They Wanted a Hero. They Made a Monster: Born at the Bottom
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 15: A Nose for Mushrooms
It had been a victory, but only barely.
Ivan lay unconscious. Dark purple lines from mana erosion covered his face, and his breathing was scarcely more than a thread.
Nolan sat on the ground, supporting himself with one withered arm as an occasional cough shook his body.
Ironically, Garrick, whose role was to absorb attacks, remained full of energy.
With no other combatant still capable of fighting, he dared not linger. Garrick poured potions into his two companions, gathered the spoils in haste, tucked one injured man under each arm, and ran to rejoin Nyx.
Only after he left did Evan emerge from hiding. Beneath a fragment of stone armor, he found a piece of Lava Heart as large as his fist.
It was perhaps one-tenth of the intact core. The Half-Dragon had collected the remaining fragments.
Strictly speaking, the Lava Heart was the Magma Fiend’s true body and its only valuable component. The shape that towered more than thirty feet high had merely been a combat form sustained by its abilities.
Standing amid the scattered armor, Evan felt unexpectedly wistful.
The creature he had imagined as his final boss was dead before he could challenge it, killed abruptly by three adventurers whose levels were all lower than its own.
One small weakness had been enough to turn victory into instant death.
Evan had watched every detail. The crack in the Magma Fiend’s chest armor had probably been inflicted during its recent absence.
The battle deepened his understanding of this world’s dangers.
Level did not determine everything. The only true safety lay in never exposing his actual body.
Yet if he wanted to relocate, Evan had no choice but to place that body in danger.
The passage to the Tenth Stratum was an interesting structure.
Its lower half resembled every other tunnel in the Deep Strata. Crude stairs appeared in the upper section.
Who had built the dungeon?
Evan had learned a fair amount about dungeons from Elara. Although Lady Elara had never personally entered one, she had collected an impressive number of rumors.
None explained where dungeons came from.
She did know about the Tenth Stratum of the Amethyst Deep, also called the Thousand-Stone Forest.
Countless natural pillars divided the entire stratum into upper and lower regions that were difficult to travel between. Winged monsters called Haka Windserpents nested atop the pillars. The floor below was the hunting ground of Werewolves.
Werewolves were not truly monsters. They belonged to Demonkind and had once been one of its most powerful species.
Three hundred years ago, a Hero killed the Demon King. Demonkind descended into civil war over who would succeed him.
Humans used that period to unite with other peoples and establish themselves. Without the conflict, Demonkind would have remained powerful enough to overwhelm every neighboring species even after losing its king.
The Vampires eventually won the struggle and founded the Veiled Empire. Those members of Demonkind who refused to submit migrated to the impoverished Far West, and the empire ceased contact with them.
Only the Werewolves, the Vampires’ hereditary enemies, faced an extermination campaign. Some Werewolf tribes escaped into dungeons across the world and became part of their ecosystems.
According to Elara, the Western Isles were the only place outside a dungeon where Werewolves could still be found.
Near extinction did not make them weak. On the contrary, the Vampires’ hatred reflected the threat they posed.
Without any training, a Werewolf reached at least LV30 upon adulthood. Their Species Level Cap was LV90, equal to that of Vampires. They were an unquestionably dominant species.
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