Phong took the wounded Greencap Knights in without hesitation.
That was the part that made the surviving rabbits stare.
Not the all too familiar living walls of Camp Stymphalia, but this felt different in a way the Greencap's pride did not want to admit. It was not the Timatoes rolling under watch platforms like red, tiger-faced mines with opinions. Not the trolls on Death Peak, or the canal works, or the strange mix of lizardmen, mice, chickens, H'Re, pixies.
It was the lack of hesitation.
They were trade partner before, sure, and the bunnies enjoy Phong's company. Their captain had trained Alex, and then gave team Nemean a few pointers. They had taken care of camp Harpy and was currently farmed using the way Phong had taught them, with the surface soil he had traded with them. One of them had trained Phong's elf children. But that was it.
The Greencap Knights had arrived bloodied, half-conscious, and shamed. Their captain had lost an ear, his war banners, and enough blood that his fur had stiffened in dark red clumps around one side of his face. His ribs were broken. His breathing came shallow. Even unconscious, his hands curled and uncurled, searching for weapons no longer there.
Phong saw him once.
Then turned and called for the lizardmen medics.
He did not make a speech, did not demand gratitude that they should be rightfully owned him. He thought of saving lives before he thought of gains and interests. He did not take advantage of this situation where the Greencap Knights were at their lowest. To the politician, Phong was naive and foolish. To the bunnies, he was honor and respectable.
"Stabilize them," he said. "Captain first. Anyone losing too much blood, second. Broken ribs after that. Mice, bring Sympathy Enoki and clean cloth. Relaxing Shiitake too, small portions."
The lizardmen medics moved immediately.
They were not gentle in the way surface hospitals defined gentleness, but they were efficient. Scaled hands cut armor straps, checked pulses, set bones, packed wounds, and applied medicinal pastes. Their claws, terrifying to humans, were precise enough to pull splinters of broken armor from fur without widening cuts. Great Burrow mice ran underfoot with bandages and plant bundles. The H'Re chieftain stood nearby, silent and unreadable beneath his wrappings, the vertical eye on his forehead closed once more.
The pixie queen watched from the edge of the camp. Her swarm clustered above her like a dark, nervous cloud.
Phong was supposed to be helping them settle.
That was how absurd the day had become.
An eusocial swarm of meat-eating pixies had come to him under Rico's diplomatic supervision, accompanied by H'Re and fire chickens, requesting access to "the Green." Their queen had used too many old words and not enough trustworthy ones, but Phong understood hunger when he heard it. Hunger, at least, could be negotiated with. Hunger could be redirected.
Rotten meat to crops, predation to controlled feeding. Possible, he thought, because of their eusocial structure. Change the queen's diet, change the swarm's permission structure, and the drones would follow faster than independent individuals ever could.
He was explaining that to a nervous Tortura elder when he saw Rico.
The raccoon was preparing for war.
Rico had dragged out a crate of garlic mine, choking onions, enough Timatoes to create county wide panic on their own, and what looked suspiciously like one of Phong's emergency coffee tins tied to his back as morale support. The baby treant on his back rustled with agitation. Nyx sat nearby, watching with narrowed eyes. Bruno stood at attention because Bruno, tragically, believed in the wrong raccoon sometimes. And the fire chickens were lined up behind Rico like a battalion of poultry soldier pumped full of bad decisions.
Rico had one paw raised and was addressing them.
"We march on Manhattan gate. Operation Raccoon Justice begins at—"
"No."
Rico froze. Slowly, he turned.
Phong stood ten paces behind him.
The camp quieted around them. Even the Timatoes stopped growling.
Rico's ears twitched. His eyes moved over Phong's face, then his shoulders, then his hands.
The raccoon knew.
Phong was angry too. At Josh, at the attack aimed for the Greencap Bunnies, at the injuries the captain had suffered both physically and mentally. Unlike Rico himself, however, Phong was not loud or theatrical when he was angry. That farmer anger was like a muted storm, destructive, yet silent.
Rico lowered his paw.
"He took the banners," Rico said.
"I know."
"He cut the captain's ear."
"I know."
"He was with the necromancer. Olen said he would turn the knights into ghosts and make them kill civilian rabbits."
Phong's jaw tightened.
"I know."
Rico's paws clenched. "Then we go."
"No."
The word landed heavier this time.
Rico stared at him, stunned in the way only someone expecting agreement could be stunned by refusal. Phong walked closer and crouched slightly so they were nearer eye level.
"If we move the army now, we will lose everything for nothing."
"Justice," Rico snapped.
"Too late for that route." Phong's eyes were dark. "Josh is not stupid enough to wait near Manhattan gate after what happened. Not after losing men. He will move to another gate. Japan, maybe. Somewhere away from us."
Rico's mouth opened.
Phong raised one hand.
"So right now, marching is just noise. We expose our strength, exhaust our people, and scare the wrong enemies. What we can do is expand intelligence. Find which gate he uses. Find who helps him. Find the next time that bastard sets foot inside the dungeon."
His voice thinned at the last sentence. Rico could sense a part of Phong's anger was aimed at himself. The farmer probably blamed himself for getting too caught up with expanding Yuè, building infrastructures on floor 1 and 3 that he had neglected scouting around Manhattan Gate. He let his guard down after killing Daniel, giving Josh a chance to slip through that guard, and the captain had to pay for it.
Phong continued, teeth grinded against each other.
"And next time, we are ready to unleash hell on that bastard."
Rico studied him for a long moment.
Then asked, unexpectedly, "Why not extortion?"
Phong blinked.
Rico gestured wildly at the camp, at Death Peak, at the Timatoes, at the trolls, at the lizardmen medics saving Greencap lives, at the H'Re chieftain who had erased two divers from existence.
"You have army. Big army. Scary army. You lock rich fish out of dungeon. Block gates. Grow murder vegetables everywhere. They panic. They beg. They give Josh as tribute. Easy."
Several nearby mice froze. A lizardman medic pretended very hard not to listen, trying their best to hide the horror in their eyes. The pixie queen's wings shivered, waiting for Phong's answer.
They had trusted and gathered Phong precisely because he chose not to use threat and violence beyond self-defense. Yet, if Phong listened to Rico and used that kind of tactic on human, then every tribes that presented would have to reconsider their relationship with him. Not breaking the alliances out right, but they definitely needed to be more careful with the farmer king of Yuè.
Phong let out a long breath.
"No. Because then my farms become a weapon for one country."
Rico frowned. "Weapon already weapon."
"No. Not like that." Phong straightened slowly. "If I use Yuè to force the surface into giving me Josh, then I teach every country the same lesson: whoever controls my farms, my plants, and my alliances controls the dungeon's future."
The camp seemed to draw closer around his words.
"With the influence I have now, any country I openly support would become greedy. Too greedy. They would think they found a way to dominate everyone else. They would try to build a world where they are the only Josh."
Rico's expression changed.
Phong looked toward the wounded Greencaps.
"Bullying everyone else because they can. Because they have the strongest route, the best food supply, the safest camps, the plants, the local allies." His voice lowered. "That is not a world I want to live in."
The raccoon was quiet.
Phong touched the seed pouch at his hip.
"I want the farms to be mediation. Between humans and dungeon races. Not America's farms. Not Vietnam's farms. Not China's, not any government's." He glanced toward the H'Re chieftain, then toward the pixie queen, then Death Peak. "A place where people who should be enemies can eat first and decide whether they still want to kill each other afterward."
The words sounded foolish, idealistic. Too childish, maybe. Except behind him stood proof that foolishness had roots.
Trolls had accepted Tortura archers, lizardmen medics were healing Greencap Knights. H'Re stood in daylight. Pixies were being offered crops instead of carrion.
"And when whatever killed Alexis Valantris appears," Phong said, "when the Night Kings move, or the Grey One, or whatever else is waiting beyond the floor bosses, my farms will fight for humanity."
He paused.
"For all of humanity."
Rico stared at him. Then scoffed.
"You are too Kamen Rider MC."
Phong shrugged.
"If that means I don't become Josh with better vegetables, I'll accept it."
The raccoon opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, with visible reluctance, began putting the war supplies back.
"Operation Raccoon Justice postponed," he muttered.
"Thank you."
"intonation: Postponed."
"Noted."
The pixies settled too quickly after that.
It was unnerving.
Phong had expected resistance, accidents, at least one attempted bite that would require diplomacy, punishment, and possibly chicken-based intimidation. Instead, once the queen accepted the first measured offering of crop mash, the swarm's behavior shifted almost immediately. Drones carried portions back to larvae. Soldiers tested cooked roots with suspicion, then ate. Workers swarmed over designated feeding trays with disciplined hunger.
Eusocial nature, Phong reminded himself.
They did not need every individual convinced, only the colony logic.
Still, watching creatures that had once eaten rotten meat and dungeon carrion begin adjusting to sweet root pulp, mushroom paste, and softened grain made him feel like he was witnessing either a miracle or the prelude to a future headache. Possibly both.
Then Death Peak moved. That was what it looked like at first.
The mountain had grown a shadow, and the shadow had decided to descend.
The troll king came down to Camp Stymphalian.
Phong stopped mid-instruction.
He had not expected the king to come personally.
The trolls who descended with him were not the same trolls Phong remembered from their first meetings. They were taller, broader.
Their goat-headed faces still held the old viciousness, but their bodies had changed. Mushroom caps grew from their shoulders, knees, and foreheads like biological armor plates. Thick, layered, dark-edged growths with pale undersides faintly glowing with mana. Their healing moss still lived along their bodies, but now it wove between fungal plates as if the two lifeforms had agreed on territory... almost like a type of lychen.
One look told Phong what those caps were: Mushroomire caps.
Or something born from the same lineage.
The troll king grinned, tusks visible.
"Farmer-king."
Phong bowed his head slightly. "Troll King."
"Good news."
Phong, who had learned that good news in the dungeon often arrived with teeth, waited.
The troll king slapped one massive hand against his own mushroom-capped shoulder. The cap rang dully, like armor.
"Big mushroom birth sent spores. Mana spores. Floor full of them. Some came to trolls. Troll moss liked them. Mushroom liked troll blood. Now together."
Phong's mind immediately went to the Mushroomkhan. The birth had released mana-filled spores across Floor 1. Some of those spores had formed mutualistic symbiosis with the trolls.
"How much stronger?" Phong asked.
The troll king's grin widened.
"Level fifty-five."
For a moment, Phong simply stared.
Then he closed his eyes.
Of course. Of course the Mushroomkhan's birth had accidentally upgraded the trolls into level 55 moss-fungal regeneration monsters with biological armor.
Why would his day be normal?
"That is good news," he said carefully.
"Very good." The troll king nodded. "We celebrate. Want fizz fire drinks."
"Pepsi."
"Fizz fire drinks."
"Fine."
"And ground walkers."
"Moletatoes."
"Ground walkers."
Phong sighed. "I can arrange some."
The troll king looked satisfied.
Then he saw the wounded Greencap Knights.
His expression changed. The trolls remembered how the Greencap Knights had come to the meadow and readied to support them.
The king walked closer, mushroom caps flexing faintly with his movement, and looked down at the Greencap captain being treated by lizardmen medics.
"Battle?"
"Josh Harlan," Phong said.
A low growl moved through the trolls. They knew that name. And they hated that name too.
The king's eyes narrowed.
"Celebrate later."
Phong looked up.
The troll king turned to his warriors.
"No fizz fire until rabbits not dying."
For trolls, that was practically a prayer of compassion.
Phong bowed his head again, this time deeper.
"Thank you."
The king grunted as if embarrassed by manners and moved to stand guard near the medical area. That, more than anything, steadied the camp. With the wounded stabilized, the pixies fed, Rico disarmed, and the trolls postponing celebration, Phong called the mice of the Great Burrow.
They came in a flood of whiskers, packs, tiny weapons, and impossible attentiveness.
Phong knelt before them and laid out the order clearly.
"Find the other Greencap Pioneer Squads. As many as you can. Carefully. No unnecessary risks. Tell them what happened to Squad Eleven's captain."
The mice listened.
"Tell them Josh Harlan is moving. Tell them not all human offers are safe. And tell them this: if they want protection, food, shelter, or medicine, they can come to Camp Stymphalian or Baratok Town. No oath required before treatment. No forced alliance."
One mouse lifted a paw.
"Message exact?"
Phong nodded. "Exact."
Another asked, "If they ask price?"
"Trade later," Phong said. "Survival first."
The mice saluted. Then scattered.
By the time evening softened the light over Camp Stymphalian, Phong's farmland had expanded again.
The trolls helped clear heavy stones and tear stubborn roots from soil as if the earth were a door they had been offended by. The Kamohai came through the canal works and helped manage water flow, hauling wet mud and shaping irrigation trenches with the expertise of people who understood water as road, weapon, and home. Giant Crickets leapt across half-prepared fields carrying rope, poles, baskets, and seed crates. Lizardmen marked defensive boundaries. Mice mapped storage burrows. Even a few pixie workers, under strict chicken supervision, began carrying small plant fibers to test whether they could make hive material from crop waste.
Phong watched it all for one moment then picked up a hoe.
Rico appeared beside him.
"You just made political speech, stopped war, accepted pixies, discovered mushroom trolls, ordered spy network, and opened refugee policy."
"Yes."
"And now farming?"
Phong drove the hoe into the soil.
"Food is the core of the kingdom."
Rico looked at him.
Phong pulled the soil aside, checking texture, moisture, root remnants.
"If things go wrong, people need to eat. If refugees come, they need to eat. If war comes, soldiers need to eat. If peace comes, trade needs food too." He glanced toward the medical tents. "And if I cannot predict what Josh, Kitahara, the Night Kings, or the dungeon will do next, I can at least make sure we have enough potatoes, mushrooms, roots, and fruit when it happens."
Rico was quiet for once.
Then he picked up a tiny stick and poked the soil beside him.
"Raccoon assists agriculture."
"You're making a hole."
"Starter farm."
Phong smiled despite himself.
Around them, Yuè kept growing.
Not as an empire expanding with conquest.
As a safe spot for everyone, regardless of races, that was willing to listen can have a seat at the table. As a oasis expanding with fields, canals, clinics, bridges, kitchens, scouting routes, and uneasy former enemies learning what it meant to survive under the same moon.
Phong planted until his hands were dirty and his anger had somewhere useful to go.