Chapter 6

"This… what is this!"

At the edge of the mushroom garden, 120 Pukjis stood in six neat rows.

40 artillery Pukjis: 【Mana Storage LV4】+【Mushroom Cannon LV6】+【Accuracy LV4】

40 slime Pukjis: 【Mana Storage LV4】+【Mushroom Cannon LV6】+【Digestive Slime LV3】

20 hallucinogenic Pukjis: 【Hallucinogenic Spores LV4】+【Chitinous Shell LV4】

20 ox-horse Pukjis: 【Storage Capsule LV4】+【Entangle LV3】

This was Lin Jun's 14th expedition force's configuration.

It wasn't that Lin Jun didn't want to cram all skills into a single Pukji—just that the more skills a Pukji had, the more mana and time it required to produce.

The increase in consumption grew exponentially, so keeping skills to four or fewer was the optimal balance of cost-effectiveness and practicality.

"So Pukjis have this many varieties?!"

Inanna deeply felt her ignorance—she hadn't even heard that Pukjis had so many subspecies.

Some had caps shaped like pots.

Some had full chitinous shells, but unlike the mining Pukjis from the excavation zone, their shells were covered in numerous pores.

There were even ones with tentacles!

How wonderful—if I had tentacles, I wouldn't need to tie the mana crystals to my head…

"Lin Jun, you say they're an expedition force—what are they going to do?"

"This is the dungeon. Of course, they're going to hunt down monsters."

"D…dirt worms?"

Inanna looked like she had no intention of going if it were dirt worms.

She simply couldn't believe dirt worms could be defeated by overwhelming Pukji numbers.

"I already said they're not dirt worms! This time, the target is fire mosquitoes—the parasites that keep flying into the mushroom garden, doing nothing but stealing and never producing! Today, we're wiping out their nest!"

Lin Jun had long grown tired of being harassed from above every few days. He'd already found the fire mosquitoes' nest; he'd held off destroying them until now to sustainably level up his Heat Resistance skill.

Heat Resistance is now LV6. Wiping out the fire mosquitoes at once should push it to LV7—enough already.

Besides, his top escape plan has shifted to using Inanna to hunt dirt worms, not smuggling past the Flame Demon's notice—so there's even less reason to keep these annoying pests around.

Let them serve one final purpose: sharpening the team's blade.

"Inanna, stay in the center of the formation. Follow my commands."

"Got it, got it."

Hearing they were going to fight mosquitoes, Inanna relaxed.

She knew fire mosquitoes—average level LV20, straightforward attacks, not hard to deal with.

The trouble was, they could fly, had evasion skills, were hard to hit, and loved to swarm.

Still, even if she couldn't defeat them, her magic was enough to defend herself.

Come to think of it, this was a kind of war—even if it was war between monsters.

The old man had always forbidden her from touching military adventures; facing this for the first time, her heart fluttered with excitement!

But these Pukji squads moved in perfect unison—even armies couldn't match their discipline.

Was it because Lin Jun controlled them?

————

Yes, that was exactly why.

With the skills of Vassal Control, Mycelial Network, and Mental Integration, Lin Jun commanded these Pukjis like an RTS game—though it consumed far more mental points.

Thanks to this unified command advantage, he'd managed to establish himself in the dungeon using Pukjis with only 1 in every stat.

After all, tricking nearly mindless monsters with strategies like luring them in or feinting left-right was a genuine level-down assault.

But this time, no strategy was needed. Strategy is only for when you're weaker.

And now, compared to the fire mosquitoes…

He was the stronger one!

Wouldn't it be satisfying to just rush them with F1F3?

Plus, it'd show off his strength and boost the confidence of the new recruit, Little Pink.

————

The term "deep dungeon" refers collectively to levels 10 and below, because from here on, there are no more clearly defined passages connecting different layers.

The entire deep region is filled with countless intersecting three-dimensional tunnels, linking one cavern after another—just as the fire mosquitoes' nest and Lin Jun's mushroom garden are connected by a tunnel over fifty meters in diameter.

Along the way, sparse mushrooms grew hidden in rock crevices—these were Lin Jun's extended eyes, and also relay stations helping him expand his mycelial network beyond the mushroom garden.

The mycelial network allowed Lin Jun to command his Pukji army in a semi-autonomous manner.

Otherwise, relying solely on Vassal Control to manually operate them would be mentally exhausting.

The Pukjis' short legs slapped the ground with a "pukji-pukji" sound echoing through the tunnel. Suddenly, several crimson light spots appeared three hundred meters ahead—several fire mosquitoes had spotted the expedition force.

"Ice Blade!"

A two-meter ice blade shot out—but missed completely. The fire mosquitoes didn't even use their evasion skill; the blade embedded itself in the ceiling rock.

"New recruit, don't waste mana."

"S-sorry."

Inanna then noticed that all the surrounding Pukjis continued advancing steadily, not pausing even as the fire mosquitoes appeared.

And the fire mosquitoes didn't approach—they watched the advancing force and chose to flee, vanishing quickly.

Watching the fire mosquitoes disappear from sight, Inanna worried: "Won't they go back and warn others?"

"Of course they'll warn others."

"Even if they are just low-intelligence demons, they will still have the instinct to defend their nest; I expect we will soon face a swarm of fire mosquitoes."

Inanna wanted to say, "But you are a demon too..."

"Then why let them go?"

Of course, the distance was too great to hit them.

"Of course, it was to catch them all in one net."

————

Beneath the dome where steam churned, hundreds of fire mosquitoes swirled around the central large pool, rising and falling while emitting a deafening buzzing sound.

These fire mosquitoes require hot water pools similar to hot springs to reproduce; the entire larval stage is spent waiting in the pool for adults to feed them, so as long as this pool is destroyed, the fire mosquitoes in this area will naturally perish.

The fire mosquitoes would naturally do their utmost to defend their nest.

So when Inanna followed the Puji to the end of the passage, the glowing glands on the abdomens of all the fire mosquitoes lit up with the orange color representing danger.

Several fire mosquitoes that were close by took flight first.

"Water Snake Technique!"

It was Inanna again; facing the flying demons, she could not help but cast a spell first.

Better than last time; at least she knew to use the Water Snake Technique, which allows for some directional control, rather than the straight-line Ice Blade, but unfortunately, the improvement was not great.

Unfortunately, the targets were fire mosquitoes possessing an evasion skill; the water snake grazed one fire mosquito, but the fire mosquito only dropped a few meters before regaining its balance.

Lin Jun watched and shook his head.

"Sigh, a recruit."

(End of this chapter)