I spent another minute staring at the countdown before finally dismissing the crimson window.
Seven hundred and eighty-five days sounded like a long time until I remembered the man waiting at the end of it.
Roland hadn’t started my novel as some helpless farm boy swinging a rusty sword at slimes. I’d given him an SSS-rank Holy Bloodline, a legendary class before Chapter twenty, and enough protagonist luck to stumble over priceless artifacts whenever the pacing started getting slow.
I thought it was fun when I was writing it.
Now I was one of the monsters standing between him and his first treasure chest.
’Past me really was a fucking asshole.’
A quiet knock came from the wooden door, reminding me that someone had been waiting outside throughout my existential crisis.
"Mistress?"
It was the same nervous woman from earlier.
I glanced down and remembered I was still wrapped in a blanket. The black nightgown covered everything important, but whoever had made it clearly considered modesty a character flaw.
"Give me a second."
"Of course, Mistress."
I searched the room for something resembling actual clothing and found nothing. There was a wardrobe against the far wall, but opening it revealed three nearly identical dresses, each of which somehow contained less fabric than the nightgown.
I pulled out the least offensive one and held it up.
Two leather straps, a strip of black cloth, and what appeared to be optimism were apparently considered formalwear among succubi.
’Of course they are.’
I’d designed the Demon Realm’s fashion too. I shut the wardrobe and kept the blanket.
"Come in."
The door opened cautiously, and a young woman stepped inside before immediately lowering her head.
She looked somewhere in her mid-twenties, with short gray hair, small black horns, and dark eyes that remained fixed on the floor.
Her clothing was far more practical than mine: a simple brown tunic beneath a worn leather vest, dark trousers, and boots that had clearly survived several years beyond whatever lifespan their maker had intended.
That annoyed me more than it should have.
’So apparently demons do own normal clothes. Excellent.’
"Mistress Kira, forgive me for disturbing you."
My irritation disappeared as I stared at her. She shifted uncomfortably beneath my attention.
"Could you say that again?"
Her eyes finally lifted. "Forgive me for disturbing you?"
"No. The other part."
"Mistress... Kira?"
Relief hit me so hard that I almost hugged her.
I had a name.
For the last twenty minutes, I’d been increasingly concerned that the System identifying me only as a Lesser Succubus meant I’d transmigrated into some nameless piece of dungeon fodder. Apparently, whatever had happened hadn’t erased me completely.
’Thank fuck. I really didn’t want to spend my second life introducing myself as Lesser Succubus Number Four.’
"Right. Yes. Kira." I nodded as though hearing my own name had not just been the highlight of my morning. "And you are?"
The woman’s expression changed.
It wasn’t dramatic, but I caught the brief confusion before she hid it.
"Lyra, Mistress."
"Of course. Lyra."
I had absolutely no idea who she was.
That shouldn’t have bothered me. Ashfall Dungeon had existed for four Chapters, and most of its inhabitants had never received names. Roland had killed them in groups while I described how impressive his swordsmanship looked.
Looking at Lyra now made that particular writing decision feel considerably more uncomfortable.
"How much do you remember, Mistress?"
The question snapped my attention back to her.
’Careful.’
I couldn’t exactly tell her that yesterday I’d been a human author living in an apartment in another universe.
"My head is... foggy."
It wasn’t technically a lie.
Lyra’s concern deepened. "The Core’s succession may have affected you more severely than we believed."
That got my attention.
"Succession?"
She stared at me again. This time, I didn’t have to pretend to be confused.
"The previous Mistress," I said carefully. "She’s dead?"
Lyra lowered her head. "Yes. Mistress Velessa died three nights ago."
Velessa.
I searched my memory and found nothing.
There had never been a Velessa in my novel.
"What happened?"
"The adventurers."
Of course it was adventurers.
Lyra explained that a party had entered Ashfall nearly a week earlier. They hadn’t reached the Core, but they’d killed eleven residents, destroyed several traps, and wounded Velessa badly enough that she’d died three days later. The Dungeon Core had remained without a master until sometime during the night, when it unexpectedly accepted me.
Apparently, I’d been one of Velessa’s Lesser Succubi.
That explained why nobody was questioning my existence.
It explained considerably less about why I had Kira’s memories instead of whoever had originally inhabited this body.
’One existential crisis at a time.’
"So the Core chose me?"
"We do not know why," Lyra admitted. "You were never among the Mistress’s strongest servants. Forgive me."
"Don’t apologize. I’m getting the impression that assessment was extremely accurate."
Lyra looked uncertain whether she was allowed to laugh. I wasn’t entirely sure either.
"Show me the dungeon."
Her head immediately lowered. "Yes, Mistress."
Ashfall was somehow even worse than I remembered.
That was impressive considering I’d deliberately written it as a miserable starter dungeon.
The first corridor outside my chamber contained six iron sconces, two cracked skulls, and enough moisture dripping down the walls to qualify as a leak. We passed several doors leading to sleeping quarters where thin mattresses covered the floor. Most were empty.
The residents we encountered stopped whatever they were doing and bowed when they saw me.
There were goblins, imps, three Lesser Succubi besides me, several horned humanoids I couldn’t immediately identify, and one enormous gray-skinned demon carrying a wooden beam over his shoulder.
They weren’t what bothered me. The children were.
Two small imps watched me from an open doorway while an older woman stirred something inside a dented metal pot.
I slowed my pace. ’There weren’t any children.’
I’d never written about children living in Ashfall.
Actually, I’d never written anything about where dungeon monsters came from when adventurers weren’t killing them.
"How many people live here?" I asked.
"Twenty-three remain."
Remain.
The System had given me the number, but that single word made it feel very different.
"How many were there before?" this
"Seventy-one at the beginning of winter."
I stopped walking. Lyra continued for another step before noticing.
"What happened to them?"
"Hunger took twelve. Seventeen abandoned the dungeon when the mana began failing. The adventurers killed eleven. Eight others died during raids or while searching for supplies."
The numbers added up too easily.
Twenty-three. I looked back toward the two children.
This wasn’t how Ashfall had appeared in my head when I’d written it. There had been monsters in the corridors because Roland needed things to fight. I’d never asked what they ate, where they slept, whether they had families, or what happened between adventurer attacks.
’They’re people.’
The realization was obvious enough to make me feel stupid for having it. I cleared my throat. "What do we eat?"
Lyra looked confused by the question.
"Mostly cave mushrooms, Mistress."
"We have mushrooms?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"The lower cultivation chambers."
I stared at her. ’We have cultivation chambers?’
I hadn’t written those.
Apparently seventy-one demons couldn’t survive indefinitely on an ominous atmosphere and narrative convenience.
"Water?"
"The underground spring."
"Repairs?"
"Doran handles most of the stonework. Mara maintains the traps, although we no longer have enough mana to power half of them."
"Where does our money come from?"
Lyra hesitated. "At present?"
"Yes."
"It doesn’t."
I closed my eyes. ’Fantastic.’
I had thirteen silver and forty-two copper to my name, twenty-three mouths to feed, failing defenses, almost no mana, and an immortal protagonist scheduled to murder everyone in a little over two years.
I had officially become a homeowner.
We continued deeper into Ashfall while Lyra explained problems I’d never known existed. The underground spring was slowly becoming contaminated. The mushroom harvest had been declining for months. Two sections of the second floor had partially collapsed after the adventurer attack, and the remaining combatants were too weak to defend every entrance.
By the time we reached the Dungeon Core, my opinion of thirteen silver had somehow become nostalgic.
The chamber was much larger than I’d imagined. Black stone pillars surrounded a circular platform where a crimson crystal hovered several feet above the ground. Hairline fractures ran through its surface, and its light pulsed weakly enough that I could see darkness passing through the crystal between each beat.
I approached it carefully.
The moment my fingers touched the surface, warmth traveled through my arm.
[ASHFALL DUNGEON CORE]
[Integrity: 34%]
[Master: Kira]
[Bond Status: Incomplete]
I frowned at the last line.
"What does incomplete mean?"
The answer came from the System rather than Lyra.
[Dungeon Mistress Kira currently possesses an incomplete Core Bond.]
[Current Race: Lesser Succubus]
[Warning: Destruction of the bound Dungeon Core will result in the death of its Mistress.]
I read the message twice.
Then I looked at Lyra.
"So if this thing breaks, I die?"
Her expression suggested this was something I should already know.
"Yes, Mistress."
"And Roland is going to break it."
"Who?"
"Nobody."
I removed my hand from the Core. ’Well, there goes running away.’
I could leave the dungeon temporarily, according to Lyra, but distance weakened the connection. Until I became strong enough to alter or sever the bond, Ashfall wasn’t simply my home.
It was effectively an enormous external organ. The tutorial dungeon Roland was destined to destroy had become my life-support system. I rubbed my forehead in distress.
"System. Show me my status."
A new crimson panel appeared.
[KIRA]
Race: Lesser Succubus
Level: 3
Bloodline: Lesser Succubus
Evolution Progress: 0%
Strength: 7
Vitality: 8
Agility: 11
Magic: 14
Spirit: 12
Skills:
[Charm Lv.1]
[Lesser Illusion Lv.1]
[Mana Sense Lv.1]
I waited and nothing else appeared.
"That’s it?"
[Correct.]
"You’re kidding."
[Negative.]
I stared at my status again.
I’d created civilian characters with better numbers.
Roland started the novel with forty-five Strength.
’My protagonist could literally beat me to death with his starting stats.’
At least the word Evolution gave me something to work toward, although poking it produced nothing except a message informing me that the necessary conditions had not been fulfilled.
Fine. I’d figure that out later. For now, Ashfall had more immediate problems.
"Take me through the rest."
Lyra led me down through the second floor, where I discovered that the damage was even worse than she’d described. One corridor had collapsed entirely. Another contained three spike traps, only one of which still functioned, and I nearly stepped onto it because apparently being Dungeon Mistress didn’t come with immunity to my own dungeon’s incompetence.
The third floor was more familiar.
I recognized the narrow bridge Roland crossed in Chapter six and the chamber where he’d fought Ashfall’s strongest guardian. Seeing them in person produced the deeply unsettling sensation of walking through a memory that had never actually happened.
Then we reached the end of the corridor.
I stopped and there was a staircase descending farther into the earth.
I looked at Lyra, then back at the staircase.
Ashfall had three floors.
I was certain.
I’d drawn the damn map myself because readers kept complaining that my dungeon layouts didn’t make sense.
"What’s down there?"
Lyra followed my gaze.
"The holding cells, Mistress."
I frowned. "What holding cells?"
Her confusion returned. "The prisoners."
A cold feeling settled in my stomach. Ashfall Dungeon had never had prisoners. There hadn’t been a fourth level either.
"How many?"
"Three remain."
"Remain?"
"Two died after Mistress Velessa returned injured."
I stared into the darkness beyond the staircase. "What are they?"
"Humans."
That made even less sense. I stepped toward the stairs before Lyra spoke again.
"There is one you may wish to see personally, Mistress."
Something in her voice stopped me.
"Why?"
"The blonde woman. Mistress Velessa gave strict orders that nobody was permitted to harm her."
"Why?"
"We were never told."
I looked down the staircase again. This wasn’t a forgotten detail. This wasn’t something I’d mentioned once and failed to remember.
I knew Ashfall Dungeon. I’d written every scene that took place here, and there had never been a secret prison beneath the third floor.
Yet apparently there had been one all along.
’What the fuck is down there?’