Plop—plop—
That familiar sound came from behind the waist-high shrubs. Norris turned to look.
Now he wore an adventurer’s outfit, not just the single pair of shorts he’d first woken up in.
He had begged it off the Boss—though the Boss had said it was nothing more than unnecessary shame…
Once he accepted his situation, Norris quickly chose to embrace it. Accepting becoming a “powerful” monster was not harder than accepting a debt of forty gold.
At least the joy of replenishing nutrients, and the satisfaction of growing stronger after slaying monsters, were far better than waking each day to crushing debt.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Plop—
A human-sized red slime leapt out of the bushes.
Inside it was half-digested Puji flesh and clumps of grass.Norris crossed his claws and lunged as it landed!
【Windrend Claws LV4】
His talons tore through the slime’s liquid body. The wind element wrapped around his claws not only sharpened them but blasted outward, enlarging the gash.
Norris didn’t pause. Before the slime could heal, he aimed to seize its core—
Boom—
A mushroom cannon shot slammed into the already-split slime, blowing it apart.
Norris, closest to the blast, was drenched in its red neurotoxic fluids. Though immune, he looked absolutely miserable.
Turning, he saw a Puji strolling away as if nothing had happened, having fired the shot without a word.
“…Sigh.”
What could he do? His standing in the “organization” was below that Puji’s. He could only find another target.
Plop—
Another slime appeared, this one green.
Norris turned and walked away. Without 【Corrosion Resistance】, fighting a slime with 【Digestive Mucus】 would only hurt him, even in victory. Best to leave it for the others.
He wasn’t hunting alone—he had been assigned by the Boss to clear slimes in the area so they wouldn’t interfere with the real work inside.
Behind him, not far off, a small mountain by the cliffside had been cleared bare. On the open ground, more than two hundred Pujis were hard at work on a grand project.
The clearing hadn’t existed before—on the sixth floor, there were no such natural open spaces.
But with Pujis, now there was.
And that wasn’t enough. Lin Jun intended to dig the entire site out!
A team of claw-specialized Pujis with 【Claws LV7】 plowed the earth in tidy circles.
Beast-of-burden Pujis, with special tubular mycelial appendages, sucked the loosened dirt into their bellies, then hauled it away to dump.
Another squad dug directly at the exposed rock face.
The reason for such a massive effort? The dryads had completed their waterway survey. According to their map, the center of the underground waterways—the true source of the slimes—was inside this hill.
Three days of work later—
The greenery was gone, replaced by a vast pit still widening.
Clangs of chisels and pounding echoed nonstop as beast Pujis carried rubble away in a constant stream.
Norris stood at the rim, gaping.
He had mined long enough to know how adventurers normally dug.
A bit here, a bit there—tunnels crooked, piles of stone left to block paths until someone cleared them in frustration.
That had always seemed normal. But watching the Pujis’ operation these past three days, he realized by comparison that adventurers weren’t “mining.” At best, they were just smashing rocks for fun.
The Pujis divided labor, worked in perfect order, and were astonishingly efficient.
Such a pit—lords with teams of laborers would need half a month. The Pujis had done it in three days.
At first, Norris thought his own mining skill would make him useful. He had even tried to join in, only to be sent out by the Boss.
The reason: “You’re in the way.”
It had stung—mining was his one proud skill.
But after seeing their coordinated system, he had to admit it was true. Maybe he could chip faster than a Puji, but he could never match the teamwork of 200 of them.
The Pujis were far more formidable than anyone imagined.
Crack—
A sharp, ordinary sound echoed from the pit. Just like countless rocks splitting before.
But from the new fissure, a gush of red fluid burst forth, engulfing a nearby Puji before it could react.
A red slime!
Then a green one erupted from the crack as well!
The gap widened, like a slit in an overstuffed sack, spewing more and more slimes.
Within seconds, the pit bottom was flooded, and the tide still rose!
Most of the Pujis below were submerged. Even Norris stumbled back in shock.
If he had been digging down there himself…
Lin Jun’s scalp tingled.
What the hell—
Had they cracked open a slime nest?
Yes—but why were there so many?
And so big!
What had these things been eating!?
The slimes that had crawled out through the water channels before were at most human-sized. But these—the smallest was bigger than any he’d ever seen!
No—
Lin Jun realized the truth.
They weren’t oversized. They were so bloated that even with liquid bodies, they couldn’t fit through the waterways—so they had piled up here instead!
The ones that escaped before had been the “smaller” ones.
This was bad. Very bad.
Lin Jun rushed to mobilize every Puji on the perimeter, ordering them to suppress the flood before it spilled out.
At the same time, reinforcements massed on the fifth floor.
If suppression failed, it would become all-out war.
And he couldn’t ignore this. With their size and numbers, ordinary plant monsters stood no chance.
If these slimes rampaged freely, the entire sixth floor ecosystem would collapse. Everything he had built would be wasted.
“You, back to the fifth floor!” Lin Jun ordered Norris.
These slimes weren’t training fodder anymore.
Norris hesitated, but at the command, he turned and ran, passing the rushing Pujis head-on.
Boom—
Boom—
Not only the arriving Pujis, but the fixed turrets along the rock walls opened fire.
Their aim at ground targets was poor due to distance—
But now the pit was nothing but slimes. Accuracy didn’t matter. It was sheer fire coverage!
Slime flesh and juice sprayed everywhere.
Yet the slain ones left behind pools of fluid that shielded the rest, blunting further strikes.
And injured slimes absorbed nearby juices to mend themselves. The mushroom cannons’ blanket fire was losing effect.
Meanwhile, more and more slimes kept pouring into the pit.
It was too much—
They were about to spill over!