Chapter 19

There were no monsters in the immediate area, so Dungeon Diving was actually a bit boring. The dungeon gave off the impression of a tomb. The walls were made up like an underground catacomb. It was dank and dark, but with White Mage job equipped, I could stave off the oppressive atmosphere. I cast Refresh on myself, and a blue light surrounded me, and I felt much better.

“What did you cast?” the female in the group asked.

“Ah… it’s a Refresh spell?”

“Please, cast it on me as well!”

Ah… well, it was fine. Using my abilities helped my job level up. Each job seemed to have different conditions, but I was confident that just using the spells was enough to gain experience in the job. If I used the ability to kill a monster, that probably netted the most experience. However, I was a support class, and I wouldn’t be able to level even if I could only depend on defeating monsters. Thus, my leveling came from supporting others. In this case, that meant casting spells to help them.

“Refresh!” I said, just to give her an appropriate warning for the rush of cool magic.

She let out a breath and then smiled. “That’s really a useful spell. I feel knots coming undone. In combination with a massage, this would be very pleasurable. Perhaps you’d be willing to later?”

I blushed a bit under her look as she smiled at me. The men nearby could drop their mouths open. The one female adventurer in the group was flirting with the support. Their thoughts apparently were on how wonderful Refresh was. Before long, I had to cast Refresh on everyone. By the end, I didn’t level up. It seemed like the difficulty of leveling up rose exponentially. Casting only once was enough to reach level 2 from level 1, but I was at level 4 now, and I still didn’t reach 5.

We ended up frequently stopping, as one adventurer had been assigned the task of drawing out the labyrinth. I didn’t know what metrics he used, but his map looked pretty accurate. During the break, I walked up to the guild leader, whom I had already grown used to approaching for information.

“You mentioned something about lore before,” I spoke up while we were waiting to move forward. “What is lore?”

The guild leader raised an eyebrow, but then let out a chuckle. “Ah… you really are unfamiliar with the way of things. Our world is a world of stories. There are thousands of legends… and every person has the potential to create their own lore.”

So, the lore was something literal? We’re actually talking about stories here?

“If lore is bad, filled with negative emotion, and most of all, incomplete… it can often begin to fester. At that point, lore becomes a curse, and it embeds itself into the earth. Do you understand?”

“Not particularly…” I smiled apologetically.

“Ah… it’s like this… say someone dies, but it’s a particularly nasty death. They die in a way where they left with much regret.”

“You mean… like a vengeful spirit?”

The guild leader nodded excitedly. “Exactly. Vengeful spirits can come of that. But let’s imagine if it’s something more significant. A lot of bitter emotions from a very mighty person. Maybe a hero's death. Or perhaps an event that affects a lot of people, like a battle or an epidemic. This grows into something far more substantial and more threatening than a single spirit. It embeds itself into the ground and festers, spreading a curse. The dungeon is then formed as a manifestation of that curse.”

“Our job is to work our way to the bottom of the dungeon, where the lore has crystalized into a core. Some people call it a dungeon core… but it’s actually the source of the lore. Once we destroy it, the curse will die, and the dungeon will shrivel up and collapse.”

“So, it’s something like that…” To think, an incomplete story could end up creating something so dark and moody.

What was this dungeon story? When I entered the dungeon, it did mention destroying the lore. That just meant destroying the dungeon core. However, what was the other option about?

“What does it mean by completing the lore and becoming a true dungeon diver?”

The guild leader missed a step and tripped, barely catching himself. He shot me a suspicious look.

“You don’t know of lore, but you know of true dungeon divers?”

I chuckled uncomfortably, scratching the back of my head. “It’s just something I heard somewhere and put the two together.”

The guild leader nodded after a second, not continuing the questions. “Well, to keep it simple, there is a second way to complete a dungeon. For that, you must learn why a dungeon was created, and then do something to ease its burden. It’s a hundred times harder to accomplish, and no one even tries it anymore, but the supposed benefits are also many times better.”

Ah… well, I had no intention of completing this dungeon in either way, so I’d just leave it at that.