I immediately had an uneasy feeling about the three men, and Miki too also appeared guarded. She had reached behind her belt to hold the hilt of a knife, and she looked prepared to run if she had to. It’d be difficult to escape if they already had access to all of the safe rooms. They could cut her off if she tried to run. Her only chance would be to get past them and then trigger the final boss. Given how small this dungeon was though, it wouldn’t take long for them to reach the 5th-floor safe room and then teleport into the boss room. She would have had to defeat the boy named Mathew before then, and his presence right now strongly suggested this isn’t what happened.

“Are you Miki of Chalm? The nine-tailed fox?” The man in front asked in a heavy voice.

“Who are you?” She asked, tilting her head suspiciously.

The three men slowly lifted back their hoods, revealing three men. One of these men had long bunny ears. One of them had wolf ears. The final had cat ears, although they were striped and interesting like Lydia’s ears. This was probably a normal catgirl, versus Lydia’s rare tigerkin variant blood. I didn’t know everyone in Chalm by sight, but I had a feeling they weren’t from Chalm.

“Who are they?” Celeste asked.

“Dioshin. They come from the country of the beastkin.”

“What are they doing out here?” Alysia asked.

“It’s not that surprising. We’re far closer to the Dioshin border than our own. The dungeon is on the west side of the wilderness, after all.”

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Although Aberis had permitted me to claim the wilderness, I hadn’t completed that yet. I had only just started, using the strength of the Osterians to finally start beating back the wild. This dungeon was one of the farthest from that point. Until we could put settlements out here, they had as much right to this land as we did. In short, it was no man’s territory.

What made me confused was why would they be looking for Miki, and how could they guessed she was out here? The Dioshin were a superstitious lot, and they believed nine-tail foxes were evil. A foxkin technically only had one tail, but when they reached maturity they also had a chance to sprout spiritual tails, turning them into spirit foxkin. The more spirit tails they had, the more spiritual energy they could channel. If the number of tails was too high, then they would have too much spiritual energy. They would become sickly and even die.

The population also hated and feared spirit foxes, because their spiritual energy attracted ghosts and other malevolent monsters. As their tails grew, they fell lower in society, and when they exceeded 6, 1 real tail and 5 spiritual tails, even their health couldn’t be maintained. Miki managing to have nine and survive was already a miracle. Of course, the problem with a spirit fox was never how many tails, but their ability to control it. Upon unlocking the job spiritualist and leveling it, Miki was able to overcome her weakness by gaining control over her spiritual energy.

So, why would these men who feared and hated those like Miki suddenly appear before her?

“We come from Dioshin.” The man confirmed, causing her eyes to narrow, but what he said next stopped her in her tracks. “We went to great lengths to find you. You see, the town where you grew up is in trouble.”

“Trouble? What trouble?”

“A spiritual disease.” He explained. “I’m sorry to tell you, but they are dying, and the only way they can be saved is with you!”