Chapter 31: 31 Sent to Work Off the Debt

No!

Fatty Dweller One!

I spent a whole entire month molding that!

There were seven or eight pieces of equipment inside it, damn it!

Although I had pumped Fatty Dweller One's constitution to 40 and installed a Level 4 Self-Destruct just to deal with rule-breakers,

I never expected this to happen so fast!

If I had known, I would have put fewer pieces of equipment inside; now the loss is maximized!

You humans play at killing humans; I am a monster, I shouldn't meddle.

But how can you cut my mushroom?

The dwarf who was the prime culprit has already been blown into tiny fragments; this debt must be paid by his teammates!

————

Nasa reached out and wiped the chunks of flesh from his face; spores and dust suspended in the air rushed into his nostrils, choking out intermittent coughs.

He shook his dazed head until the black spots dancing on his retina gradually faded, then staggered to prop himself up.

The rock wall at the cave entrance now resembled dough crushed by an invisible giant hand; the originally two-meter-high opening had been violently torn open to three meters.

Fat Walking Mushroom and Gronggaba were both gone.

No,

Nasa saw half a set of steel teeth embedded in a tree trunk not far away.

They weren't gone; they were scattered all over the ground...

Death being so close to him made Nasa shiver involuntarily.

Fortunately, he had a small quirk; fortunately, he hadn't gone along to inspect that fat Pooji.

Feeling he had escaped disaster, Nasa lost all desire to torment Vera and the others.

He picked up a small knife from the ground, intending to finish up quickly and leave.

The moment he took his first step, he fell—a long mycelial tentacle had wrapped around his ankle at some point!

"What is that!?"

Nasa raised the small knife to strike the tentacle, but the blade got stuck at one-third depth.

Only after repeated dragging was it barely severed.

He tried to stand, but another mycelial tentacle climbed onto his back and constricted his waist and abdomen.

This time, before he could swing his knife, more tentacles surged out, coiling around his limb joints.

At some point, Poojis with tentacles connected under their mushroom caps appeared all around, surrounding Nasa.

"Walking Mushroom? Tentacles?"

The half-elf panicked and tried to reach into his clothes for powder, but was bound tighter and tighter.

"No, no!

Go catch them! Go eat them!

Help! Help... sob... Help... Help...

Countless tentacles finally wrapped Nasa into a human-shaped cocoon; struggling, he was dragged into the depths of the forest, leaving only muffled cries for help that gradually faded among the trees.

Feiyin, the only one who witnessed everything, trembled and clenched her teeth, refusing to make a single sound.

Only after the Poojis had all disappeared did she begin to sob quietly.

"Cutting Art..."

"Cutting Art..."

"Cutting Art..."

After using the Cutting Art an unknown number of times, the ropes on Feiyin's body finally snapped.

She hurriedly lowered her sister and Vera.

Her sister Feiling was fine, merely having fainted.

But Vera was barely breathing; she might die in the next second.

No one knew where everyone's backpacks had been taken; the potions were all inside them.

She didn't know any healing spells; without the potions, Vera would die!

Feiyin was so anxious that tears welled up in her eyes again.

A red object flashed through her blurred vision.

A Life Potion!

It was the bottle that half-elf had taken out earlier!

Feiyin crawled over on hands and knees to grab the potion, then with trembling hands poured it all down Vera's throat.

"Cough—cough—"

Vera suddenly choked on the water; although she didn't wake up, there was finally some color returning to her face.

"Great, great... great... wuwu..."

Relieved, Feiyin finally burst into tears again.

————

Deep in the forest, within the now-empty goblin camp.

The Poojis were repeatedly slamming the half-elf against a rock.

At this moment, Nasa looked utterly wretched; his nasal bridge was broken, all his teeth had been knocked out, and his tongue also seemed to be half severed.

Consciousness was gone; only muffled "woo-woo" sounds could be heard.

Yet the Pujis continued their work mechanically.

It wasn't that Lin Jun wanted to torture him; this half-elf simply needed to repay his debt with his own flesh.

And 【Fusion Parasitism】 could only parasitize targets with critically low health.

So he had to grind his health down to the skin first.

Attacking him directly with skills was too dangerous; one slip and he'd die.

Bumping him little by little like this was safe!

It was absolutely not because he was petty.

Finally, after suppressing his health to the limit, the Pujis elegantly sprinkled some spores onto his wounds.

Then they hung him upside down from a tree.

In a few days, a mature parasitic puppet would naturally fall to the ground.

This was Lin Jun's first human puppet; he planned to have some fun... have some fun making him pay the blood debt of Fatty No. 1!

Speaking of which, when Lin Jun brought the half-elf back, he also picked up those ownerless items lying on the ground.

All sorts of weapons, armor, rings, potions, powder packs, and so on.

Counting it this way, did the loss of equipment inside the Fatty Puji's stomach seem to be compensated?

He felt less heartbroken.

However, the debt on the half-elf could not be reduced.

As for the Fatty Puji...

Fortunately, Lin Jun had prepared in advance, producing five of them at once.

These Pujis with high constitution could not only grow larger to hold more items.

Their higher health also greatly increased the damage of their self-destruct.

The only problem was that other attributes couldn't keep up, making them incredibly slow to move.

Otherwise, why call them Fatties?

This expedition started poorly; he could only send Fatty No. 2 back to sit in that hole, which had already expanded by a circle.

Just right, these items he picked up this time could be stuffed into its stomach for exchange.

Once people got used to paying the toll with corpses, exchanging corpses for random items at the Fatty Puji's place.

Lin Jun would have a continuous supply of corpses from monsters of other tiers.

The adventurers' impression of the Pujis should also change greatly.

At the very least, they wouldn't start fighting immediately upon meeting.

As for worrying that the exchanged items aren't enough?

It's just the beginning, so naturally the contents are full and good; every trade the adventurers make is a huge profit.

Once the habit forms, Lin Jun will just fill it with a large amount of low-tier monster crystals to pad the numbers, occasionally opening a few good items to whet the adventurers' appetites.

Anyway, for the adventurers, most monster corpses aren't worth much; if you don't exchange them, it's a waste.

Tsk tsk!

Even Lin Jun admired his own business acumen.

With such a wise Fungal Lord as himself, how could the Mushroom Garden not prosper?

Hmm?

Just as Lin Jun was feeling proud, the signals of several Hallucinogenic Pujis slowly advancing in the cave suddenly disappeared.

That was a very, very deep location, so deep that it was almost impossible to reach without brute force.

It didn't look like an attack by ordinary Crystallized Bats or Rock Lizards; the three Pujis went offline at the exact same instant.

Lin Jun shifted his attention, controlling some nearby Hallucinogenic Pujis to advance toward that location.

Just as these Pujis reached the same spot, their health bars suddenly emptied.

Like their predecessors, they collapsed on the ground.

But this time Lin Jun figured out what was happening; he had this skill too.

It was the 【Infrasound Attack】 on the Crystallized Bats.

At the same time, in that fleeting glimpse, Lin Jun also pulled up the enemy's panel:

【Race: Crystallized Bat】

【Level LV25】

【Health: 850/850】

【Mana: 1200/1200】

【Strength: 16/27】

【Agility: 20/34】

【Constitution: 13/22】

【Intelligence: 35/59】

【Spirit: 30/50】

【Racial Talent: Proficiency bonus for Sound Wave skills and Crystal skills】

【Fixed Status:

Extreme Aging (all base attributes reduced by 80%)

Crystal Symbiosis (skill power increased by 500%)】

【Skill: Crystal Symbiosis LV10, Infrasonic Attack LV10, Sonic Detection LV10, Mental Resistance LV10, Physical Resistance LV8, Magical Resistance LV7, High-Temperature Resistance LV5, Evasion LV6……】

【Title:

Lizard Slayer: Damage against lizards increased by 10%

Bat Slayer: Damage against bats increased by 10%

Beyond Death: Negative status effects related to aging and age are halved】

(End of this chapter)