"Rei! I’m leaving the mushrooms behind us to you!"
Elena’s voice rang out across the cavern. Rei shouted back as he swung Death Scythe in a wide horizontal slash, cleaving through the cap of a lunging mushroom.
"I’ve got Seto with me, so I still have plenty of breathing room! Don't worry about us!"
"Guruuuuu!"
Beside him, Seto let out a fierce cry, its front paws blurring as it crushed the bodies of the encroaching fungi.
It had been about an hour since they had crossed paths with the party that had camped overnight in the dungeon. Elena’s group had been making steady progress toward the stairs to B4F, but the moment they stepped into this particular zone, the surrounding mushrooms had turned aggressive.
They ranged from one meter in height to massive specimens nearly three meters tall. Curiously, these giant mushrooms had sprouted appendages that looked like tree roots, which they used to scuttle across the floor. Fortunately, their only method of attack seemed to be simple body slams. Whenever a mushroom was cut down, it released a cloud of spores, but they didn't appear to be toxic or harmful.
"Tch. These mushrooms look almost exactly like the ordinary ones growing elsewhere on B3F... their mimicry is way too good!"
Rei brought Death Scythe down, slicing through a two-meter-tall mushroom. As its upper half toppled toward him, he used the haft of his weapon to bat it aside.
Glancing toward the front, Rei saw Elena and the others being hemmed in by the sheer weight of numbers.
This is bad, he thought. Seto and I are fine, but Elena and the others are going to run out of stamina at this rate. Damn it, if those adventurers knew these things were here, they could have at least warned us. Or did they really not know? Wait... if they didn't know, does that mean they weren't attacked when they passed through here?
Even as he pondered the possibility, the mushrooms continued their relentless assault. Rei swung Death Scythe again, cutting through three of them at once, before shouting to his partner.
"Enough of this! Seto, buy me a few seconds!"
"Guruuuuu!"
Seto gave a high-pitched cry of acknowledgment. Rei leaped backward, distancing himself as he began to weave magic power into an incantation.
"Thou art a being forged of flame. Gather, alongside the blaze. Take flight with great wings of fire! Phoenix of the Skies!"
As the words left his lips, fire coalesced around the blade of Death Scythe, rapidly taking the form of a bird. It swelled in size until its wingspan reached nearly three meters in diameter.
The moment the spell was complete, the fiery phoenix flapped its wings and took flight. As a parting gift, Seto delivered a powerful kick to a nearby mushroom with its hind legs, using the recoil to spring back to Rei’s side.
As Seto landed, the phoenix dove headlong into the fungal swarm. Guided by Rei’s magic power, the fire bird wove through the ranks of the monsters like a living creature, incinerating everything it touched. The sheer heat was overwhelming; mushrooms burst into flames the instant the phoenix brushed past them, reduced to charred cinders in seconds. The phoenix soared through the mass of enemies to its heart's content, and in less than a few minutes, every mushroom that had attempted to flank Rei’s group had been burned to ash.
"Lady Elena, I’ll clear the ones on your side next! Fall back!"
Hearing his call, Elena stole a quick glance over her shoulder. Seeing that the rear guard was already clear, she made an immediate decision.
"Kyuste, Ara! You heard him! Fall back now!"
She shouted the command to her vanguard while snapping her whip-sword forward. The segmented blade extended like a lash, piercing through the body of a mushroom that was about to pounce on Ara. With a sharp flick of her wrist, Elena retracted the segments, tearing the mushroom apart from the inside.
Do these things not feel pain? she wondered. I’ve heard of monsters lacking a sense of pain, but this is strange...
She flicked her wrist again, the whip-sword whistling through the air to bisect another mushroom standing nearby.
By nature, a whip-sword excelled at wide-area suppression, but a single lash lacked the raw destructive power of Rei’s Death Scythe or Kyuste’s magic spear. While she could always lock the blade into its longsword form for more power, it was a disadvantage when she had to balance midguard and rearguard duties—especially against enemies that ignored pain. Normally, the sheer agony of a wound was enough to keep a monster at bay, but these fungi simply didn't care.
As she worked, Ara brought her weapon down in a vertical cleave, splitting the mushroom in front of her. Simultaneously, Kyuste thrust his magic spear into another. A moment later, a massive volume of water balls erupted from the spearhead embedded in the mushroom's core, causing the creature to explode from within.
Having cleared the immediate threat, the two began to retreat as ordered, but two more mushrooms scrambled into their path.
"I think not!" Elena cried, her whip-sword lashing out once more to slice through one of the encroaching fungi.
"I’ve got the other!" Vel added, firing a rapid succession of arrows into the second mushroom.
A single arrow wasn't enough to stop its advance, but the cumulative impact of several shafts slowed its momentum to a crawl. By the time Vel had sunk his fourth arrow into the cap, he had bought more than enough time for Kyuste and Ara to reach safety.
Then, the phoenix arrived.
"So that is Lord Rei’s magic..."
Having reached the rear, Ara stood in stunned silence as the bird made of fire swept over their heads. Even without magical talent, her warrior’s instinct told her just how much power was packed into that spell. She was equally struck by its terrible beauty.
Beside her, Kyuste watched the phoenix with an expression of begrudging admiration.
"Oh? Has even Kyuste finally acknowledged Rei?" Vel teased.
"Hmph. I acknowledged his skill long ago. It is only his personality that I find unacceptable," Kyuste snapped back, snorting at Vel’s provocation.
By the time the phoenix finally dissipated, only a handful of mushrooms remained. Elena and the others made quick work of the stragglers. The struggle had been primarily due to the mushrooms' numbers and their eerie resilience; once those were neutralized, finishing them off was little more than a chore.
However, a new concern soon arose.
"...What? Rei, Vel. Repeat that."
Elena’s voice was sharp. Beside her, Kyuste frowned, while Ara looked back and forth between Rei and Vel with confusion.
Vel spoke up again, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "We tried to harvest magic stones from the corpses, but there isn't a single one to be found. To put it simply, these mushrooms aren't actually monsters."
"But they clearly attacked us," Elena countered.
Kyuste nodded in agreement. "Lady Elena is right. They coordinated an ambush from both sides. How can they not be monsters?"
"I hear you, Kyuste, I really do," Vel sighed, sounding annoyed that his findings were being doubted. "But Rei and I searched those corpses top to bottom. If you don't believe me, go dig through the remains yourself and see if you can find a magic stone."
Kyuste knew Vel wasn't one to slack on the job. For all his casual talk, the man was a professional when it came to his duties. Even so, the revelation was hard to swallow.
"Hmph. It seems we are plagued by strange troubles on this journey," Elena muttered. "First that mantis on the road, and now these mushrooms."
Rei's ears perked up at her comment. He turned back toward a mushroom corpse that hadn't been fully incinerated. The others watched in silence as he approached the remains.
"Hey, what's the matter? We already checked, there's no loot to be had," Vel called out.
Ignoring him, Rei knelt by the corpse. He wasn't looking at the mushroom cap this time; he was focusing on the area where the roots met the body. He drew his mithril knife, carved out a section of the root-like appendages, and walked back to the group.
"Did you find something?" Elena asked.
Rei shook his head slightly. "Not exactly. But something you said just now stuck with me."
"My words?"
"Yes. About the mantis. As I mentioned then, that mantis was almost certainly an alchemical construct. These mushrooms, on the other hand, look identical to the normal ones on this floor. They don't have internal organs, and as we saw, they don't even have magic stones. The only thing that makes them 'monsters' is these tree roots that allowed them to move."
Elena's eyes narrowed as she caught his drift. "You're saying the roots themselves were created through alchemy?"
"It’s just a theory, but it fits."
"It certainly explains the lack of magic stones," Elena mused. "But do you realize the implications? If the mantis was a one-off encounter, we could call it an experiment by some depraved alchemist. But if we’re being attacked by alchemical creations again inside this dungeon... it’s no longer a coincidence."
Kyuste, Ara, and Vel all darkened at the realization.
"If I'm right," Rei said, "then both the mantis and these mushrooms were targeting us specifically."
"But Lady Elena," Ara said, her voice dropping, "only a handful of people in the Noble's Faction knew we were coming here."
Vel shrugged, his usual flippant mask returning. "Which means someone in the Noble's Faction wants us out of the picture."
"Vel! How can you say that? Lady Elena is the very core of our faction!"
"Exactly. And because Lady Elena is the symbol of the Noble's Faction, she’s a target for anyone who wants to change the status quo."
"...So we have a traitor?"
"It’s just circumstantial for now," Vel admitted, looking at the root in Rei’s hand. "We can't even prove these roots are alchemical yet. Besides, the mantis dissolved into nothing to hide the evidence of its creation. These roots didn't. What do you make of that, Lady Elena?"
"If I had to guess," Elena replied, "the mantis was a masterpiece—a unique, high-end creation. These roots, if they are alchemical, likely use common, mass-produced techniques. Whoever made them probably didn't care if the technology was discovered because it wouldn't lead back to them."
"So, the same culprit, but different tools?" Vel asked.
"Most likely. Coincidences don't happen twice like this. It’s a pity we couldn't secure a sample of that mantis for comparison."
Elena sighed. In her mind, the involvement of a hostile alchemist was no longer a question, but a fact.
"Regardless, as long as we stay on our guard, it doesn't matter what they throw at us. We’re nearly at the stairs. Everyone, stay alert."
The group nodded. Rei stored the root sample in his Misty Ring, and they resumed their trek. An hour later, they finally located the stairs leading down to B4F.
The Altar of Inheritance lay on the lowest floor, B7F. They had crossed the halfway point of the dungeon, but their map only covered up to B3F. From here on, they would be navigating into the unknown.