Chapter 46 (1 of 2) Demon, Dungeon and Delivery. (Patreon)

She wordlessly followed the man - or demon - in front of her. The Archduke opened the door of what seemed to be the sitting room where they were originally going to discuss her proposals with Count Bentsen. He marched over to one of the armchairs in front of a low table and then sat down. He pointed at the chair opposite him.

“Sit,” he ordered coldly.

Quickly doing what he asked, she sat awkwardly on the edge of her seat. Then, with a sound of whirring, he held up a gloved hand and a beam of blue light appearing seemingly from nowhere fell on his hand. The light slowly coalesced to form a bound folder of white-blue with the symbol of a gear on the front. He placed the folder in front of her.

“Sign it,” he said.

She glanced between the Archduke and what she knew to be a System contract on the table before her. Then, without complaint, and without reading it, she flipped through to the very back, took off a glove and placed her index finger on the area to sign, inserting her spiritual energy. Blue blocky letters bloomed across the section, printing out her name. When it was done, she tensed as the mounting pressure built around her mind, and then it released, almost like it was gone. But if she focused, she could sense the thin but powerful immaterial chains wrapped around her soul, connected to the person in front of her.

She took a breath before awkwardly speaking up, as the Archduke hadn’t moved. “May I please read the contract now?” she asked weakly.

His expression was still cold and his eyes still scarlet, but he very slightly tilted his head.

Lucille figured that was as much of an answer as she was going to get from him, and quickly picked up the book to flick through the pages. She accelerated her thoughts as quickly as she could to avoid making the Archduke wait any longer and found out just what exactly she had signed herself up to.

The contract, for the most part, was not that malicious. She supposed if the System had gone to the effort of wanting her to be bound by a System contract it would avoid limiting her actions in ways that could prove unfavourable for them both, but she hadn’t put her name down to be a slave for all of eternity. However, that didn’t mean the contract wouldn’t be in effect for all of eternity. The contract had no end date and could only be removed by the System’s Authorizer, the individual in front of her.

In essence, the contract could be considered as an extension of the demonic contract she had formed with the Demon Emperor, only it covered all actions that would drastically affect the timeline, as opposed to ones dealing with the Hero and disorder of the cycle. She was to obey whatever order the Authorizer gave her, regardless of whether it related to politics, fighting, or even her realm and planet. She was to aid him as long as he asked for it.

But there were three key points she noticed.

One: She was to reveal exactly what her plans were to the Authorizer if they were going to fulfil a purpose that lay outside of purely increasing the Commission's growth, or made use of a secret she knew because of her memories.

Two: The Authorizer’s words had greater importance than her own aims. Unless the Authorizer accepted an arrangement, his orders were to always be given priority.

And three: Following all terms of the contract did not ensure she would keep her life. If, at any point in time, the Authorizer tried to kill her, the contract would not prevent him from doing so. She was treading a very fine line between being useful to the System, or a threat to be eradicated.

She looked up from the contract and hesitantly asked another question. “Your Grace… it says we’ll contact each other every month. How will we do that?”

There was a pause as he seemed to consider her words for a brief moment. Then he snapped his fingers and a glowing blue orb, the size of a marble, appeared in his hand. The orb disappeared from his hands onto the table in front of her. “Eat this.”

She stared at him, then at the orb. When she didn’t pick it up instantly, his ruby-red eyes narrowed. Suppressing a sigh, Lucy picked it up and placed it in her mouth.

The orb disintegrated before she could swallow it, and in a way similar to the System contract, her soul strained in some strange way before it left. She blinked when she heard a notification.

[Status Modifier – Type: Communicator has been activated on User Lucille Adrienne Goldcroft]

[Connecting User Lucille Goldcroft to User ############ ###########-#########.......]

[Connected. Status Modifier is enabled]

She glanced at the long name.

Ah… right… He’s… that person. No wonder I kept thinking of the portrait, he must’ve modelled his skill off his old appearance.

“This will allow me to send you messages,” the Archduke announced indifferently. He tilted his head at her. “Do you have any more questions?”

“No sir,” she replied.

His expression grew colder. “Then leave.”

She placed down the glowing contract, swiftly got up, and left the room, trying to ignore the gaze of the individual behind her as she shut the door. Then, she quickly walked down the hallways of the estate to find the entrance she came through. She descended the steps and got into her carriage.

When the carriage had left the boundary of the dome-shaped Aether ward, she finally allowed herself to relax her tensed body, and she let out a weak laugh.

Nothing can ever be easy, can it? I should’ve known something would go wrong before the end of the year.

She looked out the window.

Thinking about it now, we never discussed the real reason I was there today. Well, it’s not like I’m about to go asking him now.

_______________________________________________________________________________

In the empty hallways of the Aethereal Duchy’s Capital residence, a tall individual with long white hair and ruby-red eyes gazed coldly in the direction Lucille had left in. There was a strange, tense silence in the air as if a heated argument was on the brink of bursting out. The disguised Demon Emperor opened his mouth to speak.

“I want to kill her.”

A new voice sounded, paired with a glowing box of blue text.

[No.]

The immediateness and firmness of the answer made the Archduke instantly scowl, and he turned around to storm off in the opposite direction.

[No, you are not killing her. Don’t be ridiculous.]

If Lucy had been able to hear it, she would’ve been stunned by the sound of the voice accompanying the white-blue notification of the Archduke, because it was an unmistakable voice that every single User of the Tower heard almost every day of their life. But the emotional intonation in the voice was completely alien and unfamiliar, sounding like it shouldn’t belong to such a sound.

The Archduke ignored the second message to keep marching onwards with a scowl.

[You can sulk all you want, Alectis, but I am not letting you kill her.]

He glared at the message but didn’t respond.

[Wow, I’m so scared, the big bad Demon Emperor is mad at me. Somebody help me, please.]

The Archduke’s expression twitched but he turned away from the message and tried to ignore it, keeping his quick pace. Unfortunately, he couldn’t ignore the voice inside his head.

[It’s been three months and you still haven’t gotten over it. Seriously, why do you want to kill her so badly? This is the first time I’ve seen you be so insistent on something]

“Her presence infuriates me,” the Archduke muttered, not looking at the message.

[And that’s good! Well, okay, maybe not for Goldcroft, but you haven’t felt anything at all for nearly 300,000 years, Alectis. This could be a change for you]

He ignored the message, still storming down the long hallway. The voice in his head groaned.

[We’ve been over this. Goldcroft can’t die, because we need her to understand what has happened to the main timeline. Unknowns aren’t supposed to be a thing when it comes to the System – although it’s somewhat amusing that she doesn’t seem to know what the distinction between me and the System is…]

“She’ll be useless.”

[Useless? Useless? Who’s the one who’s fundamentally part of a near-omniscient construct in charge of the entirety of this Reality’s operations and can determine if she’s useless or not? That is me, Dion! Not you!]

The Archduke stopped scowling just long enough to give the box a dubious look, making the voice sigh.

[Okay, yes, yes, I know there’s the thing with the other An0̷̛̮̫̻̰̂͗̊̆̀̏̀̄̚͝m̶̠̺̪̌̓̊̒͐̐̽̓̕͘--- An0̸͚̹̳͊͆̆̍̅̏̾̏͘͠m̷̝̼̮̪̘͚̮̮̅@̵̨̧̲̗̱̠͉̦̥̠̳̰͓̀̈́̍̎̅̀͝---]

The notification distorted and fizzled out for a second, before appearing anew.

[-urgh, yuck, this must be what it’s like for a mortal to feel a headache for the first time – The other User, but that’s a small detail in the grand scheme of things. A teeny tiny one. A near-irrelevant detail]

“That near-irrelevant detail is giving us this much trouble,” the Archduke muttered in response, but that was a terrible mistake. The voice renewed its side of the argument.

[Yes! It’s giving us this much trouble, which is why we can’t kill Lucille Goldcroft until I’ve seen her memories! Get over your desire to kill her already!]

The expression of the Archduke darkened and he sped up his pace, but he refused to look at the message.

[On a side note, aren’t you curious about how she managed to discover your real-]

“I don’t care.”

[-of course you don’t, that was always going to be the response, wasn’t it? Yeah, you make a great Authorizer because you’re the amazing great powerful mighty Demon Emperor, but wow, you can boring sometimes]

The notification box changed its position from slightly to the side of him to directly in front of his face.

[Look, if there’s anything you want me to do for you…]

“Then let me kill her.”

[….anything but that! You utterly stupid, brain-dead demon, get it through your thick skull! She is not to be killed!]

A glare and silence was the only response, but the voice wasn’t done yet.

[And Alectis, don’t think I didn’t notice that thing with the Status Modifier you did there. You’re not getting out of this so easily. You will be meeting her in person, and it will be regularly]

The Archduke stopped marching and stared incredulously at the message. The voice grew louder, sounding taunting.

[What? You mad? You want me to take it back?]

Then it turned sarcastic.

[Well maybe if you got off your supremely lazy royal backside and did something instead of sleeping all day then maybe I would!]

He scowled again and stormed off.

[And look at you, going all sulky again! You have no comeback, don’t you! You’re at a loss for words!]

Then it seemed the Archduke had an idea, because he paused, turned to the notification, and stared at it. Then beside it, a screen of settings and System-controlling buttons appeared. He flicked a few.

[What are you- hey wait, don’t-]

The Archduke stormed off again, the notification box frozen in place and stuck in one spot behind him. Not that the voice went away.

[Hey! Alectis! You know how hard it is for me to directly interfere to fix stuff like this! Get back here! Change it back!]

The figure with white hair didn’t respond and continued walking away, using his well-practised ability to ignore the strangely verbal voice in his head gained through uncountable years of dealing with it.

[HEY!]

_______________________________________________________________________________

Thud!

The arrow tip embedded itself in a wooden lever, barely visible in the dimly lit cavern. The force of the arrow allowed the lever next to a stone door to flick down, and with the hum of activated mechanisms, the small grimy lantern hanging above the door glowed with yellow light, flickering erratically.

Rumble!

With the grinding of gears and shaken dust of the cave roof above the door, the stone barrier slowly slid up, revealing a dark room on the other side. A thin mist of murky green-brown monster miasma leaked out, falling over the ledge in front of the door to drop down into the pitch-black darkness below.

A woman with dark brown hair and blue eyes blinked and lowered her longbow when a notification sounded.

[Mystical Realm Event: Dungeon of the Cursed Gem Mine]

[Exploration Progress +1%]

[New! Exploration Progress: 79%]

She walked over to the edge of the platform she was on and cupped her hands around her mouth to call down. “Conlan, I think I found the entrance to the last layer!”

The man with brown hair and gold eyes looked up, then nodded. “Got it, Lili! We’ll be up there soon!” He swung his sword to hack into a vaguely humanoid clump of rocks that had formed to attack him. It collapsed when it was sliced in half and the man ran away to say something to the red-haired woman fighting nearby.

Placing her longbow back in its holder, Liliana watched the door to ensure no monsters would start using the rickety rope bridge connecting her stone platform to the door’s ledge opposite her. A few minutes later, two people arrived on the platform after climbing the wooden stairs set up by the miners long ago. One was the armoured man with golden eyes from earlier, and another a young woman with short fiery red hair and vibrant green eyes, a spear held in her hand, and leather armour protecting her body.

Liliana gestured to the door on the other side of the bridge. “Our exploration progress went up when I activated the lever.”

“How did you activate it?” Conlan asked curiously.

She pointed to the lever. “Just with an arrow. I’ve been doing the same for any other levers I can see from my post up here, and it turned out that the door’s lever was still functional. Monster mana is leaking out of there.”

“Then we definitely haven’t been there before,” he replied. “The miasma has retreated completely from the places we’ve cleared out. The spawn rate has dipped down to less than three each hour.”

“Has my awesome fire burnt all the monster smog already?” Catherine asked with a grin.

Liliana smiled as Conlan shook his head wryly. “That’s not how it works. The core’s just been retrieving its mana so it can strengthen itself.”

Catherine clicked her tongue and placed her spear in its holder on her back. “And here I was thinking it was scared of us.” She gave Conlan a curious glance. “What is a Dungeon Core, anyway? Is it a species of monster?”

Conlan took a step towards the bridge and shielded his eyes with one hand, trying to peer through the darkness on the other side of the door. “Nope. Not species. It’s two things. A designation given by the System for the realm’s unique Events, and a variant of monster.”

“Variant? Of which kind?” the redhead asked.

“Any and all. The Dungeon Core is the monster core of the Dungeon’s Boss Monster,” he explained, turning back from the steep edge. “And the Boss Monster can be any species of monster, although it’s typically a monster suited to the environment. It’s just a monster that can live with its core outside its body and control its monster essence to spawn more monsters and manipulate the territory around it.”

“Huh,” Catherine thought out loud. “But why? Like, what causes monster miasma to spawn a Dungeon Core over another normal monster?”

Liliana watched as Conlan hesitated. “Oh, er… let me think.” He scratched his head with a frown. “Last time I took an Adventurer’s Guild Dungeon course was ages ago…” he muttered.

She immediately became curious. When did he have time to do something like take an Adventurer’s Guild course?

“What did that book say about their formation? Something about man-made landmarks…” Conlan mused. Then he blinked as he remembered, and he snapped his fingers. “Right. Dungeon Cores form in areas of artificially induced mana instability. Instead of how Lairs form in the Beast Realm, which is because of chaotic conflicting elements often caused due to fighting beasts, Dungeons are formed when artifacts and magic items go defunct.”

Conlan walked over to the rope bridge to test it with his weight. “When their spells go haywire with unpredictable effects, the mana becomes extremely chaotic but still retains some order. But the mana instability affects and breaks any artificial item or object in the environment, and so the chaotic mana spreads until there’s no more man-made object or item around, and then turns into monster miasma. In other words, a Dungeon Core only forms in a building or structure of some kind.”

He looked up at the roof. “Like this mine.”

“Too complicated,” Catherine complained. “Basically, someone’s item broke and sent the mana into a hissy fit?”

He sighed. “I guess that’s it.”

“So then….” The redhead looked around. “What happened to this place?”

“Oh! I can answer that one!” Liliana spoke up, happy to contribute. “I asked the Adventurer’s Guild before we came here. The noble son of the mine’s owner came to visit with his friends, and they got into an argument.” She recalled what she heard. “The young noble had a dark affinity, so he cast a weak curse he learnt, but missed his friend and cursed the core gem of the main tunnel borer device down here. The local mana eventually became monster miasma.”

“Neat,” Catherine replied. She looked around. “Sounds like the owner would’ve been pretty mad, looking at this.”

“I think this is probably safe to cross,” Conlan said, coming back from the bridge. “There’s no other contraption around here from what I can tell. This will be the last part of the Dungeon.”

“Finally!” Catherine exclaimed, raising her hands above her head. “It’s been nearly a month of this stupid Dungeon! I want to see the sun!”

“We should go back to camp if that’s the case,” Liliana said to Conlan.

He looked at her and nodded. “I’ll mark it on the Dungeon mini-map.”

Soon afterwards, they descended the wooden stairs to the deeper levels of the layer below, making their way back to their rest point. But Liliana looked at Conlan curiously.

“Both the Beast Realm and the Mystical Realm have Unique Events, right? Is it only those two realms that have Unique Events because they have monsters?”

Conlan shook his head. “No. All of them do. The Demon Realm has the Strongholds, while Tartarus has Catacombs. The Heavenly Realm has Ancestral Inheritances.”

“But… what about our realm?” Catherine asked.

Conlan went to say something, but Liliana answered her first. “That would have to be the Rifts, wouldn’t it?”

“Ah…” Catherine nodded. “Right.”

They made less conversation after that, using the map to navigate their way back to their camp, and killing the occasional stray monster that appeared along their path.

…

“I’m soooo hunnngrrryyyy,” Catherine whined, slouched as they trudged back to their campsite.

Conlan shot her a mildly exasperated look as they turned a corner to see their array of tents around a campfire, the glow providing light for them.

“It’s barely past midday. We had breakfast only a few hours ago,” he said.

“Yeah, and those few hours were full of fighting!” Catherine retorted. “I need to eat three times as much to cover for that. No, five times!”

“Maybe Anthony has cooked lunch already,” Liliana replied placatingly as they stepped among the tents. “The fire is lit at least.”

“Wouldn’t bet on it,” Catherine grumbled. “Besides, it’s just going to be the same bland slop we’ve eaten for the last three weeks.”

“My lady, if that’s what you truly think of my dishes then I’ll be an utterly heartbroken man,” a new voice interjected.

They looked over to the campfire to see a young man with reddish-blonde hair and blue eyes smirking at them, seated on a log. A large pot filled with boiling water was sitting on the campfire in front of him. “My creation this time is the finest culinary finesse to come from Earth. I hold great pride in my work, but your words nearly bring me to tears .”

Catherine rolled her eyes. “Anthony, you know as many manners as a warrior can do math in this realm. Cut the ‘lady’ thing. You’ve kept it up for the last week but it’s starting to get tiring now.”

Anthony, another person from Earth that Conlan has asked to join their party for the month as he did Liliana, gasped in mock horror, a hand on his heart. “How dare you! You insult the deepest part of my character, calling everything a mere act! Your cruelty rends my heart to pieces!”

“If it did then my day would finally be going well,” Catherine retorted.

He shook his head sadly as Liliana and Conlan sat down on the long log next to him.

“We found the entrance to the next layer,” Conlan stated seriously.

Anthony paused, having started stirring the pot, and looked at him. “You have?”

The three of them, including Catherine, nodded. He rubbed his chin. “That means you guys will fight the Boss soon. Do you think you’re prepared?”

“I have no doubts we’ll be able to kill it,” Conlan said. “We’re all Level 80 or higher, and killing this monster will get us over Level 90.” He held his hands out to the fire and rubbed them together to warm them. “Level 100 is when we receive our pocket dimension skill. If we can get it before February, it’ll be useful for when we’re in the Navy.”

“I can’t comment on the Navy thing, as I don’t plan to join it,” Anthony replied. “But if you think you can fight it, then I’m ready whenever.” He leaned back and stretched his hands above his head. “I’ll be making quite a profit after all this is done, and my blacksmith skill has tiered up quite a few times just from the skills I’ve gained working with the materials found in the mine.” Then he grimaced. “Although my warrior class hasn’t been making that much progress. I wish gunner was a class. I’m good with a gun, but there’s no such thing in the Tower.”

“Even if you don’t have much talent as a fighter, you’re a pretty good crafter,” Catherine said, looking into the pot on the campfire to check what was in it.

Anthony blinked and then gained a broad grin. “Ah, so my lady does love me after all! Those earlier comments must’ve been jokes, how foolish of me to misinterpret your words. I’m overjoyed to know that my affections are returned.”

She scowled. “Forget I said anything.”

Anthony chuckled as he stood up and began serving the stew that was in the pot into bowls. He handed a bowl and spoon to both Liliana and Catherine, then gave them a fancy bow.

“Bon appétit, my ladies.”

They looked into the bowls, to see… what had been their staple food of boiled preserved meat and vegetables, the exact same thing they had had for the past few weeks. Catherine glared at him, but sighed and dug into her food.

Conlan raised an eyebrow. “Where’s mine?”

“Ladies first,” Anthony said with a smug grin. “Unless you want me to consider you a lady as well?”

Conlan shook his head wryly and served some for himself. They ate in silence for a while, and eventually put their bowls down on the ground once they were empty.

“When should we fight it?” Catherine asked first.

Liliana watched Conlan frown slightly, rubbing his chin as he considered it.

“I think…” He continued thinking, then nodded. “Three days should be good. We’ve fully explored the cavern connected to the entrance, and the miasma has thinned enough that we won’t be getting any monsters close to our levels spawning. Three days would give us a good break and a chance to check our inventory again. We also need to pack up the camp.”

The three of them nodded. “Sounds good,” Anthony said. “Then I’ll start finishing off my stuff for the next few days. Time to say good riddance to this Dungeon.”

…

-3 days later-

The plank of wood under the red-blonde-haired man’s foot creaked, and he winced. “You know…” Anthony said, “Are you sure this thing is safe?”

“The Dungeon Core wants to kill us to convert our bodies into mana to strengthen itself,” Conlan replied calmly, standing in front of the rope bridge leading across the gap up to the door. “It won’t make it impossible for us to get to it, otherwise it can’t gain our mana.”

“Great, so I’m once again reminded of the fact that we’re intentionally heading towards something that wants to eat us,” Anthony muttered.

“If you want, Anthony, I could go first,” Liliana volunteered.

With a thoughtful look, he glanced back at her, then at the bridge, appearing like he was contemplating the idea. He coughed and straightened up. “Uh… no, no, how dare I let a girl go before me. No, I shall brave the dangers of this bridge first.” He slowly took one step onto the next plank of wood, then another, and then another.

With an evil grin, Catherine came up to the bridge and stomped a foot on the end to shake the bridge.

“Hey!” Anthony exclaimed. “Don’t do that!”

Catherine snickered as Conlan sighed. “Please guys, we want to get this over and done with.”

Eventually, Anthony managed to cross without harm. Liliana nodded to Conlan. “Then I’ll go next.”

With quick, light steps, she made it across, far quicker than Anthony had. He looked a bit sour because of that.

Conlan was the next to cross the bridge. The armour he was wearing made him heavier than Anthony or her, but he safely crossed it. They all turned to wait for the final member of their party.

“Alright Cathy, it’s your turn!” Liliana yelled.

But the redhead paled and then gulped as she came towards the edge, looking very nervous as the realisation that she now had to do it dawned on her. “Uh… um… right. My turn.”

She slowly placed a foot on the first step and tried to put her body weight on it. The wood let out a groan that made her hastily step back. “Uh, I’m beginning to think this isn’t safe anymore. What if it breaks all of a sudden?”

“You’ll be fine, Cathy!” Liliana cheered. “You can do it!”

Catherine grimaced, and tried again, but quickly stepped back when it creaked once more. “No, I really don’t think I can do this…”

Liliana tried to think of how to help Catherine while Anthony stayed off to the side, but before she could do anything, Conlan stepped forward.

“We need you to do this, Cathy,” he said. “We can’t complete the Dungeon without you coming over here.”

“But I-”

“There’s no choice,” he interrupted her. “You have to come over here.”

Catherine glanced between the bridge and Conlan, looking uneasy. “Maybe we could leave the Dungeon here? We can probably reach Level 90 in other ways…”

“Catherine, you’d be disappointing the other members of the party if you did that,” he stated shortly. “We decided to complete this Dungeon weeks ago, and now you’re going to change your mind all of a sudden?”

She went wide-eyed and shook her head. “No, I-”

“Then please come over here,” Conlan said.

Liliana shared a look with Anthony. She knew Anthony didn’t actually mind whether they fully completed the Dungeon or not, and she hadn’t stated her mind one way or another.

But Catherine glanced at Liliana, Conlan, and Anthony, and seemed to decide how they would feel about backing out all on her own. She grimaced again and slowly began to make her way across the bridge. At one point when she was over the middle of the bridge, it shook slightly, making her go pale, but Catherine clung tightly and continued after it stopped moving. When she finally crossed the bridge, her limbs were trembling.

Liliana quickly came up to her and hugged her. “Great Job, Cathy!”

Anthony smiled at her as Catherine nodded shakily, stealing glances at Conlan.

Conlan smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “Good job.”

It seemed that was all the reassurance Catherine needed because she quickly recovered and smiled back. “Thanks.”

They took a few minutes for her to get ready again, and continued through the open door, green-brown monster miasma coiling around their feet. Conlan held up the small mana lamp they had bought for the trip, trying to see around them as he led their group. They had their weapons in hand, ready for anything.

The surface of the floor was completely smooth, with no tunnels or chasms to be seen. It appeared like a vast room, although once when Anthony accidentally kicked a stone, it skittered off into the darkness to sound like it hit metal. The monster miasma thickened as they walked. It continued that way for the next half hour, their exploration progress rapidly ticking up.

[Mystical Realm Event: Dungeon of the Cursed Gem Mine]

[Exploration Progress +1%]

[New! Exploration Progress: 90%]

“Where’s the Boss Monster?” Catherine asked in a hushed whisper.

“I… don’t know,” Conlan replied, “But it’s sure to appear eventually. The last 10% of a Dungeon is always the Boss room.”

The silence went on as their exploration progress increased by 1% again. Then Conlan abruptly stopped, and they stopped as well.

“What is it?” Anthony asked.

Conlan gestured to them to keep silent, and he crouched to let the light reveal a large, brass structure of some kind, embedded with jewels, on the ground. The jewels were dull and appeared like rocks, with none of their normal spectacular sheen to be seen. The metal seemed to merge and fuse with grey stone along its length, the bronze plates buckled and bolted at random intervals.

“Oh… great.” Conlan sighed. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“Conlan?” Liliana asked curiously. “What’s wrong?”

He stood up. “It’s an earth element symbiont. A symbiont is a monster that absorbs materials to strengthen itself,” he explained. “Which means that-”

RUMBLE!

All of a sudden, the earth began shifting beneath their feet, and the gems on the stone-metal structure lit up in a staggered order. An ominous red glow emanated from a gem the size of their heads above them, and they heard the grating of metal. The cavern was flooded with light to reveal a haphazardly assembled metal roof structure, brass beams bolted and melded with each other at different points.

And in front of them was a giant vaguely humanoid creature made of stone and metal, with no neck and its ‘face’ a round sphere that contained the red ‘eye’ of the monster, surrounded by a ring of metal. Its unwieldy fists were covered in bronze, mimicking gauntlets and twisted beams of iron joined to its back stretched out like metal whips and tentacles. In the centre of its chest, a black gem shone with malevolent light, projecting distorted black runes into the air that released a sound faintly reminiscent of screaming. A hazy aura of green and brown monster essence swam about it.

[Dungeon Boss: Lesser Cursed Iron Symbiont – Lvl. 99]

[HP: 15000/15000 {+122.7/1m}]

“… It’s stronger than normal,” Conlan finished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author thing:

Alectis, play despacito.

Lol.

Alright, I’m going to go on a bit of a spiel here. This plot twist about the Demon Emperor was probably one of the most heavily foreshadowed elements in my story. And no, I'm not talking about the Prologue. 

See, this has been foreshadowed from the very moment I mentioned the Archduke as a character. It’s in his name. ‘Stolas’ is one of the demons mentioned in the Ars Goetia, or the Legementon, a demon called ‘Prince Stolas’ (See why I gave him the title of ‘Foreign Prince’?)

And I actually made quite a few links relating to this in regards to the Demon Emperor’s own pseudonym and past names. While ‘Vitis’ isn’t a demon from the legementon, ‘Viné’ is. However, there was no way I was going to give the Demon Emperor a name that sounded like a plant, right? so into the English-to-Latin translator it goes and out came Vitis.

And most of the pseudonyms Lucy listed, although not all, were also demons from the Ars Goatia: Duke Eligos, Prince Orobas, Marquis Phenex, and Count Andromalius.

As for the rest of his name… well, ‘Imperatoris-Daemonium’ is kinda obvious (Demon Emperor), but Exolvuntur is Latin for cycle. Remember how Lucy spoke to him of the cycle? 'Lilith’ is also a name typically associated with a demon, and I took all the Demon Duchy last names from Latin too.

Which brings me all to this: in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve gone for a very particular method of choosing names for my characters. I wanted to go about it in a way similar to what was done in the Harry Potter series, where the characters’ names can easily allow someone to picture the characters.

Some character names I did research for, others I already had in mind and they just kinda fit, regardless of their meaning.

'Lucille’ means light, while ‘Adrienne’ means dark. But Lucy was always going to be Lucy. I had her name in mind from the moment I first imagined her character. The only reason I chose to make her full first name ‘Lucille’ was because how dare I give my protagonist a four-letter first name! That would be so bland! As for why it was Lucy… I apologise to any Lucys if they’re reading this, but I personally have always felt like Lucy was that name that was just a little too ‘innocent’ that it sounds instantly sketchy.

Like, Annaliese sounds like it belongs to an actually innocent person, right? (which was why I picked it) but if I hear the name Lucy I’m expecting them to be a demon in disguise or something. If i met a Lucy in real life I obviously wouldn’t be that biased, but if I hear the name Lucy in a book I always place my bets on them being secretly evil.

Another example of a character name that I felt just fit was Vincent. I.. never thought hard about that one. Vincent sounds posh enough that it worked.

As for character names I researched about… Conlan means ‘Hero’ (Creative, I know). Scytale I’ve already explained, him being a ‘flying tail’, but I did a fair amount of searching for the names of the three Counts.

The reason I picked ‘Adrianna’ should also be obvious, with the in-story justification being Lucy chose it because it was based on her middle name, and Riftmire… well, it sounds cool, doesn’t it?

As for several other characters: Jasten Albrecht. I made that up with the intention of it sounding European-ish and ‘knightly’ enough to work. ‘Caspian’ definitely gave me sea vibes because of the ‘Caspian Sea’ and my thought process for his last name was kinda like this: whale+fin = whalefin, whalefin + wharf = Wharifin? and so, his last name was born.

I worked hard on the Duke names too! with ‘Haevaph’ being derived from ‘Heaven’, SOLARmane, ‘Isærn’ being the old term for iron, Extermina = Extermination, etc etc

I also looked up all the meanings of the names for the Sect Leaders to find the perfect names for them, and I’m particularly proud of naming Duke Genest ‘Morberos’ because that name just screams darkness and villainy.

Hargrave was a perfect name for a battle-hardened ex-mercenary, although I kinda messed it up when I ended up making his age 26 because all the Hargraves I’ve read about have been men in their mid-30s+

So, what I’m saying is that while I can’t promise that every single character will have an important name with meaning, it’s very much possible that the names will mean something. As I said, my main goal with my characters is I want them all to be memorable and distinct, with their image instantly coming to mind when thought about.

This is also why this story was made to be entirely about taking tropes and giving them big fundamental changes, taking familiar aspects from all genres and ‘realms’ so to speak, all incorporated into one massive story.