Overlord: Start from the Goblin Lair.

Chapter 337: Strange Fungi

The thickness of the walls in the castle was far from that of ordinary people's walls. Even if Quest tried to confirm his guess through sound, it would be in vain. But as a spy with rich experience, Quest's words were naturally convincing.

"Is this the secret door?" Ivy stepped forward. "Could it be that the mechanism is on this coffin?"

The half-elf leaned over, but she pressed every ridge and groove on the coffin, which was supported by some unknown wood, and did not find anything that could be called a mechanism.

"I've been to a few dungeons before, and generally speaking, the traps are located near the secret doors, right?" The half-elf stood up in confusion, and pondered the other coffins in the room, "Does it mean that all of these need to be arranged in a certain order...?"

"Ron, could there be any clues in that notebook?"

"Your way of thinking is just like a pure-blooded elf," Yelena complained, "Don't look at me like that, I'm complimenting you."

"Are you used to thinking in complicated ways?" Quest chuckled. "Ms. Ivy, you don't seem to have considered the order of these things: when the vampire Count built this castle, he was not yet a vampire, so naturally he would not want to sleep in a coffin, let alone arrange the corpses of his subordinates."

"Secondly, unlike the dungeon, this is the lord's bedroom. Neither the vampire lord nor his wife Hecate would resort to such a troublesome method, so..."

Under the gaze of everyone, Quest knocked on the wall for a while and soon came to a lamp. As he stretched out his hand and pushed the lamp into the wall, with a "click" sound, a stone door slowly opened at the head of the Earl's bed, revealing a small secret room.

"You're amazing, Quest!" Driver jumped in excitedly, "How on earth did you notice this? I didn't notice any difference between the inside and outside of the castle!"

"We both have our own specialties," Quest smiled modestly. "I'm not as good as you at setting and removing traps in the jungle, but I'm an expert at 'finding things' in these gentlemen's homes."

"It looks like an alchemy laboratory." Ron took out a handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose, and walked into the secret room carefully. "I didn't expect that our Earl is also a botanist."

Ron's knowledge of fungi was limited to the basics, but even he could recognize several common fungi cultivated in this laboratory. These species preferred dark and humid environments and thrived in this laboratory. The adults would be picked and processed, and made into samples on the laboratory bench for the Count to study.

"He also set up a suitable temperature and environment for this laboratory," Sylvia carefully examined the entrance to the secret door. There was actually a series of magic circles here, but because a thin layer of lead was embedded in the middle of the stone door, the detection magic could not see through the back of the stone door. "This is really strange. I thought he would prefer to study blood magic."

"This place should be related to that ancient empire." Ron sat on the chair in front of the laboratory table and opened the cabinets and drawers to look for the experimental record form. He did find it, but after flipping through a few pages, Ron threw the record back with a look of disgust.

"This earl is a complete layman. Who would write records that only say 'in line with expectations' or 'different from the groups in the ruins'? Who knows what you expected!"

"Maybe he didn't want to show these to outsiders - are there any left by his wife?" Sylvia asked. Ron picked up a half-ash, half-mud thing from another drawer with all the labels missing; "I guess this is it. For hundreds of years, the count did not take any measures to protect them, let me see... let all the records from more than forty years become like this."

"And I even found the fungi he cultivated here in it - this guy didn't even wash his hands after doing the experiment?!"

Ron threw away the garbage in his hands in disgust and tried to shake off the fungi stuck on his hands. However, strangely, these dark red fungi seemed to have taken root and Ron could not get rid of them no matter how hard he tried!
"...not good."

Feeling the changes in his hands, these fungi seemed to be alive - no, fungi are alive! The difference is that these fungi are trying to use his flesh as a breeding ground! Ron muttered, and then quickly called Victoria to come in for help: "Victoria, I need a protective toxin!"

"They were all used up long ago!" Victoria rushed in, but her words poured cold water on Ron's head, "The fangs of that vampire lord are poisonous! We used them all up when we fought him!"

"What about curing diseases? These fungi are not right!" Ron showed everyone the fungi on his hands that were still trying to destroy his skin. "The bear's toughness must still be there, right?"

"...I expect a fierce battle today, so I didn't prepare any magic to enhance attributes."

"So what do you have? This thing is starting to bite me!"

The priest of Heim lowered his head and thought for a moment: "How about a blessing spell?"

The higher-level priests' spells had basically been used up, but there were still a few blessings left. As Victoria blessed Ron with words, Ron could clearly feel that these fungi had temporarily given up their plans to attack. However, this was only a stopgap measure, as the blessing could not completely eliminate the bacteria.

"And it can only last for one minute." Victoria frowned and looked at the dark red mold on Ron's hand. "What on earth is this?"

"How should I know? It's the same as if the Earl didn't write it in the record," Ron said in frustration, trying to spread his hands as far as possible to prevent the fungi from sticking to other parts of his body. To be honest, this was the first time he had encountered a plant that he didn't recognize since he came to this world! And he was tricked!

In the multiverse, the life forms of many worlds are the same or similar, otherwise races such as humans, elves and dwarves would not be able to flourish everywhere. Take this world and the place where Ron originally lived, for example. The biggest difference between the common plants on both sides is the names. The main purpose of Ron's homework on herbology here is to match the names of the two sides with the plants themselves.

However, no matter how hard Ron tried to recall, he could not remember any information about this kind of fungus, and he quickly rejected several similar species.

There is no such thing in either world? So how did it appear here? More importantly: how can Ron escape from it now that he is entangled by it?

(End of this chapter)