They Wanted a Hero. They Made a Monster: Born at the Bottom
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 19: The Door Opens
Marsh Zone, Fifth Stratum of the Amethyst Deep.
Mud mixed with blood and seeped between Dylan’s fingers into the swamp. He hunched against a slick rock wall, barely able to move with the wound that pierced his abdomen.
He had failed before he had even begun.
The lone Parasitic Tree had discovered him before the Deep-Slumber Powder could take effect. Now Dylan was grievously wounded and disarmed, while other Parasitic Trees closed in from the distance.
“Bella.”
He whispered his daughter’s name. The desire to live burned in his eyes.
He could not die yet.
Bella was the only child born to Dylan and his late wife. She was intelligent, considerate, and remarkably talented. Despite her youth, she already possessed the strength of a Silver-rank adventurer. Her future promised far more than her useless father had ever achieved.
She deserved that future. She should not die now, and she could not be allowed to live in agony as an ugly Bloodghoul.
Dylan still had four packets of Deep-Slumber Powder. He still had a chance, if only he could escape the marsh.
“A dead end.”
At some point, a wall of stone had blocked the way ahead.
Dylan turned back, but five Parasitic Trees had already spread out across his route. Pale roots writhed in anticipation of capturing him.
If he had been uninjured, he might have broken through before they closed the circle. With a wound through his abdomen, that was impossible.
He seized a climbing vine hanging from the stone and tried to pull himself upward. The entire vine tore loose, revealing a stone door hidden behind it.
“Ha ... cough ... ha ... A Hidden Chamber.”
In all his years, Dylan had never found one. Under any other circumstances, he would have been beside himself with joy. Such rooms usually held something valuable.
Now the closest Parasitic Tree was less than sixty feet away.
With no time to hesitate, Dylan searched the wall, found a protruding mechanism, and pressed it inward.
All he could do was pray that a legendary artifact waited inside to rescue him from certain death.
Dust and gray fragments fell as the heavy stone door opened inward.
Several mana projectiles shot from the darkness. They struck a Parasitic Tree whose roots were already reaching for Dylan and tore it in half.
Bioluminescent caps lit one after another in the chamber. Rows of strange, round Puffcaps appeared before him.
I have been imprisoned in darkness for ten thousand years.
Now you dare invade my domain.
Truly...
What in the world were those revolting treefolk?
Life in the Treasure Chamber offered endless food and water.
It was also extraordinarily dull.
The Mycelial Garden had at least provided monsters to fight each day.
Evan became so bored that he consumed every stalk of Glowgrass in the room, acquiring Bioluminescence, a skill that required almost no mana.
His level rose quickly as well. The pool was filled with concentrated mana, and by the time Evan had harvested most of it, he reached LV47.
Then he brought out the one-tenth fragment of Lava Heart he had collected.
It was truly the core of a Magma Fiend. Even broken and left for so long, it continued to radiate extraordinary heat. Without Heat Resistance LV7, Evan’s hyphae could not have touched it.
Decomposing the fragment raised him another level and yielded a new skill: [Detonation LV3].
He would no longer need Mana Crystals to create detonation Puffcaps.
It was fortunate that the Magma Fiend had died instantly. If it had survived with even a sliver of HP and activated Detonation, Evan might have escaped at his distance, but the three adventurers beside it would certainly have died.
The question remained: how could Evan leave?
He had produced forty new Puffcaps.
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