Chapter 2

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

“I can now confess something, Lord Leo,” the elf said as she rose. She still hadn’t put on her top, her small breasts surprisingly distracting.

My cock throbbed in my robe making me regret my stance. I mean, she had offered...

No, no. I don’t need to take advantage of a woman desperate for knowledge from me.

“What?” I asked.

“Though the fact that Halia Vorbia did defect to your cause and you profess to be a protector and not a conqueror of Astovin Village, are good signs of your benevolence. They are not the reasons I chose to come here. If you were not located here, I would not have bothered coming.”

That stung.

I felt my ego deflating more than a bit. I thought I had finally made some progress in my goal to forge peace between dungeon builders and the outside world, but to learn that she just came for another reason, well, that was more than a little disheartening.

I wanted to end this war. 4000 years of tragedy. Of dungeon builders coming to this world and being the enemy. Some had certainly earned it, but how many were like me. They were forced to fight. To kill or die. What did that do to them? What acts would survival drive them to commit? When Halia had been petrified, I had gone to war with the Twins. I hadn’t wanted to protect the dwarves they had enslaved.

I wanted to kill Ziamili so I could steal his power and save her. I wanted to murder for the first time.

Not self-defense.

I had hated it. And I feared it. What would the future mold me into? Would I lose my humanity and become a real tyrant because of all the pain and anguish that was heaped upon me? I had my monster girls to support me. If I could keep loving them, keep from seeing them as just tools to be used and disposed of, I believed I could stay human.

I purposefully kept weak monster girls like Du around. She was a Level 1 Monster Girl. I could retire all the wildhounds, will o’ wisps, satyrs, oozes, and mermaids and then replace them with more Level 2 monster girls like arachnes, quetzalcoatls, werebears, and hippocampi. But I had made Du and the other Level 1 monster girls. I had loved them. Fought with them. They had died with me. Another dungeon builder would get rid of them.

If I did that, I would become a monster.

The world might see Du as my weakness, but I saw her as my strength. My anchor.

“What is supposed to be so special about my dungeon?” I looked around as I rose out of my momentary depression. “I mean, it’s a dungeon that I created.”

“No, no, this location. You appeared in a fortuitous spot.” Something like excitement animated her face. “The original dungeon is supposed to be buried in the bones of these very mountains. That place may hold information. Of course, studying you and learning your insights into why you were summoned will be fascinating, but you clearly do not have the answers else you would not have written to the library.”

“The original dungeon?” asked Halia. “Here? I have never heard that. I grew up in the shadow of these mountains. There are no local legends in Astovin about the original dungeon being here.”

“Four thousand years is a long time to forget that,” I pointed out. “Why do you think that it’s here, Fara?”

From her black pouch, which wasn’t that big, like a very large dice back, she plucked a leather-bound book that was twice as big. I blinked and realized it was like a Bag of Holding from D&D. She flipped it open and then smiled. “Here we are.”

O’ Maidens tremble,

From the depths of the earth came,

From beneath the mountains north,

the Villainous Keeper of Dungeons,

Meskalamdug the Flaming Devil.

Eyes of flame, heart of coal,

He ravaged and despoiled.

From the north, his fire burned

Myrecilla fell to his wrath first.

Lyrialiasa smote in ruin.

Great Kharabarnath riven.

A great cry was given,

the peoples suffering demanded answers.

“Why?” they screamed as flames roiled.

“I seek the ‘Word of my Father’,” he would answer.

“The Incarnation herself.”

As hope did fell and ash did fall,

hope arose from hope divine.

Twelve and twelve they numbered,

Gods of might and Goddesses fair.

With their blessings bright did heroes rise.

At Star Bright did they fight.

At Star Bright did he die.

Meskalamdug the Flaming Devil extinguished.

But he was not the end.