Mushroom Lord in the Underground City-Chapter 226 - 223: Sudden Downturn
"Something’s wrong! Chairman Fa’er! There’s a big problem——!"
Mira Belle practically burst through the door to the chairman’s office, the door banging against the wall so hard that the files on the desk jumped.
Fa’er, who was engrossed in writing, frowned and looked at her displeased, "Mira Belle, even if the sky falls, you have to stay calm! Panicking like this, how can you explain clearly?"
"Chairman!" Mira Belle’s chest heaved violently, her face pale as a sheet, "The Underground City... it’s starting to collapse! Space rifts... they’ve spread to the fourth or fifth level!"
"What?!" Fa’er sprang up, his chair screeching as it slid back, his hands pressing on the desk, leaning forward, his eyes full of disbelief, "Just over a month?! This can’t be!"
"It’s absolutely true!" Mira Belle was trembling with urgency, "We just received reports about the rifts from adventurers who escaped; they encountered other demons in the Underground City! I also personally checked the magic power fluctuation collector in the basement... the situation is even worse than the reports!"
Fa’er’s heart sank sharply: "I need to see it for myself!"
The two of them practically ran down the stairs to the guild’s basement monitoring room, where Fa’er finally saw the recorded magic power spectrum.
On the chart, the glaring energy peaks were like the frenzied fangs of a giant beast, one after another, with only very short, breath-like pauses in between.
It was as if a Great Mage was continuously casting terrifying magic next to the instruments day and night!
The abnormal magic power fluctuations clearly indicated that the Underground City had entered a dangerous period!
"Damn Guge! What a useless Array Master!" Fa’er, who always valued composure, couldn’t hold back his curse, "He boasted so loudly, promising the collapse phase wouldn’t come for at least three months! It’s not even halfway through three months now!"
He turned abruptly to Mira Belle, speaking so quickly it was like a string of firecrackers, "If three months can’t be relied upon, then the so-called six-month period is nonsense! In the worst case... it could collapse completely in a few days!"
"Mira Belle! Immediately execute the highest emergency plan!"
"First, seal off the entrance to the Underground City! Post the highest danger notice, forcibly expel all adventurers, no one is allowed in!"
"Second, organize the evacuation of all town residents! The collapse range of the Underground City is unknown, everyone must evacuate beyond ten miles! Prioritize arranging for refuge in nearby cities, and contact the local lord to explain the situation!"
"What about the refugees?" The maid Lillian, who had been following Fa’er like a shadow, suddenly asked.
"Yes... and the refugees!" Fa’er’s temples throbbed, this was the real dilemma, these refugees were already hard to manage, and now they were tied here by the mushrooms used as food... a forced evacuation would likely be met with resistance!
Theoretically, he only needed to fulfill his duties of ’advising’ and ’organizing’. Those who don’t listen, their life or death won’t be his responsibility as the guild branch president.
But Fa’er stopped only briefly before decisively issuing an order: "Mira Belle! Send someone to nearby cities, no matter the price, buy me a batch of food that can fill bellies! Then tell those refugees, if they go with the evacuation team, they’ll have hot porridge to eat!"
"Chairman Fa’er!" Mira Belle’s face showed difficulty, "There’s a food shortage everywhere now! Even red rice prices have risen more than five times! The number of refugees is massive... and the materials stocked in the guild warehouse, due to the last two high-price acquisitions, mostly haven’t been converted yet..."
"Tch!"
"Tch!" Fa’er irritatedly ruffled his hair, then looked at the maid beside him, "Lillian, go get my money for Mira Belle!"
Lillian’s clear eyes locked onto Fa’er: "Master, are you sure? That’s all your savings."
Fa’er didn’t answer Lillian, his sharp gaze fixed on Mira Belle, "Mira Belle, listen! Use this money to buy as much food as possible! This is a matter of life and death! You’re a smart person, do this well, and I’ll ensure your future in the guild is secure! But if you dare touch this money inappropriately..."
"I wouldn’t dare! Certainly not, Chairman!" Mira Belle waved her hands in fear.
"Hurry up!" Fa’er waved her off.
Mira Belle turned and sprinted away.
After she left, Lillian softly said, "In the future, we won’t be able to afford the red pigs shipped from Fish Sail Port."
"Doesn’t matter!"
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"What the hell is going on?!" The Swordsman Captain’s face was distorted with anger and grief, almost becoming grotesque, with the unexplained deaths of his companions, he desperately needed a target for his resentment, "Demon Tide? The guild didn’t issue a Demon Tide warning, did it?!"
"Stop thinking about useless things and get out of the Underground City first!" Before the words finished leaving his mouth, the bowstring hummed, and an arrow flew with a sharp sound through the air, piercing with precision into the eye socket of a stone-skinned wild boar that charged from the shadows!
The beast let out a miserable cry and ran off in a frenzy.
Suddenly encountering such an unknown situation, naturally, no one dared to linger, Vera’s group of three, along with the remaining four members of the swordsman team, formed a temporary defensive formation and retreated to the upper levels.
They ran up to the fifth layer, and the tension in their hearts eased a bit—this level, completely controlled by Puki, was relatively much safer.
However, this bit of luck only lasted for less than ten seconds.
From the shadows, a tall, thin figure, accompanied by a "shasha" sound, lunged at them!
It was a "strawman" roughly tied together with withered yellow grass and unknown vines, over two meters tall, its arms sharp with dead grass, its face crudely drawn with black mud, with only its eye sockets flashing ominous light.
Its movements were stiff yet exceptionally rapid, targeting the warrior responsible for carrying the wounded in the group.
"Enemy attack! Why is this thing on the fifth layer?!" The Swordsman Captain’s eyes widened with rage, he roared, and his giant sword swept with a whooshing sound, striking fiercely at the waist of the strawman!
At the same time, Vera’s curved saber drew an arc, slicing through the strawman’s outstretched arm.
The two attacks hit the enemy almost simultaneously, sending shards of dead grass flying as the strawman’s broken frame struggled briefly on the ground before completely falling apart.
However, this was not a victory, just the beginning...
"Right side!" Fei Yin sharply warned.
Under the dim fluorescence of mushrooms on the dome, more withered yellow figures appeared hazily in the distance!
Not just one, but over twenty!
They shuffled with slightly stiff steps, silently closing in, the rustling of dead grass gathering in an instant, filling the entire space.
Worse yet, among these slowly moving ordinary strawmen, there was a noticeably more robust and nimble individual!
"Fei Yin! Speed everyone up!" Vera reminded as they ran.
"Maintain formation! Retreat to the fourth layer!" The Swordsman Captain shouted hoarsely, trying to maintain the formation.
However, they hadn’t run far when they were ambushed by another group of strawmen!
No way to avoid it, after two uses of the Fireball Technique, the two sides finally clashed together.
Before long, the formation was completely scattered!
In the chaos, Vera could only barely protect Fei Ling and Fei Yin, fighting while retreating, eventually forced into a cave.
Vera recognized this place, Puki’s lottery cave.
Only now, the chubby Puki who hosted the lottery was long gone, the cave left with scattered fragments and fungi spread across the ground.
The three attempted to rely on the cave entrance to hold off the strawmen, but faced with the gap in numbers, they were forced to retreat little by little.
"That feeling is back!" Fei Yin suddenly exclaimed.
"What?" Vera’s words had just left his mouth.
A particularly fierce strawman ripped through the air with its claws, attacking fiercely!
Vera, nearly out of physical strength, struggled to block it, the immense impact unbalancing him instantly, sending him stumbling to the ground.
"Vera!" Fei Yin exclaimed, magic light flashing quickly at the tip of her staff, a semi-transparent magic shield instantly forming in front of Vera.
However, the expected heavy blow never came.
Right before Vera, the space suddenly twisted, tearing open, and that familiar space rift, which cut through everything, appeared once again without warning!
Pfft!
This time, the unlucky one was the strawman.
Puff——
In the dazed eyes of the three, a round Puki, leaped out of the rift lightly, landing steadily inside this cave surrounded by strawmen...
