My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem - My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1196-1198

Chapter 1196

“Does that mean you will tell me what happened to her?” I asked.

When you entered a dungeon, you were usually offered two choices. You could complete the lore by destroying it. Completing the lore turned it into a blessing which you could then absorb. Essentially, the power of the dungeon was turned into a blessing which then became an extension of your soul, like adding a peripheral to a computer. At least, that’s the best I was able to explain it.

Destroying the lore was the same as eliminating the source of power. The dungeon would no longer be able to turn mana into miasma and the miasma would be released from the dungeon and freely disperse. Cut off from miasma, the dungeon would whither up and collapse and the monsters would die out, although it was possible that some survived and became surface-level monsters.

However, there was a third option that didn’t seem to be mentioned, and that was conquering a dungeon. Technically, it didn’t resolve the cursed lore, but it just passed it into a new party. They became the new dungeon master and were capable of manipulating the lore to their will. Dungeon masters and their dungeons had a strange relationship.

Despite often being closely linked, they weren’t the same. A dungeon was a bit like an animal. While it had will, it could be guided, influenced, or manipulated depending on who was in charge. Meanwhile, a dungeon master was tasked with repairing the dungeon but didn’t necessarily have complete control of the dungeon.

How my dungeon differed in the past was that I was the builder, while I assigned others as the master. The dungeons I created were linked to my soul. Thus, I was my own dungeon, and thus could control it or allow it to be controlled. That was no longer the case. My dungeon was no longer bound to me. Instead, I was the dungeon’s master. The dungeon contained a lot of lore, but nothing that was inherently cursed or unfulfilled. Until it finished evolving, I didn’t know what that would mean for the future of my dungeon.

In the meantime, however, I seemed to have inherited another dungeon, and after taming the dungeon master, I indirectly had control of this dungeon. Yet, I didn’t even understand it. I had indeed threatened this kid with the thought of destroying the core, but he seemed to give up rather quickly. Was he that terrified of the lore being destroyed? Most dungeon masters wouldn’t be dungeon masters if they didn’t inherently want to protect their dungeons, but it wasn’t so clean-cut as their lives being tied to the dungeon. I’ve personally managed to cut the lives of various people from their dungeons, and with Alysia, it’d probably be pretty easy to do on someone willing.

“I will never do what you tell me!” The kid responded defiantly with tears in his eyes.

“Won’t you though?”

The woman in the witch outfit sighed. “It seems like Master has recognized you as his big brother.”

“N-Not true!” The boy cried.

“I don’t care,” I responded, feeling slightly irritated. “Can someone just tell me where my woman is?”

“Fine! I’ll show you, but I’ll never see you as my big brother!”

I didn’t want him to though.

Chapter 1197

After some back and forth that left me feeling a headache, I was brought up to the 9th floor. The holes that I had broken through to get quickly through the dungeon were already repairing. The one above my head was already half-closed and if I looked up the top ones had already sealed, meaning I couldn’t quickly get out of the dungeon. Since I hadn’t bothered to register at any of the safe room transportation arrays, I realized my mistake. I’d need to repent and make sure in the future I didn’t lock myself in such a one-way trap.

While I had the leverage to break through a floor or a door with a solid strike, it was quite different breaking through a ceiling. I wasn’t confident I’d be able to do it. Either way, it would have been inconvenient if I had ended up getting stuck for whatever reason and needed to return to the surface.

The little boy and his big-breasted attendant stopped where they were on the 9th floor. The dungeon master closed his eyes and then waved his hands. I noticed the lore in my hands flashing brighter for a bit. It looked like even in my hands, he was still able to make some use of the lore. The fluttering light stopped, and after a minute or so passed with him still standing there with his eyes closed, I was just about to demand to know what was going on. That’s when a familiar person walked into the room from the floor above.

“It’s Miki!” Celeste cried excitedly.

It was none other than Miki. However, there was something off about her. She was see-through! She also had a blue tinge to her, and she seemed slightly off. Some of her features weren’t exactly what I remembered. Her face looked a bit off like it was someone who only saw her once trying to draw her face from memory rather than someone who knew her intimately like me.

She walked into the room, looking around cautiously. She didn’t look at us at all. It was like we weren’t even there. She saw the puzzle on this floor and slowly approached it. Her fluffy fox tail wagged slightly as she examined it thoughtfully.

“It’s… a memory?” I asked.

The witch-woman nodded. “This is a dungeon, after all. Everything that happens in a dungeon is recorded in that dungeon. This is one of the reasons dungeons become more powerful the longer they live. They do not simply collect mana and souls… they also collect knowledge. If you ever use a skill in a dungeon, that dungeon will subsequently learn how to use the skill. Weapons? Items? It can only create what it has seen.”

She spoke about a fundamental truth when it came to dungeons. Perhaps, she opened up given the current conquered status. Perhaps, they already assumed I knew. In a way, I already did guess this. It was like when I had to fight my doppelganger as a boss. It was a perfect copy of me, but whenever I used a skill I hadn’t seen, it wasn’t prepared. As soon as I used the skill though, it could use the skill too.

That wasn’t just a part of that fight, but all dungeons entirely. The combat proficiency of any monster made by the dungeon could only be as smart as the combat it had seen within its walls. That’s why larger dungeons were so difficult to deal with. The monsters weren’t just more powerful, but they had a richer lore to pull from, making them far cleverer. That’s how you went from bugs and skeletons to fully functional knights.

“What are we waiting for?”

“Shhh…” The boy shushed me.

I opened my mouth to say more, but then Miki spoke, her voice coming out crisp.

“I could feel you when you entered the dungeon. What do you want?” She looked at me.

I jumped at her suddenly addressing me. Had I been mistaken? No, she was looking past me. I turned to see the door leading to the final safe room being pushed open as three people stepped out. They had teleported down to it to cut her off. I was seeing something that happened sometime in the past. This was what I had come here for. What happened to Miki?

Chapter 1198

I immediately had an uneasy feeling about the three men, and Miki too also appeared guarded. She had reached behind her belt to hold the hilt of a knife, and she looked prepared to run if she had to. It’d be difficult to escape if they already had access to all of the safe rooms. They could cut her off if she tried to run. Her only chance would be to get past them and then trigger the final boss. Given how small this dungeon was though, it wouldn’t take long for them to reach the 5th-floor safe room and then teleport into the boss room. She would have had to defeat the boy named Mathew before then, and his presence right now strongly suggested this isn’t what happened.

“Are you Miki of Chalm? The nine-tailed fox?” The man in front asked in a heavy voice.

“Who are you?” She asked, tilting her head suspiciously.

The three men slowly lifted back their hoods, revealing three men. One of these men had long bunny ears. One of them had wolf ears. The final had cat ears, although they were striped and interesting like Lydia’s ears. This was probably a normal catgirl, versus Lydia’s rare tigerkin variant blood. I didn’t know everyone in Chalm by sight, but I had a feeling they weren’t from Chalm.

“Who are they?” Celeste asked.

“Dioshin. They come from the country of the beastkin.”

“What are they doing out here?” Alysia asked.

“It’s not that surprising. We’re far closer to the Dioshin border than our own. The dungeon is on the west side of the wilderness, after all.”

Although Aberis had permitted me to claim the wilderness, I hadn’t completed that yet. I had only just started, using the strength of the Osterians to finally start beating back the wild. This dungeon was one of the farthest from that point. Until we could put settlements out here, they had as much right to this land as we did. In short, it was no man’s territory.

What made me confused was why would they be looking for Miki, and how could they guessed she was out here? The Dioshin were a superstitious lot, and they believed nine-tail foxes were evil. A foxkin technically only had one tail, but when they reached maturity they also had a chance to sprout spiritual tails, turning them into spirit foxkin. The more spirit tails they had, the more spiritual energy they could channel. If the number of tails was too high, then they would have too much spiritual energy. They would become sickly and even die.

The population also hated and feared spirit foxes, because their spiritual energy attracted ghosts and other malevolent monsters. As their tails grew, they fell lower in society, and when they exceeded 6, 1 real tail and 5 spiritual tails, even their health couldn’t be maintained. Miki managing to have nine and survive was already a miracle. Of course, the problem with a spirit fox was never how many tails, but their ability to control it. Upon unlocking the job spiritualist and leveling it, Miki was able to overcome her weakness by gaining control over her spiritual energy.

So, why would these men who feared and hated those like Miki suddenly appear before her?

“We come from Dioshin.” The man confirmed, causing her eyes to narrow, but what he said next stopped her in her tracks. “We went to great lengths to find you. You see, the town where you grew up is in trouble.”

“Trouble? What trouble?”

“A spiritual disease.” He explained. “I’m sorry to tell you, but they are dying, and the only way they can be saved is with you!”