My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem

Chapter 1145

As we walked, the rain continued to fall harder and harder. It grew to the point where I had to make a new shield using a lot more mana because I feared the relentless pounding of the rain would knock down the other shield. The sound of water falling had created a roar, and there was absolutely no hope of hearing whatever creature might be stalking us.

I had to rely on my danger sense and the reassurance from Xin that this wasn’t a dungeon where one would be attacked. However, it still left me uneasy. My visibility had dropped to nearly zero. Even with my light magic, it couldn’t cut through the falling rain. I could only see as far as the little shield over our heads. The little girl held tightly to me, and we continued down the cobblestone path.

Like before, my sense of time grew a bit strange. I wasn’t sure if we were walking for ten minutes, or several hours. I had a feeling some time had gone by. The girl clung to me, shaking nervously. I occasionally stroked her head, but any words I could say to soothe her would have been lost in the noise of the roaring rain.

Finally, after what felt like both a few minutes and forever, the rain started to lessen up. We had managed to get through the worst part of it. That was good because I was pretty sure I was going to have to make another shield soon.

“Mister. Thank you for staying with me,” the girl said politely.

I slowed my step and turned to her. “We’re not home yet. Um… where are you going, anyway?”

“That… away…” She declared.

“Away? Do you mean your home is far away, or you’re trying to get away from your home?”

“I…”

“Sis! Where are you, sis?” A shout could be heard in the dwindling rain.

“Ah! Th-that’s my brother! He’s found me!” She sounded slightly scared, but also somewhat happy.

“You have a brother?” I asked, feeling just a bit surprised.

“Oh! There he is! I don’t want him to think anything bad, stay right here!” The little girl pulled away from me so suddenly that I wasn’t expecting it.

She ran straight off the cobblestone path.

“Hey, wait!” I took a step forward and tried to grab her.

As soon as my hand reached the end of the cobblestone, it slammed into an invisible barrier. I just missed the little girl as she took off into an area that I could go. Her brother appeared. He was wearing a traveling cloak, leather gloves, a hood, and he had a bow in his hands with a knocked arrow. He was a tall man who looked to be much older than she was. If she was only about twelve, then he was likely in his twenties. He’d be about my age, although I probably looked older now, thanks to all the things that had happened to me.

“There you are!” He cried out, walking toward her and slinging the bow back behind himself.

“Brother…” She immediately had a slightly scared look.

“You shouldn’t take off like that!” He snapped. “Wondering around alone in this kind of weather. You could have gotten eaten up!”

“I’m not alone! I was with…” She turned and looked at me.

Rather, she didn’t look at me, she looked through me. Her eyes turned left and right, and a confused expression appeared on her face.

“What?” He asked, finally reaching her and grabbing her arm.

“He was right here…” She gestured to roughly where I was standing.

“There is no one there, sis.” He sighed. “Come on, we need to go home.”

I realized that while I couldn’t go into the world beyond the cobblestone path. I even attempted to use a portal, but the area seemed to be blocked. It appeared like the cobblestone path was invisible to that world as well.

Chapter 1146

The man grabbed the girl and then began walking off. With the rain lighter now, I could see some woods in the distance, and he seemed to be heading back toward them. She tugged against him and complained a few times, desperately looking back to my position, but even when I called to her, she didn’t seem to hear anything.

The pair disappeared off into the dark. Actually, it was getting brighter now that the clouds were clearing up, but they still ended up out of my sight, and I was left alone in the field once again. Since there was nowhere to go but forward, I started to walk again. As I moved forward, I noticed the pathway starting to bend. It started to turn back on itself and I found myself walking back the way I had come.

However, the environment around me changed as well. Rather than a large field, I started to move into a forest. Would this be the equivalent of a new level? I didn’t know. However, this environment was completely different than the environment I had just been in. Soon, my vision was just as obscured as it was in the rain, except this time it was from a thick forest.

That’s when I finally came out into a large field. It was the first time the path opened up to something more than a corridor. This was a mansion that was buried within a forest. Compared to the mansion I had in Chalm, it was comparable, so it stood to reason that this was some lord’s manor. It made sense that Elaya was the daughter of some lord.

That was what I was thinking, but a moment later, I noticed a girl who seemed to be gathering water from a well near the side of the mansion. She was pulling up a bucket with her sleeves pulled up. What ultimately caused me to look twice was that she appeared to be the girl I had run into in the field. However, she was now several years older than she was before. She also didn’t appear to be a noble at all. She was wearing a maid uniform with a white bonnet.

“The maid hero…” I breathed out.

That was what she had been called. I had only ever known Elaya as a Queen, so it didn’t occur to me that she came from a life as a maid. Now that I realized it, it seemed painfully obvious.

“Girl! Hurry up!” A voice erupted from the doorway. “The master and mistress wouldn’t be happy if you took this long. Be lucky they are out today.”

“I’m coming!” The girl cried, hefting up to buckets full of water, one in each arm.

The woman at the door was old, and she looked to be a maid in her own right. She shook her head, making a clicking noise with her tongue. Suddenly, her eyes fell on me and widened.

“Who are you?” I blinked, not having expected to suddenly be part of the story once again.

I heard a gasp, and the maid who had been carrying the buckets dropped them. They fell to the ground and tipped over with a splash.

“Clumsy foolish girl!” The old woman chastised her, but she barely noticed the woman, her eyes locked on me.

“It’s you…” She spoke in disbelief. “The man from the field.”

The maid recognized me. Just what was going on with this dungeon?

Chapter 1147

“Hello?” I raised my hand. “I’ve just arrived here after a long journey.”

I wanted to ask where here was, but I had a feeling such a question might not be well received. It turned out that my current method didn’t fare any better. The woman left her spot and grabbed the younger maid by the shoulders before giving me a stern look.

“Come on, dear. Get inside.” She declared, straightening the girl’s bonnet.

“I know him.” The girl protested.

“I’m sure you do. Go!” The old woman declared in a no-nonsense voice.

The girl looked at me, a hint of stubbornness in her eyes, but then she turned and ran back indoors. Once the door shut, the old lady put her hands on her hips and glared at me. I didn’t know a lot of old ladies in my life. Even in Chalm, most of the women I knew were younger.

“Um… my name is…”

“I know who you are.” The woman cut me off. “And I know why you’re here. However, you’re wasting your time. You should just leave.”

“Why I’m here…” I repeated uncertainly, not sure what to make of the situation in front of me.

“You want to see her.” The old lady declared. “You want to see the woman at the end. However, it’s too late for all of that.”

I started to feel slightly irritated. I had been through all kinds of dungeons, but this one was leaving me the most flummoxed.

“Look, this is just some curse. If you have something to show me, stop wasting my time.” I growled.

The woman didn’t seem intimidated even though I towered over her. Instead, she raised an eyebrow, looking me up and down with an appraising look.

“Well, well… I guess you’ve got a bit of gut in you.”

A door slammed shut, and then a man walked out from behind the mansion. I immediately recognized him. This was the brother hunter from before. A woman had come out with him, older still.

“Please… don’t do this.” The woman was saying.

“I’m not going to follow what you want.” He declared angrily.

“You need to…”

“No! I don’t.” He responded, cutting her off. “I have someone I care about.”

“If you leave… they’ll punish us,” she said.

“Mother, you should have had the guts to leave a long time ago.” He responded.

“It’s the only way for us to survive.”

“No, it’s the only way for you to survive. Our family is gone. Stop trying to preserve something that doesn’t need to stay alive.”

“Using the time that the master and mistress have gone running off… nothing good will come of this.” The old maid next to me made a noise.

A door slammed, causing the pair to look back at the mansion. The young maid girl had come out. She was looking anxiously at the mother and the brother. The brother’s expression darkened even more.

“Please…” The mother tried one last time, tears running down her cheeks.

“I won’t…” He responded. “I’m gone.”

He turned away and began to run, heading off into the impassible forest. The mother stared aimlessly at the forest, looking lost. The girl walked up to her mother.

“B-brother… he’s coming back, isn’t he?”

“Of course, he loves you.” The mother spoke, but her words had no weight to them.

She didn’t seem to be paying attention to her daughter, or she would have realized that her daughter understood this, and such callously spoken words only hurt her more.