Inside a tent made from various magical beast hides, Dylan sat upon a wild boar pelt.
This was the gnoll camp deep in the forest, and he had been brought here all the way by several Puffshrooms.
The tent contained very few belongings—only some crooked shelves constructed from bones and wood. Dylan even spotted a human skull among them...
Dylan now sat restlessly, unable to find peace.
His decision to follow his instincts back to the dungeon had been somewhat self-destructive in nature, but he never imagined it would lead to this current situation.
The Puffshrooms were actually controlled by some mysterious will!
No wonder they had carried out actions beyond their survival needs, like exterminating the Parasitic Trees and Jade-Eyed Frogs.
And now this mysterious will had sought him out.
What worried him even more was...
The tent flap suddenly lifted, and a gnoll covered head to toe in grayish-white fungi shambled in stiffly.
It set down a roasted pig's trotter beside him, then swayed unsteadily as it departed.
On its way out, it brushed against the tent and dropped a mushroom...
Dylan felt his throat tighten—was this the fate of the parasitized? Would he too become like this in the future?
Dylan didn't know, but he was beginning to regret his earlier casual decision to return to the dungeon.
"Go ahead and eat, don't be shy."
That voice appeared again. Dylan could only pick up the somewhat charred pig's trotter and bite into it reluctantly.
So burnt... so fishy...
On the other end, Lin Jun actually hadn't meant to frighten him.
It was just that as a human, it wouldn't be suitable for him to stay at either the Poison Mist Lake or the swamp.
The gnoll forest happened to have ready-made tents available—might as well use them since the gnolls would soon have no need for them anyway.
As for the taste of the pig's trotter, seeing Dylan finish it in just a few bites, Lin Jun was still thinking his cooking probably wasn't bad.
After all, isn't good food just about roasting something and sprinkling salt on it?
After finishing the pig's trotter, Dylan hesitated before pulling out a magic potion from his chest.
Over the past half month, he had discovered that ordinary food could no longer fully satisfy his needs. He had to drink a sip of magic potion daily to alleviate his hunger. He suspected the mycelium within his body required magical power.
"Actually, you don't need to waste the potion."
Dylan stopped pulling at the cork, instinctively asking, "Then what should I do?"
The tent flap lifted again—it was still that mushroom-covered gnoll outside.
The gnoll beckoned to him, and Dylan had no choice but to put away his potion and follow.
They walked to one end of the forest, where dozens of mushroom gnolls were felling trees.
Dylan was led to the edge of the logging site, where many felled and hollowed-out giant logs lay about, inevitably reminiscent of coffins.
The interiors were densely packed with mycelium, making Dylan's scalp crawl.
"Try lying down inside."
"Ah... this is... never mind, I'll lie down."
Such strangeness made Dylan somewhat apprehensive, but thinking about it, his life didn't seem to be in his own hands right now anyway—no need to be overly cautious.
With the mindset of heading to the execution ground, Dylan lay down with a resolute expression.
As soon as he lay down, he felt the mycelium reaching toward him, writhing as it... connected with the mycelium on his own body!?
"This is... oh..."
Though it was merely a hollowed-out piece of rotten wood, Dylan now felt as if he were sleeping on a velvet bed.
Even more precious was this sense of satisfaction, this feeling of security!
Soon, the heartstrings that had been taut with anxiety for months suddenly relaxed.
"Rest easy and lie there. Let's have a casual chat while you're at it."
The voice seemed to drift from the horizon. At this moment, Dylan couldn't summon a trace of wariness.
"Alright... let's chat..."
"Dylan, tell me your story. I'm quite curious about why you left only to return? Were you after more Parasitic Tree seeds?"
"It wasn't for... tree seeds. I came because of..."
Dylan was in a daze, as if the one speaking with him was a dear friend of many years.
He poured out his experiences and thoughts without reservation, holding nothing back.
Seeing him like this, Lin Jun couldn't help but sigh:
Adding a bit of hallucinogenic spores when supplementing nutrition really was quite useful...
Actually, Lin Jun could sense the general emotions of the parasitized when they spoke by relying on his absolute dominance through parasitic fusion, combined with the mycelial network.
This had been verified in previous experiments with the gnolls.
This could be used to determine whether the parasitized were lying.
But that method of interrogation—questioning back and forth like squeezing toothpaste—was far too inefficient and didn't look particularly friendly either.
Better to use a gentler approach.
---
"How long was I asleep?"
Dylan didn't know when he had fallen asleep. The gnolls who had been logging earlier were now all lying motionless in the surrounding hollow logs.
He only had vague impressions of what had happened before sleep, but could roughly guess what had occurred.
By rights, he should be on guard now.
But strangely, he only felt physically and mentally relaxed, like waking up at home—though this wooden bed was rather crude, leaving his hands feeling uncomfortable when placed upon it.
"Dylan, I understand your situation now."
Lin Jun's voice appeared in Dylan's mind at the perfect moment.
"I don't mind giving you a place to stay here.
But just as you had to work to earn money in the human world, here too I have some small matters I need you to help me with.
Don't worry, it'll be much easier than being an adventurer.
This is a conscientious enterprise—room and board included, with extra rewards for good performance."
Though Dylan didn't understand what an "enterprise" was, he grasped the meaning and asked the question he cared about most:
"Will I become like these gnolls?"
In Dylan's view, these creatures were no different from the dead—and indeed, they were dead.
"The gnolls?" Lin Jun's voice rose a notch. "Of course not. Your will remains your own."
*Provided you don't court death yourself.*
Dylan nodded and knelt on one knee:
"Dylan is willing to serve you. I don't yet know your name."
"Don't use formal address—it's awkward. You can call me Boss."
"Yes, Boss." Dylan had originally been prepared to call him Master.
Dylan didn't ask who or what Lin Jun actually was.
Since Lin Jun hadn't appeared before him, he naturally didn't want Dylan to know certain things. Asking would be purely asking for trouble.
"By the way, while you were sleeping, I helped straighten out your chaotically growing mycelium and added a skill for you as advance payment."
"Added a skill?"
Dylan looked as if he couldn't understand.
---
At the Rotten Willow Tavern, amid the usual cacophony, Dylan gulped down watered-down inferior wine—he hadn't been able to visit a tavern in so long.
At this moment, he wasn't concealing his face, and not a trace of mycelium could be seen on it. He looked just like an ordinary person.
[Mimicry LV2]
Just as he could add skills to Puffshrooms, Lin Jun could also add skills to parasitized humans.
However, adding skills to humans who already possessed numerous abilities consumed exponentially more power.
This single skill alone had consumed the magical power equivalent to creating 40 combat Puffshrooms.
But it was worth it.
This was a skill Lin Jun had acquired early on from the deep layers—one that could only achieve very crude disguises like changing skin color and texture.
It had never found much application until now, when it finally proved useful.
Dylan now felt that his decision to return to the Amethyst Dungeon had been absolutely correct.
Of course, he hadn't developed any thoughts of leaving the dungeon to return to normal life because of this.
Disguise was still just disguise. In essence, he was still half a mushroom person, and who knew when he might be exposed.
Moreover, he now needed to rely on mycelium to supplement his nutrition—otherwise, drinking magic potions alone would cost more gold than he could afford.
The reason he appeared here now was naturally due to Lin Jun's first assignment.
After another cup of wine, several adventurers sat down across from Dylan.
"You're Dylan, right? I heard you have the latest strategy guide for the fifth floor?"
Setting down his cup and wiping the wine foam from his face, Dylan grinned:
"I do! But this was information I risked my life to obtain—it won't come cheap..."
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