“Ahhhhh!” My fist slammed into a nearby wall.

“Master!” Alysia’s voice tried to calm me down.

“I’m fine…” I responded through gritted teeth. “Where are they now?”

“They left… shortly after they finished…” His eyes fell on something before darting away.

I hadn’t noticed them before. They were spindly black things, shriveled, broken, and left in the rubbish that was once this dungeon. They were a pair of bloody wings, Astria’s fairy wings. I walked over and put them into my soul world, and then walked over to Matty.

“It’s time to go.”

“Go?” Matty didn’t lookup. “There is nowhere to go. I’m a master with no dungeon. I cannot continue to exist. He left me to pass you his message. Now, just let me die.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” I responded. “I can still take care of you. My dungeon will sustain you.”

“They took everything from me… they took her.”

“We’ll bring her back.” My hand tightened. “We’ll bring them all back.”

“How?”

“A person is more than just their body. We’re a story. That story is always changing. Some things are forgotten or neglected, others lead us into the future and how we affect the world. I believe enough lore exists that we can bring her back. Please, let me try.”

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My voice didn’t hold any arrogance or dominance. I pleaded with him genuinely. I had once treated Mathew as an annoyance, a harmless fly that irritated me. Now, he might be the only one who knew how I was feeling at that particular moment. As he looked up at me, I reached out my hand. After a brief moment of hesitation, he took my hand. I immediately put him into my soul world.

“Absorb.”

Matty’s Maze of Mysteries was already destroyed. It was desiccating and breaking away. The Dungeon Master, without being able to become part of a new dungeon, would naturally fall apart and die. However, because he was already my tamed monster, I could just bring him to my dungeon and he could become a boss there. However, before I left, I was going to take everything that remained. Matty’s lore may have been shattered and the stored miasma scattered, but after my time in the Deep, I had grown accustomed to lore absorption and manipulation.

I could absorb the lore, and it was possible I could reassemble some of it. It’d be the equivalent of assembly the pieces of a novel shoved into a paper shredder, but there was a possibility. Thus, the little pieces of shattered dungeon lore melted and were absorbed by me. Everything else that remained in the dungeon also began to melt away. The desiccation process that might have taken a week was sped up quicker and quicker. I left the dungeon, appearing on the outside. There, I absorbed the last pieces of it.

There wasn’t much left to work with, but I did have Matty. Matty possessed the memories of his mother, and the so-called maid boss would have been based on those memories. There was still hope I could bring her back.

As for Lydia, I had already tried to resurrect her and failed. Either she was still alive and he was lying, or she was killed in a manner where even her soul was destroyed. As for Astria, she would need to hold out. I would save her though. I had to.