Six days after we entered the dungeon, we finally came to the 19th floor. Three weeks from now, I was supposed to be in Osteria to attend some princesses meeting. It was recommended we leave next week, but that was assuming we were people who traveled normally. Thanks to my Portal, we wouldn’t need all of that time. It was my goal to finally take care of Lord Reign within the next three weeks. I wouldn’t be comfortable leaving the country until that threat was dealt with.
To deal with that threat, I had to amass a large enough army to deal with Lord Reign’s Demonic Knights. That led us to want to make a treaty with the Bandit Hero. That hero turned out to be the exceptionally strange and dangerous Calypso, and her Bandit army turned out to be dungeon creatures that she had created after becoming the Master of her dungeon. There were still too many questions I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t know how someone became the Master of a dungeon. I figured it had something to do with the boss’s room. Perhaps, if you got your hand on the dungeon lore, rather than destroying or absorbing it, I could claim the dungeon as my own. It was just a guess, but I thought if I injected my miasma into the dungeon lore, that I could become the Master of said dungeon.
Ultimately, that was my current goal. I wanted to get as close to the boss room as possible, find the orb, and then inject it with my miasma. Then, Calypso’s dungeon would become my dungeon. That was one option. Regrettably, the Bandits had a very limited use, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to use them in my invasion of Alerith. Therefore, the more likely scenario was that I destroyed the lore so that Calypso couldn’t use it. I didn’t hold any hopes that I’d be completing the lore this time. After all, it was anyone’s guess what the goal of this dungeon was anyway.
“Mast…” Lydia bit her tongue as she stopped me from taking a step forward.
Right where my foot would have been, an arrow struck. Was it a trap? One thing this dungeon hadn’t thrown at us were traps. Maybe they would have appeared on level 21, but why would it suddenly appear on 19? That’s when I noticed that the arrow came from someone. A moment later, we were surrounded by Bandits. The girls were on alert, but I told them to hold off their attack. That shot had been a warning shot after all. They could have aimed for my heart.
After a moment, a person walked out of the forest. “Congratulations. You’ve made it.”
The group all looked at each other in confusion. We were rather tired and a bit haggard after a solid week of rapidly advancing. I hadn’t even had a chance to go through the girls’ levels and see how they had progressed. I hadn’t even had a chance to see how I had progressed.
“Made it?” I took the lead, asking in confusion.
“The Bandit Trial.” He raised his hands. “You made it to and through the final floor. You are now qualified.”
“Qualified for what?” Miki asked suspiciously.
“Why… to join us! You’re a Bandit now!” He smirked.