Elinore had suffered greatly before her death, and Little Pig wasn't faring much better.
The Blood-Seizure Ritual had left Little Pig bedridden again, like a wax figure with its skeleton removed — only her eyes could still move.
Norris carried a bag of warm blood through the streets of the Mushroom Fortress.
Dusk had settled, and the bioluminescent mushrooms along the roadside were flickering on one by one, casting blue-green halos over the figures walking side by side.
A lizardman's tail brushed against a human's coat hem. A dwarf stood on his tiptoes, arguing with a half-demon about something. A few Puchis pattered past them, puchi-puchi, puchi-puchi. Beings of different races lived in harmony in the Mushroom Fortress — the Fortress never discriminated against any thinking creature.
Norris watched the scene and found himself slowing his pace without thinking.
The Boss's speech about "justice" in the plaza last night was still echoing in his head. Looking at these people now, those words suddenly carried weight. It lifted Norris's mood — after all, who wouldn't want to be on the side that stood for justice?
Norris hummed a little tune as he arrived at his destination.
He pushed open the door. Louisa was sprawled across the bed, her hair fanned across the pillow. When she saw him enter, she gave a feeble greeting through the mycelial network.
"Blood Sister." Norris stuck a straw into the blood bag and held it to her lips.
Louisa took the straw and sipped slowly.
After drinking about half, she turned her head and nodded toward the corner of the room.
"Give some to that one over there, too."
Norris followed her gaze.
"A statue?"
He carried the remaining half-bag of blood over and looked at it closely.
It was a vampire statue, seated with its head held high. The features were crisp and the folds of its clothing flowed naturally.
The statue was tucked away in an awkward corner — Norris hadn't even noticed it until Louisa pointed it out — but its surface was polished to a shine, not a speck of dust on it. Someone clearly wiped it down regularly.
The statue's mouth was slightly parted, leaving a thin, narrow gap — as if it had been made that way on purpose.
"Is this a leftover container?" He leaned in and peered into the gap. Dark inside, nothing to see.
"Never mind what it is," Little Pig urged weakly. "Just pour it in."
Norris asked no more questions. He aimed the blood bag at the gap and slowly tilted it.
The warm liquid trickled through the gap, producing a faint gulping sound — like something swallowing.
He stared at the crack. The longer he looked, the more uneasy he felt. Not because the statue itself had changed, but because a nameless discomfort was crawling up his spine.
He hesitated for a moment.
[Energy Sense LV9]
"No way." Norris's hand froze in midair. He desperately hoped his senses were wrong.
Once again, the tailless lizardman had glimpsed something lurking beneath the bright face of the righteous Mushroom Fortress.
---
Elinore's flight to the Mushroom Fortress had been known to few, but her public execution had been no secret. The other factions received accurate word of it quickly.
The nobles of the United Kingdom were naturally delighted. The Fortress's decision to draw a clear line between the fungal folk and demonkind also put some of those who had harbored doubts at ease.
The elves had no clear reaction. They had been more focused lately on the earlier talk about the dead being resurrected as Puchis. The dwarves, meanwhile, were in complete chaos.
The anti-mycelium faction had abruptly organized and begun destroying the fungal mats spreading along the edges of the Mountains.
The Infected had always occupied the margins of dwarven society. They had resettled at the borders just to stay near the fungal mats and replenish the magic they needed to survive. Now even those border mats were being destroyed — their survival was directly threatened.
When some of the Infected went to argue their case, they were met with curses and fists.
The conflict escalated.
What had originally been a handful of incidents of the Infected attacking healthy dwarves and forcing infection on them — fabricated by the Empire to smear the mycelium — had now become a real tactic used by the Infected for revenge.
The level of conflict spiraled upward. By the time the Dwarf King noticed something was wrong and moved to intervene, it was already a little late.
The army was suppressing the unrest in border cities. Things looked calm, but it was only temporary — tensions between the two sides were still deepening. Not every dwarf bonded with mycelium was willing to leave the Mountains they had lived in their whole lives and go to the borderlands, where there were barely any hills to speak of, even if the quality of life there was actually better.
As for the dwarven situation, Lin Jun suspected that someone high up in dwarven leadership had colluded with the Empire. Otherwise it shouldn't have erupted this suddenly or spread so fast.
Unfortunately, of the three races, the Mountain Dwarves were the ones he had the least infiltration among. All he had so far was a handful of senior craftsmen in the mycelial network. As for the Empire...
---
"Hmph, even the way she died was stupid." Sigmund gave a cold snort and put the foolish woman who had been his rival for years out of his mind. He had no time to spend on that waste.
Since the Demon King had removed the roommate — that terrifying Fungus Lord — from his body, Sigmund was unshackled. He'd been busy ever since. On one front, there was training the army, selecting new talent, and constructing magical devices of unknown purpose. The Demon King seemed to have his sights set on starting another war, which made sense. Duskfall Keep was now in the Empire's hands, a position from which they could advance or retreat as needed — there was no reason to seize it only to leave it unused. On another front, Sigmund was cramming knowledge related to souls.
The more he learned, however, the more terrified he was of his former roommate's existence.
It was an anomalous soul unlike anything recorded in any text. And even after it had departed, it had left something behind in Sigmund. Aside from the occasional call that appeared in his dreams, he had also noticed his learning speed had recently increased.
Whether it was his memory for knowledge or the rate at which his skill levels rose, he was faster at all of it. He sometimes even received useless knowledge in his dreams that had nothing to do with him — such as the postnatal care of fat grubs.
It all seemed like benefits, but it also meant some unknown change had taken place inside him. It hung over him like a blade, driving him to collect soul-related knowledge all the more urgently.
There was also another matter. After the roommate left, the Blood Jade Wine had naturally run dry.
The remaining supply in the Empire had been bid up to astronomical prices. The vampires who had tasted paradise could no longer go back to a world without [Delicious].
Sigmund was worried that some vampires inside the Empire would eventually yield to temptation and secretly defect to the Mushroom Fortress. In fact, it was all but certain to happen.
He had already mentioned this to the Demon King. He could only hope the Demon King had some means of dealing with it.
Whenever Sigmund thought of how those self-proclaimed noble vampires might end up groveling at the feet of Puchis for a sip of something good, he couldn't help feeling a wave of sorrow.
---
In the underground vault of Duskfall Keep.
The dungeon that Mortis had once used to hold important prisoners had been completely converted into a laboratory by the Demon King.
Countless glass tubes were arranged in neat rows, each containing a unique slime that had been modified through the Blood Calamity.
Inside the tanks, alongside the slimes, were specimens of various races that had been infected by the mycelium.
In some tanks, the specimens had been dissolved and devoured by the slimes, leaving only skeletons behind.
In others, the slime and the specimen coexisted peacefully, with no interaction at all.
Only one specimen — a demon-born — had the slime wrapped around its body without being harmed, the mycelium on it dissolving away alone. In the Demon King's eyes, the [Infected] label on the specimen's status panel had actually disappeared.
"Finally."
The Demon King's expression remained blank, but a flicker of satisfaction passed through him. His concentration slipped by a fraction.
The next instant, the demon-born specimen winced in pain. The skin where the slime had been wrapped began to show signs of dissolving.
The Demon King immediately refocused his concentration on [Kin Manipulation] and brought the slime's predatory instincts under control.
The successive damage to his soul had taken its toll.
Still, the research into countering mycelium infection had made a breakthrough. All that remained was to refine it so it didn't require his direct control — letting this new strain of slime automatically dissolve the mycelium inside an infected host without harming them. Once that was achieved...
Even at this stage, it already gave him considerable room to maneuver.
"The Mountains — the last place outside the Empire that could still be called untouched..."
(End of Chapter)
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