A millennium ago, in the era where the Demon God ruled, demons proliferated through the entire world. They would transform natural caves and ruins into their own breeding grounds, where they could produce more monsters to be part of their army. In human tongue, those places would be called dungeons. For that purpose, they utilized magic of the dark, demonic variety, forging dungeon cores and placing them in the center of said places, slowly filling them with demonic mana and transforming them to suit their purposes more.

One of such places was the mausoleum Felicia was currently hiding herself in.

Once, before the kingdom of Fiania even existed, there was another kingdom. Its name was lost to history as the demons had wiped it off the map, not leaving even a single ruin behind. Only the mausoleum survived, as the demons decided to transform it into a dungeon instead of destroying it. However, over the years, thanks to earthquakes and storms that caused landslides, the whole place was swallowed by the earth, thus erasing the last remnant of the ancient nameless kingdom.

How did Felicia discover the place, you might ask? Simple. By pure accident.

She was traveling through the valley one day, looking for ingredients for her alchemic concoctions. The previous day, a tempestuous storm had caused a landslide on the area, and it actually opened just enough of the mausoleum that she could detect the demonic mana leaking from inside it. And so, with the help of Berault, her loyal knight, she dug through the rocks obscuring the entrance, only to reveal that there was an entirely undiscovered dungeon.

Naturally, she decided it would be the perfect place to conduct her unholy experiments.

With just the two of them, they entered the accursed mausoleum. Thanks to her expertise in dark magic and his expertise in the sword, they managed to make it all the way to the center where they met the dungeon boss and the core it guarded. It was a hard-fought battle, since it was an S-rank monster, but they managed to triumph over it. With the dungeon core in hand, she learned how to utilize and control it, just like the demons did. And thus, she gained control of the dungeon, becoming it's de-facto dungeon mistress.

It was perfect in every way. The abundance of demonic mana helped her necromantic research massively and its secrecy meant no one would know of all the dark experiments she did there. And she did a lot of them indeed. She would lure monsters from the outside to enter the dungeon using the core's ability and then either kill them herself or make them fall for the many traps the dungeon had. And then, she would dissect them before turning them into her undead minion. It wasn't just limited to monsters either. Once, a bandit troupe came into the region. As their first act of villainy, they raided a nearby village—killed some people, stole their harvest, and kidnapped their women. The news came to Felicia's ears, and she decided they would make the perfect experiment fodder for her research.

I do need a live specimen—someone I can poke and prod while their heart is still beating. And what better candidate for such a purpose than a number of bandits no one would miss?

And so, she and her loyal knight paid them a visit.

"Look who we got here, boys! A mage and her knight in shining armor!" The bandit leader grinned. He was a dark-skinned, tall, and well-muscled man who only wore a red vest and black trousers. "Let me guess. You're two stupid adventurers who think you're hotshots who can win against a whole band of bandits. Or are you simply a poor lost soul who took the wrong turn and now found herself in a bandit fortress? Either way, the result would be the same. We ain't gonna let ya' off the hook even if you beg and apologize. Gotta keep this place nice and secret after all. And besides…" His grin turned into a lewd sneer as his eyes wandered towards Felicia's braless chest and exposed long legs. "You're just too pretty to let go."

"Your looks… you’re a Westernese, aren’t you? Interesting.” A grin appeared on Felicia’s face. It seemed she had opted to ignore the bandit's crude remark entirely. “I heard the people over there have higher strength and vitality than the average humans.”

“Heh, I’ll show ya’ our strength and vitality, alright,” the bandit leader replied, before breaking out into a roar of a laugh, followed by the rest of the bandits. "You'll be so sore you won't be able to walk anymore."

It was clear that the mage was not threatened in the slightest by the bandit leader’s threats. And yet, in their arrogance, the bandits still believed they were going to win. After all, she had just waltzed into their fortress in the middle of the valley, and now she had her and her companion completely surrounded. The bandits believed that no matter how strong she and her companion might be, there was no way they could win against fifty Westernese warriors.

They were terribly, dreadfully wrong.

The moment they decided to attack was the very moment they decided to seal their fates. In a flash, her knight took down five of them with a single sword move. Another five then fell as shadow tendrils appeared from their shadows and pierced them in their hearts.

And so, with a hearty grin, she began the slaughter.

To her, they were nothing more than beasts and monsters. Scum like them were more useful for the world to assist in her research in death than to live in their worthless, vile lives.

However, she left the leader alive, for she had something special planned for him.

"T-thank you! Thank you for sparing me!"

The once proud and tall man was now reduced to a whimpering coward as he supplicated himself to Felicia. He was crying and his breeches were soaked with fear. Never before had he found an opponent as terrifying as them. To think that he would stumble upon a dark mage here of all places…

"Show me where you keep those kidnapped girls," Felicia ordered.

"R-right away, Ma'am!"

What she found then truly disgusted her.

Only a few of them survived. The rest had died due to the roughness they received when the bandits had their way with them one by one, to the point that their womanhood bled. The survivors didn't fare better. Their eyes were hollow and lifeless. They were broken. They had been captured for a whole month. Anyone would break under such a treatment for that long.

Felicia cured whom she could. But, she didn't have amnesiacs in her possession to cure their trauma. She wouldn't know if it would even be right to just erase the memories of everything that had happened here.

She told her knight to escort them home while she returned to her dungeon with the bandit leader in tow. Hearing that, the man began to grin, thinking that he had just escaped death. He even started to scheme to hit her captor on the back when she let her guard down. He would then ravish that whorish body of hers over and over before bashing her head on the nearby rock he could find.

Of course, he would never get such a chance.

--------

"Aaaaaahhhrggg!"

The man let out a scream of pain before he puked blood on the floor. His legs soon failed him, and he fell down to the cold stone tiles of his prison.

"Hmm, I see. Fascinating. Westernese physiology makes you more resistant to my poison for a lot longer than normal humans. Four minutes and twenty seconds to be exact."

"K-kill me… p-please just kill me…"

"Now now I can't have you quitting now, can you? I still need to do so many tests to you, my dear live human."

"Y-you… you're a monster…"

It had been a week since he was captured by Felicia. And yet, to him, it felt like an eternity. If he had known he would end up like this, he would have taken his own life back then for sure. He thought that she was an idiot to enter a dungeon with him in tow. But when he noticed that she navigated the place as if it was her second home, and how every single monster he saw avoided her entirely, he realized that he was dealing with something far beyond his capability. As a Westernese who was raised as a warrior from birth, he had no idea what kind of witchery she was using, but he knew there was no way he could take her off-guard. The difference between their strength was simply too much.

And now, he’s stuck being her personal experimental mouse. These past week, she had kept him in a pitch black room. Lights would only turn on when she entered and began her accursed experiments. Meals and drinks would only be provided on a whim, and they would appear out of nowhere in the dark room. He had scoured the place for any tunnels and such, but so far, every single stone there hid nothing. There weren’t even doors. He had no idea how he even entered this room in the first place, since she drugged him and transported him here when he was unconscious.

He looked at her right in the eyes with flames in her eyes. He believed that they were flames of courage in the face of evil, but the truth was, it was only the flames of desperation, for It was the only way he could give himself any sense of control. Never before had he ended up in a situation like this where he had to kowtow to others.

Felicia’s expression, on the other hand, was simple.

It was one of pure glee.

“That would be all for today. Tomorrow, we shall move to the second stage. I want to observe just how humans handle losing their limbs. Goodnight, Sir Bandit.”

With those ominous words, she left, disappearing in the dark just like the way she came.

With whatever strength he had left, he banged his head over and over to the floor, hoping that he would be able to put an end to this torment. However, just like the other times he had tried to do the same, sleeping gas began to spread around the room. The moment he could no longer hold his breath was the moment he lost his consciousness.

The next day, Felicia fulfilled her promise.

She gave him a paralyzing agent first, making him lose control of nearly every muscle on his body. With a large knife, she chopped his right arm first, all with the same glee, or even more, when she poisoned him yesterday.

He would scream in pain, but he could not even move his mouth anymore.

She began scribbling, taking notes on the rate his blood left his body. He then injected a drug into the stump, stopping the bleeding entirely.

“Good. My Blood Coagulation potion is a success. It’s effective even for a Westernese.”

She then reached her palm forward, manipulating the blood to re-enter his body using her blood magic. “Can’t have you dying from blood loss after all~” she mumbled with a singalong voice.

She proceeded to do the same with his left arm, followed by his right and left leg. And the man felt the pain. Every single bit of it. The drug made sure he wouldn't pass out from shock as well.

She took note of his pulse and heartbeat, undisturbed by the paralysis poison. 

If there was one thing Felicia absolutely despised, it's people like him. To her, he had stopped being human the moment he did all those things to those village girls. He was now lower than an insect—he was a vile and wretched existence.

And then, once all his limbs were gone, she lifted the paralysis drug, for she wished to hear his scream.

She left them like that afterward, letting him die of thirst before turning him into one of her collections, just like his subordinates. In his last hours, he could only curse her over and over. He didn't even know her name, nor did she know his. Felicia had no intention of giving him the pleasure of knowing who tortured him and she didn't find it important to know his name. After all, what use was a name to a creature lower than an insect?

It was the only time she ever did such a cruel experiment. But it was enough to take her necromantic arc to the next level.

The old bastard has become too suspicious of me lately. He wants me to stay in the castle at all times, no matter how much I pleasure him in bed.

He has to go. And I shall make his corpse be my puppet.

Killing him was terribly easy. She just had to put some poison powder on her breasts as he loved sucking on them like an overgrown manchild every time they slept together. Afterward, she had the rest of the night to convert him into one of her so-called “perfect zombies”.

When dawn came, the king had become her puppet completely—body and soul, with no one knowing any better, for it was preferably for him to be a doll than a living man. Such was the fate of one so wretched in their act.

She wouldn't have done it if her daughter had professed any love for him. She would bear having to pretend to be his lover at night, no matter how disgusted she was at doing so. But after she revealed all her father's wrongdoings to the princess, she agreed that someone needed to stop him. She even begged her to persuade him, thinking that Felicia was in the position to do so. Little did she know that the king only saw her as his bedwarmer and nothing more.

And so she executed her plan. For no one was really inconvenienced by it. Now, the kingdom would be led by the prime minister instead, which was a much more reasonable man. Everyone would prefer if he was in charge.

And so, everything went swimmingly for the necromancer. She could do her research as much as she wanted, having the freedom to do whatever she wanted and to go wherever she wanted to. She had not seen any Magocracy agents in years after she defeated that bubble girl.

It was perfect. 

Until the Inquisition came.

--------

Tch, why? Why must they come now? Now out of all times? And how do they even know this location?!

Felicia bit her thumb with her teeth as she paced around in the circle—an unmistakably distressed look drawn on her face.

She was now in the heart of her dungeon, in her laboratory to be exact. Using her control over the Dungeon Core, she was able to transform part of the dungeon to suit her own needs. So now, she was standing in a large well-ventilated room filled with numerous alchemical equipment. The ventilation wouldn't transfer the contaminated air to the outside though. Instead, it dumped it deeper into the earth.

There, as she was doing her work, her knight arrived, delivering her the bad news. While she was absent, a group of Inquisitors had stormed the castle and exposed the king as an undead she was controlling. And now, the entire nation was marching here to have her head.

"You should escape, Milady. Take Rowana and Miss Leila with you. I can give you a diversion."

"No no no! I can't leave now! I am so close! So very close in completing my very own Soul Gate! I'll have to spend years constructing it all over again if I leave now!"

Her thumb was now bleeding from the force of her teeth. To think that someone would be able to detect the dark mana emanating from that old fool’s puppet. So that’s the power of the Inquisitors. I have heard about them, but to think that they’re not just a bunch of zealots who lack any brains whatsoever…

No, there’s no possible way they can stumble upon my creation by accident. They should be on their way to the Demon Continent, that much I know. They would not make a sudden detour, unless something, or someone, gives them a hint that a necromancer is here.

...Don’t tell me that…. No, their pride shouldn’t allow them to do so. They want me alive, don’t they? To be dragged and paraded among their citizens before being executed? They won’t just decide to let the Church have the glory of finishing me off.

Still, it’s a possibility. They would already know where my base is, judging by the ambush they tried on me all those years ago.

It doesn’t matter. All I should be concerned about is how I should get out of this situation.

She continued to pace back and forth, thinking to envision a scenario where she could come out on top. All the options she had however were unsatisfactory. She couldn’t take the Soul Gate with her. And she certainly couldn’t last against an entire kingdom’s army and a group of Church Inquisitors who were no doubt well-trained to fight necromancers like her.

Or could she?

If I utilized the advantage I possess by being the master of this dungeon, then perhaps I still have a chance! I can thin out their numbers considerably by laying down traps and ambushing them from the shadows! And if I can take those Inquisitors by surprise…

A grin appeared on her face.

“Rejoice, Lord Berault. For there is no need for us to abandon our Soul Gate. Your wish of being reunited with your wife will truly be fulfilled as I have promised. You shall no longer have to content being with a mere replica.”

“I am gladdened to hear that, Milady, but it is unwise to—”

“No, we have a chance. But you would have to do a lot of dishonorable combat. I hope you are fine with that, Milord.”

“But what about Miss Lelia? Surely we can’t drag her into our fight.”

“True.” She bit her lip “We would have to remove her from the premises.”

Her little apprentice was currently sleeping right now in her room, together with her resurrected father. Naturally, Felicia had created their room to be as cozy as she could. The girl had been afraid of the place when she first arrived, but soon she found it to be akin to her own home back in her village. And in these past months, she had proved to her that she was brimming with magical talent, not just in alchemy but in dark magic as well. She had proved to herself that she had made the right choice.

And Felicia had never been happier, for the necromancer was a lonely woman who always wanted a family. These past months, not only was she her master, but she also acted almost like her surrogate mother. She cooked her delicious food every day and read her books before bed, just so to see her smile. The poor girl was lonely as well, as she never had a mother in her life, as she died from birthing her. So it was the perfect arrangement.

In truth, what she sought was not an apprentice necromancer. She just wanted a family of her own.

“We wouldn't want her to see the carnage after all." She grinned.