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Chapter 112
With the use of Exorcism and Ghostbane, I quickly cleared the level and then headed down to the next one. I managed to gain three levels in True Dungeon Diver. I only gained 2 skills. I must have run into another duplicate. The skills were Basic Monster Identify and Resist Curse. Neither left me all that excited. I already had a strong spirit with White Mage, so an increase in resisting the dungeons curse wasn’t needed. Basic Monster Identify only gave me a monster’s name. That was it. I couldn’t even see their weakness!
I reached the end of the level and immediately headed down to the next floor. This mansion didn’t seem to have any traps like the last one. I had used detect traps a dozen times, and haven’t even got a distant one. This floor contained a Ghost called Whithering Ghost and another one called a Spectral Howler. The Howler was annoying. As soon as it got hit, it would scream, summoning any other ghosts in the area. The only way I could fight it was to kill everything else nearby first, and then try to handle it.
I wanted to equip Cook and see if there were any food drops, but I still had a month of food remaining. When you packed to feed three, one person really could last a while.
I finally reached a room that looked vaguely familiar. Actually, it looked like a library, but it was a single room I could close the door on. Furthermore, there was a mural on the wall. That was right. This was a place we often treated as a safe room. I had been going on for probably 1 and a half days straight. I had depended heavily on refresh to keep myself going. Now that I had a place I could consider safe, I collapsed in a heap.
I went about starting a fire and trying to prepare something warm this time. As I set to work, the door opened a crack, and a small little person slipped in. The door closed again. I let out a sigh as I looked in Celeste’s location.
“What is it that you want?” I demanded.
“Eek!”
She fled behind a bookshelf. I decided to ignore her. Instead, I equipped my Cook and concentrating on making my meal. With all of my skills, soon, a fire was raging a pot was boiling. Flavorful smells were filling the tiny little library which was never supposed to be used for cooking. I saw the fairy poke her head out again. She looked like she was drooling, her mouth open.
“Would you like me to make you some?” I asked.
She wiped her mouth and ducked again, but it wasn’t more than a second before she was looking out again. She watched as I carefully cooked everything. I created a bigger dish than was needed and made sure to incorporate all my best vegetables into the stew. She was staring at it with a light in her eyes.
I didn’t even know if fairies could eat. She had been in this mansion for 20 years, so what had she been eating? However, since she was responding to food, I decided to just go with it. I cooked slow and methodically, making sure to enhance the flavor to the best of my cooking ability. She finally floated out, heading to the fire like a moth to the flame, her tongue almost panting.
I took the smallest bowl I had and filled it with soup. I then pushed it so it was on the other seat across from me. The fairy eyed it suspiciously at first, but ever so slowly, she took a seat across from me. Finally, she picked up the bowl that was almost too big for her arms, and then drank from it like it was a cup.
“Mmmm!” her cheeks going pink as she let out a cry. “This is delicious!”
“What have you been eating the last 20 years?” I asked.
The fairy sniffed indignantly. “Fairies are creatures of mana. I feed off the natural mana of the world.”
“Ah… so I guess I won’t need to make you any more…”
“B-but fairies also have exquisite taste glands!” She suddenly shouted, almost spilling her bowl. “It’s considered abuse to not feed your House Fairy! It’s a rule! A definite rule!”
“Ah… I see…”
At least, she was talking to me now. We continued to eat the stew and sit by the fire. After a long day of dungeon diving, this kind of thing was starting to grow on me.”
Chapter 113
After finishing eating, I stood up and walked over to the mosaics on the wall. I was really hoping these were a staple of dungeons and not a one-time thing. Now that I could see this one, I could start uncovering the truth about this mansion. Well, none of the mosaics told a full story. It was all given in pieces, and if I missed a mosaic, who knew what part of the story I was missing.
I had no delusions I’d be capable of finishing the lore this time. Destroying it is the most I could hope for. It would be a lot less DP, but finishing the lore involved strange and unknowable conditions. We already solved the lore in the last place, and I still couldn’t tell you 100% what we needed to do to fix it. Was it us reliving the scene differently that did it? Or was it the sister showing up and finally bringing closure to the necromancer? These were questions I didn’t have the answers to.
“What are those, they’re pretty?” A small voice asked from behind me.
“Isn’t this your mansion? Shouldn’t you know?” I shot back
“Geh!” The fairy was eating her third bowl of stew. “That is… I’ve seen them before, but master never explained what they are!”
She quickly downed her bowl, blocking her face from my incredulous glance. She seemed like a glutton, but she was small, so three bowls for her was only a single bowl for me.
“This mosaic tells a story,” I explained. “Would you like the hear it?”
“Hah… yum!” She slammed her bowl down, seemingly very carefree, “Stories? I like stories! Read it to me!”
“Very well… but bear with me a bit, I have to extrapolate a lot. I only get pictures and they never tell the whole story.”
“Okay…” She fluttered up next to me, sitting on my shoulder.
She was actually pretty heavy. It was like a house cat jumping on your shoulder. However, I ignored her. I didn’t want to get on her bad graces. That was all. I cleared my throat and began.
“This tells the story of a boy.” I started. “He was a noble, born to a generous and loving mother and father. One day, when he was very young, he ran into an escaped animal girl. She begged him to let her go, but he was a noble boy who was taught right and wrong, and he knew she was a slave. He turned her in. She looked at him with hateful eyes, but he knew slaves shouldn’t run away.”
“He decided to wait with her and the authorities until the slave’s owner arrived. It was an old, ugly, angry man. The noble boy smiled and told him not to be too hard on the girl. The old man responded by pulling out a whip and beating her right in front of the boy. He was horrified. He tried to make the man stop, but he simply kicked the kid aside. When the kid turned to the guards he had brought the girl to, they said it was the slaver’s right.”
“He could do nothing but watch as the girl was beaten to unconsciousness. It caused a thick knot to grow in his heart. He no longer believed he knew what was right and wrong. He no longer believed that the nobles were right, or that what the guards did was justice. His path turned down a different direction.”
That was really strange. From what I had heard from the Chalm citizens, Karr aided in freeing slaves. He abhorred slavery. If this was the story of a young Karr, then everything seemed to fit fine. Well, everything except for the house fairy. I glanced over to her sitting on my shoulder, looking at the colorful mosaic with bright eyes. How did she become the slave of a man who abhorred slavery? There was much more to this story than it seemed!
Chapter 114
“What happened next?” Celeste demanded from atop my shoulder.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“What? What is that about?”
“I said, this is only part of the story. There are other rooms like this strewn about the mansion. They should have the other mosaics and will provide more of the story.”
“Really! They do?” Celeste asks excitedly.
I leaned away, as she was leaning so close her breasts were nearly in my eyes. They were small, but up this close they looked like the first time I had seen them. They even jiggled a bit, which seemed like it broke the physics engine for this world.
“Yes… if we keep going down, then…”
“Not necessary!” Celeste said excitedly. “I’ll take you to the next room! You’ll tell me the rest of the story if I take you to all the rooms, correct?”
“Ah… to the best of my knowledge, sure?”
“Yay!” She jumped off my shoulder and flapped her wings, flying off, “Then, let’s go! Let’s go!”
“W-wait! It’s late and I’m tired! The next library is probably a few floors down.”
“Pfft! That’s easy! Just follow me!”
“O-okay…”
{Celeste is now in your party.}
Ah, so people from this world can form parties too. It looked like it really was something as simple as “follow me”. She floated over to a pillar in the middle of the room. I didn’t really know what it was. It most resembled the altar from the cathedral-like rooms I had entered in the previous dungeon. She felt around for a moment, and then the pillar suddenly glowed.
“Here we go!” Celeste excitedly said.
“What?”
A light glowed around Celeste and then a moment later she vanished from sight. My mouth fell open as I stared at the space she used to be. Was this like what happened when I used Return? Actually, most people seemed to ignore Return. I had a feeling there was some kind of perception filter kind of thing on it. However, what really got my attention was the text in front of my vision.
{Your party has teleported to another part of the dungeon. You must register with both kiosks to use the dungeon teleportation system.}
“Dungeon Teleportation System!” I immediately leaped up, shouting out the name.
So, to recap, these rooms had doors that could be closed so you could be safe, effectively making them safe rooms. Each one had mosaics that talked about the curse that created the dungeon. They also had a kiosk in the middle. If you registered with the kiosk, you could teleport to any other kiosk in the dungeon you have visited.
“If I had known this, what happened in that Mina’s dungeon never would have happened.”
I could have transported back up as soon as we found that second cathedral. That was the system this world use to allow dungeon divers to get deeper and deeper into dungeons. I knew as their levels reached 100 or 1000, it would otherwise be impossible. I walked over to the kiosk and put my hand on it. I was looking to see what I needed to do, but a second later it flashed.
{You have been registered with Karr’s Dungeon level 5 kiosk.}
So… I’m level 5 after all.
A moment later, the Kiosk flashed again and the fairy reappeared. She was glaring at me with her fists on her hips.
“Why didn’t you come with me!” She snapped.
I bowed. “I’m sorry, it says you can only visit rooms you’ve been to before. I’ll have to go down the dungeon the long way, it seems.”
Celeste crossed her arms and blushed. “R-right… I knew that.”
“Can I get some sleep now? Tomorrow will be a long day.”