Veronica wasn't sure if it had been weeks, months, or even years since she had seen another person. Every day seemed to blend into the rest as she found herself locked inside her dungeon, a prisoner to eternity. Ever since she had tried to destroy the dungeon core, she had been locked out of the dungeon core room and no adventurers had entered the dungeon. She didn't even have access to the system anymore, nor would the dungeon core allow her to sleep.
There was nothing to do and no true rest to be had. She had long since surpassed the point of being lonely and bored and was already slowly, but surely starting to slip into the realm of madness. Sometimes she found herself compulsively laughing about nothing at all or even just standing and staring off into space, even despite there being nothing there at all.
She was even starting to have rather vivid fantasies about killing everyone who had a role in her ending up in this situation in the first place. Red blood would paint the walls and she would dance among the rainshower of blood as it rained down. She could already feel the corners of her mouth begin to lift as she felt happy just thinking about it.
Veronica was fairly sure this wasn't normal behavior for her, but she was also starting to have doubts about what was normal anymore. When you no longer have any attachment to mortal needs, it is far too easy to lose touch with your sense of humanity. Since she couldn't sleep, couldn't create food to eat, and there weren't even other people to talk with, only [Monsters], she was slowly starting to forget what it felt like to be Human. Of course, her enhanced memory meant that she could perfectly recall her memories from her past life, but that was different from actually experiencing what it was like to be touched by another person or enjoying the pleasures of life.
The only thing she could do to pass the time anymore was to train with her longstaff relentlessly and plan out new dungeon floors. She had no clue whether she'd actually regain access to the system in the future, but she still had many scraps of paper and charcoal pencils in her makeshift living quarters on the first floor. Funnily enough, it had ended up becoming a much more permanent home than she had ever intended, but then she had never gotten to unlock the third floor either.
"What's that strange laughter? Who's laughing?"
she screamed into the depths of her dungeon. No one answered her. The brownies who lived in the inn had long since taken to hiding away, avoiding her presence unless she summoned them. The gargoyles and goblins remained in the dungeon, not that they had a choice. Realizing it must have been her own laughter once more, she shook her head. There wasn't even any point in being embarrassed about it anymore.
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In some ways, life was better now. The passage of time and the lack of deaths had ensured she could easily recover her mental health. Well, she wasn't depressed or suicidal anymore, not that it had done her any good anyway. She had ended up in this situation for trying to destroy the dungeon core, something she was very clearly being punished for. However, it was still nice to be able to regain her confidence. Hopefully, the diligent training would ensure she'd never be so weak that it would be a problem ever again.
Of course, at first, she had been angry when she discovered that she had been locked away. it had only reignited her desire to destroy the dungeon core, sometimes out of spite and sometimes out of a desire to end this new form of torture. Even now, she sometimes begged the core to forgive her and to free her from her prison, promising to behave. It never listened and her pleas only fell on deaf ears. Could a dungeon core even hear in the first place? It doesn't matter, she assured herself. If it was willing to negotiate, it would.
Something caught her eye just then. Running after the image, Veronica called out
"You there, stop!"
It didn't matter as the hallucination soon dissipated. The image had resembled Seraphina with long, flowing blonde hair and a rather confident, feminine walk. Veronica frowned as she realized that she missed the Elven woman, even as sarcastic and unhelpful as she tended to be. Whatever had happened to her? Was it not possible for even a Dungeon Diplomat to teleport into the dungeon? It would have been nice to have some company, even if it was only Seraphina. Maybe she could have even provided some pointers on where she could improve with training. There was certainly plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong with Veronica only ever practicing by herself. It wasn't like her goblins provided any significant challenge anyway and they certainly weren't sufficient at speaking her language either, much less knowledgable at using a longstaff.
Of course, she had kind of ruined any chances she might have had of making friends with her subordinate as well. She was far too prone to getting angry about the most minor of things and her orders were often contradictory. That was likely the madness from the isolation, but it was still having a negative effect on her [Monsters]. All they wanted to do was avoid her or appease her long enough for her to leave them alone.
If it had been up to her, she would have dismissed them and freed them from their contracts with her. Since they weren't dying anymore, their souls wouldn't become corrupted and they would live as long as she would. It wasn't a pleasant situation for any of them. However, without access to the system, she couldn't do anything about it and they'd have to live just as miserably as she did. All Veronica could do was hope that her sentence as a prisoner would end sooner rather than later for all of their sakes.
***End Of Volume One***