The newly rebuilt Golden Sunwood Tavern.

“I’m telling you! That big black mushroom-man—just one punch! One punch!

It smashed a pit this—big—into the ground!

Knocked every one of us flat!”

The green-clad adventurer stretched his arms wide, trying to show just how big the crater had been.

But not everyone was buying it. A scruffy, bearded adventurer sneered:

“A giant black mushroom, sure—there are plenty of weird walking shrooms below these days, so I won’t argue that.

But the sixth floor? Everyone knows walking shrooms don’t go past the fifth.

And the strength you’re describing? That’s beyond sixth-floor monsters.

Even tenth-floor beasts wouldn’t make that kind of mess.

If you’re going to brag, at least make it believable. Otherwise, anyone can tell you’re full of it.”

The green adventurer flushed bright red, stomping a boot on the table.

“I swear it’s true! Ask my teammates!

Go down to the sixth right now—you’ll still see the crater!

You dare bet against me?!”

At the next table, Dilan scratched his ear. The “big black mushroom” being described… sounded uncomfortably familiar.

Could it be the one he was thinking of?

Bah, forget it.

He smacked his lips, drained his cup of rich, mellow liquor. It tasted leagues better than the swill at the Rotten Willow Tavern…

But still, he couldn’t quite get used to it.

Dilan admitted to himself it was kind of pathetic, but it wasn’t like he could control it.

This was already his third day on the surface.

And the reason he sat here in the Golden Sunwood Tavern, instead of his usual Rotten Willow haunt, was because—

Cole, that idiot, had finally gotten himself caught.

Someone had ratted him out for stripping gear off dead adventurers.

Now he’d been hauled away, and his tavern shuttered.

Nobody respected Cole’s behavior, but if anyone had reason to celebrate, it was the Sunwood’s owner.

Dilan even wondered if he’d been the one to report Cole in the first place.

With the Rotten Willow gone, the lowest-rung adventurers suddenly had nowhere affordable to drink.

They cursed up a storm, and the pressure mounted on the town’s officials.

Word had it the Guild would send someone to keep the Rotten Willow running.

But no one trusted the Guild to manage a tavern.

Truth be told, in Yafeng Town, the Guild’s reputation was already in the gutter.

Last time, they’d hidden the resonance signs, causing massive casualties among adventurers.

Even with heavy compensation after, trust hadn’t returned.

Worse still, the one overseeing the Yafeng branch now was the very culprit himself—Oberon.

Many couldn’t understand why the higher-ups reinstated him.

Not only did they spare him punishment, they gave him his old post back.

Rumors flew.

Some said Oberon was backed by a massive web of interests.

Others whispered he’d bribed the Guildmasters with an S-rank magic crystal.

The most absurd—and yet most widely spread—was that Oberon had serviced the Guildmasters ten nights in a row with his “skills,” and that’s how he got his chair back.

From the rumors alone, you could tell how despised the branchmaster was.

Dilan didn’t care about their dirty politics. All he knew was that for now, he had no choice but to buy booze here.

Better than none at all. Besides, thanks to his boss, he wasn’t strapped for coin anymore.

He’d already sent off the letter and the S-rank magic crystal through the Guild’s courier network.

He used a red-tier envelope, the highest grade, costing three whole gold coins just to mail it.

But if the letter failed to reach its recipient, the Guild was bound to make it right.

Task done, Dilan sought out an information broker.

He dropped a ten-silver deposit, asking them to track down Bella’s whereabouts.

With his boss paying high wages and frequent bonuses, he’d nearly saved another hundred gold.

It was time to send the money he didn’t really need back to his precious daughter.

Last he heard, she’d recovered.

But he hadn’t had the chance to check up since. Now that he was back on the surface, he’d take care of it all at once.

Glancing around, he quietly sipped from a vial of mana potion.

He only hoped the brokers worked fast.

——

The reconstruction of the Yafeng Adventurers’ Guild was a monumental task.

Even though the monster tide had passed some time ago, only half was rebuilt.

But among that half stood the branchmaster’s office.

A soft knock came at the door.

“Come in—” Oberon’s slurred voice sounded as if his throat had been soaking in a barrel of liquor.

Mirabelle frowned at the sight: her branchmaster drunk in broad daylight.

The venom burns from the hydra’s poison had long since healed under regenerative elixirs.

But his new skin stood in stark contrast to the old, mismatched and unnatural.

People had already begun calling him “Two-Face” behind his back.

“Branchmaster, here is the latest dungeon activity report,” Mirabelle said dutifully.

Oberon glanced once, belched, and asked, “What’s… what’s the activity?”

“It’s regarding the Pujis appearing in the first five floors, and the resulting ecological shifts.”

“More… more Pujis. Got it. You… can go.”

Mirabelle knew if she left now, her report would never be read.

“Branchmaster,” she stressed the title, “do you intend to wallow like this forever? Shouldn’t you be proving yourself again now?”

She thought to rouse him, but her words struck the wrong chord.

“Prove myself?

Do you… do you think they put me back here because they value me?

That I still have a chance to… rise again?

Wrong!

I’m just a scapegoat!

They’ll dump all the resentment of the reconstruction on me.

And once order’s restored, I’ll be tossed aside!

Hah… hahaha…

Most likely shipped off to the Isles.

One of these days, I’ll just vanish in the fog.

I’m finished… my life’s already over…”

Oberon ignored her after that, swilling mouthful after mouthful of strong liquor, drowning himself in numbness.

Mirabelle stared at him. Truly hopeless.

She could only leave in bitter frustration.

As for her report?

Oberon never even touched it.

He no longer cared about Yafeng Town, nor the Amethyst Dungeon.

All he wanted was to drink himself into oblivion before exile came.