Fifth Layer of the Mushroom Forest.
“Senior Dylan… is this really safe?” Norris asked nervously.
He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably—the rare sensation of wearing a shirt again made him feel awkward beyond words.
At the moment, there were no scales on his body, no claws to be seen. Dressed in leather armor, he looked just like a proper human adventurer.
And thanks to plentiful food and constant combat training, his body was stronger than when he’d been a miner.
But this was his first time fully disguising himself as human to walk the surface, and his heart was anything but steady.
Opposite him, Dylan seemed perfectly at ease, leisurely checking the straps on his weapon.
“What’s there to panic about?” Dylan cast him a sidelong glance. “With Mimicry at level seven, unless someone half-beats you to death, your true form won’t show. Back in my day, I only had a low-level mimicry that broke the moment I got scratched, and I still made it through the whole island chain. Today we’re just strolling around right outside our own dungeon—perfectly safe!”
His words calmed Norris a little.
“But,” Dylan added with a smirk, pointing at Norris’s head, “you sure you want to go out looking like that?”Norris knew exactly what he meant. Thanks to his boss, his hair now reached down to his waist.
With his rugged features, he wouldn’t be mistaken for a woman, but even so, among human adventurers, men almost never wore hair this long.
“It… was the boss’s order,” Norris sighed helplessly, his tone heavy with resignation.
Just then, two Puji clambered up on each other’s shoulders, waddling behind him.
One extended a tendril, clumsily gathering up his long hair, twisting it into a rather ugly bun.
Then, from who-knows-where, it produced a twig and jammed it into the bun to hold it in place with a snap.
After finishing, the Puji patted Norris’s shoulder solemnly: “Kid, you’re still too green to understand. This is the true hairstyle of real men! Trust me—you’ll thank me later!”
Dylan wisely swallowed the words “I don’t get it either,” knowing that saying anything now would only get him dragged in.
Once ready, the two headed to the stone wall bordering the mushroom forest, where Hidden Room was already waiting.
—
On the surface, Dylan strode out of the dungeon gates openly. Norris followed behind, far less comfortable.
The moment they stepped outside, both instinctively shielded their eyes.
Such piercing sunlight—they hadn’t seen it in so long.
The dungeon only had the glow of mushrooms, and even in the far north, the light was always hazy and white. This brightness was incomparable.
It took a long time before their eyes adjusted.
Dylan’s pack bulged with gold coins, and he even carried an A-grade magic crystal, just in case they needed to exchange for cash.
Their goal was to post quests at the Adventurer’s Guild.
With Lin Jun’s studies in alchemy, they needed ingredients not found in either dungeon.
Not particularly rare—just things the local environment didn’t grow.
The easiest way was to issue collection requests at the guild; merchant caravans would accept and bring the supplies.
Alchemy materials were only part of it. The real expense was for bounties on powerful monsters in the Scarecrow Abyss that carried the skill 【Negative Energy Collection】.
Such monsters lived in the deepest and most dangerous levels. The bounty had to be high.
They’d start at five hundred gold coins. If no one took it, they could always raise the price.
Lin Jun’s liquid funds were nearly gone. What remained were high-grade magic crystals—valuable, but hard to liquidate quickly. He’d need channels to sell them bit by bit.
Dylan was the perfect man for the job. Letting Aiden or Inanna handle it was too risky—their identities drew too much attention.
As for Norris, this was a chance to stretch his legs, get fresh air, and practice his disguise.
But as they truly walked into town, both were left stunned.
The settlement had expanded dramatically. The distance from dungeon to town had been cut in half!
The old wooden buildings still stood in the center, but the outer ring was now filled with new stone houses.
Most shocking of all, the population had grown tremendously—and the composition had shifted.
Silentwind had once been a small adventurer’s hub. Inns, taverns, and shops all catered to adventurers.
Now, common townsfolk vastly outnumbered adventurers, giving the place a completely different air.
Even more absurd—among the crowds, here and there were Pujis, wandering freely, and no one even blinked!
Beyond the town limits stretched vast mushroom fields, with countless farmers at work.
Some carried buckets of water to irrigate, others hauled monster corpses in carts to fertilize the fields.
Farther out, groups were chopping down trees.
Too dense a forest blocked sunlight, too sparse was fine—but thinning trees to open farmland was the balance they needed.
Dylan gaped. Last time he’d passed through, the refugees were still living in tents. Now everything had changed overnight.
Norris even wondered if they had somehow stumbled through another rift.
“Senior… is this really Silentwind?”
A drunk passing by overheard, stopped, and slapped a hand on Norris’s shoulder.
“Kid, you must be from out of town! Silentwind? Nobody calls it that anymore!”
The drunk hiccupped, proudly declaring, “This place is now called Mushroom Town! And soon, it’ll be Mushroom City! If you’ve got coin to spare, don’t miss our specialty—creamy mushroom soup! Nowhere else can you get it so fresh!”
Without waiting for a reply, he staggered off… only to trip after a few steps, crashing to the ground.
But he wasn’t hurt.
Beneath him lay a flattened Puji, having cushioned the fall entirely.
The onlookers murmured:
“He’s finished. Tonight the Puji will claim him.”
“That’s what he gets for drinking in the streets.”
Even the drunk sobered up instantly, panicked: “I… I didn’t mean it! Wait! If I go make an offering now, it’s not too late!”
He scrambled up and sprinted toward the newly designated monster corpse market.