“Roar—”
Faced with Little Black’s threatening arched-back growl, Qiong immediately raised both hands to show no ill intent and slowly backed away.
Everyone in the mushroom garden knew: if you had a conflict with someone else, you could ask the Boss to judge; the Boss loved doing that.
But if you pissed off Little Black, you were on your own.
Fortunately, though not the brightest, Little Black had her own logic.
After long enough in the garden, everyone knew how to deal with her. Carrying a couple of glass marbles in your pocket had become standard practice.
But today, ordinary glass marbles had clearly lost their charm.
Next to that pure, dazzling, multicolored gem, they were completely outclassed.
In the corner, the two dwarves watched the demons blocked outside, too scared to approach, and felt the situation growing stranger by the second.
The two Shrink scrolls Kiro had given them had actually come in handy so soon and saved their lives; it was unbelievable!
Now they were even more curious about Kiro’s constant talk of “luck.” Too bad they had already parted, and given their current predicament, they might never meet again.
But clearly even Kiro hadn’t expected them to escape straight into demon territory!
Look at these guys!
Half-demons, lizardmen, demonkin, vampires… and this dragonkin… No doubt about it, they had stumbled right into a demon lair.
When Thorin and Glenm realized where they were, both felt doomed.
They were locked in a cage. At least the demons didn’t seem intent on letting them freeze; they had tossed in a weird buzzing Puchi.
The heat it gave off barely kept them alive while the demons focused on dealing with the spatial rift.
But that didn’t change their fate. Recalling all the tavern tales they had heard, both could foresee their end.
Slave laborers or blood cattle for vampires; utterly miserable. Death might be better!
In their despair, a tall dragonkin covered in heavy black scales approached. Her clear eyes were especially striking.
Thorin thought she was eyeing his tender flesh, but Glenm corrected him. “Your meat isn’t tender, and she’s looking at the pendant on your neck!”
Miraculously, though the dragonkin stared hungrily at the gem pendant, practically drooling, she made no move to simply rob the two prisoners.
After some chaotic gesturing, they actually managed to trade the pendant for her bending the cage bars!
Unfortunately, this seemingly not-very-bright dragonkin clearly didn’t understand “quiet escape.” The massive noise instantly drew everyone’s attention.
Now they were completely surrounded.
…
Little Pig stood far off with arms folded, showing no intention of interfering.
The mushroom garden now had plenty of manpower. For core members, the Boss had begun assigning rough duty divisions.
She was in charge of mixing captives with cave-dwellers to train Puchi legions that could fight in formation.
Xing was responsible for construction and defense of the far-north city. Besides her own rebirth rituals, she also handled some diplomacy with other northern tribes.
Norris trained the Jida warriors and handled miscellaneous tasks.
In short, the two captives fell under Norris’s jurisdiction. Little Pig had no plans to get involved.
Through the mycelial network, Norris asked, “Boss, can’t we make Sister Little Black leave?”
The Boss didn’t reply for a long time.
Since the Boss couldn’t possibly have missed it, he was clearly waiting to watch Norris make a fool of himself again.
Norris sighed, lamenting his terrible work environment, and pushed through the crowd.
“Roar!”
Little Black’s contract spirit was stronger than many adventurers. She bared fangs even at acquaintances.
Norris grabbed his beast-hide vest, ripped it off, and tossed it behind him. Silver scales gleamed under the glowing mushrooms.
Little Black blinked, dazzled. Her roar dropped several decibels, almost turning into a purr.
Then Norris pulled several silver scales from his pouch, scales shed during his fight with Karen, cleaned and collected for moments like this.
He waved the shiny scales back and forth.
Little Black instantly went quiet, unconsciously inching toward Norris.
At that moment Thorin shouted frantically, “Wait! I have more! I’ll pay more!”
Seeing his lifeline about to defect, the dwarf panicked and pulled out four more top-grade, multicolored gems.
He didn’t understand dwarf speech, but Little Black understood the gesture of shoving gems in her face.
In a flash, the gems vanished from Thorin’s hand. No one except Lin Jun saw where she hid them.
“ROAR!!!”
An even louder roar forced everyone back!
With no one daring to actually intervene, the two dwarves followed Little Black and simply… ran out.
Watching Little Black’s retreating back, Norris felt an inexplicable sense of loss, then wondered why that loss felt somehow wrong.
Then the Boss’s words turned loss into pain: “Norris failed to guard prisoners. Karen’s no-ambush restriction lifted.”
“Yesss! Boss is the best!” Karen’s cheer came from a corner.
Norris: “…”
He was already thinking where to sleep tonight to be safe.
…
As for the two dwarves, they followed Little Black past bewildered lizardmen and half-demons who had no idea what was happening, and ran straight out of Stone Fortress Dungeon.
They passed the city under construction, seeing half-built walls and laboring demons from afar.
No one stopped them. No pursuers.
After running half a day, a tired and hungry Little Black poked Thorin’s pack with her tail tip, indicating it was time for more shinies.
When no new gems appeared, Little Black immediately flew back to the mushroom garden, ate a passing Puchi, pulled the super-shiny gems from between her scales, and curled up in the mushroom house to sleep.
Meanwhile, Thorin and Glenm not only lost their protector, but the warming Puchi they had grabbed while fleeing suddenly went limp.
Though uneasy, they had escaped. Huddled by a fire for warmth, they continued south, toward freedom.
Two days later, several Puchis dragged two dwarves frozen stiff in the snow back to the mushroom garden.
(End of Chapter)
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