Chapter 160 - The destruction of the world?
[Chapter Size: 1900 Words.]
Third Person POV
Orario.
...
...
"Are you saying this thing comes from the dungeon? Aren't you exaggerating?" Riveria murmured, quite surprised by Lucius's words.
"It's the same energy I feel when I use mana in the dungeon. They're identical..." Lucius said, frowning as he looked at it. Even the intensity of the magic wasn't any less here. He approached the thing, touching the petrified roots to examine them more closely. It was just like any rocky part of the dungeon that glowed—after all, those things existed there too.
It glowed and emitted magic, which meant that, despite the region being dead, it was still functioning.
"And what if this thing is killing the region? What if the dungeon on the other side of the continent is draining the region's life energy?" Lucius theorized, staring intently at the roots.
Riveria did not respond to Lucius's words, but neither did she dismiss the possibility. After all, everything started with a theory.
"Do you know if any of Athena's members have discovered this?" Lucius asked.
"I don't know, there's no record of it in the books," Riveria replied, thoughtful. "If something like this were known, it would spread like a plague. People would be terrified to learn that the dungeon is spreading its roots across the continent... or worse, that it's responsible for sucking the vital energy out of the abandoned world."
"Well, that doesn't matter right now. Let's take some samples and get out of here. After all, there's only one explanation for so many dead bodies here. It means this part connected to the dungeon can still generate monsters," Lucius stated, theorizing that the dwarves had started digging until they found these roots. When they tried to extract something from them, monsters must have been created, leading to the massacre they saw.
With a swift movement, he began removing some petrified branches, but the next moment, the roots reacted. A pulsating sound, like a heartbeat, echoed as creatures started emerging, born from them.
Riveria quickly assumed a combat stance, while Lucius remained calmer, observing level 2 and 3 monsters appearing, including minotaurs and other creatures that regarded them as enemies.
"What a nuisance," Lucius murmured, seeing that his theory was correct. After all, only the dungeon could generate such creatures. Without wasting time, he raised his hand and began bombarding the monsters with a simple firebolt spell—the first spell he had ever learned—destroying them with ease.
The creatures only screamed in pain and disappeared, leaving crystals that fell to the ground. Riveria remained silent, watching.
Lucius picked up one of the crystals and analyzed it. "It's just like any crystal we collect from the dungeon," he said as the points exchange system activated. The points received were equivalent to those earned from monsters encountered in the dungeon.
"So the dungeon has extended to this part of the continent," Riveria murmured.
"No wonder they had the crystal that powered the city. The dungeon created its own crystal until it decided to start draining the area," Lucius explained.
"But why here? Why not start draining Orario? After all, that would devastate the city and make it harder for adventurers to access the dungeon," Riveria questioned, deep in thought.
"Maybe it can't do that. Maybe the dungeon doesn't want to be discovered, or perhaps it needs to draw energy from somewhere to start creating monsters infinitely, even stealing energy from this world over the last thousands of years. We can't have answers to these theories now..." Lucius scratched his head, trying to understand, but he knew he'd have to investigate further in the future.
"Anyway, we'd better get out of here. We've got some samples," he said, holding a piece of the petrified root and the crystals he hadn't sold to the system. "The dungeon has had thousands of years to reach here, which makes me wonder if there aren't similar roots across the entire continent, capable of destroying everything if the dungeon wants. That's even worse than the black dragon," Lucius said as he started to return to Riveria before they began to leave.
In any case, there was nothing more for them to do there, so they headed toward the dead crystal.
"Do you think the world is in danger, Lucius?" Riveria asked on the way, a little uneasy.
"I don't have answers for that, Riveria..." Lucius murmured before continuing. "But all the gods' eyes are focused on the black dragon and the idea of creating the last hero, which makes them forget that it was the dungeon that created the three calamities. What's stopping it from creating another black dragon?" Lucius said, while Riveria remained silent, though she recognized the logic in his words.
After all, the dungeon might be the greatest evil in this world.
'First, a group of gods trying to use their arcanum to dominate the mortal world. Second, an immensely powerful dragon that must be above level 10, slumbering somewhere in this world. Third, now the dungeon itself, which could slowly destroy the world...' Lucius thought about the problems this world had to deal with.
"What do we do with this entrance, Lucius?" Riveria asked, snapping him out of his thoughts as she pointed to the entrance excavated by the dwarves. "To prevent more people from coming here, since this place usually attracts one or two explorers from the city," she added.
"Well, the best I can do is this," Lucius said, taking out his sword and carving lines on the wall above the entrance, forming words as a warning: 'Death ahead.' He looked at Riveria after finishing. "Let's head back."
Following their plan, they began to return. Upon reaching the place where the dwarves were still frozen in time spheres, Lucius decided to release them. As they emerged from the spheres, the dwarves collapsed to the ground, disoriented, before looking at the two who had been in front of them moments ago but now stood behind them.
"You..." one of the dwarves murmured angrily, trying to comprehend what had happened. He felt strange, as if he were lost in time.
"Stop complaining. We went down to see what was interesting and found a pile of your friends' corpses. Can you explain that to me?" Lucius said, staring at the dwarves.
"Why would we tell you anything, human and elf?" one of the dwarves grumbled with disdain.
"If you want to hide information about the magic root we found down there, we already know about it. So, there's nothing you can conceal. Besides, that root is from the Orario dungeon, so it's not worth as much as you think. Part of what we found down there can easily be acquired on the market, with adventurers collecting magic stones and parts from the Orario dungeon," Lucius paused and added with a serious look, "But if you want to continue, go ahead, just be careful. That thing is still spawning monsters. We had to kill some centaurs, which explains why so many of you were found dead. In my opinion, it makes you a bunch of idiots."
Lucius said this calmly, but the impact of his words made the three dwarves seethe with rage.
"Don't treat us like fools!" one of them growled.
"Fine, are you going to tell us what's going on here or not?" Lucius said impatiently.
The three were silent for a moment, but eventually, one of them spoke. "Since we weren't finding much in the city lately, we decided to dig near the central crystal to see if we could find anything. That's when we discovered the root, which you must have seen. It glows and certainly has value. We began excavating the entire area around it, but... we ran into problems. We weren't there when they started ripping parts of it out, but when we returned, we found everyone dead. Monster sounds came soon after. That was three months ago, and we left before returning again."
Lucius nodded, already imagining this had happened. "I see. I wouldn't recommend you go there again. After all, you can't fight those monsters, and you don't even have proper fauna," Lucius said, turning to Riveria. "Now, let's be on our way. If you'll excuse us," he added.
Lucius began walking, with Riveria following closely behind, passing the dwarves, who said nothing further. In the end, they made their way back to the city.
"We have a few hours before nightfall. Do you want to leave the Abandoned World?" Riveria asked.
"We can leave; after all, camping here wouldn't be ideal," Lucius replied, scratching his head. "Let's head straight to Athena. There, I want to speak directly with the ruler, the goddess Athena," he murmured.
Riveria nodded, but just as Lucius was about to take off to leave the area, the system beeped. At that moment, a new message appeared:
[New Mission: Find a relic from the past within the city. The closer you are to it, the system will emit a signal with increasing frequency. Reward: 3 chant-cancelation cards.]
Lucius was surprised to see the message. Although the reward wasn't system points like he usually received, he knew the cards would be extremely useful, especially since he had already used all of his.
"Riveria, change of plans," Lucius suddenly said, surprising the elf. "Help me look for something in the city before we leave," he added, beginning his search for the relic, leaving Riveria confused.
They searched through the city, and with Lucius's abilities and the system beeping more frequently as they neared the location, he eventually found what he was looking for. Thirty minutes later, he discovered a hatch in an ordinary house. Opening it, he found a small box. Even Riveria seemed surprised.
Inside the box, easily opened by Lucius, was a small vial.
"What's this?" he murmured, picking up the object as he noticed Riveria's eyes widen in astonishment.
"This... is a Spirit Tear!" she exclaimed, incredulous at what she was seeing.
"And what does it do?" Lucius asked, curious.
"You don't know what a Spirit Tear is? It's extremely rare in this world! Only a handful have been seen throughout all known history... They come from spirits who died and sacrificed their core. This can alter a person's magical level on an alarming scale!" Riveria explained, nearly nervous as she looked at the vial.
"Really?" Lucius murmured. "How much can it boost magic?" he asked, intrigued.
"It's not certain since it has only happened twice in known history. They say that the person who consumed the Tear saw their magic increase by a gigantic percentage, but no one knows for sure all the effects it might have. My ancestor received one from the ancient spirit of the forest that lived in our woods..." Riveria explained, still gazing at the object, clearly a remnant of a dead spirit. Its value would be billions of valis.
"I didn't know something like this existed here. Well, in any case, let's move on," Lucius said, storing the vial in his spatial inventory, while Riveria nodded.
In the end, they spent the night in the abandoned city. Lucius used his powers to ensure they had a very comfortable evening. When the sun began to rise over the horizon, they decided to leave.
They set off toward the northwest, where Athena was located.
"It's time to visit the greatest magical human civilization on the continent," Lucius murmured as they flew across the desolate lands of the abandoned world.
-----
Raccoon Here: All of this is my invention; I want to theorize to create the ending of this story. After all, the dungeon will be destroyed at the end of the story. The abandoned world, the dungeon roots spread across the world, and even the Spirit Tears and Athena are things I created for the story, even though these places exist in the canon. I'm also unsure what to do with these Spirit Tears—after all, I could give them directly to Riveria to bring her more in line with our MC, considering he's already unlimited thanks to the system.
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