The Undead Boss and Cleaner stomp out of the massive stump of a Boss Room, a cloud of spores left filling the air in their wake as they move outside and head for the nearest tree. Watching the two of them walk away, Bug notices that the Boss spider still doesn’t have any mushrooms growing on it despite having been right next to the Cleaner. There are plenty of the colorful spore stuck to its body, but they haven’t taken root on the walking corpse at all.
“Is it because it is a Hoarfrost Undead? Can the spores not handle the cold?”
Still walking towards the exit, Bug quickly decides to test this. Pointing to one of her own Hoarfrost Undead, one of the yet to be named ones, she quickly sends a mental order to the frost covered skeleton to run into the field of mushrooms that is already spreading in this room.
“Give it a couple seconds… Make sure you get some spores on you, there you go. Alright, come back and let me get a look at you.”
The skeleton jogs back over and then slows to walk beside her. It takes just a glance to tell that she was right. All the spores on the skeleton’s body are frozen over and covered in ice.
“Pretty… It’s like you’re covered in glitter now. Wait, how do I know what glitter is? Is it… no, it’s not that one… maybe… Oh. One of the party spells, right, that’s where I know it from. Why would people waste Skill Points on stuff like this, like, Nature’s Beauty? Just a waste of points…”
Bug shakes her head and gets herself back on track. Spores, focus on the spores.
These deadly little things have been a danger to herself for a while now, but there is a chance that that might have changed now.
Plucking one of the spores off of the skeleton, a green one because its glow makes the ice look like a tiny emerald, Bug looks it over, rotating her finger about to look at the tiny and very deadly thing from every angle.
“Well, at least with this, I know that I can freeze them if they become a problem, but I should figure out if Ailment Immunity protects me from these things… Such an expensive Skill and all I had to do was make myself Half-Undead to get it for free. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry… Not to mention Unageing. I’m not even a year old yet and I got that one for free as well. Perks of being Undead I guess…”
Meh, I’ll just be happy with what I got. Now then, need to test this. This is going to suck probably, but if I need to, I can just cut off my finger and then regrow it.
Disabling her passive ice aura, Bug’s body slowly warms up a bit and she exhales on the frozen spore, melting the layer of ice. The moment that the spore comes into contact with the skin of Bug’s finger, she gets a notification in her feed.
//Notice: User has made contact with a Death Fungous spore. Ailment Immunity has prevented infection. Would you like to allow infection? Growth will be limited to point-of-contact and will not spread without the User’s permission.
//Allow infection? y/n
Bug reads over the notice and raises an eyebrow at it.
Why would I want to let it infect me? I guess… Hmm. I guess that it could be used as a way to defend myself? If my body was covered in deadly mushrooms, it’s not like anything would want to eat me, right? For combat, I guess it could be used as a way for someone to carry the spores around and infect others with them, but I don’t really need that since I can just make them with my magic.
Hmm… yes, let it grow. I want to see what happens.
Getting permission, the System allows the spore to take root into Bug’s finger and she gets to watch as a little colorful mushroom sprouts from her flesh. She can’t tell if it should hurt or not, but it certainly doesn’t look pleasant. After a couple seconds of rapid growth, she eventually has a finger sized mushroom growing from the tip of her finger. But that is all it does. It doesn’t grow any larger and just like the Notice stated, the mushroom isn’t spreading to the rest of her hand. Not unless she lets it.
“Huh, neat… Could be useful, but I honestly don’t want to keep these things on me.”
Bug imagines herself covered in the things, a walking blight of deadly spores that no one can even touch or be near without risking infection. And then she imagines meeting Hannah again and what she would think of seeing Bug like that… They wouldn’t be able to be near each other, or… or hug again…
“Yeah, I don’t need these growing on me. They’re useful enough as is.”
A quick command to the System and the mushroom is suddenly rejected by her body, Ailment Immunity quickly blacklisting the growth and terminates it. The mushroom withers and falls off into Bug's waiting hand, a bloody hole being left in her finger where its roots used to be. She quickly heals it, and it is like it was never even there.
This naturally raises a new question for her though. Without a doubt, these mushrooms are one of Bug’s deadliest weapons. They were even able to kill the Cleaner when she couldn’t after all, and now, now she knows that she is immune to them.
Decision. I can use these to cheat and clear the Dungeon with ease, or I don’t…
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It would be easy, too easy even, to just walk through the Dungeon alongside a living tide of fungus as every challenge is simply infected and pushed aside. Bug would barely even have to raise a finger as the mushrooms and the Undead would do all the work for her. But where would the challenge in that be? Would she be able to say that she really beat the Dungeon if she did that, if she cheated? Well, yes, but still…
It’s one thing to flood the layers with death after she has cleared them, they are beaten and behind her now, hers by every right to destroy as she sees fit. But ahead of her?
Bug wants to get revenge against the Dungeon for what it has done to her people, for trapping her here as a slave and denying her freedom. She wants to see it suffer. But most importantly, she wants to beat it at its own game now. To be able to rub it in the Dungeon’s face that she took it head on and found it to be wanting. She wants to laugh as she lords over the Dungeon in its final moments, not even being able to argue that she didn’t do it right, that she cheated. Bug wants to win and she wants to do it properly.
The mushrooms will stay as an emergency method, for if she should need them. She isn’t about to die for her pride after all, but unless she needs to use them in an emergency, they are remaining sealed for now.
Although, she must admit that this is strange. Before meeting Hannah and The Green Scarves, Bug wouldn’t have hesitated to use the mushrooms. To just ride to victory on a broken and overpowered Spell. Bug has changed somewhat, and she is slowly noticing it.
Mmm, introspection aside, this Spell is really busted, and I know that Redacted has been watching me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Grow Death Fungous ends up getting nerfed because of me, or at least gets its price increased. For how powerful the spell is, the thing is WAY too cheap. It should have probably been priced the same as War Crime at the very least.
Bug looks down at the dead mushroom she is still holding in her hand. Curious, she gives it a sniff.
"Smells tasty..."
These deadly things aways produce a lovely scent of apples and cinnamon, most likely being a way to entice animals and dumb people to try and eat them. Normally, Bug would have never humored the idea of eating one, but... Well, she is immune now...
Popping the finger sized mushroom in her mouth, Bug's eyes go wide with surprise.
"Oh! This does taste good! Too bad most people can't eat these without getting infected, they're missing out. I wonder if this would go good in a soup..."
Shrugging and rejecting the notices asking if she would like to allow infection, Bug continues crossing the giant arena at a casual pace until she finally reaches the far wall and the exit. Sitting on the floor, not too far from the door, is a chest and Bug has to take a moment to remember that Bosses give rewards when you beat them.
“Ooh! I wonder what I’ll get this time? Please be more mana shards!”
Bug wants to run over and check it immediately, but she quickly remembers that the Dungeon snuck a note in it last time. What if it is boobytrapped this time? Better safe than sorry.
“Go and check that for me.” She orders one of her skeletons, already moving to hide behind Sam the Shield Man again as she watches the other skeleton open the chest.
Nothing happens, but Bug isn’t going to take any risks. If the Dungeon is willing to cheat by sending a Cleaner, then she isn’t going to put the possibility of traps in her rewards beyond it.
“Show me what’s inside.”
The unnamed skeleton leans the box over so Bug can see inside of it from where she is hiding. Inside, she just sees two white things and another piece of paper.
“No trap I guess, but what are those?”
She makes her way over and pulls the white things out. They are made of wool and look like they are vaguely in the shape of a foot? Some type of clothing? With them in her hands she decides to grab the note and read it.
“Congrats, here’s some socks. Now please, kindly kill yourself. – Dungeon Manager 117”
…
“Why do I feel like this isn’t an actual reward? Also, fuck you Dungeon, I’m not going to kill myself! Ahhh… Who knows, maybe they have magic or something…”
Bug puts the socks in her inventory and then reads the description.
‘Wool Socks. A pair of socks that are great for keeping your feet warm and to help prevent blistering when wearing boots all day. Please remember to wash them after heavy use…’
Bug looks down at her naked feet, wiggling her green scaled toes in the dirt.
“But… I don’t wear boots though? This is just a useless reward. Could have given me some mana crystals or some money to add to my treasure pile, not… oh! That’s the point… Darn Dungeon… Just you wait Dungeon, I’m coming to kick your ass!”
Huffing, Bug closes her inventory like she is slamming a door and heads for the exit, hitting the switch with a heavy slap. Heading straight for the stairs with her minions following right behind her, Bug descends further into the Dungeon. Back in the second layer, the kill notifications are already coming in as unlucky monsters have the unpleasant misfortune of meeting her newest zombies and the plague she just unleashed on this place, her experience gage already slowly ticking up towards her next level-up as she walks away. It's too bad that she couldn't take them with her, but if what Bug knows about the third layer is true, then the giant spiders would just serve to get in her way.
With the doors closing, the second layer quickly descends into chaos as Death sinks it claws into the giant underground forest. Everything here will be dead in a couple of days. Bug doesn’t look back.
…
Much like every other floor, the stair leading down take a while to travers, and Bug notices as the dirt and rock walls of the staircase transitions into a structure of brick and mortar and arched ceilings. The lights, which were just more of those glowing blue mushrooms from the first layer, soon become glow stones embedded in the ceiling at evenly spaced intervals. Bug naturally tries to steal one, but it is firmly a part of the Dungeon and refuses to budge or be stolen, much to her annoyance.
And then she finds the door at the bottom.
Unlike those above, which had been giant stone things that could only be opened with a switch, this one is made of metal and has a wheel in its center. It takes a second to figure it out, but eventually Bug works out that you have to rotate it to counterclockwise to unlock the door, large metal bars holding the door fast to the frame and held in place by visible gears. She has a skeleton take care of it for her, the big metal door being swung open on creaking hinges in much need of an oiling, and soon she is stepping out into the third layer, floor eleven.
Water. Quite a lot of it.
Bug steps out onto into a tunnel made of brick and mortar with a waterway running through the middle. To her right is just a dead end with a grate where the water is flowing in from some unseen place. To her left and further down the tunnel, she can see little bridges that would allow her to cross to the other side of the tunnel and up in the arched ceiling is more of those glow stones being evenly spaced every few meters, filling this underground place with a soft yellow light. Looking down the hall, she spots a metal ladder that seems to lead up into some other area, maybe a room, and further passed that is an intersection of even more tunnels, the waterways branching off with them and flowing in every direction, with two of the paths even leading down a slope.
“Hmm, more tunnels. Another labyrinth like the first layer? Well, let’s get going.”