Outside the entrance of the Amethyst Dungeon.
“Move along! You can’t set up tents here!” The guard barked gruffly, jabbing impatiently with the butt of his spear at a few ragged, gaunt commoners.
One of them hunched his back, his voice trembling with pleading: “Sir, please… we only have these mushrooms to survive on.”
“No one’s stopping you from picking mushrooms!” The guard frowned, his spear shaft pointing toward the distance. “The town has already set up a designated zone. Build your huts or pitch your tents there if you like! Why crowd the dungeon entrance? This is where adventurers come and go!”
“But… if we live far away, we won’t be able to compete for mushrooms outside the dungeon,” another timid voice murmured. “And inside… there are monsters…”
“Everyone else manages just fine, why should you be an exception? If you don’t leave, I’ll tear your tents down myself!” The guard flipped his spear, its cold metal tip flashing before their eyes, finally frightening them into hurriedly gathering their belongings and slinking away.
From afar, Vera and her companions glanced at the brief conflict. Their brows furrowed slightly, but they said nothing and instead turned their focus to the dungeon gates.
The news of demon spies sabotaging farmland had long since spread.
With the autumn harvest ending in disaster, that silent war had temporarily concluded. The demons, at the cost of countless infiltrators, had left nearly half the kingdom’s food supplies ruined.
Against that backdrop, the “free” mushrooms flourishing outside the Amethyst Dungeon were like a ray of hope in the dark, and word of them spread swiftly among the starving masses.At first, just a handful loitered near the dungeon entrance. Within a month, it had grown into waves of refugees arriving daily.
The guards weren’t wrong, nor were they cruel—both they and the guild permitted the poor to gather mushrooms. But letting them all clog the dungeon entrance was impossible.
Even with the resettlement area marked on the town’s edge, the sudden influx of people had already turned managing the small town into a nightmare.
Still, such matters were for officials and nobles to worry about, not adventurers.
Just as Vera’s team prepared to enter, heavy footsteps and clinking armor approached. They stepped aside instinctively, only to come face-to-face with a battered party emerging from the dungeon.
“Old Bear!” Vera called out first.
“Vera? Feling? And Feiyin!” The burly man with a massive tower shield stopped, his grime-covered face lighting up in surprise. “What luck, running into you again!”
Fresh from a dungeon battle, Old Bear’s leather armor was smeared with dried blood, dust, and strange slime. His heavy boots were matted with dungeon fungi, and the air around him reeked of sweat and subterranean stench.
Yet his eyes gleamed bright, and an irrepressible grin tugged at his lips—clear signs of a successful haul.
Noticing Vera’s group kitted out again, he frowned slightly in concern. “Hold on… didn’t you three come out just two days ago? Barely enough time to rest, and you’re already diving back in? Can your bodies handle it?”
“Old Bear, you really lucked out. Just this morning, the guild hall raised material buyback prices by another ten percent!” Feling blurted, both envious and bitter. “We were unlucky—we sold all our goods yesterday. A single day too soon!”
“What? That much?” Old Bear froze, then burst into booming laughter, slapping Vera’s shoulder hard. “Hah! Don’t worry about it! Next time you haul a big load, drinks are on me!”
The two groups parted ways, but Old Bear suddenly turned back, his smile fading. “Vera, watch yourselves. I don’t know if it’s just the sheer number of parties going down lately, but monsters have been far more violent than usual. Be careful.”
“Thanks for the warning. We’ll stay sharp.”
Leaving Old Bear’s cheerful squad behind, Vera’s team pressed into the dungeon, heading straight for the familiar Puji rental point.
But when they arrived, the sight stopped them cold.
On the bare mycelium carpet sat a lone Fatty Puji collecting fees. Every single lighting Puji was gone.
“All rented out?” Feling muttered.
Vera frowned, sighing softly. “Seems so. Ever since the Puji King was taken away by that duke’s daughter, the remaining Pujis have been less active—and their numbers dwindled. Now, with so many adventurers flooding the dungeon, there just aren’t enough light Pujis to go around.”
With no other choice, Feiyin raised her staff, summoning an orange orb of light at its tip.
Their destination remained the sixth floor. Yet along the way, despite Old Bear’s warning, they encountered little danger.
Why? Because the dungeon was bustling with adventurers. So many parties swept through that the first few floors were stripped bare. Hardly a stray monster remained.
…
On the sixth floor, however, they finally understood what Old Bear meant by “monsters gone berserk.”
The usual tree spirits and Pujis were nowhere to be found. Instead, frenzied Stonehide Boars charged recklessly, and Flower Sprites and Demon Vines attacked them even when already entangled with other prey.
Fortunately, Vera’s group was prepared. No one was hurt, and they even harvested good materials thanks to the monsters’ recklessness.
But on the way to the stairs descending to the seventh floor, they stumbled upon another party in dire straits.
Two adventurers were dragging a pale, sweating comrade whose left arm had been bitten clean off.
A young cleric pressed desperately on the stump, chanting prayers, white light flooding the wound.
Vera’s eyes hardened as she strode forward. “Need help? We’ve got tourniquets and emergency potions!”
The leading swordsman eyed them warily before recognizing Vera. His tense brow loosened.
“Thanks. We’ve got a healer, and enough potions… barely.” He gestured toward another teammate forcing a vial between the injured man’s lips.
“What happened?” Feling asked, eyes on the gruesome wound.
The swordsman grimaced, both fearful and regretful. “Seventh floor. The water level dropped suddenly—so low we couldn’t bait the aquatic monsters anymore. This fool here,” he indicated the maimed man, “thought it was an opportunity. Dove in, holding his breath…”
He inhaled sharply, recalling the terror. “Barely beneath the surface, a massive shadow shot up—like lightning! Bit his arm clean off. If our mage hadn’t blasted it off-course through the water, he’d have been swallowed whole. As it is, living through that was divine grace.”
“Water level dropped?” Vera frowned deeply, sifting through her knowledge for a reason.
The silence broke when the quiet mage of the wounded team suddenly raised his head, eyes locked on an empty patch of floor. His face was filled with puzzlement. “This… what is this?”
Everyone turned, but saw nothing.
Vera started forward, but Feiyin gripped her arm tightly. Her fingers were ice cold, her strength startling.
She too stared at that spot, her brows drawn tight with confusion and unease. She sensed something, though she couldn’t explain what.
The mage stepped closer, raising a hand glowing faintly with detection magic, tracing lines in the air.
His expression grew tense, then feverishly intrigued. “Strange… so strange! No artifact here, and yet the mana—how could it be so violently distorted—”
Rip!
A sound like space itself being torn apart screeched through the chamber.
A jagged, writhing rift, its edges unstable, split the air.
The mage’s face still bore confusion and awe—he had no time to even feel fear.
Before their horrified eyes, his body was sliced clean in two by the rift.
His upper half, frozen in shock, slid to the ground. His lower half stood for a heartbeat before collapsing, severed again by the shrinking, snapping fissure.
Time itself seemed to halt.
For two dreadful seconds, every mind went blank.
Then a woman’s shriek tore through the silence.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”