“As if I’d let that happen!” I exploded forward, taking the distance between Hero and me.

As his sword fell, my own rose to meet it. There was an eruption of force as I blocked his strike at Miki’s neck. I kicked with my foot, but Hero was a harder obstruction than I predicted. We were both thrown back about an equal distance from Miki.

“You cannot prevent this!” Miki cried. “I must die.”

“She must die.”

“Mmm… gmmm… mmm..”

“It must be done.” The four-party members emerged into the light, each holding a weapon.

I could feel that the dungeon was turning hostile now. They intended to force this resolution. I had thought this was a dungeon looking for an ending. It was difficult enough completing a lore and resolving a curse, but this was something else entirely. Miki had engineered her dungeon, using her incredible spiritual ability to create a narrative that resulted in her death. The lore wouldn’t complete until all the pieces were in place, but in the end, she hoped to kill herself.

To what end? Miki was the core of this dungeon, and once she was destroyed the dungeon would expel all of the souls inside. Some of those people might be resurrected, but many of them wouldn’t be, either because no one knew there was a difference, or because no one alive recognized or could find a connection to the person. Specifically, in this room, the people inside would be returned outside and reformed using the power of the dungeon.

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Thus, Miki designed a means of escape for her friends, but there was more to it. Miki had suggested that we would be the only ones to survive. That meant that the other souls wouldn’t be released, and would instead be turned into miasma. The only reason to do that would be to cast some kind of power. It only took me a few moments to realize what it was.

“You want to pass on your knowledge…” I theorized.

“The cost of this knowledge was too great. Let me die, and I will give you the knowledge of life and death. Perhaps, you will be able to one day save Master, where I failed.”

She wasn’t talking to me, but Alysia. Even though I had blocked Hero, I was still an abnormality within this dungeon, a part of the lore that Miki wasn’t able to account for. After all, why would she predict my presence, when I was dead?

Other than her insane spiritual ability, Miki also had psionic abilities. If the dungeon was completed and Miki was turned into a blessing, then that lore would lock within her blessing. The former slave of mine who gained such a blessing may gain some ability, and be able to see and understand Miki’s story… but there was a big difference between knowing someone’s story and knowing what they knew. I had absorbed numerous lore, but that didn’t mean I knew the collective knowledge of the people involved in that lore. I didn’t become an expert in what they were an expert in.

That was why Miki chose death. She would crack open her soul, and then use the power of this dungeon to write her knowledge into someone else, someone more deserving, someone whose hands weren’t stained in blood and who hadn’t become a curse. I was beginning to realize that the Miki I knew was only the tip of the iceberg. The mischievous and teasing foxgirl had such complicated feelings.

Since she showed me her feelings, I better return them.