Chapter 106: Digging Up a Surprise

Pat—pat—

A familiar voice came from behind a half-man-high bush, and Norris turned to look.

Now he wore a set of adventurer's clothes, unlike the beginning when he had only a pair of underpants.

The clothes were begged from the Boss—though the Boss said this was unnecessary shame...

After realizing his situation, Norris quickly chose to accept it, accepting that he had become a "powerful" monster, no harder than accepting that 40 gold coin debt back then.

At least the happiness of replenishing nutrients and the satisfaction of growing stronger after killing monsters were far better than days starting with debt.

Norris didn't have to wait long.

Pat—

A one-man-high red slime jumped out from the bush.

Inside its body were still wrapped a small half of an un-digested Slime and some weeds.

Norris crossed his claws and pounced the moment the slime landed!

【Rending Wind Claw lv4】

Sharp claws sliced through the slime's liquid body; the wind elements wrapped around the claws not only increased sharpness but, when exploding outward, further widened the opening on the slime.

Norris didn't pause; he had to grab the core before the slime's body recovered...

Bang—

A mushroom cannon fired at the sliced slime, and it instantly exploded.

Norris, being the closest, was immediately covered in red liquid carrying neurotoxin; although he wasn't afraid of neurotoxin, he still looked terribly wretched.

Turning to look, a Slime, acting as if nothing had happened, strode away after firing the shot.

"Sigh..."

What could he do? His seniority in the organization wasn't even higher than that Slime's; he could only find the next target...

Pat—

Another slime jumped out, but this time it was green.

Norris turned and left; he didn't have 【Corrosion Resistance】, and fighting such slimes with 【Digestive Mucus】 would cost him eight hundred even if he won, so he'd just leave them to other Pujijis.

Norris wasn't hunting alone but was arranged by the Boss to clear slimes nearby so they wouldn't interfere with the work inside.

And not far behind him, on a small hill near the rock wall, in a cleared empty space, over two hundred Pujijis were carrying out a massive project!

This empty space wasn't originally empty; on the sixth floor, there was no such thing as a natural clearing.

It only became an empty space after the Pujijis arrived.

Becoming an empty space wasn't enough; Lin Jun wanted to dig the whole place down!

A group of Pujijis specially equipped with 【Sharp Claw lv7】 plowed and loosened the soil in circles with their short legs.

The ox-and-horse Pujijis then sucked the loose soil into their bellies through special pipe-like mycelium tentacles, and once full, transported it far away to dump.

Another group of digging Pujijis began excavation work where the rock layer had already been exposed.

The reason Lin Jun made such a huge fuss was mainly that the Treant scouts had completed the waterway survey mission; according to the map markers, the center of the underground waterways, the source of the slimes, should be right inside the small hill.

After three days of construction.

All vegetation in the clearing was gone, leaving only a huge rock pit on the spot, which continued to expand.

The clanging and clattering of excavation never stopped; the ox-and-horse Pujijis transported crushed rock debris on the reserved roads like an assembly line.

Norris stood on the edge of the rock pit, looking at the scene below and finding it unbelievable.

Having mined for so long himself, he naturally knew how adventurers mined in mineshafts.

Knocking a bit here and a bit there, tunnels were dug unevenly, with crushed rock piled on the ground, not cleaned until it blocked the path.

He used to think that was normal, but after witnessing the Pujijis' project for three full days, he felt that compared to them, what adventurers did didn't even deserve to be called mining; at best, it was just playing at smashing stones.

The Pujijis had clear division of labor, were orderly, and efficient.

For such a huge pit, even if those Lord masters came to organize, it would probably take more than half a month to get it done, yet the Pujijis used only three days...

At first, Norris thought he was an old mining hand and wanted to go down to help, but the Boss drove him to the outskirts.

The reason was: getting in the way. It was impossible not to be discouraged, since this was the only skill he had to show off in these few years...

But after watching the Pujijis work, he had to agree with that statement; maybe he chiseled faster than the Pujijis, but he absolutely couldn't achieve the coordinated cooperation the Pujijis had.

Two hundred Pujijis!

In the face of cooperation of this scale, tiny differences in individual mining ability were completely irrelevant.

The Pujijis were far more powerful than anyone thought!

Crack—

In the rock pit, an ordinary crisp sound, just like the sound when other rocks were smashed open before.

But following the gap knocked out by the Slime's shell, a red thing suddenly sprayed out.

The Slime in front had no time to react and was wrapped up inside.

It was a red slime!

That wasn't all; a green slime also sprayed out from the crack!

The crack squeezed wider and wider, like cutting a slit under a filled bag; more and more slimes broke through the rock layer, pouring out like a flood.

In just over ten seconds, the bottom of the rock pit was filled, and it continued to overflow!

Most of the Pujijis in the pit were drowned by this sea of slimes, and Norris on the pit's edge was startled and kept retreating.

If he had been digging down there...

Lin Jun on this side also felt his scalp go numb.

What the hell?

Did we poke a slime nest?

No, it is indeed a slime nest, but what does all this mean?

And they are so fat! So big!

What have these slimes been eating to grow like this?

Previously, the slimes that ran out along the waterways were at most one person's height, but those in the pit, even the smallest, are bigger than any he had encountered before!

No!

Lin Jun suddenly figured it out.

Could it be that these things are so big that, despite having liquid bodies, they cannot squeeze into the waterways, so they are all piled up in the nest?

The ones that could run out are the "petite" batch among them!?

Trouble, trouble!

Lin Jun immediately ordered the Pujis guarding the perimeter to be urgently mobilized, striving to suppress them before the slimes could climb out of the pit.

At the same time, a new batch of Pujis on the fifth layer began to assemble on a large scale.

If the suppression fails, a fierce battle will follow.

Lin Jun cannot ignore this batch of slimes; with their size and numbers, ordinary plant-type monsters cannot defeat them.

If they are allowed to run wild, the entire sixth layer's ecosystem will suffer; in that case, all of Lin Jun's hard work these past days would be for nothing!

"You return to the fifth layer first!" Lin Jun directly ordered Norris to retreat.

These slimes can no longer be considered targets for training.

Norris had been hesitating whether to do something, but upon hearing the boss's order, he immediately turned around, brushing past the arriving Pujis.

Boom—

Boom—

Not only did the arriving Pujis attack, but the fixed turrets on the rock walls also began bombarding downward.

Due to the distance, the accuracy of the mushroom cannons on the rock walls hitting ground targets was touching.

But now the entire rock pit is filled with slimes; with such large targets, this problem no longer exists—just cover them with firepower!

For a moment, slime juice flew everywhere throughout the pit.

However, as the slimes on the surface died, their remaining juice naturally formed a barrier, weakening many of the subsequent attacks after they passed through the liquid.

Moreover, after being injured, slimes would absorb the juice around them to repair themselves; the mushroom cannons sweeping the ground were becoming increasingly unable to inflict sufficient damage.

And the slimes in the rock pit were still increasing... increasing...

It's no good!

They are about to overflow!

(End of this chapter)