My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1650-1652

Chapter 1650

As I began to work on merging with the lore, it was difficult to focus too much on what was going on around me. Even sparing a glance at my map to make sure there weren’t any red encroaching was difficult. I had to leave things to everyone else and focus instead on my task. From the moment I had touched the orb and thrown it into my soul world, I had felt pressure coming off of it. It was the same kind of pressure I felt when I went against an opponent that I knew was stronger than myself. It was the feeling of a greater lore.

I was attempting to become a master of something stronger than myself. Well, it wasn’t like I didn’t have experience in that regard. Most of the women in my party were often stronger than I was. I might have more tricks up my sleeve, but I could never imagine being able to defeat any of the girls when they were at their strongest. I was glad that I had their strength on my side.

There was another shutter as a spell seemed to reach closer to us. Focus! I had to focus and make this work. I had told them six hours, but that was an extremely optimistic answer. The true answer was that it would be done when it was done, and the more I worked at it, the quicker I’d get it done. The more I let my mind wander on other inconsequential things, the longer it would all take. That was why I needed my Slave Communication off, and the girls worrying about my protection while I worried about merging with the lore.

It felt like a mountain weighing down on my shoulders, threatening to smother me in lore so dense and complex that I could barely understand every other word. It was like reading the most complicated physics paper, or it’d probably be like that if I had ever attempted to read a physic paper. I had never tried because the attempt would be futile, and that’s how I felt under the weight of this lore as well. This was humanity, and I was human, so I thought that it wouldn’t be so difficult to understand, but it was far too difficult to understand.

This was honestly the first time I had experienced something like this. Every lore I had ever absorbed had been pretty easy to follow. Even if it was difficult, the images and lore all made sense. What I was receiving now was a garbled mess. Why was it like that? It was like I was reading a different language.

“L-language…” I whispered to myself.

That was it! All of the lore I had previously absorbed was language from this world. It was Gaia’s language. Even what Twilight had given me was likely written in the same way. However, this wasn’t lore from this world. This was lore from the world the humans came from. That’s why I couldn’t understand it. It was in a different language!

Chapter 1651

The lore being unreadable was something that Calypso hadn’t warned me about. Perhaps, she didn’t think it would be an issue, or perhaps, she was looking to cause me trouble. I had been treating her words as absolutes, but I couldn’t truly trust her much more than I could trust the fey. If someone else had realized that the core was in a completely different language, they might have despaired, but it wouldn’t be a problem for me. After all, wasn’t I a Linquist too?

Who would have thought a rather meaningless job I had picked up trying to learn to read with Miki would end up being exactly what I needed to progress to the next stage? I hadn’t gone out of my way to perfect Linguist, and while I had used it to learn to read far faster than I had any right to, I had never spent a lot of time developing it past that. I had used it one other time in Twilight’s dungeon, but then I had mostly forgotten about it.

Yet, Linguist was filled with skills like Translate, Decode, and Interpret. Unfortunately, I wasn’t familiar enough with those skills that I could use them without equipping the job first. Thus, I had to do a job swap while in the middle of messing with my soul. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, so I took my time working slowly, making sure that I didn’t upset the lore or my soul in the process of manipulating jobs.

Jobs were essentially little fragments of lore. They had been copied and recopied so many times that they sort of floated around freely. Most of them got eaten up by dungeons, but they could also be summoned and even bound to one-use tokens. When someone met the right conditions, absorbed the right lore, or even used the token, they would attack a job to their soul. They would then attune their soul to the job, slowly gaining more of the skills and bonuses locked within.

A soul had limitations though, and normally, a soul could only support one job at a time equipped. That job was much closer to the soul than other jobs, which allowed it to gain affinity quicker and share the skills directly. One could utilize the skills in a job fragment that was equipped much like one had learned the skill themselves. Having job slots was like having gem slots on armor in a video game. The other jobs were still there, but they could only share some passive gains unless you equipped them.

At that moment, I needed more than passive gains when it came to linguistics. Once I had the Linguist skill equipped, I began trying to grasp the information. It didn’t happen instantaneously. I found myself regretting I hadn’t spent any extra time leveling Linguist. I promised myself secretly I would dedicate much more time to Merchant, Linguist, Bandit, and all of the other jobs I had mostly ignored because I never thought they were relevant.

Still, the information steadily and slowly started to become a bit clearer. I was starting to understand it, and as I started to understand things, I could feel the process starting to move forward. This was going to work. I could do this.

The door opened to the room, and Cici ran up to Eliana. I was only vaguely aware of this, the outside world still difficult to grasp. She whispered some words into Eliana’s ear, and Eliana nodded. The guards went to close the door, but the Inquisitor popped through the door too. She smiled as she started to walk toward Eliana and Cici. Cici frowned, but it took me a moment to realize what was strange. The Inquisitor was ignoring Anne, who called out to her.

I couldn’t hear much, and the entire world felt like it was moving slowly. My eyes moved to my Map and I looked at the dot as the Inquisitor suddenly turned red.

Chapter 1652

“Stop!” I shouted.

It all happened so quickly that no one was able to react. The Inquisitor leaped forward, a knife being pulled from her robes. Cici tried to move, and the Inquisitor sliced right through her. She cried out as she fell to the side. It was Eliana she was lunging for. Eliana only managed a step back before she grabbed onto her, and then spun her around with a knife to her neck.

The room turned into a cacophony as Alysia and First pulled their weapons. The lionesses outside heard the commotion and several ran in too. This pushed the Inquisitor back until she was in a corner, her knife held to Eliana’s neck as she held her in the corner.

“What are you doing?” Anne cried out.

“Hehe… my job…” She laughed.

“M-mast…” That was the only word I heard as I looked down to see Cici convulsing on the ground.

“What’s wrong with her?” Chance cried out, falling to her knees and grabbing the other girl.

She pulled open her dress where it was cut, revealing a wound that was quickly growing dark, black tendrils reaching out from the wound menacingly.

“Malacrum,” I growled.

Anne gave me a look, and I nodded. She went down to her knees and began casting spells. Cici’s body glowed for a moment, and her convulsions decreased, but her wound was still growing.

“She’s quite resistant to miasma. A normal person would have already been dead.” The inquisitor chuckled, then shot the others a warning glare as she held the knife against Eliana’s neck.

First and Alysia stiffened, but they did hold back.

“Why are you doing this?” Eliana spoke, using her diplomatic voice.

“Why? Because she’s one of us, fool.” The voice seemingly came out of nowhere, but as a portal opened up right next to the inquisitor, my worse suspicions were proved.

A group of fey walked into the room, and in front of them was none other than the leader, Kaia, with a mocking grin on her face.

“You…” Anne’s expression darkened. “Inquisitor, why would you help the enemy?”

Kaia walked over and took the blade from the Inquisitor’s hand, dragging Eliana toward the portal. I tensed, but she stopped when she reached the entrance without stepping through. The inquisitor pulled back her hood, revealing her purple hair. Then, she lifted it, revealing pointed ears.

“I’m a fey, idiot. You are the enemy.” She smirked.

“B-but… you grew up here… the fey tribe are…” Anne started.

“Traitors… some of them.” Kaia shrugged. “Those that tried to ally here are all traitors, but some reached out to us. Some saw the signs and welcomed us with open arms. She was one of the first. All it took was a lack of a chest and you didn’t even ask any questions. Who would be better at deceiving than the person you assign to find out secrets?”

Anne silently shook her head, unable to accept it, even though it was as clear as day. I felt like a fool. She had purple hair and purple eyes, yet I hadn’t considered for a second that she was a threat to me. Whether it was Cici, Celeste, or any of the other fairy creatures I knew, such exotic colors didn’t stand out to me, but they were the most obvious way to determine a fey from a human. I had let her walk right in. Of course, she didn’t appear red on my map, but if anyone could do such a deception, wouldn’t it be an inquisitor?

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“Don’t be coy with me.” Kaia held one hand out in my direction, with the other holding the malacrum knife still pressed against Eliana’s neck. “Hand it over, the human lore.”