"Come out! Come out! Come out! Come out already!"
The final ten demon beast corpses were thrown before the fat otaku puffshroom, as Horn shouted with bloodshot eyes, as if yelling like this would make the fat otaku more likely to produce good items.
His teammates looked on helplessly at Horn, who had gone somewhat mad after his previous 20 draws had only yielded a pile of mushrooms and waste magic crystals.
The fact that you could use demon beast corpses to draw prizes from the fat puffshroom on the fifth floor had long been common knowledge among everyone in Mute Wind Town.
The originally worthless demon beast corpses had significantly increased in value, naturally giving birth to a new distribution method.
Just like this guy Horn—he would refuse all materials gathered along the way, and in exchange, all remaining demon beast corpses would belong to him, with everyone helping to carry down the corpses of the monsters they killed.
However, in reality, after trying this distribution method a few times, many teams no longer used it.
The reason was simple: having a teammate whose mentality had collapsed, falling into hysteria or silent brooding during the return journey, would negatively impact the entire team's morale...
The fat otaku puffshroom finally finished collecting all the demon beast corpses and began producing the rewards.
Everyone could hear Horn's breathing become three times heavier.
Mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, waste magic crystal, mushroom...
"Where's the jackpot? Where's the jackpot? Give me equipment, give me high-grade magic crystals!"
His teammates exchanged glances, having already decided to speed up on the return journey to endure less of Horn's negative aura.
"I hit it! Hahahaha roooooar!"
Horn's almost inhuman laughter made all three teammates look over in surprise.
They saw him kneeling in the middle of a pile of mushrooms and waste magic crystals, holding a dagger that glowed with faint radiance in both hands, alternately kissing and crying over it.
The presence of radiance meant it was at least an attribute equipment—in terms of value, it was worth more than what they'd earn from ten dungeon runs!
This time, no one worried about Horn's negative aura. Now the negative emotions had transferred to his three teammates...
However, before they could voice their jealousy, an extremely miserable and twisted scream suddenly echoed from the mushroom forest—a sound that made one's hair stand on end.
Even Horn, still in his excitement, swallowed back his remaining "hahahas" and shrank his neck as he returned to the group.
Faced with this unexpected situation, none of them wanted to take risks, so they hurriedly retreated toward the stairway.
...
In the mushroom forest, several puffshrooms worked together to pin down a constantly trembling large puffshroom, blocking the opening on its mushroom cap.
It was this puffshroom that had made the strange sound just now.
Scaring the adventurers was one thing, but it had even startled Lin Jun himself.
Why was it so difficult just to say something?
Lin Jun's [Human Common Language] was now at level eight, and since he'd been using Dilan's translation device for learning, he had mastered most basic vocabulary.
He no longer encountered situations where he couldn't understand what adventurers were saying.
But the problem was, he could only listen now—how was he supposed to speak?
The simplest method would probably be to completely parasitize a humanoid creature, then speak through that creature's mouth.
But that felt no different from speaking through Dilan's mouth.
Lin Jun wanted to try whether he could use mushrooms to simulate a voice box.
Since he would personally control it when speaking, there would be no skill restrictions—he just needed to modify the puffshroom's interior to be suitable for vocalization.
The idea was beautiful, but reality was harsh.
The voice box made by imitating the structure of a human throat could only produce "puff puff" sounds of expelled air.
After gradually making magical modifications, what just happened was merely one of the failed products.
Lin Jun had already decided to change locations. Continuing directly in the mushroom forest would eventually lead to false rumors among adventurers about puffshrooms imprisoning and torturing adventurers in the mushroom forest, which wouldn't be good.
The new experimental location was chosen underground in the mushroom forest, in the dungeon he had previously excavated.
As soon as the puffshrooms entered, a certain starved vampire countess crouching in the corner reflexively spoke in Demon language:
"I am a little pig who loves to eat."
She thought food had finally arrived, but after speaking, the puffshrooms remained motionless. Louisa could only return to her corner in disappointment, staring blankly at the puffshrooms.
Oh right, he'd been so absorbed in crafting voice puffshrooms these past few days that he'd forgotten to feed this one. Vampires really were resistant to hunger!
He happened to have newly acquired demon beast corpses, so two puffshrooms quickly brought one over and threw it to the vampire.
Speaking of which, didn't vampires have that kind of setting?
Lying in a coffin, they could sleep for a hundred years without needing food or drink—didn't this world have that?
He'd ask Louisa about this later. Right now, Lin Jun was more interested in speaking.
So Louisa, having barely eaten to four-tenths full, crouched in the corner watching a group of puffshrooms occasionally emit ghostly wails and wolf howls across from her.
At first, she would instinctively shudder when hearing them, but gradually she got used to it. The only downside was that her sleep quality in the cell became even worse, as she was frequently awakened by the strange sounds.
If there was any benefit, it was that since the puffshrooms came here, her meals were at least no longer forgotten...
...
One day, Louisa was once again awakened by sounds.
Based on past experience, the sounds wouldn't last very long, and the next time they made noise would be at least an hour or two later.
She blinked her eyes, preparing to go back to sleep. Sleeping more was good—sleeping more meant being less likely to feel hungry.
"Lou... i... sa..."
Louisa's eyes suddenly widened.
That voice was twisted and evil, accompanied by sinister echoes, and sounded as unpleasant as stones grinding together.
But the key point was—this voice didn't appear in her mind!
Who?
Who was calling her name?
For a moment, Louisa fantasized that some demon with an ugly voice had been sent to rescue her.
Because no one here knew her name, and the voice in her mind had never asked for her name. Anyone who could call out her name must be someone from the demon side!
But this fantasy shattered in less than a second.
The voice came from an elongated puffshroom that could barely be recognized as a puffshroom anymore.
After failing to create sound through structural imitation, Lin Jun had completely let himself go.
As the saying goes, whether it's a black cat or white cat, the one that catches mice is a good cat.
Being able to make sound counted as success—no need to obsess over standard results.
And this elongated one was the first version of the voice puffshroom.
Air was pumped in from the tail end, passing through complex internal structures to finally achieve the effect of speech.
Of course, being the first version, it still had issues like echoes and only being able to say one or two words at a time.
But this was taking the first step! Lin Jun believed that with improvements, it would definitely get better and better in the future.
Seeing that the vampire had recognized he was calling her name, Lin Jun controlled the puffshroom to call out even more enthusiastically.
"Lou... Lou... isa... Loui... sa..."
"Ahh... AHHHHH!!!"
Louisa suddenly grabbed her head with both hands, rolling around and screaming wildly.
Finally, disregarding the punishment of possibly growing mushrooms, she frantically rushed toward the exit.
However, since Lin Jun had never let her eat her fill, the two elite puffshrooms guarding outside easily subdued her and used [Hallucinogenic Spores] to quiet her down.
Clearly, this Demon language learning machine had developed a slight malfunction. Perhaps staying in the basement too long had gotten dust in her brain.
Maybe he should let her go mining for some fresh air?
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