That was all I had to say. I hadn’t prepared a speech. I hadn’t prepared anything for this far. I had been expecting her to recognize me immediately and react. Instead, she merely watched me, hidden within her hood. Well, it wasn’t the reception I had been expecting. Was she surprised, confused, or angry?
I opened my mouth to say more, but she slowly lifted her hands to her hood, and then pulled it back, finally revealing her face.
“This is… my mother?” Alysia asked.
It was the final dungeon boss, Xin. In this form, she resembled a human. She should have been on the final level. I found myself rather surprised by her presence here on the surface.
“Yeah, this is the other half of your mother I was telling you about,” I informed Alysia.
“You dare to attack my Mistress’s dungeon?” Xin demanded, glaring at me.
I frowned. Xin should have been able to recognize me. However, this woman was staring at me like I was a stranger.
“You know who I am, right?” I asked helplessly.
“You are a rival Dungeon Master who wishes to swallow our dungeon. I regret to inform you that you will fail. We’re not so easy as to be bullied by other dungeons.”
“Xin… Twilight Dungeon, Deek?” I held up my hands.
“I will destroy you, and then bring my mistress your head.” She threw back her robes revealing a sword at her belt. “Your head will look good on the maid hero’s mantle.”
She reached down, grabbing the sword. She had an arrogant look on her face that was familiar to me. It was the way she had looked at me when I first got to the Twilight Dungeon. It was the look of a woman who felt superior to me. It was a look filled with condescension.
“The maid hero… so it is Elaya after all.”
Xin licked her lips. “Don’t you dare speak that name! Mistress has banned that name!”
“Why?” Deek furrowed his brow, hoping she would give him some hints so he understood more about what was going on.
“Mistress banned that name. She couldn’t protect him, she couldn’t bring him back. She failed him. That’s why… that’s why she killed herself!”
My smile dropped and I ended up baring my teeth. “What?”
Of all the possibilities, I hadn’t considered such a thing. Elaya would commit suicide after learning of my death? If that was the case, then it probably happened in my dungeon. She probably wanted to be consumed by the dungeon I created. If she died in my dungeon, she’d be turned back into miasma, and my miasma would mix with hers. In her broken state, she must have thought this was somehow poetic and romantic.
However, what would have happened instead is that her miasma would have contaminated the dungeon, turning it into a more chaotic curse bred from her own incomplete story. Just like when Xin died in the Twilight Dungeon, a curse was created inside a curse. Elaya was born again and usurped Xin and Astria becoming the dungeon boss. It was all starting to make sense now. This was a curse created by Elaya’s broken heart, and a lore cut short by her foolish mistake.
“Elaya…” I said sadly.
“I told you, that name is forbidden by the maid hero… now die!”
Xin pulled her sword and began her attack.