Their conversation continued, the Knight was even answering her.
'It answered me. I might be due for death, but I have to buy time for them to leave. In any case, no-one said anything about me not being able to study the ancient language by listening to the Knights occasional responses. It seems interested to learn, strange, maybe part of its human habits, or simply the reality of not being human or monster.'
They reached the spring and the humans drank. They had not left because they had decided not to leave their friend, and by the glow of one of the monsters, the Vile hunter's fur, it seems that she was doing better than they had expected, for someone having to talk to a void creature. The strange part is that even with how things where they did not falter, the Knight always had Folisha by its side, so they hadn't even gotten a chance to speak to her.
The Knight gave them water and food, by using the corpses of monsters it had slayed earlier, they did take a while to start decaying, almost as if even the bacteria was struggling against the vigorous cells of monster flesh. It was not impossible for humans to eat monster flesh, but they usually avoided it since it can slowly drive the consumer mad. But eating its flesh had an unknown side effect. Maybe the veterans knew it, but it was not public Knowledge. Eating enough monster flesh gives the human a new skill, monster eaters.
This skill has a weird counter, after a huge portion of monster meat has been eaten their skill forces their power to increase. They did not know much about it, but Max had noticed and told the others they were getting stronger, a bit of good news in this hell. Folisha seems to have not noticed. A month had passed and each had gained a level. It was also making sense why it is not public knowledge. It seems the skill requires a diet of monster meat way stronger they can handle.
At the start they could not handle even chewing it, which then the Knight would pound the meat into paste, Folisha would cook it, being their best cook, and the one outside the cage. The flame was from one of the monsters following the Knight otherwise the monster flesh would have not been cooked. Then the Knight would send a monster to deliver the food to them, while continuing to speak to Folisha. They had mostly remained quiet waiting for the opportunity to give Folisha a stone, then Arduo spoke.
"Guys."
They all turned to her, since during mealtime the Knight gave them light, Folisha's idea probably.
"This is getting even more stranger. This thing is actually herding us like cattle, and Folisha is serving as our benefactor, something has to change."
Max agreed, "It has never let Folisha out of its sight and has improved our living conditions, but it does not mean we have to submit. These living conditions are so absurd that we literally learned a skill to survive. Sure, this skill is giving us a level after a hundred meals, but I don't wanna turn into a monster. We can't leave Folisha, but we really have to do something. This thing might be strong, but it has underestimated us by not taking us seriously."
"You're right and so one of my plans is to leave a stone for her… and leave."
Ansi and Max looked at her in shock.
"What if that thing attacks her as soon as we are gone."
"And wont there be two stones left, since we cannot take them with us, meaning the Knight might follow us out, so we have to make sure Folisha knows where to get one and we manage to hide the other."
"There's no need to hide the one for Nick, I can use both. I am carrying a baby. And before you ask, I didn't tell Nick. I had planned to teleport out of here leaving the baby. I did not think that it would be a problem since the baby was small then, but now that I'm starting to get sick, it's good to say if I use one stone, I might die from the blood loss. I did not want the baby, but now it will allow me to crush two stones at once."
They eventually decided not to leave. Another month passed and the Knight realised the pregnancy but did nothing. The Knight had decided to devote its entire time to learning all that Folisha knew. So, the baby was eventually born, the others did not leave, Ansi had delivered the baby. They had tried to crush the stones at some point, but it seems they were not breaking. The cage they were in was synonymous to being in the belly of a monster that is probably level 100 and above, the spell carved of the stones did not work. And they were never allowed out. They were stuck there for a whole year. The baby was five months old now. Having been born in a dungeon, and started eating monster meat a month ago, this baby had unleashed its seal at a young age, being the youngest baby to be level 1.
Things were weird to say the least. Too much had happened and too much was happening. It was too much for humans to handle, and added to the effects of monster eater skill, they were going mad. It was subtle but present.
The first sign was when they decided to leave their friend, a sound plan, but heartless, nonetheless. The second was that they did not want to leave, the stones were working fine, but none actually crushed the stones, it had nothing to do with the cage. These stones are strong, so one of them could have still allowed a pregnant person to leave with their baby. Arduo actually never planned to leave her baby. She also knew that stones would not leave her baby behind.
The other self-deceit was that the stones could not teleport another. The stones were simple actually. Teleport anything within the vicinity of the use, except the ground itself. A person could literally have a bag with stones, and be pregnant with twins, almost about to give birth and they would still get everything out. The creator of these stones had been thorough with the design, teleport all carried by the person, excluding the bodies of those not fused to it.
Why you might ask all the confusing lies and misunderstandings, fake memories. Like wanting to leave the baby, Folisha, or the peculiar workings of the teleport stones. Simple, madness!
The monster eater skill is a blessing and a curse. That is exactly why humans have tried hard to discourage eating monster skill. The blessing part is that the more you eat the stronger you get, but the diet must be of monsters of stronger level, or nothing happens. The curse is not worth it. It slowly makes one dependant on monster meat by not letting it show that they were going mad. Let's look at Arduo's case.
She was pregnant and worried about telling Nick and the others but never intended to bring any harm to her baby, so the skill amplified this feeling to the point it altered her memories. She was convinced that she came into the dungeon intending to dispose of the baby. This and many other deceptions, were to make sure they could not escape.
When they decided to leave Folisha, the skill started making up reasons in their heads, altering their sense of self, so that they do not leave. Then when they had had enough and decided to crush the stones anyway, it zapped their strength away, making the crushing look harder, and made sure they came to the wrong conclusion.
This is a skill that wants to keep the source of monster meat flowing to sustain itself. If they left, then they would not get anymore thus the skill will starve and eventually vanish. It even worked hard to make sure the baby was delivered and delivered safely, cause then the baby would get the skill too, and become a carrier. The skill manipulates the mind to not stray from the source. This skill is not sentient, it's not a hive, but it works towards a common goal, thus it can make pretty strange situations. No matter who gets the skill, it continuously keeps on trying to make sure that it can always supply itself with a constant diet of monster meat, and if they left the Knight the supply would stop, so it had to alter the consumers minds, if they go mad in the process, it does not care.
It affected Folisha by making her desire to learn the ancient language overshadow her senses, thus, she was the least driven mad. Ansi was also doing a little better because she wanted to stay with Arduo, and as long as Arduo stayed put, she would not be manipulated. Max was having it even worse than Arduo, because of the guilt of not being able to save Nick being amplified, to make sure that Max felt responsible for everyone, and not a single soul would be left behind. The curse did not do anything to the baby though, the baby was born into this, so it was doing just fine. They were all seemingly sane but compared to the people they truly were, this skill had twisted them. And it was not even done.
The Knight had learnt a lot in this past year. Like the type of populus the earth has, the type of history purveyed in education systems, the level of understanding humans have about the world. The strangest part was the existence of multiple races. There were humans the most abundant of all. Then there were monsters, and void beings classified under one title with the same banner as monster, infamously known as destroyers. Then there were other races developed from humans. The dragon kin, forest folk, mountain people, and mix creatures called beast folk. The last race were the creatures that monsters originate from.
The strangest thing that Folisha had explained was called soul evolution, which is how other races emerged from humans, and some of these became monsters. It was all strange and Folisha had been slowly becoming deranged, making it harder to follow her explanations, but she had truly blessed the Knight with enough information, day in and day out, every day, except when she slept. They were growing strong because of the monster meat, so the Knight knew it, but it did not know of the curse. There was a baby meaning its breeding plan could work.
"This past year has not been a waste, hasn't it?"
Folisha looked at the Knight with wide eyes, because of the curse she had even grown to not fear the Knight, rather enjoying the company and conversation, so she had the look of a confused child looking at its brother. They were all going mad, surrounded by madness 'the monsters.' Each had gained 12 levels, the baby only 1, after moving from being breast fed. They had even lost the fear of death, a strange thing really. They were not becoming monsters like how the first original few were made, but this skill was turning them into monsters, they had not even noticed their skills growths at the thresholds of 30 and 40.
The Knight itself had gotten 10 levels up due to the amount of information it had gotten. This also taught it that the information has to be true to increase the stat, and it needs to be enough to affect the decision-making part of its mind. Another new development was that the vessels of the followers grow in strength with the Knight. So, the strongest of them was level 145, and the weakest 135. And with the Knight at level 115, it was still weaker than that first Retcher, but it did not mean that it could not do damage, because that means it could use visage of terror easily against the stronger foes, because it was straining to keep it active against beings a whole 40 levels above it.
The Knight could not see the curse of madness, but a couple of months ago Folisha started slipping. She would randomly blurt things about herself and not the world, the Knight thought she was just getting comfortable, but even that was strange. Then at some point the Knight even knew her favourite things to do, how she even wanted to become a knight like it.