The settlement was buzzing with activity early in the morning.

  Yesterday the dwarves had arrived and had immediately started constructing a new palisade wall for their area.

  It was connected to the current palisade wall, so it was more of a new district to the existing settlement.

  The orc women had been busy setting up tents in the new area for the dwarves to sleep in while they constructed their new homes.

  The dwarves had all been welcomed by a feast, followed by a trip to the new bathing facility. Much like the orcs, the dwarves were not accustomed to bathing in hot water, but the reception was the same as the orcs.

  This morning there was a meeting between the dukes and Jod. Mafu was present but left the speaking to Jod.

  "I think we are better off attacking them sooner rather than later." Jod said as they were discussing the counterattack on the Hollow nest.

  "The dwarves have barely arrived, and you wish to send them to battle already?" Bulok was cautioning restraint, to build up strength before attacking.

  "The warriors under my command are ready to fight at any moment. But, we have yet to train or fight alongside the orcs. Some time to learn how to work together would be beneficial." Tudain answered, with Gwarth nodding along beside him.

  "From what we've seen, the Hollow should not be able to refill their numbers instantly. We brought down over 3000 Hollow in this last attack, and some giants along with them as well." Jod continued. "There is no telling how many numbers they will have if we wait a week."

  "King Jod is right; the two recent attacks were around 1000 and then around 4000. What is to say they will not have 16000 if we wait?" Parek argued.

  "16000 is ridiculous. They might have regained some numbers, but nowhere near over 10000." Telim responded.

  The tent fell silent as they all pondered about the question in front of them.

  Mafu used this moment to ask:

  "Do we know how the Hollow gains these bodies? As parasites, they would usually infest some creature, right? But no orcs have gone missing."

  "From our ancient stories, they are spawned from a lake of sorts. There was little more information on that." Tudain answered.

  A lake? That was not what Mafu had expected.

  "If they are spawned, they cannot refill their ranks within a week. They must be under the same rules as us, to some extent. I cannot spawn my mushroom soldiers en masse or without cost."

  "True, but if whatever is spawning them is of a high level, they might be more efficient than you." Jod spoke out loud.

  Yet again the tent filled with silence. After thirty seconds or so, Jod broke the silence.

  "Let us go in 6 days then. With the travel time to the area we suspect them to be in, we should arrive on the seventh day. Is that acceptable to you?" Jod asked the dukes.

  After they thought for a while, they all accepted Jod's plan. Even Bulok, who knew there was no reason for him to delay the attack any longer.

  ---

  After the meeting, Mafu found something strange in his territory.

  A mushroom. Well, that is not strange in itself. But this mushroom had not been created by him. He asked Demeter and Athena about it, and they knew nothing of it.

  It was a dark red color and looked like a trumpet coming out of the ground. The inside was a brighter red than the outside.

  As Mafu inspected it, with an eager Athena watching, information about the mushroom was added to his system window.

  [Bleeding Trumpet Mushroom]

  A mushroom that commonly grows in areas where blood has been shed. It accumulates blood inside of it, eventually overflowing. It uses mana in the surroundings to perpetually produce blood once it has been filled to the brim once.

  Huh. This was the area where the first attack on the settlement had taken place. It was quite a bizarre mushroom, and Mafu was unsure if the mushroom itself had any use.

  But it had been added to the mushrooms he could create. And this proved something to Mafu. He could gain mushrooms without using the fungal pool. They could grow naturally, even though the ground was covered in his mycelium.

  Athena was far more interested in the applications of the mushroom, so Mafu left it for her to figure out.

  ---

  It had been six days since the meeting. The dwarves and orcs had trained together and figured out each other's strengths and weaknesses. They were not a fully cohesive unit yet but could perform basic strategies and use basic formations together.

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  The orcs were especially eager to attack the Hollow nest. They had lived under its terror all their life and wanted it gone.

  The dwarves were not as enthusiastic, but they were still ready and willing to fight. For them it had become a way to prove their worth to their new homeland.

  Another thing that had taken place within the six days since the meeting was that Jod had finally hit level 50.

  His choices had been

  [King of the People] A class that focuses on one's subordinates, granting them different beneficial effects.

  [King of the Moon] A class that benefits from the light of the moon. Can call upon the moon at any point of the day, creating a beneficial situation for the king.

  [King of the Land] A class that focuses on reshaping terrain and obtaining greater benefits from the land.

  To Mafu, the first choice had been the clear winner. However, it was not his choice, and he left it entirely to Jod.

  Jod had a bit of a hard time choosing. He had known since Mafu chose [Mushroom Kingdom] that he had become even more important to Mafu. But he was still hung up on the second choice.

  He had the elements of light and dark, and as such, he thought that not choosing the second choice might remove those elements.

  Mafu thought he would get to keep them, but any abilities tied to the elements themselves would not grow stronger.

  After half a day, Jod had chosen [King of the People].

  With it he had gotten two new skills.

  [Blessing of Hard Work] Any non-combat-focused subordinate class will not tire easily. Doing non-combat work will gain levels faster for subordinates.

  [Harmony] Any subordinate who trains, works, or fights alongside another subordinate of a different race or species will gain experience faster, and new [Harmony] skills might appear among your subordinates.

  For Mafu, both skills were exactly what was needed. To go from a small settlement to an actual power, progress was needed. And progress is built on the hard work of the people.

  This would make it easier.

  ---

  The army set out for the counterattack on the Hollow nest. Only a few warriors were left in the territory, along with the mushroom soldiers.

  Bulok also stayed behind, as having one duke in the settlement was necessary in case any larger threat emerged.

  After the army left the settlement, an unusual silence fell over the settlement.

  Jod did not experience this silence, as he was leading the army from the front, with Oran and Otek scouting in front of him.

  The travel to the area where they suspected the nest to be took a full day, and the day was uneventful.

  Before truly searching for the nest, the army set up a temporary camp and made sure the warriors were rested and ready for the assault.

  Jod moved around in the camp, checking in on his warriors. Most of the orcs were excited and looked almost ready to explode.

  The dwarves sharpened their weapons in silence and made sure their shield straps were whole and ready. They did not show any emotion, but instead a practiced discipline of having fought many battles.

  Jod had not asked Tudain or Gwarth about what they had fought before, but he knew they had fought in the caves. Maybe there was some sort of monster down there.

  Jod shook his head to clear his thoughts and went to the front.

  Finding the nest took only a few hours. They had Mafu's memory of having connected to the Hollow goo and seeing the cave. But that was a vague memory.

  For quite a while, they had walked on the Hollows goo that now covered the forest floor.

  Jod knew that the Hollow would know they were coming. Mafu had theorized that the goo the Hollow had spread worked similarly to his own mycelium.

  In other words, the goo was the Hollows' territory.

  As they approached the cave, two giants came running at them. They were quickly dealt with by Oran. They had packed explosives, but those were supposed to be saved until needed.

  And Oran killed the two giants as easily as a normal hunter would have killed a deer. With a bazooka.

  His arrows punched holes an adult orc could jump through into the giants. Oran had gotten new arrows from the smithy, and some of them had a blunt arrowhead.

  With the power of Oran's bow, the blunthead arrows carried an immense force that could knock down multiple trees in one shot.

  Then a mass of the Hollow streamed out of the cave and attacked irregularly across the army. They were not much of an opponent; the dwarves with their heavy plate armor took down most of them.

  Anyone they missed, the orcs cut in half, impaled, or crushed.

  Soon they had arrived at the mouth of the cave. From it seemed to come a dark purple glow.

  Jod stopped for a moment and then exclaimed,

  "Well, let us end this!"

  The orcs gave an affirmative roar, and the dwarves slammed their axes into their shields. And then they all started to descend into the purple darkness.

  The tunnel opened up quite a lot after the narrow opening. The Hollow was waiting just behind the entrance, but with the elite soldiers entering first, the army quickly gained a foothold inside the cave tunnel.

  After almost an hour, the purple glow had become more distinct, and they entered into a large cavern.

  It was maybe 500 meters in diameter, and Jod gathered his army at the entrance to the cavern before moving forward.

  In the middle of the cavern was a lake, covering about a hundred meters in diameter. The water was dark.

  As they walked closer, Jod realized that it was not water. It was blood. A lake full of blood.

  He winced at the smell hitting his nostrils. The smell of iron, or rather, blood.

  The edges of the lake were jagged; they looked like teeth protruding from the sides into the lake.

  There was no Hollow to be seen. It was also eerily quiet.

  Jod panicked for a moment, thinking that the queen of the nest had managed to escape before they arrived.

  But then he felt a presence on the other side of the lake. What he had thought was part of the rock wall on the other side moved slightly. As he noticed it, he realized that wherever he looked on the walls, they seemed to be moving.

  As he watched in horror, hundreds or maybe thousands of spiders unfolded themselves from the wall. The presence on the other side of the lake also showed itself.

  It was a large spider, much larger than the giants. Standing up, it reached twenty meters high. The fangs on the spider were as tall as an adult orc.

  The other spiders were not small either, each standing two meters tall and 4-5 meters across.

  Behind the large spider, which Jod assumed was the queen, was a large sack that was stuck to the wall behind it. It was a purple color now; previously it had been gray.

  Inside of that sack were thousands of purple lights, moving around.

  The sack was connected to the queen's behind.

  Jod ordered the soldiers into formation and started pushing towards one side of the lake. The spiders started swarming them quickly.

  After ten minutes of fighting, Jod ordered the use of the explosives. They had brought fifty explosives.

  The explosives quickly decimated a large number of the spiders, and even though some orcs had died in the initial swarming, the army were regaining their footing.

  They slowly pushed forward, and soon the spiders were few.

  Jod found himself in front of the queen.

  She was standing still, not putting up any resistance yet.

  Then Jod heard a cold, raspy voice in his head:

  "My sisters will avenge my death. You go against God, foolish beasts."