Dungeon Raider System
Chapter 736 - 736: Ghost sickness Part 2

Once defeated, the cryptid started slowly vanishing into thin air. It was a already a slow process, but it was made even slower by its gigantic proportions which didn't sit well with Uriel.

At first, he attempted to rush the process by chopping pieces out of the cryptid with the Red thread of fate, but he didn't receive any flux energy, stamina or life essence from the carcass and it wasn't long until he realized it wasn't worth the effort.

With nothing else to do, Uriel started exploring the cave crossing in hopes of finding anything he could loot. At that point it didn't matter to him if it was just a weak artifact and he would have greeted it as a token reward, but after a short while Uriel had explored the entirety of the cave.

For a brief second he thought on looting the fresh corpses of the missing townsmen that fell on the traps by the entrance as even the contents of their wallets could prove to be useful, but he then thought against it.

After all, in the Navajo culture it was taboo to even mention the deceased, let alone touching their corpses. Disposing of them would have been the humane thing to do, but performing the ceremonial burial rites didn't feel right to him as he didn't know those people.

"So much trouble for nothing," Uriel scoffed as he exited the cave with the sole purpose of catching a breath of fresh air, but things changed when a small figure appeared from the woods. "Luna! Are you feeling better now? I killed the source of the deceased, it was a-" Uriel's words died on his lips when Luna darted forward and landed a fist to his face that would have likely killed a weaker hunter.

"Bad Uriel." Luna said.

"What was that for!?" Uriel wheezed out as he composed himself.

"For opening the dungeon despite me telling you not to." Luna said with in a cold unblinking expression. Her skin was still slightly discolored, but she seemed to be healthy.

"I didn't open it, it was like that when I entered. There were also a few bodies inside. My guess is the missing hunters stumbled into this place and got themselves killed while also releasing the prions from the cave."

"So?" Luna asked, then continued when Uriel remained silent. "what was it? The source of the disease."

"It was a creature called Chidin, it's a-"

"Ghost sickness. This is interesting," Luna muttered to herself. "mother mentioned they didn't build this town, they just found it. It seems the past inhabitants of this town passed away and left no trace and the same thing would have happened to her clan without your intervention."

"You're welcome."

"I'm not thanking you. I'm still mad at you for being stubborn."

"I wasn't! The Ocelotl took me here, tell her!" Uriel briefly summoned his jaguar in an attempt to defuse Luna's anger.

"Is what he says the truth?" She asked the cryptid who limited itself to stare at Luna who replied in kind. "I see, then it's fine."

"Just like that!?" Uriel gasped.

"I... can't be mad at such a cute boy." Luna patted the jaguar spirit's head right, something that the cryptid didn't seem to enjoy but still let her do.

"There's something I still don't understand, though... do you think prions and the ghost sickness are related?"

"I already mentioned prions are just misfolded proteins. That said, it is unclear why does that phenomenon takes place and despite multiple studies conducted over decades, prions remain to this day as one of the biggest mysteries in medicine. Ghost sickness, on the other hand, is mentioned in all cultures with different names. That can't be a coincidence."

"Yes, but the most likely explanation for ghost sickness being mentioned in different cultures is that they made it up to keep people from interacting with corpses to prevent the spread of... oh."

"Disease, my point exactly. We can't say for sure that prions are strictly related to ghost sickness, but it would answer some questions. If the prions are just an effect caused by the presence of a Chidin cryptid, then the reason why no cure was ever found is because the only way to cure the infection is to destroy the cryptid."

"What you're saying is, prions are part of the Chidin so they vanish along with it once it's defeated." Uriel nodded.

"No, that's a baseless assumption. I agree with the statement that this particular prion infection disappeared along with the cryptid, but maybe other cryptids can cause something similar. I... need to study more." Luna said, if she was happy it would have been impossible to tell except for her glimmering eyes and her eagerness to leave as soon as possible.

Uriel too wanted to leave as soon as possible, but he didn't want to leave the place without the flux orb he deserved and Luna too was curious about he level of the cryptid Uriel said he defeated. They went inside the cave, but not before Uriel warned her about the traps.

He didn't know what kind of mechanism lied under the pressure plates or what kind of trap was responsible for killing the missing hunters, but if they were good enough to kill werewolves then they had to be dangerous to them also no matter their rank.

"I wish Medusa was here." Uriel let out a dejected sigh.

"It's impolite to do that while you're on a date with another girl." Luna scoffed.

"This isn't a date, but it's not what you're thinking. I wish she was here so she could revere engineer those traps or maybe disarm them to take them back home with us."

"Is this all?" Luna asked, to which Uriel nodded. "who would build a dungeon like this?"

"I don't know, it's called the Dungeon of disease so maybe it's to store the diseases." Uriel shrugged.

"Do you think it was great, great...," Luna kept on going for a while in the most annoyingly slow manner of speech, though Uriel knew better than to interrupt her. "grampa who built this?"

"He was a healer of sorts, but I guess we'll never know."