My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem

Chapter 1244

The foxkin leader who I presumed was the mayor led the way and we followed. Given that the town was quite small and almost everyone was hiding indoors, it didn’t take us long to reach our destination. The location was a large building. I didn’t understand the purpose until I was inside. In some ways, it was reminiscent of the rooms that Astria had built where she was turning local girls into fairies. There were rows of beds, and there were sickly looking children filling every single bed. I had noticed a lack of children when I arrived, but I hadn’t thought much about it. It seemed like every child in the village might be there.

“This is… a hospital?”

“After… it happened, all of the children in the village became ill.” He responded weakly.

“It?”

“Her curse… she cursed us all to death. She said it was the gift we deserved.” He made a bitter expression as if he was lost in his thoughts.

“You don’t look dead to me.” I frowned.

“The adults are fairing better, but make no mistake. We are all sick. You may be thinking that Lady Death spared us. This is far from the truth. She is just doing it slower.”

Whether this was caused by Miki or not, I couldn’t sit back while the children suffered. I walked to one of the beds and put my hand on the forehead of one of the children. The child had their eyes closed, but they were squeezing them shut like they were experiencing pain. The child’s forehead was sweaty, and their body was pale and thin.

I hadn’t noticed beforehand, perhaps because this was Miki’s village and I had been expecting other foxkin to look similar to her, but the foxkin were all somewhat pale and thin. I tried to think of any other foxkin I had encountered, and I didn’t recall there being a staple for their kind.

I pulled out various spells from my White Mage arsenal. I used Moderate Heal. Moderate Heal Poison, Purify, Cure Disease, and so on. I ran down the list of fixes that I knew, and a few moments later, the child’s eyes eased up and their complexion improved.

“Y-you’re a priest?” The leader asked worriedly.

As a general rule, the animalkin didn’t like priests. They were too closely associated with spirits and death. Even the foxkin had this level of unease. I had hoped that foxkin, given their tendency to produce animalkin with spiritual tails, would be better. I had hoped this, but knowing what had ultimately happened to Miki, my hopes hadn’t been high.

I had asked the wolfkin how their kind was resurrected, and apparently, their church had shamans instead of priests. As for how shamans differed from priests, I didn’t know, but I could imagine the similarities that would be suitable for the animalkin. If priests could be said to use mana, and dark priests used miasma, then perhaps shamans depended on gaia. It might be something like that.

“No, I’m just a mage with some healing ability,” I explained as simply as I could, causing his tension to ease.

From there, I moved to each of the kids and healed them. It had been a while since I focused so much on healing.

{White Mage has increased to level 60.}

{You have unlocked the spell, Regeneration.}

It wasn’t the first time my job skills showed a redundancy with my dungeon points. This was a bit different though. Regen only worked on me, while this could be cast on anyone. I was somewhat curious how quickly I would heal if I had both Regeneration cast and Regen equipped. It seemed like my path to becoming a broken character was continuing one way or another.

“Thank you for this.” He said. “Unfortunately, it won’t change our fates. Let’s continue.”

“This isn’t what you wanted to show me?”

He shook his head, a look of shame on his face. There was more to see.

Chapter 1245

The mayor led me to the back of the hospital where there was a stairway that descended down. I thought we’d end up in a basement, but instead, there was a strange underground path that seemed to lead away from the village. The mayor didn’t say anything. I remained cautious. There was always the possibility he was leading us into a trap. However, I wasn’t so easy to contain. I had five seasoned warriors as well as my Blue Mage abilities. I had confidence there wasn’t anything this guy could pull that would be able to hurt us. Besides that, I didn’t feel any malice or danger.

Our group reached the end of the hallway, coming into an underground structure. The walls changed from rock to brick hallways, and there seemed to be glow rocks keeping the area lit. There wasn’t any specific thing called a glow rock, but basically, any magical item that could glow for an extended period was called a glow rock. Most people didn’t have my orbs, so they used candles and torches, but richer people found a source of glow rocks.

For a village as small as this, finding glow rocks here would be surprising. Most of the buildings were made of wood and thatch, so the brick already stood out. The corridor let out into a massive room. It appeared to be some kind of reception room, not unlike what you might find in an adventuring guild. The mayor came to an abrupt stop before turning back to us.

“This is as far as I’ll go.” He announced.

I raised an eyebrow. “You said that you had something to show me.”

“It’s down there.” He pointed to the stairway. “The answers you seek are at the bottom of this place.”

“And I can’t convince you to lead the way?” I hadn’t put Alysia away, and I stroked her intimidatingly as I glared at him.

He turned rigid, his mouth tightening. “This place… is a cursed place. I won’t walk down into those depths.”

He seemed pretty firm. It looked like threatening would only go so far. I sighed and dropped my blade, turning back to the Wolf Pack.

“Stay here and watch him. I’ll continue.”

If Miki really was involved in all of this, then there might be some things I didn’t want the others to see. I decided it was best to continue. Plus, I wanted someone to watch the mayor, as I wasn’t completely trusting of him. The wolf pack leader silently nodded, and I walked past the mayor and continued down the stairway.

“M-master… you should warn me before you touch me like that.” Alysia cried.

“Ah!” I coughed. “S-sorry…”

I had been intimidating the mayor, but apparently, I had ended up stimulating Alysia and making things difficult for her. I repented immediately, allowing her to return to her blessing. I could make her appear nearly instantly, so there was no point in having her out. I had only done it to keep up with the intimidation.

“What does he mean by this place being cursed?” Alysia wondered out loud as we reached the 2nd floor.

“You haven’t noticed?” I asked.

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“The miasma down here is rather thick. This place also looks strange. Too even… too organized.” I explained. “This place was a dungeon?”

Chapter 1246

“A dungeon?” Alysia let out an alarmed gasp.

“Well, it isn’t anymore. The core was removed. This is just the dried-up husk of a dead dungeon.” I responded.

“Oh…” Alysia’s response was contemplative.

A dungeon could exist without the dungeon core, but only for a short period. Eventually, the connection between the two would cease, and the dungeon would begin to break apart. This was such a dungeon. If the core had been destroyed, the entrances to the dungeon would have collapsed and it would have more quickly broken apart. This was a slower death. Based on the loss of miasma, the core must have been taken a month or two ago.

“Around the time Lady Death Appeared.” I sighed.

“Master?”

“Come on… let’s keep going.”

I continued walking down the dead hallways. There wasn’t much dust, but the entire place had a feeling of decay and abandonment. The hallways had many offshoot rooms. They varied in function. Some of them were residences. Some were mess halls. Some had purposes I couldn’t even guess.

“If the lore is gone, how can we hope to learn what happened to Miki here?”

“This dungeon is different,” I responded. “People were living here until recently. This wasn’t just a dungeon. It was a workplace. The catkin had turned a dungeon into a portable building.”

“S-seriously? Dungeons can be used even in this manner?”

“Based on appearances, I guess so.” I reached the stairway to the third floor, not hesitating to continue.

“What were they doing here?”

“I can offer a guess.” I frowned.

“What is it?” Alysia couldn’t help but ask.

“A few of these rooms appear to be labs. I’ve seen rooms dedicated to alchemy and others to runes and formations. I believe this was a research facility.”

“A research facility.”

“You are correct.” A voice suddenly came out of nowhere.

I summoned Alysia immediately, spinning to see a man standing behind me. He appeared to be a foxkin. He wore glasses and a large lab coat. He was standing where I had just walked past. There was no way I would have missed him.

“Who are you?”

“I suppose you would call me the former dungeon master of this facility.” He spoke calmly. “I detected the presence of another dungeon master. I’m afraid there isn’t much to take from this place though.”

He seemed peaceful, so I put up my blade, but I kept myself ready. I remembered how quickly that lizard Gram had attacked before. If I had to use Return and portal back, it’d be a pain, especially since I was so close to the answers I sought.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I gritted my teeth. “This place is a laboratory?”

He nodded. “This is the finest in animalkin engineering. A curse by design. It can be set up anywhere. Experiments can be run in secret, and when the time comes, the entire thing can be collapsed, leaving not a trace behind.”

“I take it that this didn’t happen.”

“No.” He sighed. “Six weeks ago, one of the subjects broke containment. The core was lost, and everyone in the facility died.”

“Subject?” I sneered. “Don’t you mean…”

“Yes, Lady Death.”