Ironjaw had led the mercenary company's main force along with Tanaka's clone to dive underwater, but some members remained aboard ship for guard duty.
After all, the ship and that employer staying behind still needed protection.
As for being betrayed or even killed by the employer?
Ironjaw had barely considered this possibility.
After all... on what grounds?
On this entire ship, besides those dozen-plus ordinary Puchis wasting mana potions and two employers, everyone else was his own people.
As long as his side didn't harbor ill intentions, the employer should be thanking heaven already. How could the employer possibly harm them in reverse?
If they really met with trouble underwater, these brothers left on the ship definitely wouldn't let it go easily.
However, the already-dead Ironjaw didn't know.
Not long after they entered the dungeon, those members he thought "wouldn't let it go easily" had already worked together with one mind to turn the ship's bow toward the direction they came from.
They had no idea what had happened.
Their memories still lingered on the revelry after completing the previous mission. When they came to, they found themselves adrift on a vast ocean.
Just the few of them, plus two equally bewildered outsiders.
Initially, they surrounded those two outsiders, wanting to force out the situation.
Since they were outsiders, even if they hadn't pulled something, interrogating them wouldn't cause any loss.
But the other party produced a transit permit stamped with an Empire marquis's seal.
This made the mercenaries not dare act rashly—they didn't want to provoke such trouble.
Then they encountered monster attacks emerging from the mist.
Though not numerous and quickly dealt with, that uneasy feeling made everyone tense.
With insufficient manpower, they didn't dare casually dive underwater, and the environment left hearts unsettled.
So after several snakefolk discussed, they decided to first try reaching shore, leaving this dangerous sea area, then figure out what exactly had happened.
Thus, the ship had long since sailed away from these waters.
So when Louisa rushed out of the dungeon and returned to the sea surface, before her eyes besides vast mist and empty ocean horizon, not even a shadow of a ship could be seen.
At this moment in the ship cabin, Tanaka tightly clutched his severed arm, body trembling uncontrollably from intense pain and residual shock.
"That Puchi... was different, completely different! Kin control—this skill means someone behind it is controlling it, right? Who?"
Kiro shook his head.
"Not saying anything again." Tanaka cursed under his breath, but his gaze sweeping over the scattered white fur at the foxfolk's feet, he also realized this was probably some price for using the ability.
Looking at Kiro who was one step closer to becoming a bald fox, he swallowed back other curses that had reached his mouth, merely gritting his teeth and waiting for that tearing pain at the severed arm to slowly fade.
However, he didn't know that this time, Kiro truly didn't know.
In countless precognition fragments, Kiro could only be certain some will existed behind the fungal mat and Puchis.
He'd even heard that will's voice in the mycelial network, knew all parasitized beings called him "Boss."
But what exactly was that will? What race? Where was it hidden?
He knew nothing.
The only certainty was that if he did nothing, then two years later, the entire world would march toward its end in that existence's hands.
This time he hadn't completely unsealed it, but given the circumstances then, there was no room to pursue a perfect outcome.
Such frequent ability activation had already pushed his body to its limits.
[Temperance] shouldn't be used continuously like this.
Forcibly activating it, each time violently consumed his lifespan.
Kiro clearly felt that continuing like this, he probably wouldn't live much longer.
But... he had no choice.
Some things, if he didn't do them, no one else ever would.
The sun slowly sank below the horizon. Utterly exhausted, Kiro fell into sleep on schedule.
Perhaps from overwork, or perhaps deeply buried worries finally breaching the dam, he had an incomparably vivid nightmare. In the dream, he returned once more to that terrifying end he'd glimpsed when first using [Temperance]...
...
"Mama, when will Papa come back?"
"Papa went with the uncles to fight bad mushrooms. He'll be back later. Little Yu should be good and eat dinner first."
"Oh..."
Kiro stood in shadows not far off, watching this lizardfolk mother and daughter.
The mother's face forced calmness, but her eyes harbored inescapable grief.
That "Papa who went to fight bad mushrooms" she spoke of was likely one of the members of the Fourth Counteroffensive Regiment that had just been completely annihilated.
And the dinner the woman mentioned was just half a block of black bread hard enough to hurt teeth.
Since discovering Mushroom Garden's true purpose and breaking with it, people could no longer obtain food from fungal mat. The food crisis had constantly hung over everyone.
But this torment wouldn't last much longer either.
The last pure land on this continent was also about to fall.
The great bell on the tower suddenly rang. The heavy tolling crushed over everyone's hearts.
Puchis had come!
Before the bell ceased, that pale golden barrier protecting the fortress from fungal mat erosion visibly shattered before all eyes, transforming into scattered golden dust.
A blood-colored canopy surged from the horizon, rapidly polluting the firmament.
Seated upon a throne of blood, overlooking this tiny fortress, was precisely that Mushroom Garden marshal who'd dragged the world into flames—Mad Blood Louisa.
Beneath the blood curtain was a densely-packed Puchi army with no visible end, its numbers far exceeding any war in historical records.
And at that massive legion's rear, a mountain-like enormous shadow slowly moved. Just that huge silhouette was enough to make the bravest warrior's legs go weak.
On Kiro's side, only this lonely fortress remained, along with final forces mixed from all races' remnant troops, totaling merely over ten thousand.
In this suffocating moment of despair, the one who stepped forth was the Demon King!
He wielded vast magic power and boldly charged the blood curtain.
World-destroying combat aftershocks swept over like a storm. Kiro had to desperately brace against the wall to avoid being overturned.
However, having merely fused three body portions with the third incomplete, the Demon King ultimately couldn't take down Louisa.
In the deadlock, Black Dragon King, Super Puchi User, Grand Magus Shroom, Sword Saint Shroom... Mushroom Garden's great generals joined the battle one by one.
Under group assault, the Demon King didn't hold out long. His body finally exploded into scattered viscous droplets that fell like rain across the earth, unable to coalesce again.
Dream-Kiro heavily collapsed to his knees, fingernails digging deep into soil.
Endless regret nearly tore him apart. All because of himself—acting too late, too late, failing to timely unseal all the Demon King's restraints—the world had plunged into such irredeemable catastrophe.
In a daze, he heard beside him that lizardfolk little girl protected in her mother's embrace happily call out in a clear voice:
"Mama! I see Papa!"
...
"You... do you know how precious a hall-level combat asset is? No matter how urgent the situation, couldn't you have cut off his other arm? Why did you have to smash his head? And you didn't even find the ship..."
Lin Jun grumbled on and on while controlling the knight Puchi to poke Little Pig's forehead with tentacles in a desultory fashion.
And "Mad Blood Marshal Louisa" currently squatted obediently before the Puchi, head slightly lowered like a little girl who'd done wrong and was being properly scolded, not daring to retort.
(End of Chapter)
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