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“…WHAT?!”

I hesitated, taken aback by the sincere shock and horror in the imp's voice. I’d thought my request for ‘something I can use for mana’ had been innocent enough. As ill-informed as I was, I couldn’t be more specific, nor could I make any sort of qualifying statements, but I’d thought, at worst, it’d just be a ‘can’t do that; those are rare and expensive’. (Yes, but what was that about a sacri-)

I tried to remain optimistic.

In the uneasy silence, the imp nervously scooted away from the core of my being, as though it were an angry guard dog, held in check only by an audibly fraying leash.

“W-W-AAAH!”

Whoops. An inch too far, Faryea toppled through the broken window and out of view, arms windmilling and tiny bat wings flapping wildly.

Thump.

Before I could rush my perspective over to check on her, she’d already clawed her way back into her seat, looking only slightly ruffled. Her stat page helpfully informed me the fall hadn’t even dealt damage. Though it diffused the tension briefly, I can’t say it did much to help the slowly mounting dread. I ignored the potentially unpleasant revelation in place of being polite.

You, ah, you okay?

She mumbled her assent, still carrying a hurt expression that perfectly conveyed a guilt-inducing mix of resentment and betrayal. Whatever I’d actually asked for was obviously more than just a faux pass (pleasedon’tmandatehumansacrifice). As much as I really didn’t want to voice the question, wanted to maintain the possibility that my growing suspicions were just my morbid imagination, I bit the bullet and asked.

M-my apologies, is there an issue?

“Y-You can’t just-I mean, YES, OF COURSE THERE IS,” yelled Faryea, her frustration bubbling over and briefly overcoming her usual stutter.

Explain it to me, please. Pretend I have no clue what you’re talking about.

As doubt seeped into her self-righteous expression, throwing her off balance again (more metaphorically this time), it seemed that wasn't where she expected me to go with it. With that, her stride was broken and it took another set of half-started sentences and interruptions, all tinged with a sort of exasperated frustration.

“I-You can’t-” unable to articulate whatever she’d set out to say, her self-righteous frustration slowly guttered out, leaving only a resigned glumness, “I’m not that kind of demon, okay? I’m not…I’m not up to going out and murdering someone who did nothing wrong,” she finished with a depressed slouch, as though admitting some embarrassing secret.

Well...

My logical pessimistic side had been validated again.

Bugger.

In a way, I guess this exchange was a good thing. Regardless of anything else, I was vaguely thankful that the imp meekness wasn't just a layer of cowardice covering the heart of a sociopath (‘Per her words, at least'). On the other hand, well…The fact that mana appeared to be most commonly harvested from living, likely sentient beings...

...Oh. Well, I guess that's... Ah, Well that’s…unfortunate. With slowly my mana regenerates, there’s…I don’t think there’s much chance of me getting much done, unless furnishing these rooms is literally free. I don't suppose there's a better way of procuring such a thing? One that doesn’t involve murder...?

Faryea’s expression softened as I spoke. By the end, she’d settled on ‘sheepishly embarrassed’, as I admitted my lack of knowledge (and my own reluctance towards murder).

"...Oh. Right. I kinda just…The, uh, the boss said she picked this place because, uh, because there’d be a lot of…uh…mana in the soil here, she said...I mean, I could ask the town down the hill if they have anyone who’s recently di-"

A phantom feeling of nausea struck where I imagined my stomach to be.

L-let's keep that as a back-up plan. A back-up plan for any other back-up plans we come up with.

Perhaps I was being overly squeamish and, in time, I'd look back at my current outlook as hopelessly naive, but I frankly had no desire to even encounter a dead body, far less create one.

Regardless of my (former, I suppose) video game habit, I always considered myself a peaceful sort of person.

As a last resort, in self defence? Perhaps.

…

Actually, make that ‘hopefully’.

On the other hand, pre-mediated murder for personal gain?

Worse, for the sake of expediency?

Regardless of the situation, regardless of how a more savage world might change my outlook, I hoped myself incapable of sinking to such a depth. It might’ve been nice to call it impossible; to have that sort of certainty in my own moral character, but that would’ve been dishonest. I’d never been tested in such a way. I’d never really wanted for much.

If forced to go without what I was usually accustomed to? I couldn’t say. While it was something I’d occasionally dwelt upon, in some of my more introspective moments, it wasn’t something I liked thinking about.

In any case, on the off chance your boss is mistaken...Is there anything less morbid that might suffice?

"…Sorry, I don’t think so. If you can't draw mana directly from the realm of the gods, the only options are to take it from those who can..." she trailed off, looking ever more forlorn, "Is…Is there anything else? I can’t…Y’know…But I still want to help."

As it happened, there was. It wasn't quite as urgent as ensuring I had the mana for building. In fact, it was basically a moot point, if I didn't, but the next thing on the agenda was obtaining stuff. Things. Having found the initial options for upgrading my first room to be underwhelming, I turned to the manual once more and found the solution. All I needed to do was Catalogue the item in question, and I'd be able to both duplicate it as a construct and integrate it into my room upgrades. I tried Cataloguing the Chapel to mixed results. While I now had '[Dust Bunnies]' as a viable construct, most of the furniture remained resistant to my efforts. Questioning the Manual successively directed me to 'Restrictions While Adventurers are Present', 'Dungeon Rank' and 'Unique Items' before I gave up and decided to kill two birds with one stone.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I needed stuff to experiment with...And I needed stuff in general.

Well, while I try and hunt down that cache of mana, would you mind popping into town and picking up a couple of things for me?

* * * * * * * *

Stretching my senses outwards, back into that overhead not-sight view, felt strange and unnatural, but it was unfortunately necessary. I couldn't just waste mana sifting through every grain of soil until I found whatever it was I was looking for, nor did I have the patience for the same. To my surprise, my dungeon sense (as I had ‘imaginatively’ named it) had changed in the half hour since I’d used it. With the dungeon's expansion, the extent of what I could sense had expanded even further. While limits of my Domain were bright and detailed, I could also feel all the way out to the edge of where I could expand to, albeit only in a sort of vague, disconnected way. Able to sense where I could dig, where I couldn't dig yet and where I couldn't dig at all, I was able to make an educated guess at the shape of my immediate geography.

The chapel sat on the far edge of a small hill, probably overlooking the town. Its crest was unnaturally flattened, likely levelled when the building was first constructed. There was a gentle curve to it, with a fuzziness to its outer limits that I guessed was grass. A lonely stone statue stood behind the chapel, though for what purpose, I couldn't tell.

Whatever I was looking for, it wasn’t on the surface, and it wasn’t at the base of the first floor. With how deep I’d already gone, this still left a pretty large amount of soil to sift through. Scanning through the soil, a curious difference in density attracted my attention, where the soil had been actively turned at some point in the recent past. What that exactly meant, I couldn’t tell. Geology wasn’t my strong suite. Instead, I focused my senses for a closer look.

Then I found the dead body.

At first, with my detached perspective, I didn't react. Years spent playing video games and watching cartoons had conditioned me to just accept that skeletons were a thing you'd just see while going underground. Then the shock hit, as I realised, no, this was an actual dead body. Someone had been buried here...Long ago enough that their body was almost entirely wasted a way, but not quite long enough to be an all out fossil. Completely forgetting what I was looking for in the first place, I snapped to attention, first in shock, then wondering if I'd stumbled upon something I shouldn't have.

It was perhaps a silly thing for a dungeon to think, but I was nothing if not set in my ways.

Then I noticed the rest of them.

A couple of metres...Or, perhaps, six feet under the surface, lay a mass of corpses, most little more than skeletons. For a moment, I was horrified, thinking I'd stumbled upon some sort of mass grave, for there were no coffins, nor the sort of neat separation you'd expect from a cemetery

…Oh.

Right.

...

That would explain why the chapel isn't in the exact centre of the hill.

Right, this was a local parish in what was probably a small, out of the way, medieval town. I vaguely recalled that the more respectful, egalitarian cemeteries were a more modern invention. Regardless of how off it felt, this was probably just…the normal way of doing things around here.

Reluctantly, I burrowed a rough tunnel up to the edge of where the bodies started, unwilling to excavate passed the invisible border. I waited a minute. Then, I waited a couple minutes more. I still didn’t really know how mana worked and part of me was still holding out hope that it’d just sort of flow into the newly opened void. Constructing a room didn't help; still no options beyond the most basic, aesthetic improvements and no changes to my now dwindling mana pool. I cursed the task I was being shepherded towards. With the walls so close, I was somehow able to…I suppose ‘smell it’ is the closest equivalent.

Focusing my altered vision through the earth, I could see sense feel the mana through the earth. It seeped through the ground above me in curious patterns; a sort of bright, heavy light, leaking from the dead bodies. It seemed almost pleasant, reminding me of a layered cake, with its alternating brown and cream colours. After a few more moments hemming and hawing, I steeled myself and designated a single tile for Excavation

I immediately regretted it.

Mana from corpses. I hadn't expected to be able to taste it. If anything, I'd expected it to taste like decay. Like the smell of half-rotten meat or curdled milk, which were what that ‘rotten food’ evoked to sheltered little me. It didn't, but it was nearly just as bad. It was sickly sweet in a way that went beyond anything I’d ever tried before. A sort of horrible intensity that eclipsed any sort of other flavour I'd ever encountered. The imagery it evoked somehow became more vivid, far more than what one should be able to ascertain by taste alone. Within the mana, there was an untainted cheerfulness that rejected the very idea of tragedy. Injury and death were erased by its touch. Bones mended, flesh knit, madness cured and anger calmed. Beneath that…No, not beneath. There was no ‘darker’ side. That it was so pure was the most uncanny part. Dogma and unwavering faith were baked into all aspects of its existence, for good or ill.

I was repulsed by it.

I had always been one to cherish doubt and the ability to question my own judgment. Certainty without reason was anathema to me. I pushed it as far away from the core of my being as I could. I'd have spat it out, if I could. Thrown it up, if I could. But no, I just had to stomach it as I watched my power eat away at the hard-packed soil, then at the lone corpse it contained. As the spell finished its work, the intensity began to fade, eventually receding to leave only a thoroughly unpleasant after taste and the oily feeling of unwell-ness that I always associated with overeating.

> Quote:61 / 50 MANA

> Quote:[Holy Element LVL.1] has been added to [Dungeon Status].