What If I Can't Go Back?

Dylan felt like he had already entered a semi-retired life.

Every day after getting up from his mycelium coffin, he would cook himself a bowl of mushroom soup.

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He had picked all of these in the forest. Boss had said that gray mushrooms could be eaten freely.

Still, as a Fungus-kin, eating mushrooms gave him a subtly strange sense of dissonance...

And the broth always carried a faint, bland earthy smell. He had to sprinkle in a few grains of rock salt to bring out even a little flavor.

Besides, perhaps because he had previously mentioned to Boss that the floor was too dark, the mushrooms had recently started giving off fluorescence.

While solving the lighting problem was certainly nice, having the cooked soup glow faintly was deeply unpleasant. It made him feel like he was drinking a witch's potion.

Fortunately, his work was very leisurely. Unless Boss was sending him to the surface on an errand, Boss rarely assigned him any tasks.

Every now and then, an Adventurer would leave behind equipment or items that needed Dylan to appraise their value. Other than that, there was nothing much to do.

He would occasionally use his free time to hunt on the upper floors and bring back some edible Monsters.

After all, he couldn't eat mushrooms all the time.

The last time he told Boss that he wanted some Monsters to improve his meals, Boss sent him several mangled Pujis. Dylan had realized then that if he wanted something extra to eat, he would have to figure it out himself.

No matter what, eating his own coworkers was just too...

Fortunately, Boss did not object to him hunting on the upper floors, and even supported it. Boss only reminded him to throw whatever remained of the Monsters into the swamp.

Finally, to improve his quality of life on the Fifth Floor, he had specifically applied for an empty plot at the edge and begun building his own wooden house.

Unfortunately, he ran into work just as construction began.

Boss first asked whether he knew anything about some sort of mana fluctuation, but how could a purely melee fighter like him know anything about mana?

Then he was immediately assigned a mission to gather information on the surface. It looked rather urgent.

Not daring to delay, Dylan took only half a day to make his way up to the surface as familiarly as ever.

Then he ran into three official Adventurer Guild personnel guarding the Dungeon entrance.

He recognized the leader. He was a middle-aged Adventurer named Marshall, who had been active in Mute Wind Town ten years ago.

But Marshall was a Gold Rank Adventurer, and ever since joining the Guild, he had stopped entering Dungeons.

Seeing someone blocking the entrance, the guilty Dylan could not help breaking out in a cold sweat.

What had happened?

Why was the entrance sealed off?

Would they inspect something and discover his Camouflage?

After swallowing, Dylan still forced himself to straighten his back and walk out.

Yet the Guild personnel merely glanced at Dylan and allowed him to leave.

Instead, they stopped four Adventurers heading toward the Dungeon.

The red-armored warrior slammed the pommel of his sword heavily against the stone slabs.

"Why aren't we allowed into the Dungeon?"

Sparks seemed to fly from the accusation, while Marshall stood across from him with his arms folded, looking utterly calm.

Adventurers were all like this. Whenever there was a problem, they raised their voices first. He was used to it.

"Magic Tide warning. The Dungeon is sealed under Guild orders."

The moment the words "Magic Tide" came out, the Adventurers' dissatisfaction seemed to vanish instantly.

Although each Dungeon only experienced a Magic Tide once every decade or so, and most Adventurers had never encountered one before today.

Its reputation as the Dungeon's greatest disaster was known to every Adventurer.

No one objected to sealing the Dungeon because of a Magic Tide.

The four huddled together and muttered for a long while before asking with some concern.

"How long will it be sealed? What about the timed quests we've accepted? You can't just drag this out until the quests fail..."

Some timed quests required deposits. If they failed, those deposits would naturally be lost.

But the Guild was clearly experienced in such matters and had considered every angle.

"Just go to the Guild counter and apply for an extension or cancel the quest. As for the seal, naturally it will remain until the Magic Tide ends."

With that, Marshall waved the Adventurers away, signaling for them to leave quickly.

The four Adventurers left, but Dylan rubbed his hands and came forward.

"I hid some things on the Second Floor. Can you let me go get them? I'll be quick!"

"No!" Marshall rejected him without even thinking. What did someone else's lost belongings have to do with him?

Dylan stepped half a pace forward and quietly held out a glittering gold coin before Marshall.

Marshall's Adam's apple bobbed twice as his eyes flicked toward the two colleagues behind him.

The people assigned to this mission with him were not familiar faces. There was no telling whether someone might report him. It was not worth taking a risk for a few gold coins.

"Rules are rules!"

Marshall shoved Dylan away and rejected his request to return once more with an utterly impartial expression.

Dylan scratched his head helplessly. What was he supposed to do now?

He had easily obtained the information, but he couldn't send it back.

He couldn't help feeling that Boss, compared to him, needed a high-level stealth specialist more for this kind of thing...

After thinking it over, he decided to check the tavern first.

The moment the mold-speckled wooden door opened a crack, the murky stench of alcohol slammed into Dylan and made him retreat half a step.

Rotten Willow Tavern's business today could only be described as explosive.

The Adventurers who could not enter the Dungeon clearly intended to soak themselves to death in alcohol.

When Dylan entered, he found that there was not a single empty seat. Drunken Adventurers packed every corner.

If three of Boss's Self-Destruct Pujis were here right now...

Dylan shook his head. Why was he having such a strange thought?

"One drink." Dylan tapped the bar with his knuckles.

The owner scooped half a bowl of brown liquid from a wooden barrel. Suspicious grime still clung to the edge of the ceramic bowl.

The bowl clearly held less than a wooden cup. That old swindler...

Finding a spot to lean against, Dylan listened carefully to the conversations around him.

Unsurprisingly, everyone was discussing the Magic Tide.

Some younger people did not understand the dangers of a Magic Tide and were still complaining that they were short on money and could not survive without being able to enter the Dungeon.

This immediately drew mockery from the others.

"Kid, isn't staying alive good enough?"

"You want to enter the Dungeon now? Planning to feed every scrap of flesh on your body to the Monsters?"

Amid everyone's laughter, a white-bearded retired Adventurer offered some useful information.

"You don't need to worry about having no work.

"Based on experience, the Guild will issue assistance quests in a few days.

"By then, countless Monsters will be waiting at the Dungeon entrance for you to kill. There may even be things that escaped from the Deep Zone.

"As long as you're not afraid of dying, there'll be plenty of money to make."

Hearing that there was still a chance to earn money, quite a few people in the tavern began looking forward to it, making the old Adventurer shake his head.

Vera also eagerly thanked the old Adventurer.

If the three of them really could not earn money for ten days or half a month, they would have no choice but to consider pawning their equipment...

Dylan already knew Monsters would rush out, but this was the first time he had heard that those from the Deep Zone would be among them.

If even Deep Zone Monsters were charging up to the surface, the inside of the Dungeon was probably even more chaotic...

He had never considered such a problem before.

Dylan also remembered hearing people say that after every Magic Tide, the ecology of each Dungeon floor would undergo some changes.

He was a little worried now. Boss would not become one of the parts that got changed away, would Boss...?