"You say that I am wrong. Hah, the whole world says that I am wrong.

But I don’t care. Because I am the only one left standing upright in a world that is slanted.

And to save her, I am willing to kill you all. To save just her, I am willing to defy even the Supreme and destroy the entire cosmos, erasing every last trace of existence itself."

-Excerpt from ‘The Annals: 0 A.S. - The Beginning of The End’  

 Declaration by the one known as The Heretic 

Another two busy days have passed on by since the first summoning. In that time I added a throne room, barracks, recreation area, reception hall, summoning room, board room, and treasure room among others to the dungeon. I had also lain down hidden traps and guard rooms filled with more golem-pixie sentries. Some of the additions were more for future-proofing rather than what was currently necessary, but I didn’t worry at all.

After all, I could always rearrange, renovate, or modify any part of the dungeon nigh instantaneously and without much effort, as long as I kept on imbuing my mana into the dungeon’s system. I was seeing some minor gains on how much mana I could expend. This was most likely due to my obsessive imbuing of mana into the dungeon coupled with my great fondness in experimenting and exploring the edit summons function.

In my mind, there could never be enough mana stored within the dungeon. So far, there had been a constant need for expenditures, and besides, I thought it wasteful to keep my personal mana maxed out.

Oh, and about the treasure room: contrary to expectations, it wasn’t really as heavily guarded as one would expect. The place was more of a decoy than anything. Currently it was filled with some trinkets and lesser currencies, although I would stock it up with decent treasures eventually. The treasure room served to spread fame and word of mouth about the dungeon, as well as to appease adventurers powerful enough to make it to this location. I was going to ensure that it wouldn’t be a cakewalk to get here, take some of my goods, and get out safely, but it would be possible.

After my morning routine, I headed towards the new summoning room.

I had engaged in some serious discussions with Gajie about the prospects of summoning actual people: namely, the elfoid-demon and demonkin maid servant options which I had available.

This was an endeavor that I could not undertake lightly. However, my curiosity had been roused and not utilizing an ability with such high maximal prospects would be foolish indeed.

Even so, I had determined to not summon a demonkin maid servant. When I asked Gajie about the origins of the maid servants and why they all looked exactly alike except for their hair colours and slightly different uniforms, I received a revelation. The demonkin maid servant was an artificial race. Whenever a firm acquired female slaves they gave the women a choice to become demonkin maid servants. Usually, these women had either been sold off to pay down debts or had incurred slavery through crimes of the family or the crime of belonging to the losing side in a war.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

By undertaking a blood contract, these women would be turned into identical maid servants to serve in whatever capacities required for centuries. The upside for them was that they could advance through the ranks and earn their freedom and their original forms back after successfully completing lifetimes’ worth of indentured servitude. The benefit for those who utilized the maid servant services was that these women couldn’t betray the client.

I wasn’t too pleased that this world had blood contracts and potent ones at that, but at least it was out in the open.

After having received such information and thinking it over for a while, I had asked one of the maid servants what they thought about someone being born into such a race and remaining so until the day they died. She immediately replied that such a life would be a cursed existence – a pain without end.

It wasn’t as though there might not have been any solutions. For instance, perhaps modifying the initial settings or adjusting various options through the edit function could result in a positive being able to achieve personal fulfillment. However, in this case, failure would likely result in utter misery for a person. I simply was not going to take that chance at this time.

This brought up another interesting notion. Namely, would I bestow life, since I have the power to do so, knowing that this may be detrimental to me eventually?

As you may recall, the Mirror allowed me to see glimpses into the future.

And I was able to view people I had never seen before.

Using the mirror on my minions or on objects in my room would sometimes produce these new prophetic images. For instance, the goblins being led by a yet-to-be commander or women I’ve yet-to-see laying down naked on my bed…

In particular, there was a woman who figured prominently in these visions.

She and I seemed to be on very intimate terms.

But I also foresaw her violent death and how this would devastate me emotionally.

Who was this woman? Did I give her life?

If that was the case, would I still do so even knowing the outcome?

Well, I was not going to summon a woman anytime soon, even if I could control the appearances of my summons. And I had to consider the ramifications of the prophetic capacity of the Mirror itself more carefully.