The Scapegoat Dragged In

Lu Lu Wo announced that the pirated Crucible Knight in front of them was the biggest surprise the Verdant Dungeon had ever given them.

No, it's fright.

This kind of thing, this kind of thing.

"Pfft—"

Lu Lu Wo couldn't help but drool, and a smile instantly spread across her face.

"What the hell is this? My God, how can it be so ugly yet somehow similar to something else?!"

She laughed loudly, which looked extremely rude, so she covered her mouth to try and appear more polite.

"Hahahaha." The wild laughter turned into a muffled laugh.

With her setting a bad precedent, the New Strategy Team also burst into laughter, Verdant Dungeon instantly became a sea of joy.

The giant toad that imitated the Curse Frog and the Skeleton Monster earlier. Even the vegetable-like characters couldn't make them laugh, but this fake Crucible Knight was genuinely hilarious.

His ugliness is one thing, but what's even more amusing is that every detail about this guy is full of "stereotypes".

The Axe Helm of the Crucible Knight becomes an axe covering the entire head in this case. The style of the armor is also a crude combination of polygons, and the delicate patterns are transformed into the veins of leaves. Rather than calling this Crucible Knight, it would be more accurate to call it a vegetative person with an axe-head.

It gives the impression that the creator simply heard someone describe the general appearance of the Crucible Knight and then created it based on their imagination.

Just like when Gong Qiying a child, he really imagined Kizaru as a yellow ape when he heard others talking about the three admirals of the Navy. It wasn't until he grew up that he realized that the Kizaru he imagined should actually be called the Furious Rajang.

The Verdant Dungeon is so lively!

Probably provoked by the laughter, the fake Crucible Knight charged over, brandishing his Greatsword. He ran quite well, and judging by his combat strength, he was at least an Elite Monsters — Elite Monsters in the general sense, not comparable to Sein.

According to Sion's Rating system, ordinary Elite Monsters are roughly around D Rank, and battles of this level can be ended in an instant for the New Strategy Team.

"Smack!"

The pseudo- Crucible Knight crashed heavily to the ground, its vines struggling to reassemble its severed legs, but as a Mid Rank fire spell struck, flames erupted, and it began to struggle violently.

"It's quite heat-resistant."

One flame wasn't enough, so they used two, then three, until finally it was reduced to ashes.

Compared to the previous ones, this monster is indeed quite powerful and can probably trap quite a few people. But what's the point of trapping people here?!

Could it be that the powerful adventurers who were hoping to defeat it went through all this trouble to enter the valley just to find the Tree Sprite to extract juice for fertilizer?

Lu Lu Wo rubbed her temples and sighed. If the design of the Zane Dungeon was a 90 out of 100, then the Verdant Dungeon was a 10 out of 10, a "flawless masterpiece".

"Is it really necessary to make a walkthrough for this kind of dungeon?" she muttered to herself. "If we leave it unattended, I'm afraid no one will come here in less than two years."

She felt that her estimate of two years was too conservative; Ka Rong had even said they could make a name for themselves here. Now Lu Lu Wo was starting to doubt the Earl's judgment.

Despite her initial disdain, as a self-proclaimed expert in speedrunning dungeons, she noticed some useful details even without paying particular attention.

The Fog Gate that appear when fighting elite or boss monsters are a unique feature of the Zane Dungeon; other dungeons either don't have them or use barriers or special terrain features instead.

The valley path is completely unobstructed, meaning people could easily lure this fake Crucible Knight out and then sneak into the valley.

If we think about it further, perhaps we could look for traps in the Swamp that could trap monsters, thus gaining more time for exploration.

"I'm a genius." Lu Lu Wo smiled confidently and walked into the valley.

The scenery suddenly opened up before them, and the air became refreshingly fresh. A verdant forest appeared before them, with green grass and flowers everywhere, and the bright sunlight shining evenly on every plant.

"No wonder the people in the city miss the old Verdant Dungeon."

With a professional spirit, the New Strategy Team searched high and low, trying to see if it was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and whether there were traps hidden under the beautiful scenery.

The result was completely different from their guess. There were indeed monsters here, but the style was completely different from before. The giant toads turned into Tree Sprite that looked like trees, palm-sized Forest Fairy that flew like dancing, cabbages with chubby dog heads, and birds that exploded like fireworks when they died.

Lu Lu Wo was speechless; the scene before her eyes seemed to only exist in fairy tales.

She then fell into deep thought, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to complain.

Since the scenery is so beautiful, why don't you just focus on your art? People will come here to see the scenery!

Who are they trying to disgust by creating such a Swamp in front of us?!

If this dungeon had consciousness, Lu Lu Wo would love to drag it out and question it properly: why did it imitate the Zane Dungeon? Why couldn't it just stick to its own style?

But another question arises: why did the Verdant Dungeon undergo such an anomaly?

The workings of dungeons have long been a mystery, but one theory has gained considerable support: external stimuli can trigger a reaction in the dungeon.

The most direct evidence is "rampage". If we summarize the historical rampage events in dungeons, it is not difficult to find that those dungeons were all stimulated by external factors.

If we use this theory to speculate about the Verdant Dungeon...

Is it because the number of people entering the dungeon has decreased dramatically?

In other words, it's because the Zane Dungeon stole its "customers"?

Lu Lu Wo suddenly shook her head, patted her cheeks, and said, "Why think about these things? I'm not a scholar."

"Have you all had enough rest? Everyone needs to work hard these next few days."

She looked out of the valley, intending to quickly devise a strategy for this place. With their experience at Farron Keep, dealing with this "skin-changing monster" wouldn't be difficult for them.

As for how many days they would stay here, Earl Ka Rong said that they would use magic to notify the demons once they discovered any trace of them, and only then would they return.

Regardless, the New Strategy Team is an ally of the Farron Guard, and given their current relative weakness, Lu Lu Wo wants to take extra care of them while fighting the demons.

She bent down and picked a wildflower, its delicate fragrance lingering around her, a feeling of closeness to nature that was comforting.

So she had to add one more complaint.

"Why add manure outside such a beautiful view? It just makes Verdant Dungeon seem silly."

"I'm not stupid!"

In the Verdant Dungeon, in the city lord's room, a tiny figure, only a dozen centimeters tall with transparent wings on its back, cried out in exasperation.

She was so angry that her delicate features were all twisted into a mess; she was definitely a master of facial expressions.

This is the Dungeon Lord, named Lei Lei Ni Ye.

But for now, she prefers her original name— Hai Nisi.

One or two months ago, she, a noblewoman, ran away from home with her guard Fei Li, to play outside. As a result, she became one of the first victims after the anomaly in the Zane Dungeon.

After enduring a hellish ordeal, she and Fei Li were successfully sent back to the Resurrection Room. From then on, she developed a psychological trauma towards the Zane Dungeon, and the mere mention of its name would fill her with fear.

She originally intended to issue a bounty after returning home, recruiting warriors to clear the Zane Dungeon.

As soon as he got home, his furious parents locked him up in his room, and forget about posting a reward or anything like that.

After a long period of boring life at home, she woke up one day to find her life completely changed.

Hai Nisi suddenly transformed into Lei Lei Ni Ye, the lord of the Verdant Dungeon!

She was really terrified in the first few days; no, she is still enveloped in immense unease even now.

For some reason, the previous city lord here suddenly went insane, and she was unlucky enough to be caught and made to take the blame.

Unable to leave the dungeon, unable to communicate with the outside world, unable to see his parents and Fei Li again.

She had no way of knowing how her family reacted after she disappeared!

She considered seeking help, but whenever she tried to confess her identity to the adventurers who entered the dungeon, she felt an inexplicable fear, as if a terrible ending would follow if she were to reveal her identity.

Fear enveloped her, and the pressure from her Spirit Power made her tremble. The Spirit Power in this underground city was running low; if it reached its limit, she would die!

It took Hai Nisi several days to figure out how the Dungeon Lord system worked, and she also saw that the number of people Verdant Dungeon was decreasing.

I must acquire Spirit Power!

But how can one obtain a large amount of Spirit Power?

In desperation, she thought of the Zane Dungeon.

If you imitate its design, you should be able to gain a lot of Spirit Power, right?

However, she had only seen the monsters and terrain of Sein, and this shallow knowledge was not enough for her to make the exact same thing. She could only select some Available Monster and buildings left by the previous city lord and stitch them together.

She had seen Skeleton Monster and giant iron balls in person, but she had only heard of Curse Frog, Crucible Knight, and the like from adventurers. That's why she used a giant toad to imitate Curse Frog and a bunch of vine monsters to imitate Crucible Knight, creating something abstract.

As it turned out, the traps she created by imitating the Zane Dungeon were indeed effective, and her Spirit Power surged in the first few days, leading her to believe that she could maintain it indefinitely.

However, on the fourth day, the number of visitors plummeted.

If life is a series of ups and downs, then hers has been a series of ups and downs, and so far there's no sign of it getting better.

He was going to die, die in this unknown corner. If he could reclaim all the land into Spirit Power and leave only a little empty space, he might be able to survive for a while, but what difference would that make from being dead?

As if things weren't bad enough, not long ago, a group of strange people who were dead but didn't exude any Spirit Power came knocking on their door.

"We'll give you our Spirit Power, and you'll help us make props."

Hai Nisi remembered that it was a "person" with a frog's head talking to himself in the dungeon, but she clearly sensed that the person was talking to her.

She was terrified because these strange-looking people looked exactly like the demons in the legends.

The demons threatened her that if she didn't cooperate obediently, they would come in and cause trouble every day, increasing her Spirit Power expenditure and hastening her death!

Hai Nisi didn't dare to reply at that time, and the other party left with the words "We will come again".

From that day on, her mind was in a mess, she was in a daze all day long, and she wished she could give up thinking. Her state was very similar to that of Saine's predecessor, Godwyn, as if she had Alzheimer's disease.

It wasn't until today, when she sensed the powerful Spirit Power of Lu Lu Wo and the others breaking in, that Hai Nisi regained her senses.

But when she was awake, nightmares began to haunt her.

The demons have returned.