So the people in town are taken care of now. Should I make the kobold’s overseer next? I think the monster overseer and the dungeon assistant are about equal in importance. Hmm… this is a bit difficult. Let’s just make a random monster and see what roll it fits. Before using any abilities, I check how much lifeforce I have.
Lifeforce: 6430
That didn’t use up as much as I expected. Actually, didn’t Blue cost more than that? Something is off. I rapidly expand my perception of my body, scanning my tunnels for people. Quickly the culprits of my math error appear. Two spiders are dragging bodies down one of their smaller side tunnels. Two people, two thousand units. That means that creating Azrael cost around four thousand. Which indicates I’m good to go for another Demon Commander! Only one more, though, I won’t have enough to make another. For now…
I activate the random monster ability. Again a shower of blue sparks dances in a strange pattern, eventually collecting into a large orb. After the orb vanishes with a dramatic flash, a figure is left in its place. A very… alluring figure.
A woman stands in the center of my laboratory, unfortuna— thankfully clothed! She has a mostly form-fitting tunic that shows off her curves. Her expression is friendly, and exudes confidence. I feel a twinge of envy as my eyes drift over her chest.
Ah! Also, she’s clearly a demon. Her skin is a light blue tone with streaks of dark purple in an irregular pattern of gash-shaped lines. Her head has two small horns that run close to her head. Long black hair trails behind her, as does a strong looking tail. Unlike the typical Earth succubus tail, hers is pretty thick. Two bat-like wings are folded against her back, snuggled into her clothes.
She’s very pretty. That’s not important, what is important is what I was doing! Like with Azrael before her, I start to pour mana, magic, lifeforce, whatever you want to call it, into her. And just like the cat, she absorbs the energy at a rapid pace. The feeling of lifeforce leaving me is not dissimilar to when I got blood taken at the ER.
Once I feel like I’ve given enough, I cut her off. She stands still for a moment, looking completely confused. Then her horns explosively grow. After a few seconds the slightly stubby horns become tall and thick, with another pair of smaller horns at their base. Similarly to her horns, her wings stretch and expand, quickly doubling in size. While before her wings looked mostly vestigial, they now look perfectly capable of lifting her off the ground.
Well, now that I’ve created her and forcibly made her several times stronger, let's talk to her! After giving her permission to use direct communication, I connect to her just long enough to instruct her to talk to me. A few seconds later I feel a new presence in my mind.
“Excuse me? You asked me to speak with you?” Unlike her expression and body language, her voice sounds incredibly meek.
I quickly respond, “Yes, hello! I’m the dungeon that made you.” Yes, smooth, very natural, me!
She nods. “So, uh, why did you create me?” Oh… Right. Gotta explain things again…
After I almost melt her brain by sending her an explanation of the situation, she contacts me again. “Okay, what will I be in charge of?” Her voice is starting to reflect her visible confidence. Why is she so nervous sounding?
“Well, I wanted to ask you. Unlike Azrael who has an advantage dealing with humans, you don’t really have any inherent boons… So I’ll let you pick!”
She tilts her head. “What are the options?” Her neck muscles must be intense to hold up her head with those horns…
“I need a monster overseer, a kobold leader, and a personal aide. I’m not sure which you would be best suited for.” Leaving it up to her seems the best choice. Guilt hits my stomach. I should’ve let Azarel pick. Too late, I suppose.
She taps her chin with an index finger. “I think I’d like to be your personal aide. I don’t think I’d like dealing with large groups, so neither of the other options appeal to me. Also working with you directly sounds fun.” She smiles genuinely, revealing two sharp fangs on her upper jaw.
Makes sense. It’s odd she doesn’t like crowds. Now she needs a name! Hmm… I could go with a classic demon name, like Lilith or something. That’s a bit lame, though, and those don’t really fit her demeanor.
I got it. “I have a name to give you, if you’d like.” The blue skinned demon nods her head excitedly. “Your name will be Maddi!” She smiles wide at the name. Geez, it’s not that good lady.
Now that that’s all taken care of, time to check her stats! I quickly fire up my stat menu and look her over.
〘〜〜〜〜〜〜〙 Maddi Dungeon Demon (General) Adult Female Dungeon Aide Mental, Fire, Pain, and Boundary Affinities. High Vitality, High Mana, High Spirit, High Intelligence, Otherwise Average. 〘〜〜〜〜〜〜〙
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
All seems good, at least to my admittedly basic understanding of the stats of this world. I turn my focus back to the girl I’ve been medically scanning. She’s created a chair for herself, and not the one from my bedroom. How the hell she do that?
“Ma’am, what should I do?” Oh, god dammit, not her too. I give up with this, I’ll round them all up and correct them after I make all four. I refuse to have this conversation multiple times.
“You can go wherever you want. All I need for you to do is keep an eye on the lifeforce reserve and look through the research tree for anything you think might be useful. Honestly your role is kinda freeform, you just point out whatever you think is important.”
She twirls a strand of her hand with a finger absently. “Alright, how do I look through the menus?” Oh, shit, right, I gotta let her. I flick open the permissions menu and give her almost unrestricted access to my menus.
“You should be able to will them open now.” She tilts her head, but her eyes soon glaze over. Is that what people look like when they’re in menus? Weird. After a few minutes her eyes refocus.
Her voice fills my mind. “I think I understand now. I do have a question though.” Her tone is a bit more nervous than before.
“What is it?” I’m curious to what she wants to know.
“Well, you gave me and Azrael a name. You also gave the spider queen, elemental, and cave monster names. Why don’t you have a name, ma’am?” Her question nails me in the chest. How do I answer? Do I even have an answer? Not that I know of.
Before I answer her difficult question, I’ll ask one of my own. “Maddi, why do you and Azrael call me ma’am?” The demoness blinks slowly, obviously confused by my question.
“Well, because you’re a girl.”
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Anxiety ravages me as I slink out of bed. The dim glow of my night light is all I have to go off of. My hands carefully reach under the bed, desperately searching. Eventually my fingers touch what I’m looking for. I grab the fabric and pull out my prize. With my contraband in hand I move slowly over to the full body mirror on the back of my door.
I put my back to the door as I throw the dress over my head. I don’t want to see myself before I put it on. For a few moments I fumble in the dark, struggling to find the holes for my arms. But I do eventually succeed at getting the unfamiliar outfit on. With the dress on me correctly, I steel my nerves. Quietly I turn and look at the mirror.
Something within me breaks. Shatters into small pieces and cuts up my insides. What I see in the mirror is nothing like what I so desperately want to see. My broad shoulders stretch out the dress while the front bags down due to my missing breasts. Instead of reaching above my ankle like intended, the soft fabric barely makes it below my knees, exposing the hair on my legs.
It’s wrong. So, so wrong. A grating feeling fills every cell of my body. Dark sludge fills my mind. I rip the dress off of me, and then I make a mistake.
I look in the mirror again, at my nude body. My feelings all rapidly dull. In a few short moments all I feel is a tight, hard sphere in my core. I idly rip the dress up further, until there’s only scraps left.
Then I crawl back into bed, and go to sleep.
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My mind snaps to the present, the sounds of someone yelling far away reaching me. Slowly the voice gets louder, eventually becoming audible.
“Ma’am! Are you okay? What happened?” Maddi is asking me things, checking on me, over and over.
Another voice sneaks into my perception. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?” Azrael’s voice sounds annoyed, but also worried.
Why are these two acting like this? I just created them. They must have built-in loyalty. Do I have to answer them? I kinda want to just sink away from everything. The two of them can take care of things, I’ll ju— Something touches me. Not metaphorically or spiritually, either. Something is touching my core.
I adjust my perspective, moving into the large space that houses my physical self. My gaze snaps to the large group of kobolds swarming my core. They all stay a good distance away, just looking, except one. A large kobold is touching me, rubbing something against my crystal surface. I recognize him, too, it’s the first one I made again.
My perception moves in closer so I can see what he’s doing. His face is twisted into a nervous expression. Not sure how I can tell that with his muzzle and all. His clawed fingers are running against a large crack that runs over a part of my core.
A crack? There’s a crack in me? How’d that happen? There’s no way the kobolds did it, they all look like they’re about to start sobbing. Blue is also alive, so nothing forced its way in here.
Was it the memory? …That would make sense. It was pretty… unpleasant. Part of me wants to reassure the little lizard folk, but I just… I don’t have the energy.
My focus shifts away from the crowd as I contact my two generals. “I’m alright. I had a… a memory resurface. Things should be okay.”
“Ma’am, you’re okay!” Maddi yells.
Azrael hisses, literally, “About time you responded, I was getting annoyed.”
“I’m fine, you two, I’m sorry I didn’t respond faster. Was there any damage?” My mind flickers to the last time I had a little trip down memory lane.
Azrael is the first to respond. “Nothing here, although the humans are pretty riled up. No damage, though.”
Maddi speaks up next. “Only the tunnels and the laboratory have been damaged, the important locations have held up thanks to your reinforcements.”
Relief rushes through me. I didn’t kill anyone again. Things worked out okay this time. Thank god.
My relief is cut short by Azrael’s voice. “Ma’am, the tree woman you said to keep an eye on seems to be in trouble.” He’s still calling me ma’am, they both are. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell him to spy on Bella. I’ll worry about both of those things later.
I shift up to the human town. A large crowd surrounds the town hall. Like Azrael said, they don’t seem very happy. In the center stands Bella, calm and collected. I can’t make out what she’s saying to the group, due to all the yelling.
“Hey, Azrael, I think now would be a good time to introduce yourself.” They’re already all gathered together, and Azrael’s appearance will take the heat off Bella. The cat snarls happily at my suggestion.
“With pleasure.”