The dungeon has been parasitized

Chapter 104 Walking Mushroom

"Klein, there are mushrooms over there!"

Yanami suddenly stopped, pointing to a few red mushrooms that had sprouted to the side, her eyes shining.

"Hey, don't eat this! What if it's poisonous?"

"Huh? But I've eaten this mushroom before, it's delicious."

"Are you sure? It would be terrible if you were wrong."

Tick.

A drop of water landed on Yanami's face, and she shivered.

"It's so cool!"

Klein looked up at the cave ceiling. The spot where the water droplets were dripping was already the tip of a stalactite, and the corresponding spot was around the mushroom.

No wonder mushrooms can grow there.

"Let me take a closer look..."

Yanami bent down, intending to pick the largest mushroom to take a look.

"Wait a minute! At least let me use my ability to see if I can touch this!"

"Pfft!"

But just as Yanami's hand was about to touch the mushroom, the cap of the red mushroom suddenly moved and made a strange popping sound.

"what?"

Immediately afterwards, the mushroom suddenly jumped up from the ground, spraying out a stream of red powder, and ran off to one side of the passage.

Huh? A moving mushroom? And is that red powder spores?

"Huh? Huh?"

Yanami, whose face was sprayed with red spores, looked at the mushroom that ran away in great surprise.

"Hey, don't inhale that dust! What if it's toxic?"

As he spoke, Klein manipulated the vines on the Shadow Wolf to catch the escaped Walking Mushroom. Bound by Klein's vines, it began to writhe and try to break free, spewing out red spores, but all in vain.

"Achoo!"

Yanami sneezed after being sprayed in the face with red spores, rubbing her nose in discomfort.

Are you alright?

"I don't know, maybe it's nothing? I feel like nothing's wrong—Achoo!"

Yanami answered in a voice that was pinching her nose, and before she could finish speaking, she sneezed again.

"Then I'll use my ability to check if there's any danger. Don't move yet."

Klein activated his identification skill on the red spores on Yanami's face, choosing to determine if they were poisonous.

Success rate: 100%

Launch successful.

[Red Walking Mushroom Spores: The reproductive cells of the Red Walking Mushroom are sprayed at enemies when startled.]

[Toxicity: Slightly toxic; organisms that come into contact with these spores will temporarily lose interest in the red walking mushroom.]

The upgraded identification system has become incredibly useful. Previously, the information obtained was rather general, but now that I can make my own selections, Klein is growing to love this skill more and more.

However, it's only slightly poisonous, so it doesn't seem to cause any problems. The effect of making enemies hate mushrooms is also quite interesting.

"Yana, what do you think of this?"

"Um?"

Klein reached out to Yanami to bind the vines of the red walking mushroom, which was still wriggling. There were two small legs under the stem, which were also wriggling.

"Ugh?! What a disgusting mushroom..."

Yanami shrank back with a hint of disgust and took two steps back.

She was just drooling over this mushroom, wasn't she? Who knew that even the gluttonous Yanami could show such disgust towards food?

"Hmm, it seems everything's alright."

"What do you mean? What's wrong with this mushroom?"

Yanami tilted her head, seemingly puzzled.

"Yes, the spores of this walking mushroom are slightly poisonous."

"Oh no?! Isn't that a very bad sign?!"

Klein smiled gently as he looked at Yanami, who was filled with panic.

"Don't panic. Although it contains a small amount of toxins, the effect is just that it will make you dislike it and not want to eat it."

"Oh, is that so? No wonder I suddenly found it disgusting."

It looks a bit like a squid squirting ink to escape.

"It's alright now, what do you want to do with it?"

"Um……"

Yanami looked at the still wriggling Walking Mushroom, raised her chin, and thought for a while.

"Since it's so reluctant to let others eat it, it might actually taste delicious! Let's keep it and try it when I'm no longer averse to it!"

"You really love to eat... but whatever."

After binding the Walking Mushroom tightly, Klein stretched out his vines to grab other mushrooms on the ground, but it seemed that only this one was a Walking Mushroom, while the others were just ordinary mushrooms that looked very similar.

"I touched a Walking Mushroom on my first try, and then got sprayed in the face with spores... Is that lucky or unlucky?"

After packing the mushrooms, Klein and Yanami continued their journey towards the rat tribe's stronghold.

After two hours of navigating the winding passages, Klein and Yanami finally arrived at the rat tribe's stronghold. At the end of the passage was a tall and sturdy stone wall.

There were also many lookout holes in the wall, from which several heads of rat-like beings with round rat ears could be seen peeking out.

Judging from the people who are peeking out, they are all women. Isn't the male-to-female ratio of the mouse-like people a bit too strange?

"Who goes there?"

"I am Yanami! I'm here to make a trade."

Yanami raised her head and shouted at the wary rat-like people.

"Please wait a moment!"

After a while, a sound came from the stone door.

Crunch, crunch...

The stone gate was pulled up, but there was a second gate made of stone piles behind it, though two armored rat-like people could be seen through the gaps.

Please show me the token.

"OK."

Yanami stepped forward and handed the map given to her by the rat-man through a gap in the fence. The rat-man took the map, examined it carefully, and finally nodded.

"The items are fine. You're Miss Yanami, right?"

"Oh, yes, you know me?"

The guard under the armor nodded.

"Because we are not trading with any other humans for the time being, and you are the only one, the leader instructed us in advance, so we knew that you would be coming to trade soon."

"Oh, I see."

"However, for safety's sake, this shadow wolf will have to stay outside. Don't you have any safer monsters to help transport the things?"

"I see. Sorry... there are no other monsters."

Yanami smiled somewhat awkwardly. The monsters in the plantation were all dangerous... If she brought Thunder Crocodile over, they would definitely be terrified, right?

"Well then..."

The guard's gaze swept past Yanami and fell upon the pile of goods that Shadow Wolf was carrying.

"We can lend you our rock-crushing rats temporarily to help you get the stuff in."

Yanami wore a thoughtful expression, but in reality, she was asking Klein a question.

"Klein, are you alright? Is there any danger?"

Bringing Shadow Wolves originally served as a form of protection, but now that they can't be brought in, it's a bit of a hassle.

"Hmm...it's alright, isn't it? They seem very powerful. If they were after us, they would have already razed the plantation to the ground, right?"

"That's true, then I'll agree."

Seeing that Yanami had not made a move, the guard asked her again.

What do you think?

Yanami snapped out of her daze and nodded.

"No problem, thank you for your help."

"You're welcome, you're a guest. But please wait a moment, someone will bring the Rockcutter over shortly. You can rest in the lounge inside."

"Okay, sure."

Clang.

The guard opened a small door that could only allow one person to pass through at a time.

"Please come in from here."