My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem

After naming Sapphire, I opened my map to find a completely unmapped area. It was more than that though. My mana wasn’t able to penetrate far, even straight down the corridor. My mana distance was similar to when I first unlocked the Map skill a long time before. At the time, I hadn’t known Map used some kind of 6th sense, as I hadn’t developed my mana sense yet, but my draw distance would have been similar. It felt blinding to the current me, especially given how dangerous this place supposedly was.

“This is the abyss, huh?”

Sapphire nodded silently, her hand tightening on the back of my shirt. I put her into a party with me, and then I cast light. Just like the Map, the light distance seemed to be smaller. It was like the darkness was pushing against the aura of light around me. If it wasn’t for this odd atmosphere, I would have said this place was no different than the rest of the Deep, but as was, I could feel the danger.

“King Diorite said that you would know the way?”

She gave another nod. However, she didn’t lead the way. Instead, she just pushed gently on my back. I started to walk forward, and she followed behind. I had been using her horde as a shield, but unless we found some more undead, she’d be rather useless. On top of that, even if the abyss had undead creatures, those that were outside of her control seemed to extensively avoid her. It was like they could sense she was dangerous to them and tried to avoid her as a result.

Thus, our opportunity for her to recruit was nonexistent. I could only move forward into the dark while she pushed me from behind. Although, the farther we went, the more I grew concerned. It wasn’t just the undead we couldn’t find. There didn’t appear to be any monsters. When he spoke of the Abyss, I had been thinking of a place filled with dark and dangerous creatures, but we didn’t hear a peep. It was deathly quiet, like walking through a grave.

Out of curiosity, I activated my Temperature Gauge, giving me heat vision. I couldn’t see anything past the light. It wasn’t just infinite darkness, but infinite coldness as well.

“Sapphire… I probably should have asked this sooner, but what happened to the Deep Dwarves? What were you guys running from? What is King Diorite holding back?”

I kept walking, but I felt my shirt being pulled. Sapphire had stopped in her place. I looked back at her. She looked reluctant, but after a long moment of silence, her mouth opened.

“Darkness.”

I waited for her to continue, but she pushed my shirt again, and I finally started walking once again. That seemed like all I was getting out of her. Terra and Garnet had said something about the darkness in that video. The king had also said something that I could recall. He had said my mind was lost to darkness. The farther we walked, did the darkness seem to be closing in? I swore the light distance had shrunk a bit since we had started. It was almost like the darkness was weighing down on us… like it wasted to consume us.

Of course, I was just letting my imagination get the better of me. I let out a soft chuckle, but unlike in the hallways before, there was no echo. The darkness swallowed all noise.