Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core) Chapter 80: Going Home

My head was bowed low. Titan... I had wanted it. I couldn’t bla Titan for taking advantage of the fact that I had wanted him.

But...

I needed to make sure that he didn’t do any harm! I was a peaceful nymph, a peaceful dungeon core!

If I managed to make use of the skill he gave , then I was going to make sure that he never got out of the Cave of Sin!

A cave I was going to visit more than once, even if I didn’t know it.

Because, as much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t want to share Titan with the rest of my harem.

He was my boss mob.

There were two ways the relationship between a boss mob and a dungeon core could develop.

Most tis, the two ended up with a slave-master dynamic, with the boss mob being the slave.

The poor mobs were expected to lay down their lives for their cores, after all.

But there was another thing that could happen. Sothing that had happened between Titan and .

The dungeon core could fall in love with its creation. Sothing his or her mana had made into their deepest desire.

And when that happened...

I shook my head.

I needed to level up! One skill at a ti!

I took a cutting board and so onions. My hands went through the motions as my mind was deep in thought.

Chop, chop, chop, slide to the side in a big pot, which was about as big as a witch’ cauldron. Then take another onion.

I knew that those onions were from an older shipnt. That they were no good.

But Titan had given more mana than I knew what I could do with!

The tourists, for all that they now regretted the fact that they had co and certainly pestered Aron for refunds, were still in the forest.

Making their way out.

I was taking their mana from them. One percent per minute.

To put it in perspective because I needed to know how fast I was killing these people, so I could move on from my pity party and do sothing about it, it went sothing like this:

I was sucking away 1 percent per minute. A human got about fifty mana points per hour.

If the human started off with all of those fifty points during that one minute when I got in range with them, then 0,5 points, that is to say, half a point, went to in that minute alone.

Now, the humans were no sitting ducks, thank the Lord.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have even survived until their natural regen happened...

I had only two healing mushrooms. Without an idea, how I was going to give the humans the soup without going to them and getting them all in range of the skills, I chopped onions.

Wanting to make an onion soup with just two healing mushrooms added to it.

Because it was sothing I knew how to do.

Small steps, as thuselah always told , make for big distances being covered.

Of course, back then he might have been talking about the eternal quest his roots undertook in the search of water and nutrients, but I was grasping at straws at that point.

If the humans died, if Solas found out, if Pan found out...

"Sylvan?" Aron’s gentle voice got out of my musing.

I must have looked like a dread because he ca to slowly, so, as if not to spook . His hand was like lightning when he took the cleaver from my loose grip.

Loose grip... too loose. I could have cut myself.

"What’s wrong?" He pulled into a hug. My eyes were stinging.

Sothing told that it wasn’t because of the mountains of onions I had cut and stored away in the biggest pot I could find.

"Titan... Titan is a monster," I cried out. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was the truth. "And I still love him."

What was wrong with , I asked myself. Was I going to fall in love with everyone who showed interest now?

Who was next? Solas? Doran?

Belladonna?

"Sylvan," Aron tugged away from the cutting area. "Tell everything."

There was no judging in that lovely, familiar, voice. He was my soulmate.

I should have known that he would never judge .

And yet, as I cried in his arms, my story probably needing a translator, he tightened his grip on .

"You are to never create another mob," his hand was black. Shining...

"No!" I knew what he was about to do. He was going to take away my dungeon core status and take it upon himself! "I can’t lose the Tree of mories! It holds them! All of them!"

Aron blinked at , as I took a hold of my blonde hair and began to tug.

"Theanore’s giggles," I said between trying to take in a breath. "Marinus’ grumbles."

I saw as Aron made a step towards .

His hand was still black.

"thuselah’s voice."

That last one made him pause.

I didn’t like to speak about my first tree with my soulmates. It wasn’t so, as if I wanted to keep them locked out of that part of my life.

It was just that it still hurt.

"He got chopped down," it was the first ti I told Aron of it. The first ti I told anyone but Theanore and Marinus of it.

It was my deepest regret.

His last act of heroism.

"And I can’t even hate the woodcutter, Aron! The man wore rags! He was skin and bones! thuselah probably saved him from starvation," I fell to the ground.

Hearing my own words, I tried to think about my first tree. My kind and loving father.

I was not like him.

He had done his best for , but I still loved Titan. Titan, who...

He was no different from that woodcutter. Titan, who was just as starved.

Just as poor. Just as desperate.

"I am going to die," I moaned out, as I began to shake. "Titan is going to cut down!"

I didn’t an with an axe. Aron knew it too.

It was ti for a change.

But for the love of , I didn’t want to. It was too painful, too terrifying...