Dungeon of Lust: Managing Otherworldly Beauties

Chapter 266: Terracotta Scar

Quill asked a few more questions.

All were a little more personalized.

All were humanizing Vale.

But it was eventually time for Vale to justify exposing his Trait like this. Casting a slight gaze at Grady, he said:

"I have not been in this world long. And nearly all of my time has been spent inside this dungeon trying to survive." Vale’s eyes drifted to Quill. "What I’d like to ask is about the world."

Quill quizzically tilted her head.

"I’m sorry, but that was very broad. What exactly do you want to know?"

Looking off to the side, Vale scratched his chin.

"I guess what I’m asking is: Akkuron and Celestia. All I know about them is that they are powerful nations splitting control of a single continent... but why do they dislike each other?"

The obvious reasons were dominance and avarice, but did people really have time for a war when the world was dying? Were such things truly more important than defending the world?

"I see..."

Quill touched the side of her helm, then eventually took it off. As she plucked it off her head, wavy brown hair fell onto her back. Puffing out an exhale, she shook her head, then pulled a few sweaty strands off her face.

With a quiet laugh, she said:

"It was getting hard to breathe."

Vale returned her chuckle with a polite smile.

"No worries."

She calmed down and started:

"Despite our stark differences — Celestia, an absolute theocracy, and Akkuron, a militaristic monarchy — our nations used to get along well, based on what I’ve been told. Three hundred and fifty years ago, we worked side by side to defend the world from the dungeon beasts. In fact, historians would wager to say this continent and both nations would have been lost if we hadn’t worked together."

Quill, following Vale’s look, glanced at Grady.

"Then, three hundred years ago, when the Corrupted first emerged, our cohesion almost grew to the point where we considered one another our own."

Looking back toward Vale, she chuckled.

"As I’m sure you can assume, that peace fell apart. Though it fell apart in spectacular fashion."

She let out a small, dry cough and cast a quick look over her shoulder toward where the Scar lay hidden from view.

"The Terracotta Scar wasn’t always between our nations. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but two hundred years ago, the same year the Vice were first discovered — some claim it was a battle between gods, others blame the emergence of the Vice — the world rumbled, and that rift formed."

Her eyes flicked back to Vale.

"But how or why it came to be wasn’t important. What was important was that the separation led to our involvement with one another growing scarce. It was physically challenging to cross. Not to mention..."

She tapped her fingers together.

"We each had a Vice dungeon formed on either side of the Scar. Celestia was faced with Gluttony. Akkuron was faced with Greed."

Vale’s eyes slightly widened.

’Were they the first Greed and Gluttony?’

Quill’s soft hazel eyes slowly danced around the dungeon.

"I don’t know much about the facts of what happened, but Celestia almost fell to Gluttony, growing their hatred of the Vice to insurmountable levels. As for Akkuron... Our past queen had, uh, well... Greed was our king for a bit. His identity was never directly stated and always meant to be a secret, but the rumors pointed toward that truth."

Quill grew a slightly bashful look.

"After Celestia killed Gluttony, they learned of our king’s identity and, out of anger, declared war on us about one hundred years ago. The war didn’t last long since the king fought Celestia alone to spare his people from harm. He lost, yes, but with his actions, our people stopped seeing the Vice the way the rest of the world did."

Vale tilted his head at that one.

’Greed...’ that’s who the king supposedly was. ’Why the hell would Greed be so selfless?’

Something wasn’t adding up. It sounded... wrong. Maybe any other Vice it would have made sense.

Vale cast a sidelong glance north.

Quill shifted in her seat.

"Sorry to be so curt, but obviously, the Vice are not our friends. We know that well. You know that, too. Greed was the only one truly friendly to us. And as future Vice showed aggression towards us, we showed aggression back. Yet, knowing from Greed’s usefulness and reasonability in the past, we usually spared the Vice in order to use them, knowing they weren’t the savage monsters the world sees them as. Or at least, they had the potential to not be."

Swinging his feet slowly, Vale fell into thought.

’That explains their cordial-ish view of us...’

But, truthfully, all that had just been told to him wasn’t all that useful. Or at least it didn’t seem to be. Vale looked toward the entrance of his dungeon.

’So, it’s not a formation from the river.’

The Terracotta Scar had been formed by something, or someone, in an event so grand it caused the world to rumble.

Vale thought back to the map he’d acquired from Greed.

The river within the Scar bisecting North Hela flowed south and ended a little into the Lost Expanse, before splitting in two and going either direction toward the oceans, cutting off North and South Hela from one another. While the obvious conclusion for the Scars formation would be a quake, Vale doubted it. He didn’t entirely throw out that typical notion, but he gave hefty weight to the other possibilities.

As Vale mulled that over, all he could think of was...

’What the hell is that place?’

If his conjecture were right, then the epicenter of whatever split the continent in half was the Lost Expanse.

’I pray I never have to go there.’

And judging from the monster Mias had seen described crawling in the ash, it didn’t seem impossible for other creatures of incomprehensible proportions lying in wait there to be capable of such destruction.

Quill said one final thing in response to Vale initial question.

"As for you, Mister Vale... Forgive my rudeness again, but Lust is known to be the most mindless Vice. We had little faith in your usefulness other than aggravating Celestia. We were intent on keeping you chained and bound, then taking control of your dungeon and using it."

Vale’s eyes widened at the affirmation of something he already knew.

’The hell, Grady?!’