Fifteen’s face was like water. Each swing of his twin blades was less excavation than it was an outlet for his inner torment.
He could almost see it—Solarin and the others falling one by one beneath the Puji tide.
All his fault!
Because he hadn’t cut down the King of the Pujis!
Not only had he failed, he himself was now trapped!
If only his sword had been faster, just a little faster…
Boom!
His blades finally shattered through the last layer of packed earth and mycelium. Foul air mixed with faint light seeped through.
Caked in dirt, Fifteen crawled out of the narrow breach, eyes resolute. He was ready for the blood-soaked hellscape he imagined—his comrades’ corpses strewn across the cavern—so he could take vengeance with his last breath, or… fall beside them.
To escape alone while they died? Impossible!But the scene before him was nothing like his grim vision.
He didn’t even need to reach the stairway. Solarin and the rest were lying right outside the cavern!
What he saw were his companions, stripped to their underclothes, sprawled haphazardly on the ground.
Their chests rose and fell. They were merely unconscious.
Fifteen longed to rush to them, but froze—Pujis were still nearby.
Dozens of them filled the clearing.
Yet “surrounding” wasn’t the right word. They were busy with something else.
Moo-Pujis stepped over the captives, hauling chunks of Puji corpses, piling them together.
From time to time, they’d pull out a piece and try to fit it into another.
Nearby, many “reassembled” Pujis already stood.
Fifteen saw at a glance—half of them were patchwork, not originals.
What was this?
Did Pujis care about complete corpses?
Either way, they clearly had more interest in their own remains than in his team.
Or even in him.
He stood there for quite some time. Not a single Puji moved to attack.
“What… what is this?” Fifteen muttered hoarsely.
He looked at Solarin, her brows still furrowed even in unconsciousness. At Priest Mayne, smiling oddly in his dreams. At the diligent Pujis fitting “pieces” together.
A storm of emotion swelled in his chest.
Anger? Yes—but at what, exactly?
Relief? Yes—his comrades lived!
Frustration? Overwhelming.
And a strange suffocating absurdity—at such a real yet ridiculous “ending.”
He stood frozen like a statue. Should he charge and cut the Pujis down?
Or rush to check Solarin’s wounds?
Or… dig another hole and bury himself again, pretend he never saw this bizarre scene?
“Ungh…”
While Fifteen wrestled with himself, Solarin stirred—the first to wake from unconsciousness.
…
…
…
The long line moved slowly up the stairway.
Pujis led in front. Pujis guarded the rear.
And in the middle shuffled the captives, stripped bare of gear, driven out of the dungeon.
The Church warriors trudged with heavy steps, faces torn between relief at surviving and deep shame at their capture.
The adventurers looked far “simpler.”
Their faces barely hid their raw relief—free lives, won by luck!
Only Fifteen looked “decent.”
Though filthy, at least his gear remained. The Pujis hadn’t taken his weapons.
Not like Solarin, commander of Wings of Judgment—now in nothing but shorts and a shirt, her scarred, muscled torso exposed.
“What about Lord Aedin?” Mayne, the priest, bare-chested and even worse off, asked suddenly.
“Perhaps… he escaped?” Solarin said uncertainly.
He was a diamond-rank illusionist. If anyone besides Fifteen could have escaped that hell, it was Aedin.
Of course, he might also have been killed.
After all, many hadn’t been spared in the battle.
The question didn’t linger long.
On the second floor, they saw him—Aedin, stripped to only shorts, crouched with other long-“missing” adventurers. Even his earrings were gone.
“Uh…” Aedin looked up, forced an awkward smile, and waved at his equally bedraggled comrades.
Running alone wasn’t glorious. Failing to run made it worse.
Luckily, Solarin and Mayne weren’t petty. In that hell, one escapee was a blessing.
No one blamed him. Fifteen only nodded slightly.
Solarin instead asked, “Why are you on the second floor?”
“Lack of skill… lack of skill…” Aedin waved, grimacing as though recalling horrors best forgotten.
They understood at once—illusion broken, ambushed mid-flight. They didn’t pry further.
He rubbed his bare arms, sighed, then muttered the most pressing concern: “By the way, Guildmaster Fahl promised reimbursement for expenses… does that include our lost gear?”
Among them, his loss was greatest.
An entire set of costly mage equipment and jewelry—gone.
At least Solarin and Mayne, backed by the Church, would be reissued their standard gear.
But Aedin… if Fahl didn’t cover it, he’d be ruined.
“Don’t worry.” Fifteen’s low voice cut through, tinged with guilt. “I’ll explain everything to Fahl.”
He felt this failure was his fault. If need be, he would pay Aedin back himself.
At that, Aedin finally exhaled, smiling with relief. “Then I’m in your debt!”
He rubbed at the fungus threads still clinging beneath his illusion, and at last joined the others in small talk.
——
News of the Puji subjugation squad’s crushing defeat hit Windless Town like a boulder smashing into still water. One-fifth dead. The survivors stripped bare, spared only by Puji “mercy.”
No surprise—the whole town exploded. Taverns, alleys, inns—all rang with furious gossip. The Adventurers’ Guild was once more in the storm’s eye.
Guildmaster Fahl took full responsibility. He raised the promised reward by fifty percent. For the dead, their families were given triple.
Two days later, in the Rotten Willow Tavern—
Aime finally lived out the very scene from her near-death hallucination. She slapped several plates of steaming catfish belly, drenched in thick honey glaze, onto the table.
“Eat! My treat!” she cried to Horn, Old Hammer, and Noah, trying to recapture that dream’s warmth and pride.
But her teammates’ eyes were nothing like in her dream.
Instead of envy, they brimmed with disbelief, pity—and the look one gave a fool who’d lucked into riches.
“Wh-what’s with those looks? Just tell me—did I earn this bounty or not!?”