The Dangerously Cute Dungeon [A Dungeon Core LitRPG]

1.17 Traumatized

After repeatedly dying for hours on end, David, eventually, called it a night when his daughter, Alice, was too exhausted to wait around anymore. He carried the sleepy child out of the dungeon and Violet went to sleep where she slept fitfully.

She had been beheaded, stabbed, sliced, and skewered repeatedly and even death didn't give her peace. David would simply wait until Violet left the dungeon core room and made her way back to the wildflower meadow. If she took too long, he would go and fetch her back himself, dragging her to the room where his daughter was waiting before thrusting her sword back into her hands and immediately getting back to it.

The next time Violet awoke, it was to the sound of footsteps followed up by a rather loud and angry Theodore questioning

"Why is the dungeon core on the verge of corrupting? What the heck have you been up to?! I've only been gone a few days!"

Violet groaned as she tried to stand up and soon gave up, just choosing to remain lying on the floor. Theodore looked at Violet and sighed as he kneeled down and brushed her hair out of her face. This time, more gently, he asked

"What happened the last few days? You don't look so hot and your condition is clearly affecting the dungeon core. You're lucky it hasn't corrupted or cracked from the pressure, but whatever is causing it needs to be resolved right away."

David laughed as he retorted

"You're really going to be like this today? You said you wanted me to train you, yet you're having this much trouble recovering after last night's beating? How do you expect to continue training in the future if you act like this after just one night?"

Theodore cast a glare at David, but soon turned his attention back to Violet as she croaked out

"You killed me! Repeatedly! I don't want to die anymore..."

Violet's voice sounded small at the end as her voice trailed off and tears began to fall down her face. The traumatic death that brought her into this world and the hellish training from yesterday had started to blur together, forming a sort of waking nightmare that never seemed to stop playing in Violet's mind.

Violet couldn't help but feel like she understood the dungeon masters who cowardly hid in their dungeon core rooms better now. She would rather leave things to her [Monsters] and put up deadly trap after deadly trap just to avoid having to ever die again. It was too much for her to bear. The pain of being sliced and stabbed seemed to linger in Violet's mind and it almost felt like the ache had seeped deep into her bones, making itself at home.

Theodore narrowed his eyes as he twirled around and grabbed David by the throat, pinning him against a wall as he seethed

"Do you want me to strip you of your life right here and right now? I guarantee that your precious daughter's life will be hell if she isn't sentenced to death for your foolish behavior!"

David choked on his words as he struggled to speak. Theodore just barely lessened the pressure he had on David's neck as he waited for the man to speak.

"Why? Why are you doing this?! Dungeon masters can't die unless the dungeon core is destroyed and I haven't laid a single finger on the thing!"

Theodore almost seemed to growl out his next words, anger clearly lacing his words

"Dungeon masters and dungeon cores are connected you fool! If Violet dies too often, her soul can become corrupted from the trauma of repeatedly dying! It might as well be the same thing as you slowly and deliberately corrupting the core until it cracks or, even worse, Violet and the dungeon go mad! You have no idea just how bad things get when dungeons corrupt. I would have to bring in the highest-level mages to completely destroy the dungeon with S-tier-level spells that would have devastating effects on the local environment for eons!"