Chapter 27: Mushroom Garden Employee Number One

Inside a tent made from various monster hides, Dilan sat on a boar skin.

This was a gnoll camp in the forest; he had been brought here by several Pujis.

There were few items inside the tent, only some crooked racks built from bones and wood; Dilan even saw a human skull among them...

Dilan was now restless.

Following his feeling to return to the dungeon was partly giving up on himself, but he never expected this situation to arise.

The Pujis were actually controlled by a mysterious will!

No wonder they did things like exterminating the Parasitic Trees and Green-Eyed Frogs, which went beyond the scope of survival needs.

【7】 And now this mysterious will had found him.

And now, this mysterious will had found him.

What worried him even more was...

The tent flap was suddenly thrown open, and a gnoll covered entirely in gray-white mushrooms walked in stiffly.

He placed a roasted pig trotter beside him, then swayed away again.

As he left, he got snagged on the tent and a mushroom fell off...

Dilan felt his throat tighten; was this the end for the parasitized?

Would he become like that in the future?

Dilan didn't know, but he began to regret choosing to return to the dungeon so casually before.

"Eat, don't be polite."

That voice appeared again; Dilan could only pick up the slightly charred roasted pig trotter and bite down with a stiff face.

So burnt... so fishy...

On the other side, Lin Jun actually had no intention of scaring him.

He was just a human; neither staying at the Poison Mist Lake nor living in the swamp was suitable.

And there happened to be a ready-made tent over in the Gnoll Forest; no use wasting it, since the gnolls wouldn't be using it soon anyway.

As for the taste of the pig trotter, watching Dilan finish it in a few bites, Lin Jun was still thinking his cooking must have tasted good.

Isn't so-called gourmet food just roasting and sprinkling some salt?

After finishing the pig trotter, Dilan hesitated for a moment, then pulled a bottle of Mana Potion from his chest.

In the past half month, he found that ordinary food could no longer fully satisfy his needs; he had to drink a mouthful of Mana Potion daily to relieve the hunger, guessing that the mycelium inside his body needed Mana.

"Actually, you don't need to waste the potion."

Dilan stopped his hand pulling the cork and instinctively asked, "Then what should I do?"

The tent was thrown open again; outside was still that mushroom gnoll.

The gnoll beckoned to him, and Dilan could only put away the potion and follow him out.

Walking all the way to one end of the forest, dozens of mushroom gnolls were felling trees there.

Dilan was brought to the edge of the logging site, where there were many giant logs that had been felled and hollowed out, making one think of coffins.

The insides were covered with dense mycelium, making Dilan's scalp prickle.

"Try lying down in it."

"Ah... this is... never mind, I'll lie down."

Such strangeness made Dilan feel somewhat guilty, but thinking about it, his life wasn't even in his own hands now, so there was no need to be timid.

With the mindset of going to the execution ground, Dilan lay down with a resolute expression.

As soon as he lay down, he felt the mycelium reaching toward him, wriggling and connecting with the mycelium on his body... connected!?

"This is... oh..."

Though it was just a hollowed-out piece of rotten wood, Dilan now felt as if he were sleeping on a velvet bed.

Even more rare was this sense of satisfaction and security!

Soon, the anxious string of his heart that had been tense for months suddenly relaxed.

"You lie down comfortably; while we're at it, let's just chat."

The voice seemed to drift in from the horizon; at this moment, Dilan couldn't raise a shred of defense in his heart.

"Okay... let's chat..."

"Dilan, tell me your story; I'm quite curious why you went and came back? Do you want more Parasitic Tree seeds?"

"Not for... the seeds; I came for..."

Dilan was dazed, as if the one speaking to him were his close friend of many years.

He poured out his experiences and thoughts without holding anything back.

Seeing him like this, Lin Jun couldn't help but sigh:

Mixing a little hallucinogenic spores into the nutrient supplement is truly useful...

Actually, relying on the absolute dominant position gained through Fusion Parasitism, combined with the Mycelial Network, he could sense the general emotions of the parasitized when they spoke.

This had been verified in previous experiments on the gnolls.

Relying on this, he could judge whether the parasitized were lying.

But that question-and-answer interrogation method, squeezing toothpaste one bit at a time, was far too inefficient and didn't look very friendly.

Better to try something softer.

————

"How long have I been sleeping?"

Dilan didn't know when he fell asleep; the gnolls who had been logging were now lying motionless inside the hollowed logs around them.

He only had a vague impression of what happened before falling asleep, but he could roughly guess what had occurred.

By all rights, he should be feeling wary now.

But strangely, he now felt his body and mind light, as if he had just woken up at home—except this wooden bed was a bit crude, and his hand felt slightly uncomfortable resting on it.

"Dylan, I know your situation now."

Lin Jun's voice appeared in Dylan's mind again at just the right moment.

"I wouldn't mind leaving you a place to stay here.

But just as you have to work and earn money in the human world, I have some small tasks here that need your help.

Rest assured, it will be much easier than being an adventurer.

We are a conscientious enterprise; food and lodging are included, and there are extra rewards for good work."

Although he didn't know what an enterprise was, Dylan still understood the meaning, so he asked the question that mattered most to him:

"Will I be like these gnolls then?"

In Dylan's view, these fellows were no different from the dead—and indeed, they were dead.

"Gnolls?" Lin Jun's voice rose two degrees. "Of course not. Your will belongs to yourself."

Provided you don't bring death upon yourself.

Dylan nodded and knelt on one knee:

"Dylan is willing to serve you. I do not yet know your name."

"Stop with the 'you' and 'you' and 'you'; it's awkward. You can call me Boss."

"Yes, Boss." Dylan had originally planned to call him Master.

Dylan did not ask who Lin Jun actually was or what he was.

Since Lin Jun did not appear before him, it naturally meant he did not want Dylan to know certain things; asking would only be asking for trouble.

"By the way, while you were asleep, I straightened out the chaotically growing mycelium for you and added a skill for you as well, considering it an advance on your wages."

"Added a skill?"

Dylan looked as if he hadn't understood.

————

At the Rotten Willow Tavern, amidst the usual noise, Dylan gulped down watered-down swill—he hadn't been able to come to a tavern in a long time.

At this moment, he had not concealed his face; no mycelium was visible on his face, making him look like an ordinary person.

【Mimicry LV2】

Just as Lin Jun could add skills to Puji, he could also add skills to the parasitized.

However, adding skills to humans who already possessed numerous skills consumed tens of thousands of times more mana.

This single skill alone consumed the mana required to create forty combat Puji.

But it was worth it.

This was a skill Lin Jun had obtained early on from the Deep Zone, capable only of very crude disguises like changing skin color and texture.

It had never had any application scenario until now, when it finally came in handy.

At this moment, Dylan felt that his decision to return to the Amethyst Dungeon was truly the most correct choice.

Of course, this did not make him think of leaving the dungeon and returning to normal life.

Disguise is always a disguise; his essence was still half mushroom-person, and who knew when he might be exposed.

Moreover, he now needed to rely on mycelium to replenish nutrients; otherwise, no amount of gold coins would be enough to spend just drinking mana potions.

The reason he was here now was naturally because of Lin Jun's first mission.

After another cup of wine went down, several adventurers sat down opposite Dylan.

"Dylan, is it? I heard you have the latest guide for the fifth floor?"

Putting down his wine cup and wiping the foam from his face with a single swipe, Dylan grinned:

"I do! But I explored it with my life, so it's not cheap..."

(End of this chapter)