"What... what do you mean by saying I'm very cute, but you aren't interested in pure-blooded humans?!"
Vina clutched her staff tightly in both hands. Her face showed both a young woman's delight at having her charms acknowledged and embarrassed anger at a man's frivolous words.
She genuinely struggled to process how much information Loulan's statement contained!
"Oh, what is so strange about that? How many adventurers who spend their lives in Darkest Dungeons are not mad? A powerhouse like Loulan who can sweep through a shallow region alone must have been delving for at least around five years."
After dealing with the unexpected windfall in his hands, the elderly dwarf Andu approached to comfort Vina. Maintaining good relations with mages, especially arcane mages, was always the right choice.
"Miss Vina, perhaps your understanding of this dungeon exists only on the pages of books. You may even think it's no different from the ordinary dungeons you've explored before, without the slightest idea how much it can change a person. Diseases, Compulsions, physiological disorders: enter often enough, and you'll always carry one or two of them back out. Over time, people inevitably acquire tastes ordinary folk struggle to understand. Humans who like demihumans, orcs, or even half-dragons are hardly rare. Loulan's preferences actually fall within the normal range."
"Do people truly like half-dragons who resemble upright lizards? By Truth, my father never told me the outside world was so peculiar."
Vina had already done everything possible to suppress her urge to swear.
Andu said nothing. He merely took a book from his coat, handed it to her, gently patted her shoulder twice, then silently walked away.
Somewhat confused, Vina watched Andu's departing back. Holding her staff in one hand, she raised the book before her with the other. A single glance made her flush, after which she turned the pages with guilt and nervousness.
《Dragonkin Maid》
【Tail Held High (Dragonkin Maid):
My good sir! I've come to clean your room.
Master:
Is that all, sweetheart? Cleaning the room?
Tail Held High:
I don't know what you mean, sir. I'm only a little dragonkin maid.
Master:
You are, my darling, and a wonderful dragonkin maid at that. Look at those strong legs and that beautiful tail.
Tail Held High:
How embarrassing, sir!
Master:
It's all right. What is there to fear when you're with me?
Tail Held High:
I must hurry and clean, sir. If I don't do a good job, the mistress will kill me!
Master:
Cleaning, hmm? I have some work for you. Come here and polish my spear.
Tail Held High:
But it's so big! It'll take me all night!
Master:
We have plenty of time, my sweet. Plenty of time.】
...
Loulan had no idea that the mage girl he had teased earlier was secretly reading smut. After leaving the party, he explored a new corridor.
The monster girl corpses along the way confirmed that the adventuring party had cleared the area. He also passed the open door to a secret room.
Farther along, Loulan saw the two unopened doors. Only three or four meters separated them, and they stood on opposite sides of the corridor.
"BANG!"
Choosing a door at random, Loulan raised his blade and kicked it straight open!
Beyond it lay the same type of secret room, with the same monster horde and configuration. The only difference was that the pile of corpses in the previous room had been replaced by a literal living wall.
Loulan soon found himself facing the first powerful enemy of his dungeon expedition, his first boss-class monster, and the first... unknown creature his filter couldn't turn into a girl!
"Fuck, so it just stitches them back together and they're good to go?!"
SWISH—
The silver blade flashed, and Loulan cut a fungus-corpse girl in half with one slash. Two long, slender fungal stalks promptly wrapped around her corpse and dragged it away.
His body continued tirelessly weaving among the monster horde while Loulan's eyes remained fixed upon the nearby wall, trying to devise a way to destroy it.
The wall was formed entirely from unknown, dark yellow fungi that covered the eastern side of the room. The tangled roots looked like animal intestines mashed together, and hundreds or thousands of fungal stalks of varying lengths extended from the gaps, spraying wax-yellow spores through the air.
The corpse Loulan had cut in half lay quietly beneath the wall. Countless emerging stalks then wrapped it so completely that it resembled a human-flesh rice dumpling.
The wrapping swiftly receded, revealing the two halves of the fungus-corpse girl's body stitched back together. She swaggered toward Loulan and attacked him again.
This scene had continued for a full fifteen minutes. Ever since Loulan violently kicked down the door, he had been fighting a horde of unkillable monsters.
Ordinary fungus-corpse girls, infected fungus-corpse werewolf girls, fungus-corpse spider girls, fungus-corpse bat girls, and all manner of monster girls decorated with fungal growths.
They were numerous and impossible to kill. Even if cut into five or six chunks, the nauseating fungal wall repaired them, filled the gaps with fungal matter, and produced another puppet zombie!
If the relic in his hand hadn't been durable enough, Loulan's blade would probably have gone dull long ago, forcing him to flee instead of stubbornly fighting here.
At the same time, this finally made Loulan understand why the place was called the "Fungus-Corpse Imperial Mausoleum." This might actually be a living dungeon! And he was currently only in its shallowest region, the easiest and safest zone.
It was hard to imagine how thoroughly the deeper reaches of this wretched place might have been infected by the fungi.
"No. I need to make a strategic retreat. A boss's bonus loot is bound to contain something good, but there's no need for me to take this risk!"
After fighting a while longer, Loulan confirmed that his body couldn't break through the charging monsters and decided to retreat for now.
He had remained here all this time to kill the boss. After fighting for so long without even approaching it, the monster girls had already died and revived nearly two or three hundred times.
When it was time to quit, he needed to quit. Otherwise, his losses would only grow!
No sooner had he confirmed the command than his body followed his intent and began retreating.
His movement was slow only because the monsters continued throwing themselves at him.
The fungal wall seemed to possess a mind of its own. Sensing that Loulan, its prey, wanted to retreat, it went berserk for some unknown reason. Hundreds or thousands of stalks thrashed across its surface, making Loulan so psychologically uncomfortable that he nearly retched.
His mental fortitude was far too weak!
Before long, with the aid of his exceptional "Precision," Loulan withdrew from the secret room without much trouble and returned to the corridor.
The fungus-corpse girls didn't pursue him any farther.
The fungal wall stood directly opposite the corridor door, while the door leading to the next passage was set into the wall on the other side.
Restricted by the fungal wall's range, the fungus-corpse girls had only a limited area of movement. The fungal wall wasn't stupid enough to abandon its advantage and force them to pursue Loulan.
That was good news and bad news!