Phong did not complain when he woke up, which might have been the strangest part.
He looked at the messages first, then at Alex, then back at the group chat where she had apparently dumped a full collection of selfies of him sleeping with his head in her lap for everyone to admire and weaponize forever. At least a dozen posted, maybe even more hidden somewhere in her phone storage.
Phong stared in silence for one long second.
Then he laughed weakly in a defeated way. Not because it was funny, but because he had lost this one so thoroughly there was no dignity left to defend.
Alex sat beside him with the kind of innocent expression that should have been illegal.
"You're evil," he said.
"You planted Horns of the Earth seeds to threaten a floor boss's followers," she replied. "I posted cute pictures."
"That is not comparable."
"It is if I say it is."
Phong looked over at the others and narrowed his eyes.
Dominic was trying and failing not to grin like a criminal. Janet looked too calm to be trusted. Séline and Camille were both wearing the exact same expression people wore when they had helped with something and felt no guilt at all.
Phong pointed at them.
"You guys were enabling her."
Séline shrugged.
Camille did too.
Entirely too pleased with themselves.
Dominic broke first and cackled loud enough that even some of the lizardmen looked over.
"Oh, absolutely," he said. "Full support."
Janet took a slow sip of her drink and added, "No regrets."
Phong groaned and put a hand over his face.
Alex, merciless as ever, sent one more screenshot into the chat while he was still recovering.
That got Jake, back on Floor 1, to immediately reply with something rude about "field report: farmer neutralized."
Phong considered throwing his phone into the lake.
He did not. Mostly because he needed it.
For the next few days, Camp Orthrus was left in peace.
The Soerai stayed in the forest and whatever passed for their strange minds seemed unable to resolve the scent of elves around the camp perimeter. They came close enough sometimes to stir the tree line, close enough that Tortura watchposts would spot red eyes or the flick of green-blue flesh between trunks, but they did not press.
They hesitated.
And hesitation, for now, was enough.
Phong used the chance immediately.
He asked the lizardmen to complete the outer defense walls while the breathing room held. The half-finished camp shifted back into construction mode, but with harder intent this time. No more open edges if it could be helped. If the Soerai ever got past their confusion, Camp Orthrus needed more than plants and hope between itself and a real siege.
So the lizardmen worked.
Stone, timber, packed earth, and the shaping of terrain wherever the natural clearing allowed it. The Kamohai were gone, as expected, but the lizardmen stayed. The Tortura watched from the trees and corrected angles when needed. Dominic handled heavier labor with Janet and the others. Alex helped where she could, though Phong still kept glaring at her whenever she pushed too hard and she still ignored half of that.
Phong himself did what he could.
As a level one farmer, direct battlefield help from him was nearly worthless compared to what the others could do. So instead he made himself useful where he mattered most. He planted, monitored, checked the defenses, guided irrigation. He kept the young plants stable and the old defenses fed. And whenever the camp allowed it, he slept.
It was not graceful, and there was no schedule to it either. Maybe 15 minutes nap here, maybe an hour of shut eyes there, but what important was Phong slowly paying back his sleep debt. Alex had already decided that his reckless action with the elf seeds earlier was due to sleep deprivation, and before him there was only 2 choices. Either he slept and rested, or he would face her "Penance Stare" for an entire day.
Last time he checked, his fiancé hadn't had a flaming skull in place of her head yet.
He did not want to test that theory regardless.
So Phong slept.
Sometimes in the shade of the lime-oak, sometimes against a half-built wall. Once at a work table with his phone still in his hand. He stopped pretending he could out stubborn the sleep debt and simply took rest in ugly pieces where he could.
This time no one made fun of him for it much.
Mostly because too many of them had seen how bad he looked before Alex forced him to sleep.
The new plants loved Floor 2.
That much became obvious fast.
The dill spread first, thin green fronds rising with the quiet, faint trace of mana from the dungeon soil. The tomatoes followed, vines thickening, leaves deepening, fruit swelling quicker than they ever should have. The basil came in dense and fragrant, filling the camp with the distinct and unique sense exclusive to dungeon grown basil.
They grew rapidly, maybe a bit too rapidly even by the dungeon standards.
Phong watched them with increasing interest and a knot of unease that never fully left him. His hypothesis about mutation limits still sat in the back of his mind. The plants were stable for now, but the sign of mutation had also stopped as well. Phong looked toward the place where he had planted the elf seeds and wonder if they were the culprit of blocking the mutation of his plants.
Maybe the elves required too much mana from the dungeon that they blocked all other plants from mutating? Maybe the dungeon prioritized giving the elves whatever secret juice it gave the plants that made them mutated in the first place, because the elves were children of a Pillars while his other seeds were products of industrialized agriculture.
At least, everything seemed stable, for now...
That was what made the ninth day feel wrong as soon as it started.
The morning had gone like the others. Patrols, construction, quiet tension at the forest edge, and a lime-oak frozen in suspension by a spiteful floor boss. The air was tense enough for people to be unease but not out of the norm enough for them to notice the slight difference at which the Soerai moved.
Then came the changes.
The trees in the crescent forest rattled more than usual. The Tortura called from atop their tree house, notifying everyone at camp about the increase in Soerai number. Unrest spread through camp like a wild fire. The lizardmen started hissing orders and prepared for the worst. The Tortura climbed into the walled camp and stationed themselves in strategic positions.
Far beyond the first tree line, shapes moved.
Too many, too agitated, as if the forest itself was shook by the approaching entity that caused such unrest in the Soerai.
The thing that came out of the forest made the whole camp go still.
At first, no one moved, because nobody was sure what they were looking at.
It walked on two legs.
The rest of it sat deep in the kind of wrongness that made the mind hesitate to call it humanoid. Its head held enough tiger features to drag the eye into the uncanny valley and keep it there. Patches of fur scatter throughout the skin like pepperonis on a pizza, a jaw too broad. Rows of fangs and canines visible even when the mouth was closed. The upper left corner of it lips peeled open, revealing raw rotten meat still stuck between its teeth, as if its lips were too mismatch with its own facial muscle that closing the mouth entirely became an impossible task. Its hands ended in long hooked claws, so long that its fingers nearly reached the middle of its shins. Both arms were flexing slowly as if the camp in front of it had already become meat in its thoughts.
Phong grew up with anime culture, and knew far too well what "kemonomimi" was. But this thing... it looked like a warped version of classical Liu Bei.
And yet, it wore itself like a person. Worse, like a warrior. Ore maybe like something that knew it was being watched and enjoyed the effect.
The Soerai behind it kept their distance.
That alone told Phong enough: This thing was not one of them.
Its eyes swept across Camp Orthrus, taking in the wall, the half-frozen lime-oak, the lizardmen, the Tortura in their trees, Dominic, Janet, Alex, all of it. Then its gaze settled on Phong. Its status flickered in front of those who checked.
Again, like with the Soerai, there was almost nothing but a race name: Shoemri.
Its levels, its stats, were all displayed with several white question marks. The colors were different, but the format was the same as a floor boss. And the race name, that one word, was hanging there like a warning.
Then the creature spoke. Its voice was rough, hoax, and it scrubbed against your ears inner canals almost like sand paper. It was not enough to hurt, but enough to make listening to it alone was uncomfortable.
"Đăm Bhi."
(If you need the IPA, Đăm is pronounced /ɗam/. It's a word from proto-vietic. Bhi pronounce like bee)
The name sat heavily in the air.
Then it gave them what the system would not.
"Level forty-seven."
Phong felt the camp shift around him.
It had the same level as the Greencap Bunny Captain. It was high, but not absurdly high like the original pre-nerfed elves. Beating it was hard, but not impossible if they could surprise it with Berserking Strawberry.
Đăm Bhi looked over the camp once more and bared too many teeth in something too sharp to be a smile.
"I challenge Camp Orthrus to a duel."
Dominic stepped forward at once. "Terms."
"If your camp wins," Đăm Bhi said, "the Soerai retreat."
Phong eyed it once. That terms meant Đăm Bhi can control the Soerai and order them around, if what it said can be trusted. But... if a monster could truly control the faithfuls of a Pillar, then there was only one thing Phong could think of: a child of a floor boss, a monster who inherited the power of a Pillar.
The other half of the terms came and cut off Phong's train of thought.
"If I win," it said, and this time its eyes never left Phong, "I kill the one who challenges me."
A long silence followed.
Phong's mind already entered panic mode, and he hated every immediate answers his mind could come up with. He stepped forward before anyone else could speak over him.
"I want one day."
Đăm Bhi's ears twitched slightly.
Phong held its gaze.
"One day to think it over."
The Shoemri studied him, then glanced once toward the growing beds of dill, basil, and tomato near the edge of camp. If it noticed anything strange there, it gave no sign. At last, Đăm Bhi nodded.
"One day."
Then it turned and walked back toward the tree line with the same easy confidence it had arrived with, the Soerai parting around it like weeds around a predator.
Only when it vanished back into the forest did the camp breathe again.
Phong exhaled through his nose, but his mind was already running elsewhere.
One day.
At least, that was enough for a ten day cycle.
The tomatoes, the dill, the basil. If they followed the same growth logic as the moletatoes, the chilies, the bonktatoes, then 10 days should be enough for them to be harvestable. If the pressure from Đăm Bhi continued, then whatever they were becoming would finish enough to matter.
At least, they had to, or camp Othrus would fall.
So, while Đăm Bhi thought Phong'd bet on a child of a Pillar, he had placed his money on the only things he knew more than anyone alive: mutated plants.