Back in the marshland caverns, Ed and his mushrooms were setting up a final wall of defense. To be specific, Ed had passed the metal body skill onto his metal mushrooms after all and they had just activated it.
The metal shrooms which before seemed somewhat meaty now had a clear metallic sheen. Which was good, it was time to start the wave of enemies. Something plopped out of Ed's storeroom.
[Monstrous Delicacy (Bait)]
{ A mashup of fruits, herbs, blood, and flesh, and other not appetizing items. }
The monstrous delicacy as the system had oh so kindly named it was the bait Ed and W came up with. That also meant that W was to take a temporary hospice in it. That was right, Ed had also made sure to put an eyeball shroom in there. The weird monstrosity was at least two halves shroom having based on a doom shroom already.
W who was inserted into the putrid thing had nothing but complaints. He did try to keep them to himself, but that was of course impossible being connected to the mycelium network and all.
'Ah damn it! Why did I go all out?!' W had the option to not make such great bait, so why did he do that while knowing he'd be stuffed in it?
'Get ready' The complaints were instantly silenced however after Ed spoke into W's mind. He became observant instead and focused on the feed of the various sentry shrooms.
Though W was inside the gross bait, his connection to the mycelium network was not at all bad. He could plainly notice that the small insects that had been minding their own business atop of Ed's gray shrooms suddenly became lively.
The ones with wings flew forming a swarm and the ones on the ground walked forming a creepy black tide.
'How am I supposed to deal with these numbers?' The small bugs were too great. Fortunately… Ed's octocrawler guardian was having a blast. The webs it set up beforehand were getting filled like fishnets before a storm.
The metaphor was not inaccurate either as the dozens upon dozens of small bugs started to push through the gaps of the nets. With the sticky parts were being cordoned off by other bugs, they could squeeze past like slippery fish.
The octocrawler instinctively became frightened quickly coming to the conclusion that it could not feast right now. To Ed, this painted a bad picture.
The slings which Ed specifically mixed solely with fire crystals were catapulting small balls of fire. These small balls would burst in the air when coming in contact with the swarm or clear a patch of black ground.
The metal shrooms which he placed at the forefront were almost useless due to the small size of the bugs, never mind the barbed shrooms which did not receive the metal body skill.
The skeleton mushrooms didn't do anything and the blood mushrooms only existed to be farmed.
'Am I failing the first wave?' Ed asked himself in disbelief. He could only defend himself by saying that the number of cannon fodder was simply too large.
'This is bad! The bait is too enticing, Ed, blow them up!' W commanded seeing the tide grow closer and closer through the various sentry shrooms. Yet looking through the sentry shrooms was also entirely unnecessary. The bugs were close enough for W to see from his position as bait.
Ed who had been overwhelmed for a split second quickly called upon doom shrooms. Explosions rang out one after another. After each and every explosion the cavern would rumble and droves of insects would perish.
These insects' carcasses would be quickly absorbed by the fungi over which they trampled and give their energy to him. This new energy could be put to use by spurting the growth of other doom shrooms, but things weren't good enough.
The loudest explosion yet combusted into a fiery hell. The gray mushrooms nearby were starting to crisp over and the bugs that flew around were blown away by the sheer force.
What Ed had just summoned this time was a cluster of both doom shrooms and fire crystals causing a significantly larger explosion.
'I am not a full-fledged magic mushroom just yet, but I can still use the elements' Ed had figured that between bursting crystals and imbuing new attributes to the doom shrooms the former was much easier.
That didn't mean it was cost-effective but as his skeleton body still had the crystallize skill Ed was not afraid of spending crystals.
The tide of bugs dwindled but persisted and the swarm in the sky believed itself to be practically untouchable. Ed could only grimace. It was one of those tower defense games where you never had enough aerial defense!
The bait was soon taken a bite off by not just one, but multiple hungry mandibles. The bugs started to claw and crunch out the monstrous delicacy.
"Ahh! Get these things off me' W screamed feeling the bugs bite at his bait body.
[You've been dealt damage. -1 hp]
An annoying notification also kept on appearing with every tick that took a bite out of bait Ed.
'Damn!' Ed screamed out before resolutely blowing up a cluster of wind crystals directly next to the bait and the bugs. The bait that was W was sent flying by the wind dropping bugs like political flyers.
The bait fell closer to the back wall of the cavern where Ed's main body resided causing him to be thrown into alarm.
'W, we are abandoning the mission' This first wave was brutal! If they took any longer the predators in other areas might be attracted by the sudden commotion.
All of these bugs did not come from Ed's area, they were coming over from the other mushroom fields too. That meant that the food of the predators there would be escaping and they would have to follow.
By then, Ed's mushrooms would be trampled regardless of whether he emerged victoriously or not. Quite frankly, Ed would rather lose than have a pyrrhic victory.
W also agreed with this assessment and obviously wanted to be recalled the most out of himself. But just as W was about to re-root following the explosion, he was swept away by the swarm of flying insects.
Ed doubted it was a willful act of the bugs but he still couldn't help but chastise them inwardly.
'Ahhh! Just eat it quick then you damn devils!' Ed's mushrooms had been set ablaze by himself and while that was distressing it wasn't as distressing as the stampeding vibrations he felt from within his roots.
That was when suddenly the bait blew up into smithereens sending the fragrances and other bits and pieces wafting through the entire mushroom forest. W had chosen that rather than being eaten blowing himself up was much better!
Ed realized this might not have been very smart, though he couldn't smell the fragrance, the reaction of the small bugs that had become intoxicated clued him in quite well enough.
[Decacrawler]
[Earthen Worm]
[Magic Mole]
A bunch of figures appeared in the sentry shrooms field of view shortly after the kamikaze move of W. Ed wanted to calm down but panic settled in any way.
The creatures started to gobble up the small insects that had eaten the bait and after a hearty meal that took them less than a minute they came to notice the presence of the other parties.
To Ed's dismay, his forest which was still burning was not spared as the three began to fight on the spot.
'...' Ed did not have any words to describe the varying emotions that were being thrown at him
The decacrawler would try to stab through an earthen worm with one of its legs but would find the worms moving swiftly to avoid the strike. Whenever this happened, a little mushroom was sent to meet the mushroom god in heaven.
The magic mole which was, well, a mole, kept on digging holes as if it was the same as breathing while also uprooting his mushrooms in the process. If Ed had a heart he'd have fainted for sure.
By the time things started to settle down the mushroom forest had been reduced to scattered mushrooms growing sparsely in a charred field of black. Ed's luck was impeccable.
'In a world of opposite of course' He couldn't blame his luck for this entirely but he definitely felt it was a part of the reason. What were the chances of the swarm stealing away the bait forcing W to self-destruct?
The self-destruct which had even sounded like a good plan instead killed only the bugs on top of it and wafted the smell of the bait everywhere.
'I don't think I'll ever financially recover from this' The energy consumed was too large and nothing was really gained except for perhaps the friendship of his octobuddy.
Ed then started to review other things that went wrong and summarized them into points.
One, he lacked proper anti-bug measures. Part of the reason why he suffered so much was that the mushrooms were growing too tall when compared to the bugs. These bugs were able to practically cruise into the bait area.
'The sling shrooms were fine' The fire was a bit dangerous, but all safety concerns left out the window the moment Ed had decided to use doom shrooms to inflict damage They were explosive and had literal death.
The first round of Mushrooms Vs. Monster resulted in Ed's loss. A total loss.. It was back to the drawing board.
