This Dungeon Grew Mushrooms – Chapter 20

In the pitch-black forest, Dylan held a torch high, calling out anxiously:

“Bella! Bella, where are you? Answer Papa!”

“Pa… pa…”

A faint voice reached him. Dylan hurried toward the sound, pushing through the undergrowth until he found his daughter, covered in blood and leaning against a tree.

“Bella! How did you get hurt so badly? Don’t be afraid, Bella. Papa’s here, Papa’s here.”

Dylan wept as he gathered his weakened daughter into his arms.

“Papa, I… I…”

“I’m here, I’m right here. Take your time.”

“Papa,” Bella wrapped her arms around Dylan’s neck and opened her blood-red eyes, “I’m so hungry…”

Sharp teeth pierced his throat. Dylan’s blood gushed forth, and through his blurring vision, he watched Bella swallow his flesh and blood while tears streamed down her face.

————

“Ah!”

Dylan jolted awake, gasping heavily.

A dream… thank goodness it was just a dream…

Where… where am I?

Dylan looked up to see a Puffi that was eyeing him with obvious disdain before moving away.

A magical beast… a mutated Puffi…

He remembered the scene before he lost consciousness. What about those parasitic trees?

Then Dylan noticed the parasitic tree remains scattered around him on the ground, mushrooms already sprouting from their corpses.

At a rough count, there were far more than the five that had been chasing him.

Did… did these Puffis do all this?

Dylan could hardly believe it. Even if the Puffis had mutated, could they really kill so many parasitic trees?

But his hazy memories from before losing consciousness and the scene before him seemed to confirm this was indeed the case.

This was that hidden room, and he could see the opened stone chest.

So it was a treasure room after all.

The Puffis were probably guardian beasts for the chest.

However, the surrounding Puffis showed no hostility toward him. Strangely, he didn’t feel uncomfortable either—it was as if this was how things should naturally be… how odd…

Oh right, what about his injuries?

Dylan reached for his abdomen. The wound was gone, but when he looked closely, what he saw sent shockwaves through his heart.

The wound had been filled with mycelium, and there was even a small mushroom growing from it…

He had seen this kind of sight before, on those who had been captured and parasitized by the parasitic trees.

No wonder the mutated Puffis weren’t attacking him. No wonder he felt the Puffis were familiar—he had been parasitized.

But his consciousness was still relatively clear, and he wasn’t bound like those captured by parasitic trees.

Before being completely controlled, he seemed to still have a little time.

He looked at the remains of those parasitic trees, which still bore many tree seeds. A bold idea formed in his mind.

Dylan didn’t care about his own life or death, or whether he would be parasitized and controlled. He only wanted to get money to save his daughter. If his time ran out, he would entrust Fatty to help save his daughter.

What he needed now was to bring the parasitic tree seeds back to the surface.

He crawled to a parasitic tree and carefully plucked a seed, tucking it into his chest.

Looking around, the Puffis didn’t seem to mind his actions.

This put him at ease, and he collected all the seeds in the room one by one.

Enough—this many would definitely be enough.

Clutching the tree seeds, he came to the stone door and looked back once more. The Puffis continued as if nothing had happened.

How… strange.

————

Watching Dylan disappear beyond the stone door, Lin Jun had not exchanged a single word with him throughout, even though he was now connected to the mycelial network.

Saving him was a matter of principle; it didn’t mean he trusted him.

Dylan was indeed parasitized, and in a state where he was just one step away from complete takeover.

If Lin Jun wished it, the mycelium in Dylan’s body could completely destroy his sanity, turning him into a puppet-like existence.

But that would go against the original intention of saving him.

Let him go. Having saved his life and given him tree seeds, Lin Jun had already repaid the debt of opening the door. Whatever happened next was no longer his concern.

Speaking of which, this person had risked so much for tree seeds—they seemed to be valuable items. Should he also stockpile some?

They might be useful later, and directly decomposing them would only yield trivial amounts of magical power anyway.

During Dylan’s unconsciousness, he had taken the Puffis out for a patrol, hunting some fertilizer to bring back.

Along the way, he had also used his interface to survey the area, basically confirming through the levels that this was the fifth floor.

That teleportation maze was truly unreasonable, directly throwing him from the eighth floor to the fifth. Could there be teleportation arrays that sent people to the tenth floor or even the deep zones?

Fortunately, he hadn’t encountered those. He mentally marked the eighth floor as extremely dangerous.

Right now, Lin Jun was most concerned with selecting a site for his new mushroom garden.

Although this treasure room had magical water, the supply wasn’t actually that abundant. Once the pond he had stored up was used, this place wouldn’t have much value.

Secondly, he was beginning to understand how this dungeon operated. It probably wouldn’t let him keep the door open indefinitely—who knew what mechanisms might trigger at any moment? If he was still inside when that happened, he’d be in trouble.

As for making a dash straight out of the dungeon to see sunlight?

He wanted to, but didn’t dare.

The dungeon had only one entrance and exit, so he would inevitably encounter large numbers of humans, and there might well be experts among them.

He didn’t want to fall just before dawn.

Better to be cautious. Even if it took a bit longer, he could see hope now—he could endure.

Regarding the new mushroom garden, he wanted to choose a location that was both safe and convenient for hunting and skill acquisition.

And in fact, he had discovered that this swampland area was quite suitable.

The dangerous swamp terrain wasn’t a route adventurers would choose to pass through, and even if they entered, their movement would be sluggish.

But the omnipresent swamp was no different from solid ground for the shell-less, lightly equipped Puffis.

And if the mushroom garden was in the swamp, his main body could hide beneath the marsh—quite a safe arrangement.

The only slight trouble was the local residents.

When Lin Jun first started dealing with those five parasitic trees, he hadn’t taken them seriously. But when he went out exploring, he fought a hard battle.

These parasitic trees liked to call for backup and gang up on opponents—completely shameless.

They also wielded a diverse array of skills and magic of varying levels.

Lin Jun had encountered a parasitic tree that had parasitized a Level 36 mage. Without checking his interface first, he had been careless and taken some losses, sacrificing several more Puffis.

Before this, how could he have imagined that such a high-level mage would fall victim here…

This suggested there might be who knows how many other parasitized powerhouses throughout the swamp. What if there was someone in their fifties… surely not…

More critically, fighting these parasitic trees actually yielded low returns—this was the most important point.

The parasitic trees possessed very monotonous skills: just [Fusion Parasitism], [Entanglement], [Toughness], plus some various resistances.

What was truly formidable were the diverse techniques of those who had been parasitized.

But Lin Jun had tested this—decomposing these parasitized shells yielded no skills whatsoever, and very little magical power, as if their interiors had been completely drained.

Fighting them just for the few skills the parasitic trees themselves possessed clearly didn’t match the difficulty with the returns.

But if he added in the fact that he needed to claim territory for building a new mushroom garden, it seemed barely acceptable.

After some consideration, Lin Jun still felt the swampland was the right choice.

With his target set, once he produced another batch of Puffis adapted to swamp terrain, he would begin his conquest plan!