Torin was gripping split a bit more.
“Big brother! This won’t support two people! How about… you sacrifice yourself? I still need to become the greatest adventurer! I’ll carve your name at the very bottom of the memorial monument!”
“So I’d be that nameless mercenary A who dies right at the beginning? I bet you don’t even know my surname!” Glenm tried to make a desperate climb upward. “The payment you offered might be generous, but it’s still far from blood money!”
“I really can’t hold on—!”
*CRACK!*
Stone fragments flew as the two dwarves tumbled together in an embrace, screaming as they rolled down into the bottomless darkness below!
The two bounced and tumbled repeatedly against the steep cliff wall. Just when they thought they were done for, they suddenly landed in something soft…
Pitch black—they couldn’t see anything.
“Ow! My precious beard!” Glenm’s pained cry rang out first, filled with genuine grief and indignation as he fumbled in the darkness for his pride and joy, his fingertips meeting the jagged feel of broken strands.
Torin lay spread-eagled, deeply sunken into that unknown softness, his voice filled with the bewilderment and dejection of someone who’d narrowly escaped death: “Where is this? A deeper layer? Manor or mansion?”
He didn’t even have the energy to blame Glenm for what had happened—he just felt that fate’s anvil struck people with particular unreasonableness.
“Seems like… neither?” Glenm’s voice carried a hint of uncertainty.
At his words, Torin suddenly jolted alert, only now realizing that the stinging pain on his skin from resisting curses had actually disappeared!
Dwarves naturally possessed high resistance, so they could explore the Scarecrow Abyss with relative ease, but they should still feel stinging pain when attacked by curses. But now that stinging sensation was gone!
“Could we be out?!” Torin’s voice instantly shot up, filled with incredulous ecstasy, but then he wondered in confusion, “But… why? How did we get out?”
*Riiip—!*
A harsh tearing sound accompanied by suddenly flooding light interrupted Torin’s thoughts! It was Glenm—he’d drawn his remaining short axe and brutally split open the softness that had been wrapping them!
The two crawled out through the opening using hands and feet, and were immediately stunned speechless by the scene before them, their mouths gaping wide enough to fit a dwarf cake.
The sinister wheat fields and rotting windmills had vanished, replaced by a dreamlike forest of glowing mushrooms!
Countless giant mushrooms of various shapes rose from the ground, their caps like umbrellas and clouds, emanating soft fluorescent light. Tiny glowing spores floated in the air, layers upon layers of light weaving and flowing together like a flowing galaxy!
And the two of them had crawled out from inside a mushroom tree!
Faced with such beautiful scenery, Glenm immediately tore off a piece of his clothing to cover his mouth and nose, with Torin following suit.
By the light, the two looked back to see the spatial fissure at the top of the giant mushroom tree.
“So…” Glenm touched his broken beard stubble, his voice carrying deep absurdity, “We probably… fell into a different dungeon?”
“Goblins!” Torin suddenly shouted.
Glenm’s muscles instantly tensed, his remaining short axe held horizontally in front of him as he alertly scanned their surroundings, but apart from countless mushrooms and floating spores, he found nothing.
“No wait… there really seems to be… but goblins aren’t that tall… but that green…” Torin rubbed his eyes, his tone becoming uncertain.
He seemed to have glimpsed a blurry, green, tall figure flash behind a mushroom tree.
“If there really are goblins,” Glenm spat out some bloody saliva, his expression growing grim, “then that means we’ve fallen into a dungeon in demon territory. Just escaped the tiger’s den and entered the wolf’s lair!”
Going back to the Scarecrow Abyss meant certain death, so the two could only try to explore the situation here.
They chose a direction and cautiously felt their way forward.
Behind a mushroom tree not far away, Dylan quickly shifted back to human form, completely baffled about why the boss had let people in…
The two dwarves hadn’t walked far before they stopped, because they encountered a Moo-Ma Puffshroom.
Since it looked completely harmless, Glenm didn’t immediately attack, just frowned as he observed: “Isn’t this one of those walking mushrooms you encounter in caves?”
“The correct scientific name should be Puffshroom!” Torin habitually corrected, while moving closer to observe, “But… why does this Puffshroom have tentacles? New species?”
As they spoke, two more Puffshrooms slowly walked out from the mushroom forest, joining the ranks of those watching the dwarves.
“What do we do?” Torin asked.
“What do we do… let’s ignore them for now. They’re just Puffshrooms—what are they going to do, eat people? Don’t mind them, figuring out which layer this is comes first!” Glenm didn’t want to make too much commotion.
So the two dwarves continued forward, with three Puffshrooms following behind them. However, the strange thing was that as time passed, more and more Puffshrooms gathered around them!
By the time they finally walked out of the edge of this fantastical and eerie mushroom forest, there were no fewer than thirty or forty Puffshrooms following behind them in a mighty procession!
They weren’t attacking, just silently following—completely different from the aimlessly wandering Puffshrooms in their memories.
As soon as they stepped out of the mushroom forest, the view opened up, and it was here that they ran right into the Horn trio, who had just finished their lottery draw.
“Two dwarves…?” Horn looked at this dwarf combination he’d never seen in the dungeon before, especially their trailing Puffshroom regiment, his eyes full of surprise.
When Glenm saw that the opposing party was human, his tense nerves instantly relaxed, and his face showed wild joy of relief!
“Humans! They’re humans!” He excitedly slapped his thigh, suddenly understanding, “And there are Puffshrooms too! I get it! This isn’t some demon hellhole—this is the Amethyst Dungeon in human territory!”
Torin immediately caught on: “The one they call the ‘Newbie Cradle,’ ‘Safe enough to take babies for a stroll’—that Amethyst Dungeon?”
“Exactly! That’s the one!” Glenm nodded vigorously, his tone full of lightness, “Just ten layers total, each layer’s monster levels clearly marked. As long as you don’t court death yourself, it’s safer than a mine shaft! Absolutely a baby-level dungeon!”
He turned toward the Horn trio, bellowing in Common tongue heavy with dwarf accent: “Hey! Human friends, this is the Amethyst Dungeon, right?”
The two dwarves were also speaking Common—true dwarf language was only known by royalty and historians, so their conversation was heard clearly by the Horn trio.
Faced with the inquiry, Amy turned her face away, clearly displeased that the other party looked down on their dungeon so much.
Horn felt these two dwarves seemed odd—who would ask such a question?
But he still cautiously nodded: “That’s right, this is the Amethyst Dungeon.”
Getting confirmation, Glenm’s last trace of wariness vanished completely.
He looked around at those slowly swaying Puffshrooms, especially the few blocking his path.
“Ha! Then this must be the first or second layer! Made me worry for nothing!” He laughed heartily, as if to vent his previous suppression. Amid the Horn trio’s horrified shouts of “Stop!”, he raised his short axe and, like swatting flies, brought the broad axe face down with brutal force toward the nearest Puffshroom!
The dismantled Puffshroom flew far away.
“You… what are you doing?!”
In Horn’s terror-pitched scream, a completely bewildered Torin was blown away by the sudden explosion’s shockwave…
Newbie cradle’s under new management buddy.