No, it actually didn’t work, did it?

I had thrown questions to father, there were some that he could answer and some that he couldn’t. He suggested it was either because the revival process had yet perfected, which in turn had disrupted his memory, or the brain had received damage during the time gap when he had been dead. The man himself assured it was nothing to worry about, he even speculated that the lost memories might recover within time.

However, I knew it better. What he couldn’t answer were things that I had no knowledge of, like most of his past or the details of creation process. Meanwhile, what he could answer were things I already knew, or at least had the gist of it. In other word, his memories were all fabricated, by me.

In that case…

“Call me master.”

*Smack!*

“Auch! What was that for!?”

“Hmph! That’s my question, brat. Who do you think you are, telling the great me to call you master?”

“Uh, your savior?”

“That only makes us even. I did similar thing when you're a baby, you know.”

“Yeah, but earlier you’re okay at calling me master.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You don’t remember, or you pretend not to remember? You did call me master when you just opened your eyes.”

“Nonsense. In your dream, maybe.”

“You really don’t remember?”

“Like I said, what’re you talking about?”

“… I see.”

“What?”

“No, nevermind. Let’s continue with the next test.”

“Hmph! Aren’t we have enough tests already, what’re you trying to accomplish? Rather, when’re you going to introduce me to this hot babe?”

“Hello. I’m called Queen. Nice to meet, father-in-law,” the queen gi-ant greeted with a bright smile.

“Hoo~ father-in-law? You’ve a good taste, Arz, as expected from my boy.”

“My relationship with Queen is nothing of the sort.”

“Really? Why would you deny a girl of such high grade? If I’m twenty years younger, I would go after her myself. Ah, don’t tell me, are you still liking that noble brat who used to drag you around?”

“That has nothing to do with you. More importantly, please get ready, we’ll move to the next test.”

“Bah! My grandchildren will depend on your woman of choice, of course I’ve to do with it. I refuse to do any more test unless you can explain this properly.”

“In that case, you may lose your life again, you see. ,” I said, raising a sharp rock under his feet, which caught him off guard and pierced through to his thigh.

“ARGH! YOU! What- GHAAAH!”

*Thump!*

As my second impaled father, a great disorientation and nausea attacked me. It couldn’t be helped that a second later my body limped and fell to the floor. At the time, I lost control over the body and couldn’t even make a groan. This, was his trademark. Unlike mine or even Jiwa’s, his seemed to cut the nerve connection between the brain and the vocal cord of his target.

‘Attack him!’ I told Ken and Haz through our link while pulling my consciousness out of the Dungeon Lord.

However, as soon as father sensed their movement, they too fell to the ground. Well, I didn’t expect them to succeed, to begin with.

“What’s the meaning of this, Arz? Explain yourself.”

He probably lifted my avatar’s limitation to speak when he asked, but it didn’t matter. I made connection to his core and gripped it. The pressure caused him to scream in agony. As the result, both Ken and Haz were regaining control over their own selves and standing up.

I stopped harassing the core and returned into the Dungeon Lord. After I got back on my feet, I released father from the impaling with a flick of my finger.

Suddenly losing his supports, father fell to his four. But his gaze quickly returned. He looked up at me with a mix of anger and uncertainty.

“Give me a good reason not to kill you, boy,” he threatened.

“You can’t kill me, father. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m lord of this place. Even if you manage to destroy this body, I’ll just return. On the other hand, just like how I had shown you a moment ago, I can destroy your heart anytime I want to.”

My words ignited his anger even more. If I wasn’t his son, I bet he would already come at me with all his might. However, while gritting his teeth, he asked me instead. “What do you want?”

I took a deep breath before answering. “My apologies. I just want to see if you haven’t lost your touch yet, and I see you haven’t. Here, let me heal you,” I said as I walked closer.

Touching father, once again I connected to his core. Although, this time, I poured mana to heal him instead of hurting. Curiously, he watched how his wounds were patching up with jaw agape.

“That’s a nice trick. Where did you learn it?”

“…”

“… What is it, Arz? Something’s bothering you? What about this test that you haven’t told me?”

I turned, looking at his eyes at the same height level. Hesitating a moment, I then decided to tell him the truth.

“Father, let me be frank. As you know, I failed to bring you back from Jiwa alive. Using my power as a dungeon lord, I was able to make you regain your consciousness. However, it’s as you guessed, the method is imperfect and you lost most of your memories. And no, you’ll never get them back.”

“And? I told you, it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah? Then, what if I tell you that your current memory is all fabricated?”

“What?”

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“It’s based on what I remember of you, not your real memory. You may think you’re yourself, but it was merely a suggestion I’ve implanted on you.”

“…”

“Moreover, as an entity that’s brought alive by the dungeon power, your existence is closer to a demon than a human. Just like the other three in this room.”

“Three?” father repeated, knitting his brows. Looking around, he counted. “You mean, Queen is also…?”

I nodded.

“Surprised? So, after knowing all this facts, what’re you going to do, father? If you can’t stand living as a demon, with a fake memory at that, I can put an end to-”

“What fake memory? Arz, you said it, it’s based on what you remember of me. Although there may be some inaccuracies, it’s still me, isn’t it? Hmm. Come to think of it, there’s a brainwashing technique in called . Is that what you did…?”

“… Yes.”

“Mwa Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha… And I thought you dislike . To be able to use a skill of such difficulty to this extent, you must be very dedicated in your training.”

“… Not really. I’ve a complete control over the core I create, planting a memory to my creatures isn’t too difficult.”

“I see. That sounds convenient.”

“… So, father. About you being a demon…”

“What of it?”

“You know, how the church treated monsters and demons…”

“Hmph, those hypocrites can try to hunt me, I’ll welcome them anytime. They’ve wanted to punish me for a long time, anyway, adding one or two more sins won’t change anything.”

“Haha… is that so? But, still… it’ll expose you to danger even more…”

“I said, don’t worry. I’m the great Mahza, the best soul-mage master in the whole continent. Stop being a worrywart, Arz.”

“… So, you don’t mind living as you’re now?”

“I don’t mind. Rather than worrying about that, why don’t you tell me more about the advantages and disadvantages of being a demon. Other than being vulnerable to you, that is.”

“Ah, right. Let’s see. First, we should be immortal, as long as we don’t run out of mana or being killed.”

“Ooh, immortality. I see, that makes sense.”

“What is?”

“The principle of seems based on the dungeons and dungeon creatures. That’s why, a core is essential to create one. But of course, you already know this, right?”

“… I figure that’s the case, when you and Jiwa used the core of my giant tiger. Anyway, is this kind of life okay for you? I remember you said you don’t want to live forever in a world without mother.”

“That’s fine. I can’t face your mother if the church get their hand on you. Besides, you can always terminate this life of mine later if I change my mind, right? Anyway, what’re the other pros and cons?”

“Hmm… Mana will play more important role in your life. While you can no longer generate mana on your own, it should be easier for you to accumulate mana by eating or absorbing from others. Also, you don’t really need to eat anymore, as long as you’ve enough mana to sustain your life.”

Father grunted as a sign that he was listening.

“Now, can you access your core? It’s located in your heart, in your left chest. Try it.”

“… Oh, what’s this? A blue screen appears when I try what you told. It says I’ve skills called and .”

“… Huh? Wait, do you guys also have that blue screen?” I asked my demons.

“Keek, I do.”

“Naturally.”

“I see. It seems something exclusive to dungeons, demons, and monsters, father. My first time seeing it was when I became the dungeon conscious. About the skills, the is basically the , while the is a skill to open a portal to travel anywhere within my dungeon. Well, in battle, in can also be used to redirect an attack,” I explained. “If you can access your core, you can heal yourself. The trick is simply by pulling some mana from the core and focusing it on the wounds. They'll start to regenerate,” I added.

“Oh, right, almost forgot. As a creature of my dungeon, you should also be able to access the link that connect everyone. Can you feel it, the mass of presences, somewhere in your head?”

“Hmm. Is this it…? Oh, oohh… Amazing, I can see the outside. I can see as far as our house in [Rahziel]. No, it goes even further. Just how far… it’s almost as if I can see the whole continent.”

“Not the whole continent. Our s-flies have yet spread that far,” I told. “Well, that’s about it, I guess. You can experiment more on them later. For now, there’s someone who’s waiting to meet you.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see,” I said, opening a portal to the throne chamber.

In there, Ehrisya was sitting on the rising platform to my throne. She was laughing at the four gi-ants that were performing a stunt. Sensing my coming, the four quickly withdrew from their play and made a submissive posture towards me, allowing the red haired woman to realize too.

“Oh, my, you have ret-- MAHZA! You’re back!”

She quickly stood up and approached upon seeing father behind me.

“Ehrisya? What’re you doing here?”

“You… you recognize me?”

“Of course I do. What do you mean?”

“Ah, you see, I told aunty to prepare for the worst, father. Fortunately, aunt, although father did lose some of his memories, he could recognize us alright,” I said.

“I see… Thank goodness.”

“Well, I’m sure you two have a lot to talk, so I’ll excuse myself,” I said, smiling, then pushing father to step forward.

“Where are you going, Arz, dear? Why don’t you join us?”

“Thanks,” I replied. “But I still have things to do. I’ll make sure to visit you two later.”

With that, I closed the portal in front of me and turned to face my three demons, back in the runway room. “Sit down,” I ordered.

Once we all took our seats in a circle, I began my speech. “First, good job at the battle of [Firzoa]. To be honest, I didn’t expect it to go that smoothly. You all have performed beyond my expectation. Well done.

“Now, after the case regarding my father is closed, the question is… what’s next? I’ve been thinking this for a while, and here’s the plan. We’ll expand our dungeon, more than any dungeon ever did in history. We’ll build the greatest dungeon ever exist.”

“Keek. So you’ll add new levels, master?” Ken asked.

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean. Our current three levels should be sufficient for awhile longer. You know, based on our experience, our fastest growth came from our interaction with the sentients, the humans. So that’s what we’ll do. Fortunately, the war present us many opportunities that we can exploit.”

I paused to give them time to digest my words.

“As long as it can make me stronger, I’m in,” Haz said while crossing his arms.

“Fu~ So, how exactly do you plan to interact with the humans, master?” Queen asked.

“Good question. It’s through economic and diplomacy. We’ve a wide variety of goods we got during the white wizard’s raid, which we can materialize as many as needed to supply people’s demand. We can also offer the protection with our military might. Each method leads to increase people’s dependency on us.

“I’m not a merchant, I have neither the talent nor the connections. Thus, I’ll have aunt Ehrisya to help and represent us as the new economic power. I’m sure she’ll agree.

“As for the diplomacy, we’ll start with the nearest towns first. Since I still need Queen to accompany our guest and to manage the domestic affair, I’ll leave it to the two of you.

“Ken, go back to [Firzoa], you can use the subway train to come and go there faster. Your order is to gain people’s favor. Give them a hand, help maintain order, lend them money, whatever that you think effective. Don’t mind cheap pay at the beginning. Also, can you sense the mana network following the railway? Establish another network so we’re secured even if that one is cut, and I want it to cover the entire town as well.

“Haz, [Rahziel] will be your responsibility. Find the current head knight who also acts as the mayor, Sir Besi. Offer him our services, military or merchandises or both. Feel free to use father's or my name, battle of [Firzoa] as an example, or even a demonstration as you see fit. Just don’t hurt anyone or break any property, this is important. You also need to work on the mana network.

“Am I clear? Any question?”

“Keek, understood,” Ken answered, while Haz only nodded without a word.

“Good. Here’s the transceiver orbs for the mana network. Place each of them at a good location,” I told, materializing two hundred of the orbs. Since the dungeon had absorbed many corpses of [Dragora] soldiers earlier, I didn’t need to worry about the mana required to materialize them.

The rat demon then opened a portal to the forest room, where his underlings came in to pick the orbs and brought them through another portal to the subway station, beneath the dungeon entrance. Meanwhile, the dragon demon had flown outside, towards [Rahziel]. I saw he brought several gargoyles with him.

“So, it’s my turn now? What should we do first, master?” the gi-ant demoness giggled.

“Hmm. I want to check that dragon knight, I also intrigued to test the extend of what this can do. But, I suppose Spidey should be the first priority. Even though Jiwa’s fleshes had been destroyed, it bothers me that I haven’t found anything that resemble pieces of in the battlefield. I hope we can extract some useful information from the terrortula, since we can’t expect anything from father’s lost memory.”

“Okay~”