It was the next day, and we returned to the dungeon refreshed. I couldn’t stress how different it was to be able to leave the dungeon whenever you felt like it. To a normal dungeon diver, this was a process of being steadily worn down over weeks as you made it level after level. The miasma of the curse wearing on you psychologically while the environment and enemies wear you down mentally. The curse is clearly quite brutal, and it’s no wonder that even the elites struggle to go farther than fifty-some levels.
Yet, my White Mage and Miki’s spiritualism shields our party from almost any negative effects from miasma. Well, personally, I can’t be affected by it at all, and I have a feeling that my protection is at least partially transmitted through the slave bond, so even if I didn’t have holy circles and the ability to keep miasma at bay, the slaves would probably be fine. On top of all that, every night, we slept in a comfortable bed, ate home cooked meals, and then returned only when we felt like it. The atmosphere was completely different, and we were always able to fight at 100%.
That was another reason we were able to always fight safely and minimize risk. The difference between a Dungeon Diver or Scout who had been facing weeks of rough nights, darkness, and miasma curse corrosion could make mistakes in detecting traps and avoiding mobs where someone who had a comfortable rest every night simply didn’t.
That said, the dungeon placed safe rooms as stops for adventurers to recuperate. Whether this is something a curse did to encourage people to dive deeper into greater dangers, or whether it was some primordial rule written into the nature of dungeons, I didn’t know. A person once registered here, could go to floor one and leave the dungeon within about fifteen minutes. After that, they could rest up and return fully rejuvenated. Thus, saying we had an advantage over the level 20 boss would be incorrect. This boss would be as difficult as any boss we had ever faced.
So even though we could breeze through levels 18 and 19 and level rapidly, that advantage ended once we reached this boss. It could be said this was the primary limit for this dungeon. Countless adventurers were stopped at the level 20 boss, never to be able to continue to progress down this dungeon again. After all, death was permanent, and you only had one chance to try to defeat him. Even those that might be capable were afraid. It would be a dangerous battle that risked the lives of my women.
How could I allow that?
Thus, I had come up with a plan. That entire day, rather than charge down to defeat the boss, I used the girls to help me farm golems. We worked all day and deep into the night. It was only one day later when I finally felt like my plan would work. At the very least, it made me feel safe.
The next day, we stopped at Chalm’s armory and got fresh armor, although still not of the magical kind. It was still important to make sure the armor was kept tight and effective. When the blacksmith saw the old armor with various cuts and holes, he went white. He didn’t understand how our armor had so much damage, yet the five ladies still had smiles on their faces and immaculate expressions.
The amount of wear we put on normal armor was no joke, and the blacksmith said the amount he saw on us equated to a soldier by the end of a large-scale battle. Well, he wasn’t wrong. This created rumors throughout Chalm, and only served to increase the town’s respect for us, who they seemed to think were fighting at death’s door for their sake. If they knew the process was rather simple for us and that I quickly healed most wounds so it was really only the armor taking damage, well, they probably still wouldn’t understand.
A little over a day and a half later, we finally were in the safe room, having prepared for battle as much as we possibly could. At that moment, Lydia glanced over at me with a curious look.
“Master? What is the next part of the story?”
Ah… I almost forgot. Fully armored and just about to storm the boss room for a battle for our lives, we all stop and sit down for story time.