My Dungeon Life: Rise of the Slave Harem

We entered a small arena. It actually seemed rather familiar to me.

“Is this-” I frowned, looking around the room.

“Yes, I believe that the arena inside the Sword Illusory Realm was based on these rooms,” Alysia explained.

The place looked exactly like the rooms where Alysia and I had to battle clones of her which we had to kill over and over again while experiencing the pain of said death. It was a brutal place, but it was also the place where Alysia and I started to grow close. It had only been a few months, but it felt like we had been together forever. I couldn’t even imagine fighting without her, and in the moments that I couldn’t use her, like when I was sent into Twilight’s territory, it felt like I had a hand tied behind my back.

Then again, repetition shouldn’t be that surprising. Dungeons were based on real stories, and those stories used real locations. If the actual location still existed, why wouldn’t a dungeon replicate it? It was far easier to borrow a concept that already existed rather than create something new, and when it came to dungeons, all they did was borrow old lore. Their entire existence was to eat away the lore of the world, coopting it in an attempt to complete their unfinished story.

Of course, that meant that this guild, or at least this arena, was extremely old, and had been around during the same time as that sword hero had been traveling with his corrupted sword. Perhaps he had come to this very island to battle in the Champion’s Gauntlet. I do recall something in that lore about him trying to get stronger, and what better place would someone go to challenge themselves than such a place. I wished I had known about the place before, although it wasn’t particularly accessible from the Aberis. You had to sail through Ost Republic waters to reach it, and until very recently, the two countries were not peaceful.

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As I was marveling over dungeons for the umpteenth time, I looked through the racks of wooden weapons on the side. None of them were great swords like Alysia, so I settled on the largest sword I could find, which was a massive osterian broadsword. It still felt very light in my grip. That got me thinking that maybe training like this wasn’t such a bad idea. I had been separated from Alysia once before. I couldn’t always depend on the extra boost of strength that she gave me. I should train to fight without her in hand. There might even be an instance where it’d be preferable she remained in her osterian form to battle an enemy, rather than remain as a sword.

As I picked out my weapon, the girls were also picking out their weapons. They didn’t all use the sword. One girl appeared to use a spear like Lydia now used, and another appeared to be more of a bare-knuckle brawler. The third girl seemed to use a chain with a spiked ball on it. At least, she was whipping it around. Wait a second, none of them were picking out wood weapons!

“Alright… all of you against Deek.” Alysia declared. “Ready?”

“Ready!”

“I’ll take him out.”

“Let’s do it!”

“Huh?” I blinked.

“Attack!” Alysia dropped her hand.