"Please halt for routine inspection."
Aiden adjusted the bronze badge on his chest, his iron gauntlets and chainmail gleaming coldly as he extended his arm to block five adventurers who had just emerged from the dungeon, their boots still caked with mycelium.
"Inspection? Why?"
Several adventurers frowned—no one liked having their belongings searched, but they didn't choose to ignore Aiden either, waiting for him to provide a reasonable explanation.
Knowing this task was unpopular, Aiden patiently explained: "Recently we received a report about a marauder attack incident."
Aiden pulled out a parchment scroll and unrolled it, the guild's seal clearly visible.
"We're searching for equipment lost by the victims. Please cooperate with us—finding the marauders benefits everyone."
The female sorceress in robes among the group snorted lightly, about to say something, but was stopped by their captain.
They unloaded their heavily worn leather packs, the metal buckles clanging dully against the stone pavement.
Aiden nodded to the two guards behind him, then opened his parchment-covered record book and crouched down to begin comparing the items in the packs one by one.
Soon, a dwarven helmet covered in copper rust was pulled from the bottom of a pack by one of the guards.
A pair of iron shoulder guards was found alongside it.
Aiden calmly stood and stepped back two paces, quietly raising three fingers toward the commanding officer who was polishing his sword under the elm tree's shade.
Only after the gold-ranked superior walked over did Aiden straighten his back and speak:
"This helmet and shoulder guards match the equipment possessed by the victim. I'm afraid we'll need to detain you all a bit longer for questioning."
"What!?" Sure enough, this statement immediately provoked a reactive response from the adventurers.
A heavy axe warrior angrily demanded: "Are you saying we're marauders?"
"I'm not suspecting you gentlemen, merely following orders. Please cooperate with the guild."
Aiden stood behind his gold-ranked superior, speaking neither humbly nor arrogantly, like an emotionless law enforcement machine.
The commanding officer partially drew the sword at his waist, his meaning quite clear.
Seeing a conflict about to erupt, the adventurer team's leader hurriedly stepped in front of his teammates.
As an ordinary adventurer group, how could they dare truly conflict with the guild?
"Everyone calm down, calm down. Gentlemen, we got these from that big fat puffshroom on the fifth floor. We really aren't marauders."
Seeing his reasonable attitude, Aiden offered reassurance: "I figured as much. Don't worry—we just need to conduct routine questioning. We won't wrongly accuse you. The previous groups were all released after questioning."
Hearing they weren't the first batch to be stopped this way, the adventurers felt considerably more at ease.
They really weren't marauders.
Meanwhile, Dylan, carrying a large pack, didn't linger to watch the commotion like the others. Instead, he walked around the group and headed directly into the dungeon—entering the dungeon required no inspection.
Aiden rubbed his nose. He seemed to catch a whiff of blood, but a bloody scent was hardly noteworthy. This was a dungeon entrance—adventurers emerging with some bloody smell was perfectly normal. He'd even smelled ones reeking of dung!
---
On the first floor, Dylan crouched on the ground, his finger scraping through a wall crevice.
He pulled up a large clump of mycelium.
Mycelium like this, growing in wall cracks, could now be seen everywhere on the first floor.
Was the boss planning to gradually occupy the front floors too?
Dylan pondered while following the passage with the densest mycelium growth.
After about half an hour, he finally found a patch of fungal carpet in a secluded chamber far from the main route.
Dropping his pack on the ground, he stretched his back hard.
At his age, still having to carry such heavy things—what a miserable ordeal.
He dumped the pack's contents onto the fungal carpet. The mycelium would naturally handle the rest of the process.
Honestly, if the other party had only asked for two more gold, he would have swallowed the loss. But demanding 20 gold right off the bat? Some retired adventurers didn't even have that much in their retirement savings!
Of course, that information broker asking for 20 gold was just opening with an outrageous price, expecting to haggle. But this attitude of trying to squeeze him dry as much as possible left Dylan with no interest in haggling.
Now it worked out well—he got the information and even made 8 gold coins for free...
However, Dylan couldn't feel happy about it at all.
Because Bella really had gone to the archipelago...
According to the intelligence, Bella had apparently come to Yafeng Town before the mana tide, inquiring about his whereabouts. At that time, Dylan was still extracting spores on the fifth floor, keeping to himself for long periods. In the entire town of Yafeng, barely anyone knew him.
Even those who did know him, like the tavern owner Kol, had no idea of his whereabouts.
In the end, Bella came up empty-handed.
But thanks to Bella's stay in Yafeng Town for a period, this information broker was able to successfully gather intelligence on her subsequent destination—Silver Sand Bay.
The territory of Glossa, one of the three major slave masters in the archipelago.
A scoundrel notorious for illegally kidnapping people.
The message said his daughter went to save someone!?
This undoubtedly filled Dylan with worry.
Going to such a place to save someone—it had to be some poor soul who'd become a slave!
If his daughter came into conflict with Glossa...
Could he only stay here and pray, hoping his daughter would be safe?
After dumping the pack's contents, Dylan simply threw the pack itself into the corner and was about to leave.
"Seems your life outside has been quite colorful."
"Boss!?"
This was the first time hearing the boss's voice outside of the fifth floor.
What followed was more than a minute of silence. Just as Dylan began to suspect he'd been hearing things, the boss's voice rang out again.
"The delay is still too high. I won't chat with you. Since you're on the first floor anyway, help me with something. Leave here, go right past three intersections, then turn right again. There's a large slime there—go kill it."
"No problem." Dylan nodded in agreement.
This was the first floor where monsters were at most Level 5—Dylan could easily handle it.
However, when he arrived, he didn't think so anymore.
Two scale-less puffshrooms were besieging a massive blue slime that was almost as wide as the entire corridor.
Spore cannons fired, exploding small chunks on the large slime's body, seemingly causing no pain.
Inside the slime floated another puffshroom, half-dissolved.
This scene made Dylan immediately wary—was this slime that strong?
He tried using [Whirling Slash LV5] from maximum attack range.
The large slime was not only sliced open but was scraped by the sword wind until its core was exposed.
Dylan stepped forward two paces in disbelief and finished it off with another strike.
So it wasn't that this slime was too powerful, but that these puffshrooms were too weak?
He knew very well the power of spore cannons. The pitiful damage just now made him think the slime had somehow negated the damage.
So what was the boss up to?
Why were the first-floor puffshrooms so weak?
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