“They’re here! Monsters are coming!”

The shout, trembling with both fear and excitement, snapped every mercenary into tension. Armor plates clattered as men jerked upright in unison, eyes fixed on the sealed gate.

Vera tightened his grip on his weapon—a plain iron scimitar.

His old steel-forged scimitar had been lost during that raider incident. For now, this cheap replacement would have to do.

Thanks to the Guild’s generous pay, every helper was earning a solid wage just by standing guard—even before battle began.

So Vera, Fiyn, and Filin had all joined.

Some adventurers painted the Demon Tide as apocalyptic, but with this many gathered, how could they possibly lose?

The only real concern was avoiding injury.

Still, none of them expected the Tide to arrive on the very first day!

Vera, along with the adventurers around him, steadied his breath, sharpening their focus.

Several crossbowmen pressed close to the narrow gap in the gate, bolts loaded, ready to unleash the opening volley.

They waited.

Ten minutes passed.

The adventurers exchanged uneasy looks. Finally, they all turned to glare at the man who had shouted.

“No… I swear I saw something! Monsters did show up!”

The man wiped sweat from his brow and peered again through the slit.

Nothing. Just the corpse of a lone Puji. No other monsters in sight.

At last, Marshal himself stepped forward, checked, then reassured the group:

“Yes, a walking mushroom did wander close. That means the Dungeon’s ‘rules’ are weakening.

But the main horde isn’t here yet. It was just a stray Puji from the first floor.

Stand down. I’ll keep watch.”

Marshal exhaled quietly. The Guild’s forecasts had placed the Demon Tide’s outbreak at three to four days away.

Reinforcements from neighboring cities wouldn’t arrive for a few more days either.

Gathering adventurers now was just a precaution.

For a moment, he had feared that precaution was already being put to the test.

At his words, the adventurers lowered their weapons. Complaints buzzed through the ranks.

Beside Vera, Filin and Fiyn both sighed in relief.

The Demon Tide might be legendary, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

Even so, Vera’s eyes lingered elsewhere—on the unfamiliar adventurer with a scimitar at his waist.

That weapon… why did it look so familiar?

———

Another surge of mana rippled up from the depths, rattling the Mushroom Garden.

They were becoming more frequent now, as if announcing the Demon Tide’s approach.

Already informed, Lin Jun was deep in preparations.

Yes, the Tide sounded terrifying—but he wasn’t without plans.

Best case: he counted as part of the Demon Tide, slipping into the horde as they surged upward. While monsters and humans fought, he’d provide free corpse collection.

But that was too optimistic. He couldn’t bet everything on it.

If the Tide attacked him as well, then for the sake of his garden, he’d have to fight back.

Fortunately, only two stairways connected the fifth and sixth floors. Defending them was manageable.

A tower defense game, really—and his Pujis specialized in mushroom artillery.

He would line the stairways with spore cannons, adhesive spitters, poison-cloud sprayers, and self-destruct units.

Even if a pack of tenth-floor werewolves came charging, he was confident he could annihilate them all before they climbed through.

As for the fourth–fifth floor connection, just a handful of Pujis would suffice.

For one thing, monsters weren’t supposed to rush downward. For another, even if low-level ones tried, a dozen Pujis would be enough to mop up.

What truly worried Lin Jun were the monsters from the deep floors.

If something like a Flame Demon appeared—or worse…

He wasn’t sure he could withstand it.

That was where the backup plan came in.

He would hide deep in the caves, piloting Knight. If things went south, he would collapse the entrance behind him.

No monster would dig through solid stone just to munch a mushroom.

Digging out afterward would be troublesome, but manageable.

For that purpose, he had raised Pujis with [Rock-Eating LV3].

He had stockpiled his treasure in the old bat’s cavern—equipment, parasite tree seeds, rare monster parts, even a small pile of gold coins.

To the untrained eye, it would look like a miniature dragon hoard.

He had also prepared twenty fully charged Pujis as pure mana batteries.

Even if the cave collapsed completely, he would have power enough to dig his way out.

And yet—

Every time he made escape plans, he couldn’t help recalling the figure who had unfurled a scroll before his eyes and vanished without a trace.

Dilan had told him there were no teleport scrolls in this world.

Teleportation was only possible through large-scale ritual arrays. A single scroll couldn’t contain such magic.

The scroll that man had used was no teleport scroll—it was an Escape Scroll, dropped from Dungeon chests.

Its principle: the Dungeon’s own rules ejecting the user from its bounds.

They weren’t rare, but they weren’t expensive either.

Because while they guaranteed escape, they didn’t guarantee safety.

One might land underground, or in midair.

Without survival skills, using one was almost suicide.

Still, Lin Jun thought, if he could ever get his hands on one, it would be a good last gamble.

With Knight’s abilities, his chances of surviving wouldn’t be bad.

———

Under his command, the Pujis were almost fully deployed.

Four hundred of them manned the stairways to the sixth floor.

Thirty each covered the upper connections.

Lin Jun himself, with Knight and fifty Pujis, would remain in the cavern as a final safeguard.

Only one task remained: recalling the hundred-odd scouts he had sent downward.

They were just now climbing the stairway toward the fifth floor.

Another mana tremor struck. Lin Jun was almost used to it by now.

But this one felt… different.

It lingered.

And grew stronger.

Stronger—until it became a tidal wave of mana, battering Lin Jun senseless.

What the hell?

Was the Demon Tide starting already?

…

When the wave at last receded, Lin Jun realized something was terribly wrong.

Every one of his hundred scouts had vanished from the Network.

The stairway itself had disappeared, replaced by a swelling black fissure.

From within it came the echoes of beastly roars.

This was the Demon Tide?

It didn’t look anything like what he had imagined.

And worse—it wasn’t just that stairway.

The other passage, where he had stationed thirty Pujis, had also warped into the same abyssal rift!

That wasn’t fair!

Before Lin Jun could panic further, something emerged—

A reptilian head, plated in hexagonal scales, like a giant monitor lizard, thrust itself from the crack.

Its vertical golden eyes narrowed, sweeping across every Puji present…