Who Designed This Underworld Dungeon?
Chapter 231 - 190: The Unlucky Guy Who Was Caught to Take the Fall

Chapter 231: Chapter 190: The Unlucky Guy Who Was Caught to Take the Fall

Luluwo announced that this bootleg Molten Furnace Knight before them was the greatest surprise Cangyin Dungeon had brought them.

No, it was horror.

Such a thing, such a thing...

"Pfft—"

Luluwo was the first one who couldn’t hold back, nearly spraying out her saliva as she instantly burst into a smile.

"What the heck is this, oh my God, how did it manage to be so ugly yet somewhat similar at the same time!"

She laughed quite loudly, looking utterly rude, and to seem a little more polite, she covered her mouth.

"Hahaha..." And so, the wild laughter turned into a muffled uproar.

With her leading the way, the people of the New Strategy Group also began to laugh, turning Cangyin Dungeon into a sea of joy for a while.

The giant toad imitating the Curse Frog and skeleton monsters didn’t make them laugh, but this fake Molten Furnace Knight was genuinely hilarious.

Its ugliness was one thing, but what made people hold their laughter was that every detail about it was filled with "clichés."

The Molten Furnace Knight’s axe-shaped helmet had become a whole axe wrapping its head, its armor’s design was a crude combination of polygons, and the delicate patterns turned into the vein of leaves; to call it a Molten Furnace Knight was rather to call it a Plant-man with an axe for a head.

It felt as if its creator had just heard a vague description of the Molten Furnace Knight and then crafted it from imagination alone.

It was like when Gong Qiying was a child and imagined the Yellow Ape from stories about navy admirals as an actual yellow monkey, only to grow up and realize the Yellow Ape she imagined should be called the Agitated Golden Lion.

Cangyin Dungeon is just too lively!

Perhaps stimulated by the laughter, the fake Molten Furnace Knight brandished its Great Sword and charged over, running in a quite impressive manner, showing that it’s at least an Elite Monster—on a general level, of course, not comparable to Sain.

An ordinary Elite Monster, according to Sain’s rating standards, would hover around D-level, and such a battle could end in an instant in front of the New Strategy Group.

"Snap!"

The fake Molten Furnace Knight fell heavily to the ground; its vines struggled to recombine its severed legs, but as a mid-tier Flame Magic hit, flames ignited, and it began to thrash violently.

"It’s quite fire resistant, huh."

One flame wasn’t enough, so two, three, until it was burnt to ash.

Compared to the previous ones, this Monster really had some strength, and it could possibly block a lot of people... but what’s the point of blocking here?!

Could it be they hope that a strong adventurer who managed to beat it, after all the trouble coming into the valley, did so just to find Tree Fairies for juice and use it as fertilizer?

Luluwo rubbed her brow and sighed; if the design of Sain Dungeon is ninety points, then Cangyin Dungeon would be a flawless "ten points."

"Do we really need to make a strategy guide for this kind of dungeon?" she muttered to herself, "Leave it be, and perhaps in two years, no one will come here anymore."

She felt her estimate of two years might be too conservative. Count Charon even said they could make a name for themselves here, and now Luluwo was questioning the Earl’s judgement.

However, despite her complaints, as a seasoned professional dungeon speedrunner (self-proclaimed), even without paying much attention, she still noticed some useful details.

The Fog Gates that appear during battles with Elite or Boss Monsters are a specialty of Sain Dungeon, other dungeons either lack them or use Barriers, special terrains as replacements.

And there were no obstacles on this valley path, meaning people could completely lure this counterfeit Molten Furnace Knight out and sneak into the valley.

Further thinking, maybe they could find traps in the swamp that could trap Monsters, to secure more exploration time.

"I am such a genius." Luluwo smiled confidently as she walked into the valley.

The scenery suddenly opened up, the air became fresh, and a lush green forest appeared before everyone, with green grass and flowers everywhere, the bright sunlight casting evenly over every plant.

"No wonder the people in the city miss the old Cangyin Dungeon."

Sticking to their professional spirit, the New Strategy Group scoured the area, wondering if beneath this beautiful scenery lay a wolf in sheep’s clothing—a trap.

The reality was completely different from their guess; indeed, there were Monsters, but the style was miles away from earlier, turning from a giant toad into tree fairies resembling large trees, palm-sized forest fairies that seemed to dance when they flew, fat-headed cabbages, and little birds that exploded into fireworks upon death.

Luluwo didn’t know what to say anymore; such scenes would only appear in fairy tales.

Then she fell into deep thought, and the more she thought, the more she wanted to criticize.

If the scenery is so beautiful, why not just focus on the art, right? There will always be those who’d come to appreciate the scenery.

Who is that swamp meant to disgust in the front?

If this dungeon had consciousness, Luluwo dearly wanted to drag it out for a proper questioning—why try to imitate Sain Dungeon, isn’t being unique good enough?

But another question followed; why did Cangyin Dungeon undergo such a change?

People have always been unclear about the operating principles of dungeons, but one theory gained a lot of support: external stimuli can cause a dungeon to react.

The most direct evidence was the "rampage," summarizing historical dungeon rampage incidents; it’s not hard to see that those dungeons were all stimulated by external forces.

Speculating with this theory about Cangyin Dungeon...

Is it because of the drastic decrease in the number of people entering the dungeon?

In other words, did Sain Dungeon steal away its "customers"?

Luluwo suddenly shook her head, patted her cheek, and said, "Why think about these things? I’m not a scholar."

"Have we rested enough? Everyone, we need to work hard in the next few days."

She looked outside the valley, planning to develop a strategy for this place as quickly as possible. With the experience of Fran Fort, dealing with the "Skin-changing Monster" wouldn’t be a difficult task for them.

As for how many days they would stay here, Count Charon had said that they would notify them through a magic message once traces of the Demon Clan were found, and only then would they return.

In any case, the New Strategy Group was an ally of the Fran Guard, and considering the current weaker position of the other party, Luluwo intended to take extra care of them when fighting against the Demon Clan.

She bent down to pick a wildflower, the faint fragrance enveloping her, the closeness to nature bringing comfort.

So she had to complain one more thing.

"Why add dung to a perfectly beautiful scene? I always felt the Cangyin Dungeon was silly."

——————————

"We’re not silly at all!"

In the room of the Underground City Lord of Cangyin Dungeon, a tiny person hardly over ten centimeters tall, with transparent wings on her back, cried out in frustration.

She was so angry that her delicate features twisted into a clump, at least she was a master of facial expressions.

This was the Underground City Lord of Cangyin Dungeon, named Reine.

But currently, she preferred her original name—Heiniss.

A month or two ago, as a noble heiress, she had run away from home with her guard Fili to have fun outside, but ended up as one of the first victims of the Sain Dungeon incident.

After going through hellish torment, she and Fili were successfully sent back to the Resurrection House, and since then, she developed a psychological shadow over Sain Dungeon, feeling fear at the mere mention of its name.

Originally, she wanted to issue a bounty to recruit Warriors to clear the Sain Dungeon after returning home.

But as soon as she got home, she was confined by her furious parents, and the thought of issuing a bounty was out of the question.

After living a boring life at home for a long time, one day she woke up to a life-changing situation.

Heiniss... suddenly became Reine, the Underground City Lord of Cangyin Dungeon!

During the first few days, she was truly terrified, no, even now she was still enveloped by immense unease.

For some reason, the previous City Lord here had vanished without a trace, and she was unluckily grabbed as a substitute.

Unable to leave the Dungeon, unable to communicate with the outside world, unable to see her parents and Fili again...

She didn’t even know how her family reacted after her disappearance!

She had thought about seeking help, but whenever she tried to admit her identity to the adventurers who entered the Dungeon, she felt an inexplicable fear, as if revealing her identity would lead to a terrible end.

Fear wrapped around her, and the pressure from spiritual power made her shiver; the Dungeon’s spiritual power was running low, and if it bottomed out, she would die!

It took Heiniss several days to figure out how to operate the system of the Underground City Lord, and she noticed the dwindling flow of people in Cangyin Dungeon.

She must obtain spiritual power!

But how to gain a large amount of spiritual power?

In her desperation, she thought of the Sain Dungeon.

If she imitated its design, she should be able to harvest a lot of spiritual power, right?

But having only seen the monsters and terrain of Sain, her superficial knowledge couldn’t support her in making an exact replica; she could only pick and choose from the previous City Lord’s Available Monsters and constructions to combine them.

She had seen skeleton monsters and Great Iron Balls, but she had only heard about Curse Frogs, Molten Furnace Knights, etc., through the adventurers. That’s why she used the giant toad to imitate the Curse Frog and a bunch of vine monsters to mimic the Molten Furnace Knight, creating abstract things.

Indeed, the traps she created by mimicking the Sain Dungeon turned out to be useful, and the spiritual power surged in the initial days, leading her to believe that she could maintain it indefinitely.

However, on the fourth day, the human flow dropped dramatically.

If life was full of ups and downs, then she was experiencing down and further down... and so far, no sign of things looking up.

She was going to die, unseen in some corner, perhaps she could keep herself alive only for a while by recycling these structures back to spiritual power and leaving just an empty space, but what was the difference between that and being dead?

When it rains, it pours; not long ago, a group of strange people who died without dispersing spiritual power came knocking.

"We’ll give you spiritual power; you help us make items."

Heiniss still remembered, it was a "person" with a frog’s head murmuring inside the Dungeon, but she clearly sensed that this person was speaking to her.

She was scared because the appearances of these oddly-shaped people were exactly like those of the Demon Clan from the legends.

The Demon Clan threatened her—if she didn’t cooperate, they would come in and cause havoc every day, increasing her spiritual power expenditure and hastening her demise!

Heiniss dared not to respond at that time, and after the other party left a message that they would come back, they departed.

Since that day, her mind was a mess, wandering in a daze all day long, almost wanting to abandon thought, a state much like Gedwin, Sain’s previous City Lord, as if plagued by dementia.

Until today, when she felt the strong spiritual power of Luluwo and company breaking in, Heiniss awoke once more.

And with her clarity came a nightmare.

Those members of the Demon Clan had returned.