“I-it’s not like I consider you my Master or anything…” The giant woman blushed while holding her hair like a ponytail.
“Your methods may have defeated me, but that was only because I wasn’t prepared for such an attack!”
“Although… my bond to this dungeon does appear to be broken. The doors have opened, and I’d be able to freely move throughout this dungeon, although there isn’t much room for me.”
“You… will be destroying it soon, won’t you? This dungeon, I mean? Although I no longer am attached, I cannot live without the miasma of a dungeon. Just like a fairy can’t live long without a rich source of mana, I cannot live without that, since my form is dependent on it. This is fine. My defeat was always an inevitability. I just feel frustrated. I am unable to fight against it.”
It was the same way for the siren. I didn’t just make her the boss of my dungeon for kicks. She needed the miasma produced from the dungeon to remain alive. Smaller monsters were less dependent on the dungeon’s miasma, but bosses were basically attached to the dungeon and required the miasma to stay alive. Of course, since I could capture miasma now, and Shao could even make Miasma, I could carry it around and feed it to someone with such a dependency.
The same situation existed for the Fairy Queen Astria. She and other normal fairies needed large quantities of mana to remain healthy. That’s why they created and stayed around mana springs, and why the creation of her mana spring resulted in many fairies appearing. Although she was a Dark Fairy, Astria probably could consume miasma too. As far as Celeste went, because she had evolved into a Sylph, she wasn’t the same as a fairy that needed mana. She was closer to an elemental, so as long as she could enjoy the wind every once in a while, she was fine.
At first, I was just going to leave, but the giant’s comments made me feel a sense of responsibility. It had nothing to do with the fact that certain things had happened and I had ended up inside her. Rather, it was in spite of that! Ahem… I simply just didn’t want such an intelligent and nonviolent being’s death on my hands. Plus, given her strength and calm nature, she’d probably make a good tool in training my soldiers to fight larger opponents.
In the end, I told her about my own dungeon, and offered to send her there.
“R-really? You’ll take me away from this curse and allow me to live in peace?” Her eyes brightened. “Please! I’m so happy!”
I wasn’t sure if I could, but if I concentrated, I could make the portal larger. It ended up just large enough that she could barely crawl through. I’d send her back along with a message to the siren that the giant was in charge. She’d likely get pouty at me, but between the two, I actually found myself trusting this giant I just met a bit more. I heard from Raissa the siren had already attempted to woo a few men to her side already when she thought no one was looking.