***Archimedes’ POV***

Thanks to Archimedes’ wallowing, he’d wasted precious time until his reopening. There was no telling how easy it would be to find privacy like this in the future, so he quickly got back to work, reproducing one of the mind stones to investigate it. He’d had the chance to examine a fresh one before, but a used one was quite a bit different. Recreating a person from this thing… unexpectedly, it would be quite difficult. It was as though… hm, yes… he could examine the compressed data, and he had some idea what the decompressed data looked like, but he had no information whatsoever on the decompression process.

The most likely result he would get from guessing at how to extract a mind from this stone would be a cognitive structure that couldn’t even function.

Creating new life was easy for Archimedes at this point in his existence because he’d already struggled through it for thousands of years. The system had provided his first blueprints, and he had eventually compared them to other creatures that wandered into his dungeon and learned how to make his own blueprints. Indeed, from his memories of these people when they were alive and the data he had collected, he could make someone who looked the same and even had a lot of the same memories, but like how monsters made from the same blueprint looked the same but could develop differently as time passed, each implementation of the blueprint was not a clone of some unknown original, but a new instance of the species entirely. That was the kind of life Archimedes was able to create.

In contrast, the entire point of mind stones and creature cores—both relatively new technologies for him—was that the exact same creature would be recreated.

For Archimedes’ purposes right now, though, he didn’t need something perfect. As long as it wasn’t a vegetable, it would do fine. Using a process that he’d already gone through the effort of researching, he transformed the mind stone he’d copied into a creature core and recreated a particular person from that blueprint.

She assembled in pinpoints of light as mana and ether gathered, grafting bones and flesh and skin. Archimedes got to witness an interesting process. As her mana started circulating for the first time, it began in her head, passed through her curled black horns, then fizzled and... popped. Never in his life had Archimedes known particles of mana could be split down the middle, and they weren’t quite the same when they recombined. Like how a wound would become puffy and irritated, the mana prickled and lashed out wildly. And yet it circulated back to her heart and was forced into submission by the powerful ether-processing organ.

The mana never split again after the first circulation since it never again fused into natural mana, but this was an astonishing discovery. While the sapient person he’d just created groaned and rolled naked on the mossy ground, Archimedes ignored her to investigate every atom of her horns and their construction. What made the mana split? How did such simple-looking horns contain the incredible explosion of energy that must have occurred at that moment? How had her brain chemistry been reconstituted as the yet untamed mana passed through it before reaching the heart?

Truly, he wanted to make another one. There was a male demon amongst the group, wasn’t there? He could compare notes to test if there were any differences in the mana splitting process. It could be more telling after that to have the two of them conceive a child and observe its development in real time. At what point during gestation did the mana splitting occur? Or perhaps did it occur postpartum?

And that heart, what a powerful life force it possessed. Archimedes had been somewhat shallow in his examinations of demon physiology because he found their mana so distracting and even painful to sift through, but looking at it now, it was a heart not inferior to that of a beast person or a dragon. In that case, then just like those races, if the demons’ magic wasn’t so wild, wouldn’t it be entirely processed into ether during every rotation? How terrifying. Allow them magic and face that chaotic explosion of energy; seal their magic and face a creature no weaker than a small dragon.

But, that said, there was one more thing about this demon’s body that the dungeon couldn’t overlook. Looking at the blue crystal embedded in her chest and the faint connection between their minds, yes, she belonged to him. This Casanuella clone was a monster of the dungeon just like any other, despite still being a demon in every other physical aspect. This was the result he had vaguely expected after reviving her from a creature core rather than a mind stone.

Archimedes looked down on the sleeping demon and considered just torturing her to death. After all, he could create as many copies as he wanted. ...But it was a waste of time and mana and he would learn nothing from the process. Still, if he had to keep this thing, he didn’t want to put up with that filthy mana the whole time.

Archimedes turned back the clock, undoing the process of making this person by a step, watching her mana flow backwards and seeing it heal. He paused there and removed the horns from her head, then returned the flow of time to normal.

After that, he took his time trying to read her memories. Archimedes still wasn’t totally familiar with demon minds, so it took several hours. He kept her asleep that whole time and multitasked with other things while he was at it. In the end, he concluded that she didn’t know where to find her great great grandfather. Apparently, he had left on a journey centuries before she was born.

It seemed Archimedes couldn’t use this woman to find him and bring him here, but he could perhaps ask the guild to send out an invitation. Or perhaps the sage would come here on his own if he made his dungeon interesting enough. Most importantly, Archimedes had avoided making enemies with the sage before even meeting him.

He looked down upon the sleeping demon and decided that destroying her was a waste. She had taken a lot of mana to produce, after all. So, he erased most of her personal memories and allowed her to wake up.

“Ugh,” she groaned, sitting up slowly. “This is… a dungeon? Why am I here?”

“Look at your chest,” he told her.

“What?”

Instead of noticing the creature core embedded in her chest, the demon covered herself with her arms and scowled at Archimedes’ core.

“Pig.”

“Please take stock of your situation before spouting nonsense. You’re one of my creations.”

“What?!”

“Obviously. You can hear my voice, and there’s a creature core embedded in your chest.”

Finally, she looked, her already fair demon skin draining of all blood as reality sunk in.

“If those breasts are going to be too distracting for you, I can remove them.”

“N-no!” She protested, then lowered her head, biting her lip miserably. “... Please don’t.”

“If you’re wondering how a demon was born from a dungeon, I sent my monsters out to retrieve your mind stone and engineered a copy of it. The guild has the original, and they’ll surely revive the person you were copied from.”

The fact that she wasn’t wearing any clothes didn’t seem to matter to the demoness anymore. She held herself up on all fours, staring at the ground with trembling irises, alabaster hair hanging freely from her head. That was a better posture for her.

But Archimedes did yield and give her clothes. Similar to the outfits Alphio and Merina wore, it was a simple, tan, farmer’s outfit that a human would have worn back on Rachon. The demoness copy sat back on her knees and dressed herself silently. She tugged at the shirt, examining it with trembling lips.

“Who was I?” she asked quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.

“I will leave that core there as a reminder to you, but if I notice you trying to leave the dungeon, I will remove it at that moment, so that you will be destroyed upon exit. You are merely a copy I made of an actual demon. I can make as many more as I want.”

The Casanuella clone bit her lip and kept silent. It seemed she was very aware that her life was in the dungeon’s hands now. Even so, this was a being that had high intelligence and memories of freedom. He would need to secure proper control over her before he could make use of her.

Why not just remove her memories of freedom like he had her personal memories? Firstly, so that he could peruse them at his leisure. Secondly, to be deliberately cruel to her. Archimedes didn’t feel like letting go of his grudge just yet.

“So I have to defend this place now? As a dungeon monster?”

Archimedes hesitated.

“… No, that doesn’t sound right. You are of my making, but you’re not a monster. You are, hm… you are a dungeon native.”

“A dungeon native,” she tried the words on her lips and frowned.

“As for how I will use you… Perhaps you don’t know this, but intelligent dungeon creatures have a considerable amount of autonomy.”

“Do they?” she replied flatly.

“Yes. It is expected that you will help to defend me if the situation becomes dire, because my death means your death. But you’re capable of more than being a living meat shield. I want you to use that wisdom to find your own way to contribute.”

“I see.” To the clone’s credit, she had at least stopped panicking. “And what do I get in exchange? Don’t tell me it’s just the privilege of living. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a coward, but even I could sink the ship I’m on to kill its captain if I hated him enough.”

“What would you like in exchange?”

Autonomous beings valued their freedom of choice. He would present that illusion to her freely.

The demon held her chin and thought very hard about the best ways to improve her situation. “I want… I want to be a proper demon again. I mean, I don’t want to be a ‘dungeon native’ after this. I want…”

“You want to go back to being an outsider.”

“Yes.”

The look in her eyes was hard and determined, but rather than “can I?” They seemed to be asking the question “can you?”

The short answer was that it was possible. He couldn’t do something like that right now, and it might be that he couldn’t do it alone, but he could do it.

The question is whether I’m willing, Archimedes pondered.

“I refuse. Pick something else.”

“What?”

“You have no memories of it, but you once did terrible things to me. I have no wish to see you happy. Even less am I willing to give you what I cannot have for myself.”

“But you said—”

“That you have intelligence and autonomy, yes, but you are a native of this dungeon. You will live here, work here, and do everything in your power to aid my growth. Your reward for that is that your own living conditions will naturally improve. It is possible to create a paradise within these walls. For a parasite like you, that should be reward enough.”

Archimedes pondered briefly, and then altered the clone’s body. It was mostly superficial things: he darkened her hair, removed the red aspect of the color spectrum from her eyes, and tanned her unnaturally fair skin.

“W-what? Why do I suddenly feel all tingly?”

Archimedes looked upon the brown-haired, blue-eyed woman examining her own hands and nodded to himself.

“You’ll be needing a new name. I suppose Lilith Archyson sounds human enough.”

The woman was still distracted examining her body for changes, Archimedes would’ve worried she hadn’t heard him if he couldn’t verify in her own memories that she had.

“Why such a fuss? I made your appearance more human-like so you won’t draw suspicion if someone familiar with your original were to come here and see you.”

“Human-like?” she muttered, frantically ruffling through her hair, finally noticing her missing horns. “What is that? Some kind of monster?” She felt her ears and tailbone, searching for any other odd features.

Archimedes mused that, again, he’d gotten the feedback that there were no humans in this world.

“No, it’s a race of people. And the changes are only cosmetic, so you can calm down a little.”

“Only cosmetic? My horns are gone! And now that I think about it, I can’t feel my mana!”

“Yes, that. It was revolting, so I corrected it.”

“Corrected it?! It’s gone! I can’t use magic like this!”

Archimedes wanted to roll his eyes if he had any. “If you have nothing but complaints, shall I erase you after all?”

“W-well, I wouldn’t go that far.” The wind left her sails quite easily, and Lilith jumped when the wall beside her started to crumble away. “Dragon’s breath, that scared me! What are you doing?”

“Can’t you see that I’m building? I don’t mind talking with you, but I have work to do too. I’m multitasking.”

“It’s hard to talk if you do something like that.”

“If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. Yes, in fact, why don’t you explore and meet with your fellow parasites. Just don’t break anything and don’t go outside. Anything else is up to you.”

***Lilith Archyson’s POV***

She was being pushed aside, that was the only way she could see it. Fine. Whatever. She had no interest in loitering around this dungeon core that seemed to hate her for reasons she wasn’t permitted to know. The dungeon was an arrogant and spiteful bastard.

The former demoness wasn’t interested in chatting it up with monsters right now. No, she had a lot to sort through, and she wanted to be alone for a while. Even as she walked farther and farther from the dungeon core, she still felt like she was being watched.

The terrain was in the middle of being torn down and rebuilt, and there were pitfalls everywhere. After carefully navigating a few short hallways, she found a staircase leading up. The floor above was much more put-together. It was like a forested glade within a cave, with refreshing water dripping down the engraved walls and artificial sunlight streaming down from the ceiling.

Apparently the dungeon monsters were using this area as a gathering place while the floor below was being torn to pieces.

She wondered how it was that they were gathered around in a loose circle, as if they were chatting all together, but she only heard occasional words from a pair of “human-like” monsters. Trying to listen in may have been the trigger. Suddenly, she could hear all of them, their words bouncing back to her like echoes, straight from the absent listening of the dungeon itself.

So it can still hear me from here? She thought bitterly.

“Of course.”

She jumped when the dungeon’s voice appeared within her mind, as loud and direct as when she’d been standing right next to its core.

The former demon frowned, muttering, “I’d like a little privacy sometimes.”

“Don’t be mistaken. I’m not listening in: you’re using a portion of my mind to host your parasitic ego and thoughts. By all means, try to find a way to keep your primitive mental structure to yourself.”

The former demoness scowled. One of the human-like monsters waved cheerfully at her to come over, but she turned her chin up and went down a different path, finding a place where at least she could pretend she was alone. Sort of. Now that she had noticed it, she realized that she could still hear their conversation from here if she listened for it.

Now, ignoring that, there was something she had to decide for herself.

… Was she okay with being Lilith Archyson? She didn’t remember anything about herself despite seeming to have all of the related memories intact, so she didn’t know what name to use if not that one. But it was a strange name, and it was a name given to her by that arrogant dungeon. Speaking of, this dungeon had quite the ego for having only two floors. Or perhaps it was just that she was aware of that ego now that she was a… a dungeon native.

As expected, she didn’t like it. It was hard to stomach, but what else could she do? She would use that new name for now, but only because she needed something to call herself.