[Chapter Size: 1900 Words.]

  Third Person POVOrario.

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  ...

  "Are you saying this thing es from the dungeon? Aren't you exaggerating?" Riveria murmured, quite surprised by Lucius's words.

  "It's the same energy I feel when I use mana in the dungeon. They're identical..." Lucius said, frowning as he looked at it. Eveensity of the magic wasn't any less here. He approached the thing, toug the petrified roots to examihem more closely. It was just like any rocky part of the duhat glowed—after all, those thied there too.

  It glowed aed magic, which meant that, despite the region being dead, it was still funing.

  "And what if this thing is killing the region? What if the dungeon oher side of the ti is draining the region's life energy?" Lucius theorized, staring ily at the roots.

  Riveria did not respond to Lucius's words, but her did she dismiss the possibility. After all, everything started with a theory.

  "Do you know if any of Athena's members have discovered this?" Lucius asked.

  "I don't know, there's no record of it in the books," Riveria replied, thoughtful. "If something like this were known, it would spread like a pgue. People would be terrified to learn that the dungeon is spreading its roots across the ti... or worse, that it's responsible for sug the vital energy out of the abandoned world."

  "Well, that doesn't matter right now. Let's take some samples a out of here. After all, there's only one expnation for so many dead bodies here. It means this part ected to the dungeon still gee monsters," Lucius stated, theorizing that the dwarves had started digging until they found these roots. Wheried to extraething from them, monsters must have beeed, leading to the massacre they saw.

  With a swift movement, he began removing some petrified branches, but the moment, the roots reacted. A pulsating sound, like a heartbeat, echoed as creatures started emerging, born from them.

  Riveria quickly assumed a bat stance, while Lucius remained calmer, level 2 and 3 monsters appearing, including minotaurs and other creatures that regarded them as enemies.

  "What a nuisance," Lucius murmured, seeing that his theory was correct. After all, only the dungeon could gee such creatures. Without wasting time, he raised his hand and began b the monsters with a simple firebolt spell—the first spell he had ever learned—destroying them with ease.

  The creatures only screamed in pain and disappeared, leaving crystals that fell to the ground. Riveria remained silent, watg.

  Lucius picked up one of the crystals and analyzed it. "It's just like any crystal we collect from the dungeon," he said as the points exge system activated. The points received were equivalent to those earned from monsters entered in the dungeon.

  "So the dungeon has exteo this part of the ti," Riveria murmured.

  "No wohey had the crystal that powered the city. The dungeoed its own crystal until it decided to start draining the area," Lucius expined.

  "But why here? Why not start draining Orario? After all, that would devastate the city and make it harder for adveo access the dungeon," Riveria questioned, deep in thought.

  "Maybe it 't do that. Maybe the dungeo want to be discovered, or perhaps it o draw energy from somewhere to start creating monsters infinitely, even stealing energy from this world over the st thousands of years. We 't have ao these theories now..." Lucius scratched his head, trying to uand, but he knew he'd have to iigate further iure.

  "Anyway, we'd better get out of here. We've got some samples," he said, holding a piece of the petrified root and the crystals he hadn't sold to the system. "The dungeon has had thousands of years to reach here, which makes me wonder if there aren't simir roots across the entire ti, capable of destroying everything if the dungeon wants. That's even worse than the bck dragon," Lucius said as he started to return to Riveria before they began to leave.

  In any case, there was nothing more for them to do there, so they headed toward the dead crystal.

  "Do you think the world is in danger, Lucius?" Riveria asked on the way, a little uneasy.

  "I don't have answers for that, Riveria..." Lucius murmured before tinuing. "But all the gods' eyes are focused on the bck dragon and the idea of creating the st hero, which makes them fet that it was the duhat created the three camities. What's stopping it from creating another bck dragon?" Lucius said, while Riveria remained silent, though she reized the logi his words.

  After all, the dungeon might be the greatest evil in this world.

  'First, a group of gods trying to use their arum to domihe mortal world. Sed, an immensely powerful dragon that must be above level 10, slumbering somewhere in this world. Third, now the dungeon itself, which could slowly destroy the world...' Lucius thought about the problems this world had to deal with.

  "What do we do with this entrance, Lucius?" Riveria asked, snapping him out of his thoughts as she poio the entrance excavated by the dwarves. "To prevent more people from ing here, sihis pce usually attracts one or two explorers from the city," she added.

  "Well, the best I do is this," Lucius said, taking out his sword and carving lines on the wall above the entrance, f words as a warning: 'Death ahead.' He looked at Riveria after finishing. "Let's head back."

  Following their pn, they began to return. Upon reag the pce where the dwarves were still frozen in time spheres, Lucius decided to release them. As they emerged from the spheres, the dwarves colpsed to the ground, disoriented, before looking at the two who had been in front of them moments ago but now stood behind them.

  "You..." one of the dwarves murmured angrily, trying to prehend what had happened. He felt strange, as if he were lost in time.

  "Stop pining. We went down to see what was iing and found a pile of your friends' corpses. you expin that to me?" Lucius said, staring at the dwarves.

  "Why would we tell you anything, human and elf?" one of the dwarves grumbled with disdain.

  "If you want to hide information about the magic root we found down there, we already know about it. So, there's nothing you ceal. Besides, that root is from the Orario dungeon, so it's not worth as much as you think. Part of what we found down there easily be acquired on the market, with adventurers colleg magic stones and parts from the Orario dungeon," Lucius paused and added with a serious look, "But if you want to tinue, go ahead, just be careful. That thing is still spawning monsters. We had to kill some taurs, which expins why so many of you were found dead. In my opinion, it makes you a bunch of idiots."

  Lucius said this calmly, but the impact of his words made the three dwarves seethe with rage.

  "Don't treat us like fools!" one of them growled.

  "Fine, are you going to tell us what's going on here or not?" Lucius said impatiently.

  The three were silent for a moment, but eventually, one of them spoke. "Since we weren't finding mu the city tely, we decided to dig he tral crystal to see if we could find anything. That's when we discovered the root, whiust have seen. It glows aainly has value. We began excavating the entire area around it, but... we ran into problems. We weren't there whearted ripping parts of it out, but wheurned, we found everyone dead. Monster sounds came soon after. That was three months ago, and we left before returning again."

  Lucius nodded, already imagining this had happened. "I see. I wouldn't reend you go there again. After all, you 't fight those monsters, and you don't even have proper fauna," Lucius said, turning to Riveria. "Now, let's be on our way. If you'll excuse us," he added.

  Lucius began walking, with Riveria following closely behind, passing the dwarves, who said nothing further. In the end, they made their way back to the city.

  "We have a few hours before nightfall. Do you want to leave the Abandoned World?" Riveria asked.

  "We leave; after all, camping here wouldn't be ideal," Lucius replied, scratg his head. "Let's head straight to Athena. There, I want to speak directly with the ruler, the goddess Athena," he murmured.

  Riveria nodded, but just as Lucius was about to take off to leave the area, the system beeped. At that moment, a new message appeared:

  [New Mission: Find a reli the past withiy. The closer you are to it, the system will emit a signal with increasing frequency. Reward: 3 t-cetion cards.]

  Lucius was surprised to see the message. Although the reward wasn't system points like he usually received, he khe cards would be extremely useful, especially since he had already used all of his.

  "Riveria, ge of pns," Lucius suddenly said, surprising the elf. "Help me look for something iy before we leave," he added, beginning his search for the relic, leaving Riveria fused.

  They searched through the city, and with Lucius's abilities and the system beeping more frequently as they he location, he eventually found what he was looking for. Thirty mier, he discovered a hat an ordinary house. Opening it, he found a small box. Even Riveria seemed surprised.

  Ihe box, easily opened by Lucius, was a small vial.

  "What's this?" he murmured, pig up the object as he noticed Riveria's eyes widen in astonishment.

  "This... is a Spirit Tear!" she excimed, incredulous at what she was seeing.

  "And what does it do?" Lucius asked, curious.

  "You don't know what a Spirit Tear is? It's extremely rare in this world! Only a handful have beehroughout all known history... They e from spirits who died and sacrificed their core. This alter a person's magical level on an arming scale!" Riveria expined, nearly nervous as she looked at the vial.

  "Really?" Lucius murmured. "How much it boost magic?" he asked, intrigued.

  "It's not certain si has only happewi known history. They say that the person who ed the Tear saw their magicrease by a gigantic pertage, but no one knows for sure all the effects it might have. My aor received one from the a spirit of the forest that lived in our woods..." Riveria expined, still gazing at the object, clearly a remnant of a dead spirit. Its value would be billions of valis.

  "I didn't know something like this existed here. Well, in any case, let's move on," Lucius said, st the vial in his spatial iory, while Riveria nodded.

  In the end, they spent the night in the abandoned city. Lucius used his powers to ehey had a very fortable evening. When the sun began to rise over the horizon, they decided to leave.

  They set off toward the northwest, where Athena was located.

  "It's time to visit the greatest magical human civilization on the ti," Lucius murmured as they flew across the desote nds of the abandoned world.

  -----

  Ra Here: All of this is my iion; I want to theorize to create the ending of this story. After all, the dungeon will be destroyed at the end of the story. The abandoned world, the dungeon roots spread across the world, and even the Spirit Tears and Athena are things I created for the story, even though these pces exist in the . I'm also unsure what to do with these Spirit Tears—after all, I could give them directly to Riveria t her more in lih our MC, sidering he's already unlimited thanks to the system.

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