My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem - My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1208-1210

Chapter 1208

“So, this is Esmore.” I gave a crisp breath that could be seen. “It’s colder than I thought.”

“That’s because we’re in the western mountain range. As one might expect, the dwarves live in the mountains, and the esmere live in the plains at the center. Well, we don’t interact much with the dwarves. They are very reclusive, but there are a few that come down and a few of us that come up to the mountains. Mostly merchants. They depend on our farming to eat, and we depend on their mining and craftsmanship. Best blacksmiths in the five countries.” As Pait spoke, there seemed to be a sense of pride in his words.

“It’s beautiful,” Alysia spoke up.

We were in a small village seemingly on the side of a mountain. The air was thinner up here, and there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. I would have had trouble without acclimating had I been the boy I once was. The levels and alterations to my body had made it so I wasn’t overwhelmed by this place anymore.

There were many dwarves and a few esmere running around. Ruby had once told me that the two species don’t get along, but that didn’t seem to be the case.  The dwarves looked like the traditional dwarves one would expect. They were short with thick beards that ran down their chests. They were dressed in heavy furs to keep warm as they ran around doing their jobs. Only the men looked like traditional dwarves. The women looked like Garnet. They were taller than the men but were only the size of twelve- or thirteen-year-old girls. They were small-chested, with brown or black hair and brown eyes.

“Come on, let’s get going.”

“Already?” I raised an eyebrow.

If this was an expedition, I was thinking it might take a few days. We had only just arrived at the traveling guild, and he was already packing up to go. Traveling through these mountains had to be dangerous. I could manage, but I worried that this might be too much for Dav. Even now, she was bundled up in extra furs, clearly not enjoying the cold.

“I had already hired a guide. It’s not as bad as you think. This place exists for a very particular reason.”

“Oh?”

I didn’t ask him anymore. I had already put everything I felt I’d need inside my inventory before setting out for Matty’s dungeon, so I was prepared to move. We met a dwarf, and as soon as I saw him my eyebrows raised. Unlike the others I had seen, he had red hair and red eyes, just like Garnet.

“A deep dwarf?”

The old dwarf made a noise. “Oh… an Osterian knows about my species?”

“Ah… that… I’ve met one before.”

I didn’t go into specifics. Call me selfish, but what if this was the only remaining Deep Dwarf alive? I didn’t want to have another issue as I had with Faeyna, where she was being pressured to continue on her line. There were normal dwarves. Just because this might be the last redhead didn’t make it worth the hassle to me. Thankfully, the guy didn’t make an issue of it and only nodded before checking a cart filled with supplies.

I realized that we had approached what appeared to be a mine shaft, but it looked like everyone was planning to enter it.

“Excuse me, how long is this journey going to take?”

Pait glanced at me. “We’ll reach Dioshin in two days. You’ll understand in a moment.”

“That…”

I had thought the journey would take weeks. As we progressed, I was thinking of using my Portals to speed us along. However, it seemed like the journey was going to be underground. The expedition didn’t take long to move forward. Upon stepping into the mine, I did come to understand.

{You have entered the dungeon, Gram’s Passage. Destroy the lore to break the curse, or complete the lore for extra dungeon points and a blessing!}

Chapter 1209

“This is a dungeon?”

Other than Pait, Dav, and the Deep Dwarf leader, two other wagon hands were pulling the wagon. They didn’t use a horse or anything like that. There was also a group of five adventurers, all dwarves, which had the air of guards.  The old dwarf looked back at me once I asked such a question.

“Yes, this dungeon has two exits. One exit is on this mountain, and the other is within Dioshin.”

“So, dungeons can be like this as well.”

“It’s more than that,” Pait added. “It doesn’t just provide a straight and easy path. It also is shorter. It’d take a week to walk the distance we’ll cover in only two days.”

The men traveled down a dark cave for only a few minutes, then we came onto a large wooden platform. The two helpers moved the wagon out into the middle of the platform, and Pait and Dav found a seat on two benches. As soon as we were all on board, the dwarf pulled and lever, and the entire platform lurched. I grabbed onto the side to keep my balance, causing Pait to laugh at me. I could see the platform was lowering down, as the ceiling was falling away from us. It was a lever-based elevator. The dwarves were handy.

“Is this path safe?” I asked, taking a look at the guards who seemed to be standing around casually.

“Yes and no…” Pait responded. “We’ve found if people travel alone and unprotected, the dungeon will strike and attempt to kill them. They don’t usually bother with those that have a guard. So, guards usually don’t have much to do.”

“I see…”

Dungeons did need to eat, after all. Picking off easy prey while creating a service that kept a steady stream of people walking through was just like a dungeon. However, this one did have a unique feature that interested me. I had known dungeons to manipulate time, but this was the first dungeon I had seen that was able to manipulate space. I had done something similar when I had reformed my dungeon and stretched it into a long path to surprise the Demon Lord Aberis, but I wasn’t able to manipulate space to stretch it out. I was very curious about what allowed them to do that. It had to be a Blue Mage trick. I should ask Siti when I returned.

Then again, if I took the lore, wouldn’t I learn all of its secrets? Of course, that would be the equivalent of declaring war on the dungeon. I had been lucky with Matty’s dungeon. Matty was a child and also easily bullied. Other dungeons might not react so calmly to a rival dungeon master. I made sure to keep my mana inside so that I didn’t reveal my true nature. However, I also remained vigilant that the dungeon might attack us.

We sank for what seemed like miles into the underground. It had an oppressive feel to it. Dav shook and then clung on to Pait. He shrugged helplessly.

“Dwarves may enjoy the underground, but the esmere do not.”

“Hmph… scared of a little dark.” The leader of the adventuring party scoffed causing Pait to flush angrily.

However, before he could say a thing, the elevator stopped with a thud. We had reached the bottom.

Chapter 1210

“This route has been shut down lately. The last few groups to travel through had to turn around once they got there.” The dwarf stated. “This journey might not be so safe. I wouldn’t be going if I wasn’t asked by the Esmore assembly.”

“Not safe?” Pait frowned. “Why would you think that?”

“Dungeons thrive on mana,” I spoke up without thinking. “I’m just guessing, but I think whatever trick they use to alter space means the dungeon can’t absorb very much mana from the ground. That means it needs to feed off people. If there are no people…”

“The dungeon gets hungry.” The old dwarf finished, giving me a second look and seemingly nodding with approval. “A dungeon diver?”

“Ah… I dabble.” I laughed as I scratched my cheek, not wanting to get into it.

“You don’t need to worry. This is a class D dungeon. It’s nothing we can’t take,” the adventurer said.

“Uh… classes?” I blinked.

“That’s right, you guys in Ost Republic don’t classify dungeons,” the man said. “Just like adventurers, the adventuring guild down here classifies dungeons based difficulty. A newly formed dungeon is an F, while the dungeons you call Great Labyrinths are an S class.”

“The Ost Republic has a similar system. Although we rate by floor, and the rating is simply which level adventurer we think would be able to function safely on that level.”

I nodded as he explained such a simple thing. It made perfect sense. I knew dungeons had levels of strength. In Aberis, we usually determined that level based on the dungeon’s size. A new dungeon was ten floors, and then they gained about a floor a year. The older a dungeon, the stronger it was, usually. However, the more I was exposed to dungeons the more I realized that this rule didn’t need to be followed. That might be the truth with natural uninterrupted growth, but dungeons could be altered in a variety of ways. Take Matty’s Dungeon, which should have had forty or so floors, but only had twenty.

Thus, evaluating dungeons and determining their difficulty made some sense. I understood why Aberis didn’t do this though. When dungeons were found, they were either kept and nurtured or destroyed. A difficulty level couldn’t truly tell you how dangerous a dungeon was, and was only necessary if one decided they were going to destroy the dungeon.

The Great Labyrinths might be S class, but countless low-level people entered the dungeons and fought on the top floors to gain levels and fighting experience. Dungeons were unpredictable. You had dungeon floods and traps. Sometimes, a dungeon just wanted to kill you. I could portal out of a dungeon, which made the danger to me minimal, but for anyone else, even a level F dungeon could kill a skilled person if they let their guard down.

Thus, I didn’t feel that bad that I didn’t know of such a ranking system. It would only confuse most people in Aberis, who didn’t see dungeons in such a one-dimensional way. A rather easy dungeon could be building up mana toward a super powerful boss, and a rather difficult dungeon could have a rather simple lore to complete. By nature, people wanted to classify nature, but no matter how many criteria existed, nature always came up with an exception. The dungeons weren’t much different.

After exiting the elevator, we began the two-day journey through the darkness of Gram’s Passage. I couldn’t shake the feeling like I was walking into the maw of a great beast.