Cathulhu Online, MUNYA!

Chapter 271 – Cat Dad Dungeon's Sacred Water Trap

Joan's troops were different from the players. After three hours of exploration, they secured a large area and chokepoints in the maze, turning a section of the dungeon into a safe zone.

Strangely, they hadn't encountered any monster yet.

The Einherjars weren't afraid of the dark and the liminal atmosphere. As most of them were capable of using domain abilities, their detection range was far and wide. Everything within a kilometer radius was under their surveillance.

After moving through the dungeon for hours, Joan decided to test the durability of the dungeon.

"Start destroying the walls and the floor! We will test the dungeon's dimensional strength!"

The level-700 Einherjars started punching and kicking the walls.

BOOM

BOOM

The walls were destroyed in one hit. However, the attackers suddenly sank to the floor as if the ground never existed. They noclipped and vanished from B1.

"STOP ATTACKING!"

Joan was surprised. She rushed to the place where her subordinates had sunk into the ground. Her eyes emitted bright light as if they turned into a spotlight, inspecting the rotten seaweed and the mysterious floor of the dungeon.

After staring at the dungeon for several minutes, Joan clicked her tongue, "Hidden rules, I see."

"What's the hidden, rule, ma'am?" Cardachion also crouched and touched the ground.

"If a dungeon floor is under the protection of a deity, that deity can add a hidden rule to the entire dungeon. Just now, it was a hidden rule at work."

"Do you know what the hidden rule is?"

Joan solemnly looked at the destroyed wall, "Something relates to the defense mechanism. I don't know the detail since Pangu's Game System Law doesn't cover the pocket dimension dungeon."

"Pocket Dimension Dungeon?"

"It's a dungeon category. There are two types of a dungeon - a natural one and a non-Euclidean geometry one. This one belongs to the non-Euclidean."

"You lost me."

Joan rolled her eyes, "If you notice, the dungeon is a lot bigger than the entire island. It's impossible for this type of place to exist underground since the seawater could have flooded this place long ago. Only the non-euclidean dungeons can indefinitely expand. You get it yet?"

"… I don't know. It sounds too unrealistic to me."

Joan rubbed her forehead, "You will never become a valkyrie at this rate. How did you get this far without common sense?"

"I don't know. Maybe, because I'm blond?"

"Scram!"

"HAHAHAHA!"

Cardachion laughed and ran away from Joan. The latter deeply sighed, regretting her decision for taking in this pervert as a disciple.

Joan turned to her other subordinates.

"Contact the friends from Spartan Guild and Claymore Guild. I want to know how they didn't get sucked into the floor after destroying the walls of the dungeon."

.

Because of the new discovery, the troops proceeded with caution as they were wary of traps and hidden rules of the dungeon. They stopped putting all resources to search for the local monsters.

Three hours later, a team managed to locate a new area. It was a square room with brown wallpaper and a clean floor. A table and chairs were orderly placed inside as if it was a meeting room of someone. In addition, at the four corners of the room, a small fountain circulated transparent water, which exuded thick Qi into the dungeon.

Joan heard the news and rushed to the room. She inspected the fountain.

There was a small plate here with carved texts.

.

Manila Room's Fountain of Sacred Water

This fountain continuously produces sacred water for weary travelers. If you're tired, you should drink some and rest here. Be warned that it has a side effect.

.

Joan still remembered the rules of this dungeon. She opened her game notification messages and reread them.

<House Rule#1: Intruders will gradually lose their sanity upon entering this dungeon. Consuming the sacred water can recover their sanity, but it has a mild side effect.>

"Restoring sanity? I see. There's a rumor in Asgard. Dungeon Masters in Midgard often created temporary safe zones in their non-euclidean dungeons to stabilize the dungeon's dimension. The Qi from the sacred water might be the key."

Joan smirked. She thought that Taotie or Xiaomao's backers might have created these fountains to maintain the maze's hidden rules and the house rule.

"How stupid! If they want to create a safe zone, they don't even need to furnish it. If I were them, I would have hidden all safe zones somewhere unreachable. That way, I could pressure the intruders! Allowing them to rest is damn stupid!"

After mocking Xiaomao, Joan sent a new order to her people.

"Bring containers here and collect the sacred water!"

Cardachion came back and snooped around. She went to another corner of the Manila Room and looked into the fountain. Then, she scooped a handful of sacred water and drank it.

DING

<Your sanity has been restored.>

<Your HP, MP, and Qi have been fully healed.>

<Your Max HP and MP have increased by 10.>

<Your Max Qi has increased by 100.>

"OH!!"

Seeing the effects, Cardachion drank more. However, by doing so, she received a penalty.

DING

<You have drunk too much sacred water.>

<Your dantian is now unstable.>

<Your dantian is sealed for 12 hours.>

<You have been inflicted with an abnormal status – [Estrus]!>

<You have been infected with an abnormal status – [Drowsy]!>

Cardachion's eyelids suddenly got heavier. She staggered toward a chair and sat down. Then, she rested her head on the table, falling asleep.

Joan turned around as the sound of Cardachion's snore annoyed her. She stormed toward the exhibitionist, "Hey! Who asked you to rest!? Get up!"

Cardachion didn't react. She slowly fell to the ground like a rag doll.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Joan slapped Cardachion's face, but she was still out. She slapped the angel a second time and inflected 10,000 damage, yet she remained asleep.

"Ma'am, I saw her drink the water. Maybe, this is the side effect that the system warned us about?" An Einherjar that saw Cardachion informed the boss.

"Side effects? Oh, I see."

Joan pursed her lips and nodded. She turned to a player, who had recently joined the Valkyrie Guild. Like Cardachion and Battlefield Warlord, her game character was a pretty woman.

"You there. Drink the sacred water and tell me the effects!"

The player rushed to the fountain in glee, mistaking Joan's order as a quest. She gulped down several mouthfuls of water at once.

DING

The woman cheered when the notification panel informed her about the stat gains. However, her face turned pale, and she fainted the next second.

"…"

Joan looked back and forth between the unconscious player and Cardachion. She then turned to her subordinates.

"You next. Drink it."

This time, Joan asked an Einherjar, who was a lot stronger than these two players. The burly female Einherjar poured the water into a canteen and swallowed all the content in seconds.

DING

The Einherjar widened her eyes. She stuck out her tongue and bit the tip, resisting the sleepiness.

"D-Drowsy… ab-abnormal status!"

Joan nodded, "Anything else?"

"E-Es..t…"

POEK

The Einherjar fainted. She couldn't resist the side effect as well.

"A bunch of incompetent idiots. I know that it's the [Sleep] effect! I can see the icons!"

Joan stared at the names and the icons, which were floating on top of Cardachion, the player, and the Einherjar's heads. One was the [zzZ], which indicated the abnormal status effect. The other one was a pink heart-shaped insignia, which looked suspicious.

Annoyed, Joan circulated her Qi and prepared to resist the abnormal status. As a level-3700 immortal, she didn't believe that she would succumb to a trivial side effect.

GULP

Joan drank a mouthful of sacred water. Then, she received the same feedback from the system message.

DING

Joan scoffed at it. She waited for the abnormal statuses to kick in.

DING

<You have been inflicted with an abnormal status – [Estrus]!>

<You have been inflicted with an abnormal status – [Drowsy]!>

"…"

Joan frowned. Indeed, her eyelids got heavier, but it was not something that she couldn't handle. With a snort, the drowsiness was gone as if she had drunk a liter of coffee.

Unfortunately, the other effect was new to her. Her crotch got itchy for an unknown reason. Something inside her belly moved, and her thoughts were affected.

She thought of Battlefield Warlord at first, but the image in her head changed into the bodies of men. She fell to her knees and panted.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"

Joan clenched her fists on her thighs, not wanting to touch them. She mustered her willpower and stood up. Then, she walked toward the entrance of the dungeon.

"Err, ma'am?"

The Einherjars looked at their boss in confusion. Her face was too red, and she sweated profusely.

"I'M TAKING A BREAK! DON'T FOLLOW ME!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"ALSO, DON'T DRINK THE WATER!"

"Huh?"

"DON'T. DRINK. THE WATER!"

Joan staggered away as she yelled at her people. The Einherjars reluctantly gazed at the sacred water, curious about what it did to the people.

One of them muttered, "This water probably contains a sleeping drug. It restores our sanity, but it forces us to sleep."

Another Einherjar shrugged, "Makes a lot of sense to me. Sleep is the remedy to stress. If you're stressed out, you just need to sleep a lot!"

"True."

The Einherjars proceeded to carry their sleeping friends to their camp. They took the Einherjar and the player first. But when they turned to Cardachion, she was no longer there.

"Where is the valkyrie disciple?"

"Wasn't she here?"

The Einherjars looked around the room and searched for her outside. They couldn't find her anywhere.

The subordinates' expressions turned dark. They looked at each other, "How are we going to tell Lady Joan?!"

"J-Just keep quiet. If she asks, just tell her that the wench ran off somewhere on her own."

"A-Agreed!"

The Einherjars weren't that close to Cardachion. They chose to save their skins instead of telling Joan the truth.

Their decision would change Cardachion's fate forever.