“Please wait. Routine inspection.”

Aiden straightened the bronze badge on his chest. His iron gauntlets and chainmail gleamed coldly as he stretched out an arm, blocking five adventurers fresh out of the dungeon, their boots still clinging with fungal threads.

“Inspection? For what reason?”

The adventurers frowned. No one liked having their belongings searched, but none dared brush past Aiden. They waited for him to give a proper explanation.

He knew this task was unpopular, so he explained patiently: “We received a report of a raider attack recently.”

He pulled out a parchment, the Guild’s seal clearly stamped on it.

“We’re searching for equipment left behind by the victims. Please cooperate—finding the raiders benefits everyone.”

The robed sorceress among them gave a disdainful snort, about to speak, but their captain quickly stopped her.

With dark looks, they dropped their worn leather packs to the stone pavement. The metal clasps hit with a dull clank.

Aiden nodded to the two guards behind him, then opened his ledger and crouched to compare each item.

Soon, one guard pulled out a dwarf’s helmet, green with rust, from the bottom of a pack. Along with it came a pair of iron shoulder plates.

Aiden rose without expression and stepped back two paces. Casually, he raised three fingers toward the commander sitting in the elm’s shade, polishing his sword.

The golden-ranked officer came over. Only then did Aiden straighten and say:

“These helmet and shoulder guards match those owned by the victim. I’m afraid we’ll need to delay you a while for questioning.”

“What!?” As expected, his words triggered an immediate reaction.

The axe-wielding warrior roared, “Are you saying we’re raiders?”

“I’m not accusing you. I’m only following orders. Please, cooperate with the Guild.”

Standing behind his golden-ranked superior, Aiden’s tone was steady, mechanical, without emotion—like a perfect enforcer.

The officer half-drew his sword. The meaning was clear enough.

Seeing tempers flare, the adventurers’ leader quickly restrained his men.

They were just a regular party—who dared provoke the Guild?

“Calm down, everyone.

These pieces came from trading with that fat Puji on the fifth floor. We’re no raiders.”

Aiden noted his cooperative tone and softened his own.

“I thought as much. Don’t worry—others have come back with gear like this too.

But the routine questions must be asked.

You won’t be wronged. Every other group we stopped was released after.”

Hearing they weren’t the first, the adventurers relaxed somewhat.

Indeed, they weren’t raiders.

Off to the side, Dylan, with a large pack on his back, didn’t linger to watch.

Instead, he walked right past them into the dungeon. Entry didn’t require a search.

Aiden rubbed his nose. He thought he smelled blood. But blood scent wasn’t anything unusual here.

At the dungeon’s mouth, adventurers often reeked of worse. He’d once smelled dung on them.

——

On the first floor, Dylan crouched, scraping a finger along the cracks in the wall.

A clump of fungal threads clung to his fingertip.

Fungal growth like this was now common in the cracks of the first floor.

So Boss was slowly spreading his domain up into the upper levels?

Pondering, Dylan followed the densest patches of growth.

Half an hour later, in a secluded alcove far from the raiders’ path, he found a fungal carpet.

He dropped his pack and stretched with a groan.

An old man like him, still hauling such a load—truly a hard life.

He dumped the pack’s contents onto the fungal mat.

The rest, the fungus would take care of.

If the broker had only asked for two gold more, he would’ve paid.

But twenty?

Most retired adventurers didn’t have that much saved for their old age!

Clearly, the twenty was just an outrageous opening price, hoping to haggle.

But with that greedy glint in his eyes, Dylan had no patience to humor him.

Now, he had the intel—and had even come out eight gold ahead…

Yet he felt no joy.

Because Bella had really gone to the Isles.

According to the intel, she had even visited Yafeng Town before the Mana Surge, asking about him.

At the time, Dylan had been secluded on the fifth floor, drawing spores. Almost no one in town knew him well.

Even Cole, the tavern-keeper, hadn’t known his whereabouts.

So Bella had left empty-handed.

But because she had stayed in Yafeng for a time, the broker had been able to trace her later movements—

To Silver Sand Bay.

The domain of Glosa, one of the Three Island Slavers.

A notorious villain, infamous for abducting people.

The message claimed his daughter went there to rescue someone!?

Dylan’s chest tightened with dread.

In such a place, who else could she be saving but some poor soul taken as a slave?

If she clashed with Glosa…

Was he to do nothing but stay here and pray for her safety?

He tossed the last of his pack’s contents onto the mat, then abandoned the pack itself in the corner, preparing to leave.

“That life you’re living outside seems colorful enough.”

“Boss!?”

To hear Boss’s voice outside the fifth floor—for the first time!

But then came a silence that dragged for over a minute. Just as Dylan wondered if he had imagined it, the voice returned.

“The delay’s still too high. I won’t chat.

Since you’re on the first floor, handle something for me.

Exit here, turn right at the third intersection, then right again.

There’s a big slime there. Kill it.”

“No problem.” Dylan nodded.

On the first floor, monsters capped at level 5. Of course he could handle it.

But when he arrived, his view changed.

Two scale-less Pujis were fighting a massive blue slime that spanned nearly the whole corridor.

The mushroom cannons exploded against its body, leaving only tiny dents—barely hurting it.

Inside its gelatinous bulk, another Puji was already half-dissolved.

The sight made Dylan’s guard rise. Was this slime so strong?

He tried a 【Whirlwind Slash LV5】 at maximum distance.

The great slime split in two, its core exposed by the sword wind.

In disbelief, Dylan strode forward and finished it with a single thrust.

So it wasn’t that the slime was strong—

But that the Pujis were weak?

He knew exactly how powerful a mushroom cannon was. For it to leave such a pitiful mark… he had thought the slime had absorbed the damage.

So what was Boss doing?

Why were the first-floor Pujis so weak?