Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 81: Dark Clouds

Chapter 81: Chapter 81: Dark Clouds

"It was a rainy day. A strange day. It almost never rained back home," I whispered, in the middle of a cuddle pile. There they all were: Aron, Nate, Desmond and Nick.

My rays of sunshine.

But I was going to tell them a dark story. A story which Titan already knew. For he knew everything I knew.

And yet, he still wanted to cut me down. To remake me. To scavenge what he could from me.

Nate gave my hand a little squeeze, I snugged deeper into Aron. His lap was my seat.

I couldn’t find it in myself to move from it. He was my rock in this stormy ocean.

I’d be lost without him.

I took a deep breath.

"But it did rain on that day. A storm like I’ve never seen before. It was cold. At first, I mistook the woodcutter for someone who was lost. I wanted to go great him. Then... then I saw that he was clutching at an axe. Can you imagine how poor he was? He didn’t even have leather to strap the axe to his back," it was the first time I said it out loud.

I was beginning to piece together a loss so severe, that I had nearly turned into a Forest Demon over.

The man was poor. The man had braved the rain, his clothes showing his skin through the holes in them because he had a drive.

Methuselah was his salvation.

But why! Why had he come to chop down a tree which was not even going to make good firewood! The oldest tree there was! A tree with a nymph!

"Methuselah told me he loved me. That I was his dearest son," I blinked at that. Dearest? Had Methuselah had other nymphs before me?

My first memory had been waking up... his already thick branches swaying over me.

So, as if his trunk was my cradle, and his branches the toys which were supposed to keep my idle mind from being bored.

I had started off as a child. A toddler.

Just like Theanore.

But... she was dungeon made. A soul which had been stolen from a system.

Was I... dungeon made? No true nymph?

I couldn’t continue the story.

I was finally beginning to think. I was thinking so fast; I was drawing conclusions which were so far from each other that it wasn’t even funny!

"There..." I couldn’t continue the tale of Methuselah’s death. It was too painful. "Theanore the Nymph and Marinus the Merman... they were there. When I first opened my eyes. They were there!"

I jumped up from my seat in Aron’s lap. I couldn’t breathe. My legs took me to a mirror.

I was blonde. My eyes were embers.

But there it was, a nose I had seen on my Old Girl more than once. And those eyes... the shape was the same as Grumpy Pants!

"Edda," If there was one person who would know if I was chasing ghosts trying to ignore the pain, then my system. "Examine my mana! Tell me who created me!"

I saw three dots. They flashed just for a second. And then...

Apple Grotto.

Not some sprout planted by the many mermaid or merman children of the two.

The dungeon itself. The Apple Grotto. Theanore’s dungeon.

My parents had given me away before I was even born.

Why?

I fell to the stone floor. My head was swimming with the lack of air.

Lack of air? Why wasn’t I breathing?

"Sylvan!" Someone was calling me. Huh... I was Pan’s uncle...

Then I saw it. Right under my name, there was another.

No, I wasn’t the boy’s uncle. His red hair did come from Marinus, but not through a merfolk child.

It came from me.

I had been a father for the past thirty years.

Guess one of the things I planted near Methuselah must have sprouted something.

Everything clicked into place. The man didn’t want to kill Methuselah for money. He was a tree in a harsh region.

I was a dark nymph.

The brave man was trying to protect his people from us. Viewed us as a danger.

I had three sons.

One of whom I never got to say hello to when he first opened his eyes.

Why...? Who had taken him? Had Methuselah just chased Pan away? Didn’t I deserve to care for my own child back then?

Pan was an apple nymph. How had a bristlecone pine nymph managed to produce an apple nymph?

That was the last question, before the lack of air made me fall down on the floor.

Edda took over my vitals to keep me alive.

0000

When I woke up, I was in the Cave of Sin.

The bones were now making up the decoration of the cave. I had to give Titan points for trying.

"I have three sons," I murmured because it was still too good to be true.

How was I going to tell Pan that I was his father?

That I never searched for him? Just like how my own parents never searched for me?

But... no.

They did. They just didn’t want to give me the power that they wielded.

Because I was a dark nymph. A monster.

"Well, I’d love to get to know them," he said, as he continued to pet me on the head.

"I never knew my eldest," I couldn’t help but feel like the biggest asshat in the universe for that one.

I created a nymph, probably planted the apple in the brittle ground myself, and didn’t even know that the small seed got a nymph.

What was wrong with me?

And... Pan’s birth had brought that woodcutter to us. To Methuselah and me.

Had doomed my tree.

Had Methuselah teleported Pan to Theanore and Marinus? Had he begged them to take care of their grandchild? To give him some silly story about him being the product of a mermaid, just because his father was a clueless, brain-dead, drake?

"Hey," Titan kissed me on my blonde curls. I realized that he was regulating my mana for me.

Like a true boss mob.

"None of that. The boy will forgive," soon he had me wrapped up in his limbs. His warmth consuming me.

Yes, I thought, as he began to rock us. Trying to give me the only comfort he could.

But how could I forgive myself?