Fire Mosquito Nest

"What... what is this?!"

At the edge of the Mushroom Garden, 120 Pujis stood neatly arranged in six rows.

40 Turret Pujis: [Magic Storage LV4] + [Mushroom Cannon LV6] + [Precision LV4]

40 Slime Pujis: [Magic Storage LV4] + [Mushroom Cannon LV6] + [Digestive Mucus LV3]

20 Hallucination Pujis: [Hallucinogenic Spores LV4] + [Chitin Shell LV4]

20 Ox-Horse Pujis: [Storage Cyst LV4] + [Entangle LV3]

This was the lineup for Linden's fourteenth Expedition Team.

It wasn't that Linden didn't want to stuff every skill into a single Puji. It was simply that the more skills a Puji had, the more magic power and time it took to produce.

And the increase in cost was exponential, so keeping a Puji to four skills or fewer was the best balance between cost-effectiveness and practicality.

"So Pujis come in this many varieties?!"

Inanna deeply felt that she had seen far too little. She had never even heard that Pujis had so many subspecies.

Some had Mushroom Caps shaped like pots.

Some were covered in shells, but unlike the Miner Pujis in the Mining Area, their shells had many more air holes.

Some even had tentacles!

How nice... If she had tentacles too, she wouldn't need to tie Magic Crystals to the top of her head...

"Linden, you called them an Expedition Team. What are they going to do?"

"This is a Dungeon. Of course we're going to subjugate Monsters."

"E-Earth Worms?"

Inanna looked as though she were saying, "If it's Earth Worms, I'm not going."

She truly didn't think Earth Worms were something Pujis could kill just by piling on numbers.

"I told you, not Earth Worms. This time, the target is Fire Mosquitoes—those parasites that keep flying into the Mushroom Garden, never produce anything themselves, and live only by Plunder! This time, we're wiping out their nest in one go!"

Linden had long since grown sick of being harassed from above every few days. He had found the Fire Mosquitoes' nest a long time ago, and the reason he hadn't exterminated them earlier was to steadily raise his High Temperature Resistance skill.

Now that High Temperature Resistance had reached LV6, wiping out all the Fire Mosquitoes at once would probably raise it to LV7. That was enough.

Besides, his priority escape plan had changed. Instead of sneaking past the Flame Demon, he would use Inanna to hunt Earth Worms. There was even less reason to keep these irritating bugs around.

Let them serve one final purpose and become the team's whetstone.

"Inanna, stay in the middle of the formation and follow my commands."

"Got it, got it."

Once she heard they were going to fight mosquitoes, Inanna relaxed.

She knew about Fire Mosquitoes. Their average level was LV20, and their attacks were straightforward, so they weren't difficult to deal with.

The troublesome part was that they could fly, had the Evasion skill, were difficult to hit, and liked to move in swarms.

Still, against them, even if she couldn't win with magic, protecting herself wouldn't be a problem.

Come to think of it, this counted as a war, didn't it? Though it was a war directly between Monsters and Monsters.

The old man had never allowed her to get involved with military adventures and the like. Facing something like this for the first time, she felt a little excited!

Still, these Puji units moved in perfect formation, their steps completely synchronized. Even an army couldn't compare, could it?

Was it because they were all under Linden's control?

That was indeed the reason.

With skills like Familiar Control, Mycelium Network, and Mental Integration, Linden controlled these Pujis as though he were playing an RTS game—though it consumed far more mental energy.

It was also thanks to the advantage of unified command that he had been able to establish himself in the Dungeon with Pujis whose every attribute was only 1.

After all, using strategies like luring enemies deep or making feints against a group of Monsters with almost no intelligence was a genuine dimensionality reduction strike.

But this time, no strategy was necessary. Strategies were only needed when the weak wanted to defeat the strong.

And now, compared to the Fire Mosquitoes—

He was the stronger one!

Wouldn't it be satisfying to rush in with a wave of F1 and F3?

He could also show off his strength along the way and give the newly joined Little Pink a bit more confidence.

The so-called Dungeon Deep Zone referred collectively to everything below the tenth floor. From there onward, there were no longer any clearly defined passages connecting the different levels.

The entire Deep Zone was filled with countless crisscrossing three-dimensional tunnels. These tunnels connected one enormous Cave after another, just as the Fire Mosquitoes' nest and Linden's Mushroom Garden were connected by a tunnel more than fifty meters in diameter.

Scattered Mushrooms grew hidden in the cracks along the way. They were both Linden's extended eyes and relay stations that helped him expand the Mycelium Network beyond the Mushroom Garden.

Through Familiar Control, he could control individual Pujis to leave the Mycelium Network and travel far away for scouting. But if he wanted to control Pujis on a large scale, he had to rely on the Mycelium Network.

In other words, if his opponent were smart enough, they could completely circle around and destroy these relay points, causing Linden to lose control over the Expedition Team.

But his opponents were just a bunch of Monsters about as smart as NPCs.

The Pujis' short legs made "puji puji" sounds as they stepped on the ground, echoing through the tunnel. Three hundred meters ahead, several scarlet spots of light suddenly appeared in the air. A few Fire Mosquitoes had discovered the Expedition Team.

"Ice Blade!"

A two-meter-long Ice Blade shot forward, but it had absolutely no accuracy. The Fire Mosquitoes didn't even need to use their Evasion skill before the Ice Blade flew into the rock wall overhead.

"Rookie, don't waste magic power."

"Y-Yes, sorry."

Only then did Inanna notice that the Pujis around her continued steadily onward at the same pace, not stopping in the slightest because Fire Mosquitoes had appeared.

The Fire Mosquitoes didn't approach either. Instead, as the Expedition Team drew closer, they chose to flee and quickly flew away.

Watching the Fire Mosquitoes vanish from sight, Inanna asked worriedly, "Won't they go back and warn the others?"

"Of course they'll warn them."

"Even if they're just low-intelligence Monsters, they still have the instinct to protect their nest. We'll definitely be facing swarms of Fire Mosquitoes soon."

Inanna really wanted to say that he was a Monster too...

"Then why did you let them go?"

Because they were too far away to hit.

"Of course, so we can catch them all in one net."

Beneath a steam-churning dome, hundreds of Fire Mosquitoes flew up and down around a large pool in the center, their buzzing deafening.

Fire Mosquitoes needed high-temperature pools similar to hot springs to reproduce. They spent their entire larval stage in the water, waiting to be fed by the adults. So long as this pool was destroyed, the Fire Mosquitoes in this area would naturally die out.

Naturally, the Fire Mosquitoes would do everything in their power to defend their nest.

Thus, when Inanna followed the Pujis to the end of the tunnel, the luminous glands on every Fire Mosquito's abdomen lit up orange, the color of danger.

Several nearby Fire Mosquitoes were the first to beat their wings and fly over.

"Water Snake Art!"

It was Inanna again. Faced with the approaching Monsters, she couldn't help using a spell first.

It was a little better than last time. At least she knew to use Water Snake Art, which could control its direction to a certain extent, rather than the straightforward Ice Blade. Unfortunately, it wasn't much better.

Unfortunately, her targets were Fire Mosquitoes with the Evasion skill. The Water Snake grazed one Fire Mosquito, but it merely dropped a few meters before regaining its balance.

Linden could only shake his head.

"Hey, rookie."