The images were distorted and unclear. Many years had passed since this curse was created. The lore was lost with age, the memories forgotten. If emotions hadn’t been so high, if the deaths hadn’t been so many, and the impact on this world hadn’t been so great, then this curse would have dispersed with the sands of time.

It was possible that this curse was tossed off from the fragment of a destroyed mega-dungeon, the lore so strong that even after being destroyed, the scattered fragments found a place and started to regrow, like a weed that wouldn’t die.

I could see a dungeon, growing untouched, forgotten, and ignored. It’s a location in the mountains, no one even realized it was there until it had already grown into a mega-dungeon and beyond. The dungeon slowly began to form a hole, a hole through reality, connecting with another world. Then, people from that world managed to find their way into this one.

I could see a race at peace. They weren’t too different from humans. They weren’t blue like the murals showed. Instead, they had pointy ears and bright-colored hair. Their ears weren’t long like elf-ears, but they did come to a point. As for their hair, it came in colors of blue, green, pink, purple, and more. When they saw the rather boring brown and black-haired people with smooth ears come out of the mountains, they didn’t know what to think.

At first, they accepted these new people, even welcoming them with open arms. They held feasts and celebrated their friendship. However, the visitors saw the wealth of this new world, and they started to grow greedy. When they returned home, they spoke of a world ripe for the picking.

The next wave of humans weren’t explorers, but soldiers. They rose from the dungeon and started to begin a campaign. They were little better than bandits, slaughtering beasts for their alchemy and resources, and raiding villages for the people. Women with strange-colored hair make a wonderful commodity as slaves. In fact, slavery didn’t exist in this world to begin with, and the slave collar was brought over by these visitors.

This wasn’t won by a single war, but countless wars over the years. There were periods of peace, and periods of the great war. Slowly, the native people were pushed back, and humans continued to come. Humans seemed much more used to war, and they always invented new and horrendous ways to fight. At the height of the war, they brought horrific weapons to this world, the Malacrum weapons, which reaved even the soul.

Then a hero rose, not of the humans, but this other race. She was powerful and strong and managed to bring the human war to a standstill. Eventually, she plunged into the human dungeon, and with much effort, broke to the final floor and destroyed it. It was the shattering of this dungeon that ultimately created Bandit’s Respite. As for why it formed here, now, it was likely the presence of that Malacrum dagger, buried and lost since a war uncountable years ago, that attracted it.

The hero never left that dungeon, and although the humans were cut off from their original world, it was already too late. They were able to conquer the majority of the continent. The remaining natives fled, never to be seen again.

If there were any more details to this story, they were lost with time. As for why I had somehow completed this story, it seems that by purifying the curse of the Malacrum dagger and then wiping out the human bandits invading the dungeon, I had inadvertently completed the dungeon’s desire to be free from human influence. None of my girls were humans, and I had absorbed so much of the dungeon’s native miasma, that it didn’t see me as a human either.

The dungeon finished burning a lore tattoo around my right ankle, but a moment later it began to fade away.

{Congratulations, you have completed the Bandit’s Respite Dungeon.}

{True Dungeon Diver has increased to level 66.}

{Dungeon Builder has increased to level 25.}

{You have an increased affinity with dungeons. Your dungeon tattoos can be hidden at will. Dungeon Absorption is now a permanent skill. Increased status in dungeons. 2X experience in dungeons.}

{You have gained 5 dungeon points.}

{Lydia has gained 2 dungeon points.}

{Miki has gained 2 dungeon points.}

{Celeste has gained 2 dungeon points.}

{Terra has gained 2 dungeon points.}

{Shao has gained 2 dungeon points.}

{Astria has gained 2 dungeon points.}

“Master? Why are you crying?” Celeste asked.

“It’s just…sometimes, the world really does care…” I wiped a tear from my eye.

Finally, I could hide those tattoos!