Dungeon Core

After Ren and Hilda got the sleeping Lara, they headed straight towards the Dungeon Core. The room the Dungeon Core was located was supposedly the area where the treasury was located as well.

When Ren heard this, a lot of questions were raised. Why is the Dungeon Core placed in the treasury? Also why does a Dungeon that spawns monster have a treasury to begin with? Finally what will they do with the treasury? Do they the ones who cleared the Dungeon acquire it?

Hilda answered all of Ren's questions. The answer to the first two questions was no one knows. Same as Dungeons and Dungeon Cores, no one truly knows why they exist. She also explained that the treasures found in the Dungeon are divided with the adventurers who cleared the dungeon, the adventurers guild, and the Kingdom where the Dungeon is located.

Obviously Ren asked what happens if he takes all the treasures for himself. The answer was as expected.

"After a Dungeon is cleared, the surrounding monsters are lessened. If the adventurer withholds information regarding the clearing of the Dungeon, the royal family sends someone to inspect the Dungeon. Once the inspectors report that the adventurer who cleared the Dungeon was hoarding the treasures, he or she will become the enemy of the Kingdom."

Ren didn't really care about the Reschbeauch Kingdom that he is a citizen of. Still if he did do something, not only will he suffer the consequences everyone he knows will also suffer. So he decided to just follow the proper procedure for this.

...

When Ren and his group got into the room where the Dungeon Core was, Ren was surprised in what he saw. He wasn't surprise by the mountain of treasures, no it wasn't that, what surprised him was the Dungeon Core and the room itself. While Hilda looked around the room, Ren started to recall some things.

The Dungeon Core looked eerily similar to a young Dragon's heart. Ren couldn't understand why it would look so similar. He couldn't believe that a young Dragon's heart was a Dungeon Core. It might just look really similar to it, but Ren knew that was impossible.

Yet why create something like this? What's its purpose? Or is this really not a young Dragon's heart? Ren had only seen a young Dragon's heart once back in his previous world. An arrogant young Dragon wanted to show how weak he Demon lord Kretos was, by killing him. Yet after battling for three days, Kretos had finally defeated the young Dragon, and took its heart as a prize.

That was one of the best fights Kretos at his peak ever had. The arrogant Dragons, well the adult ones, would never stoop so low to attack a lower life form. Which is to them everything that is not a Dragon or a God. So that was the only time Kretos had fought a Dragon, and it was glorious.

So seeing something similar to a young Dragon's heart as the Dungeon core was a frighteningly amazing concept. That would mean that something, or someone had killed young dragons, and used their hearts to make Dungeons; and this wasn't done by killing one or two young dragons, based on what Hilda said their were dozens of Dungeons scattered throughout the continent. That means there was a being that for a time, hunted young Dragons.

The idea that there was some being powerful enough to kill young dragons and create these dungeons, was truly intriguing. Is that why the Dungeon Cores where in the treasury? Because whoever hunted the young dragons treated their hearts as treasures.

Ren was getting excited just thinking of such a powerful being existing in this world. Ren really wanted to challenge that being to a battle to the death.

Ren who got excited again, then thought of another question. Why does this room seem familiar? The moment he entered the treasury, it was not only the young Dragon heart that triggered memories of the past, but the room itself felt nostalgic.

'This room looks the same as that room, where I fought the fourth hero. Yet back then it wasn't a treasury, it was his personal room. Still the design of this Dungeon and the overall feel, reminds me of the fortress the fourth hero owned.'

Ren then started to reminisce about the fourth hero. Among all the heroes Ren faced, the fourth one was the only one who had escaped death by his hands. This was an impressive feat considering the time he fought the fourth hero, he was already at his strongest.

The fourth hero was the hero who truly believed in his mission. Among all the heroes who were pretty much obsessed with justice the fourth hero was in a category of his own. He made justice the thing above all, compassion, love, kindness, all of these things were secondary in the face of justice.

Even during their final battle when he learned it was not Kretos who destroyed his village, but the royal family. He didn't finish the fight and went to annihilate the royal family, from the main family to every descendant they had.

It was at that time, Kretos wasn't considered the worse enemy of humanity, it was the fourth hero. They even labelled this hero who saved thousands as the greatest traitor of humanity. He was hunted down by the people he once protected. The final fate of the hero was a tragic death, supposedly by the hands of those he sought to protect.

Hilda who was done inspecting the room, looked at Ren weirdly. Ever since coming down to this Dungeon this overconfident man kept on staring at the distance. He would suddenly keep quiet and not say anything for a few minutes. Was the Dungeon having some kind of strange effect on him?

"Oh are you done checking the room? So are we going to destroy the Dungeon Core now?" Ren who was having sudden flashbacks to the past, finally noticed Hilda was looking at him.

"Yeah you can destroy it now." When Ren heard the okay from Hilda, he used an unknown darkness spell and engulfed the Dungeon Core with a ball of darkness.

Hilda who was unaware what kind of spell was used, simply looked on. The darkness that shrouded the Dungeon Core disappeared alongside the Dungeon Core itself.

"There, gone. So how do we bring the treasures back up."

"Don't worry about that, the Guild will handle that. The guild will be processing the treasure and will give you, your share of the treasure." Hearing Hilda's answer, Ren simply shrugged his arms and went out of the room. Hilda felt like Ren's nonchalance about the whole sequence of events was normal with his arrogant personality.

Little did she know Ren didn't actually destroy the Dungeon Core, he simply hidden it from Hilda's view, and took it with him.