DungeonCultist

Chapter 230

“Once upon a time, there was you and me.”

I tilt my head, looking at the storybook that is placed onto a pedestal at the very start of floor fifty-six, which isn’t much of a floor at all. It’s a closet. I lift my arm, touching the surface of the wall to my left. The other walls are just as far away. The staircase literally leads to a tiny room with a single book. That’s all there is. That’s floor fifty-six. There isn’t even an exit. It’s just this stupid book ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 83: Slice of toast

Fresh stacks another lantern on top of the pile and sighs. It’s exhausting work, making this many. She doesn’t have any soul points as far as she can tell, so she still isn’t sure what exactly her magic is using when she casts it. But it’s still a little exhausting in a sense, as if every spell drained a little of her own physical energy as well. With all of the stress lately and all of the work and all of her bad nights of sleep, she’s starting to feel the toll of the many days wei...

Chapter 229

What do you think dawn looks like?

I stare up, looking up at the reverse pit above me. I suppose you could call it a hole, but… it’s not. Okay? It’s a pit. In the ceiling. A reverse pit. Don’t always split hairs so much, guy, you’re just making yourself annoyed and nobody is impressed.

Floor fifty-seven, the reverse pit.

Light streams out through the hole above us, lush grass and trees coat the surface, hanging upside down as I stan...

Dungeon Item Shop - Poll 2

The summer is causing their business to slow to a crawl and at the same time, Fresh is feeling particularly nervous about the stability of her friendships. The black-fountain is becoming increasingly restless as well, if her frantic nightmares are any indication. If the bad times aren't here yet, they're certainly on the horizon.

How do you think she should proceed?

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 82: Milky

Fresh looks around the upstairs area of the third floor, having snuck up again in the middle of the night. Though she doesn’t quite remember what it is exactly that she wanted to do up here.

Confused, the girl looks around the large, dark room that is filled with nothing but shadows that recess away from her presence, pressing themselves away from the light that she has in her hand. Lifting the lantern, she shines it around the room, looking for what it is that had disturbe...

Chapter 228

She falls down for the seventh time. Lucky number seven.

Her white-magic is starting to run out. Barely a trickle of it escapes her body anymore, her spiritual energies are drained dry. There’s nothing left at the bottom of the well of her soul apart from a harrowed, furious scream that doesn’t even leave her bleeding lungs anymore. Her body twitches, barely able to sustain itself. Her white robe is almost entirely red at this point, covered in blood from her constantly r...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 81: For you

The straw bristles of the broom scratch over the wooden floors of the store as Fresh sweeps through the building. It’s the middle of the day and not much has happened to say the least. The girl had finished working on the next section of the wall downstairs and is now cleaning up the mess that she had made during her work on the house. Jubilee and Basil are both still exactly where they were, both of them transfixed and idle because of the heat. In truth, she wants to join them in their sum...

Chapter 227

I don’t know what happened, but she’s here now.

Ducking to the left, I leap out of the way just in time, as the vertical wall of white-magic rises up at the spot I was just standing. The priestess of the hero-party twists her hands and the world below me erupts into a cacophony of crystal sounds. White-magic walls, dozens of them appear below me and shoot up into the air, each of them threatening to cut me in half from the force of their rapid rising.

Swi...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 80: Moonlighting

(Fresh) uses: [Malediction] !

Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows. Her bag, full of potions, is sitting on the stairs as she runs in a circle around floor four. She had just finished clearing the third floor of the dungeon a few minutes ago. After a short break to catch her breath, Fresh made her way down deeper. She’s alone in the dungeon and it’s the middle of the night, she had snuck outside again to go level up on her own. The lantern she had made for Basil floa...

Chapter 226

She keeps watch behind us, as I look out ahead of us.

You’d think two pairs of eyes would be enough, but you’d be wrong. It’s like you haven’t been paying the least bit of attention, guy. How many times do I have to tell you about the eyes? You need more. One? Two? That’s amateur hour. Baby’s first incarnation. What are you going to see with just two eyes? Bumpkis, that’s what.

You’re going to see a bunch of pretty colors and shapes that are b...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 79: Heatwave

“It’s so hoooot~” says Fresh, her body slumped forward over the counter. Her head rests down on top of the wooden surface, her arms limply dangling out over the other side. Basil stands next to her, the priestess fanning herself with a sheet of paper. She doesn’t respond with anything more than a deep exhalation. Fresh opens her eyes, looking at the sweat stains on Basil’s robe. She supposes it must be pretty warm in that outfit. Then again -

Her eyes wander to her ...

Chapter 225

“We plants are happy plants,” says a sunflower, sitting in a field of a thousand of its kin to me, as I walk through floor sixty. A giant sunflower field that is usually filled with horrible, creepy monsters. But they’re all dead now. Anyways, floor sixty, neat. I’m almost halfway there. Something bubbles inside of me. Sorry. We’re almost halfway there.

I tilt my head, looking at the strange flower that spoke to me. It doesn't have a mouth or eyes or anything weird ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 78: Sun day

Lazy birdsong fills the summer air, together with the trickle of slowly dripping water leaking out of the fountain, the stream dribbles down into the basin with a constant, quiet splash. Fresh stands outside behind the dungeon gate, as she stares down at her own reflection in the quiet water, shimmering in the light of the early morning. Jubilee was already gone when she had gotten up, Fresh assumes that they’re running around town. Maybe Jubilee is getting them breakfast again?

<...

Chapter 224

Vines slither alongside my stomping feet, the lush green tendrils of the jungle creeping along my side like a uh… like a big group of snakes. A pack? No. A herd? Mm… no… what’s the word for a bunch of snakes? A school of snakes? No, I think that’s just for fish. Hmm… I’m just gonna go ahead and say a slither. A slither of snakes. Yeah, that sounds good.

- Creeping along my side like a slither of snakes, the thick tendrils sliding across the ground, pressing thro...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 77: A quiet night

Fresh stops at the door to the downstairs area, looking at the lantern and tilting her head as her own thoughts stop her in her tracks.

“Maybe this is too much?”

The girl taps her chin, thinking. This is obviously an expensive item and she put so much work into it… is that creepy? Is she being creepy? Fresh turns around, looking down the upstairs corridor towards Jubilee’s room. Didn’t she want to make something for Jubilee? Fresh crosses her arms a...

Chapter 223

I walk through the valley of mist, floor sixty-two. A pale, white fog looms heavily around us, filling the empty space of the floor with a shifting ocean of immaterial density. Like walking through a cloud, I simply push my way forward as the fog looms around me, around us. Its presence isn’t dire or dreadful or anything of that nature, it’s not an evil fog.

It’s just fog. Right, fog?

“Yeah man,” says the fog and I nod in agreement. It’s just fog....

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 76: Summer days

It’s a new day and Fresh sits outside on a bench near the entrance plaza to the city. The summer sun is shining brightly already this early in the morning. She looks up towards the sky with lazy eyes, feeling the warmth on her face from the sun which seems to rise a little earlier each and every day, as they move away from the spring.

“It’s getting hot,” she mutters to herself, closing her eyes and listening to the sounds of summer coming to surround her. The city see...

Chapter 222

The ‘good’ thing about the encroacher is that it’s slow as all hell, outside of the winding maze of the icy labyrinth beneath the dungeon that is. It doesn’t really have a chance to catch up to me, as long as I manage to keep moving with this kind of pace. Even with its burrowing and worming through the world of the dungeon, as long as I keep moving, it can’t catch me. As long as the red-water flows, it can’t catch me.

Leaping out of the pool of red liquid, I land...

Dungeon Item Shop - Poll 1

Regarding chapter 75 -

In which direction do you believe Fresh should focus her efforts, so that she can protect her new life?

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 75: Before the storm

“You don’t look so good,” says Basil, glancing at Fresh who is sitting on the stairs, leaning sideways against the wall. “You really are a rather sickly person…” Basil thinks for a moment. “Should I go pick up some medicine?”

“Ah! I’m fine! I just didn’t sleep well,” says Fresh, sitting up for a moment only to slump back against the wall. “Thank you.”

“Again?” asks the priestess, looking a little worried.

“To...

Chapter 221

I didn’t see the hero party again as I escaped the palace. I’m not sure where they went, or where it is that they’re going. Did they turn around and try to clear the dungeon? Did they give up the chase? Or are they taking a different route somewhere to intercept me? If I know the hero-party, they should have run down my way, if not to chase me down, then at the very least, to find the monk again who split off from the rest of them.

He’s a little possessive after all, ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 74: Revelation

Fresh tosses and turns in her bed, her fists tightly clenching the blanket as she turns over in a cold sweat, midnight dew wicking down her skin as her restless dreams haunt her mind. Strange visions that she can’t remember. Bright, burning lights in the recesses of herself that scar her mind’s eye, the heat scorching her body as she kicks and throws the blankets around. Heat surges through her, as if she were suspended in a pot of slowly boiling water.

The fountain trick...

Chapter 220

He’s a metaphor of course.

The dungeon loves its metaphors. Sometimes, I’m not sure if it was the dungeon-master who conceived these things, or if the dungeon itself came up with them and the dungeon-master simply assumed control.

But that doesn’t make him any less real.

That doesn’t make the burning smell on his breath any less acrid, the groaning of the leather any less audible to my ears that surge with rushing wind as I rise up in...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 73: Housework

Fresh sits upstairs, locked in the pantry and tinkers around with the harvest-moonwater, her grimoire at her side. Usually she wouldn’t work on these kinds of things during the middle of the day, while Basil is here. But the woman is downstairs and there are two locked doors between them and she can’t just sit around and waste a full day.

Flipping through her grimoire, she looks for a recipe that would suit her needs and at the same time, racks her brain, wondering if may...

Chapter 219

Punishment.

“Sssssssh!” whispers the slime in her bubbling voice, feeling the sensation of my quickly beating heart, as we hide down inside of a giant, empty pot in the potted plant room. It’s a bit cramped in here for me, the slime and her and I won’t be able to keep them apart from each other, but thankfully the slime is behaving, perhaps sensing my discomfort. The monk is flailing and smashing dents into my armor, but there isn’t much room in here for her to lash...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 72: Goo-Brain

“What time is it?” wonders the girl out loud.

She isn’t sure, she still hasn’t slept a wink. Instead, Fresh stands down inside of the dungeon, her eyes not able to decide if they should be staring at her hands or at the hole in the wall, out of which comes a quiet series of sleeping ‘Nyaaaah~’s.

Fresh rubs her head, feeling awkward about this now. She had come down here to try out her new ability but… she doesn’t think she’s able to kill som...

Chapter 218

 The thing about the palace is that you really should be quiet.

I leap to the side, avoiding the fist that swipes down past me, crashing into the white marble floors and shattering them in an instant. Dust and bits of cracked rock fly out in all directions, as a split shoots out through the solid stone slab, arcing down towards the distance like a bolt of lightning, twisting and winding till the break meets a far wall.

Obviously, she isn’t doing that. ...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 71: Fragile

Fresh can’t sleep.

Instead she sits cross-legged on the large rug in her room, looking at the pile of coins that she is stacking in front of herself. Hundreds of Obols. Some of her earnings since she and Jubilee had paid off their debts to the adventurer’s guild. As she thinks, she idly takes the coins, stacking them on top of each other into little towers.

“Fragile,” she says, placing a finger against the largest tower. The structure falls in an inst...

Chapter 217

The rock rumbles as something explodes next to me. The metal fingers of my gauntlets dig into the vertical cliff-face of the sheer, rocky wall as I climb up the side of the reddish-brown outcrop, pulling myself up towards the plateau that lies at the top of floor sixty-five, where high atop the sandy outcrop sits a single structure. The temple of the king.

The temple of the king, is of course -

“A metaphor!” bubbles the slime-girl, clawing out to grab the...

Dungeon Item Shop - Chapter 70: With me out at midnight

Fresh holds her hands above the metal ingot and the piece of wood, puffing out her right cheek as she focuses on her crafting ability.

(Fresh) uses: [Craftsman: Hammer]

[Hammer](Normal)

A small, iron-headed hammer with a stubby wooden grip.

0.6kg

Jubilee picks up the hammer and looks at it, swinging it once through the air. “Yeah, nice job,” says the figure clad in bright blue, looking down...