“So, how do I go into this factory thing?” Lua asked.

“... that’s actually a good question. I just lay down on a bed and think I want to go into there, but you aren’t me. But Laura and Mia should know.”

After I revealed my past to Alice, Lua and Ria, we were going to test if Lua can get into Different Dimension Factory. According to Laura and Mia, it should be possible, but it is better to test it now, while we are in the same room, than trying to do it when we are apart. 

 

(I’ll explain then. Please just take a comfortable position, close your eyes, and let me handle everything else.) I heard Mia’s voice in my head.

“... alright.” Lua said as she laid down on one of the beds in the room. 

I guess it is worth mentioning that this room has a total of four beds, as it is designed to fit your average adventuring party.

(Brian, lay down on the bed next to her.) Laura told me and I did as ordered.

(We don’t need to hold hands or something like that, right?) I confirmed with Laura, taking a quick glance at Ria and Alice, whom were still in the room.

 

(Mr. Brian, you go in first, we will follow.) Mia said.

(Sure.) I rescinded in my head, before saying. “I’m going in now. I’ll come back soon.”

 

---

 

I opened my eyes in the factory, on the control platform. But as this was a private area that only myself, Laura, Fantasia and Tahlia could enter, I walked down the steps so I was by the circular table that Laura and Mia usually sat at when I woke up and came here in the morning. Then I checked that I had my own clothes on, instead of some cosplay, courtesy of Fantasia. But as I did, I just stood next to the table and waited.

 

After less than a minute, I saw an avatar realizing close by. The short crimson hair and turquoise eyes of Lucia came to be inside the factory. 

She wasn’t dressed in her usual adventuring gear, which consisted of dark colors, like her black pants, dark navy shirt, a leather jacket over that, all covered by a dark cloak. Instead, she wore a purple dress, not too far from the one Mia’s avatar wears. Well, the one Mia wears is more … puffy? Lua’s was a lot closer to her legs and had a slit, revealing her beautiful pale legs. Seeing them like this reminded me of just how pale Lua’s skin really is. It's interesting, as Ria is quite a bit darker than Lua. Well, she is also still pale, but not light pale. Perhaps it is just because Lua always keeps herself so well covered, whereas Ria actually shows some skin.

 

Lua looked around, taking in her surroundings. As she spotted me, her eyes locked onto me and she took a few steps towards me.

“Brian? Did I make it?”

“Yes. Yes you did. How do you feel?”

“... strange. My movement is all off. My vision is bad. And what is up with my clothes?”

“Yeah. The vision problem is something Laura and Mia did warn me about. They simply cannot transfer the information fast enough at their current levels, so you can’t actually see perfectly. But the movement? What did you mean by that?”

“It feels … slow. Like I try to move, but it takes a bit before I actually move.”

“So it's laggy, huh.”

“Laggy?”

“It’s a term from my previous world. I’m not really going to explain it, but it is basically what you are experiencing.” 

“Can something be done about it?”

“Don’t know. We would have to ask Laura and Mia. Actually, why is Laura not here?”

 

As I wondered that, Laura realized next to us.

“Sorry. I was just making sure everything was working fine.” She said.

“... is that Laura? Your system support?” Lua asked.

“Yes. I am.” Laura answered. “It is a pleasure to officially meet you, Miss Lucia. My name is Laura and I am the System Support of Brian Wood.” Laura introduced herself in a very formal manner. 

“... how can a system support have a body?”

“This space is an area that is held within the the soul of my Master, so I am capable of doing things like this inside this space.” Laura answered. “Your system support can do it as well, as we are linked.”

“Mia can? Then why didn’t she?”

“She can, but not at the same time as when you are here.” Laura answered. “We simply lack the necessary computing power, so she has to focus entirely on that to keep you inside this space.”

“Computing?”

“It refers to calculating power.” I answered. “You could compare it to casting a spell. You need immense control to do that, right? Now imagine an illusion spell that makes everything you see around yourself at this moment, and then think about just how difficult that would be. Our two system supports are basically keeping that up all the time while you are here.”

 

“... I think I get it. So it is difficult to get me here.”

“Yes. It is quite challenging.” Laura answered.

“Is it as difficult to get Mia into here?”

“No, not quite. Maria is a System Support, so she can move more freely through the system than you can. Effectively, when she is here, she leaves your body temporarily and comes here instead. It is actually quite similar to what I do when I realize myself here.”

“So you actually leave my body when you are in the factory?” I asked.

“Yes. There is a reason I cannot hear your thoughts while I’m in here. My connection with you is somewhat severed when I come here, as otherwise I would face similar difficulties as Miss Lucia is experiencing right now. And that would just not be feasible.”

“... alright. Well, if it works.”

 

“Brian, what about my outfit?” Lua asked.

“What about it? It looks great on you.”

“Thank you. … Wait! No! That’s not what I mean! Why am I wearing a dress?”

“No clue. I can change my clothing if I wish for it, so maybe try that.” I said as I changed my clothes from my usual jeans and t-shirt look to generic adventurer look, which I totally didn’t steal from Zayaan, to a three piece-suit, and then back to my usual stuff.

“... wow. Then did you do this?” She asked, referring to her dress.

“No I didn’t. Laura? Can I blame you?”

“Hey! This isn’t on me either.” She complained. “It is most likely something Maria did.”

“Mia? Would she have?”

“Well, her avatar does also wear a dress, so I could see that being the case.” I commented.

“Does she? What does she look like?”

“Like your older sister.” That was the easiest way to describe Mia’s avatar.

“My older sister? What would that be like?”

“Laura, can we show her the security footage from this morning?”

“Sure. Let me call Tahlia over.” Laura said as her avatar disappeared. She probably teleported into Tahlia’s room.

 

---

 

While we waited for Laura to return, Lua asked if I would help her change her clothes, as she failed to do so on her own. I did as she asked and she ended up with nice purple jeans, and a white t-shirt with a cute cat printed on it. I was thinking of printing a catgirl at first, but thought it would be better if it was just a normal cat. She did also have a hoodie available, but she decided to take it off.

 

“Father, I heard you needed me.” I heard Tahlia say, so I turned to look at her.

Tahlia, whom I’ve never seen in anything but her pink onesie, was now wearing a formal looking dress. It had a dark blue base color, and it had geometric green embroidery that looked like a circuit board.

“Father? Brian, who is this girl?” Lua asked.

“I guess I’ll have to introduce you. But first, Laura, can you go pick up Fantasia as well? I think it will be better if I introduce both of them at the same time.”

“Sure. Just give me a second.” Laura said, as her avatar again disappeared, only to reappear a few seconds later with Fantasia.

 

Fantasia was wearing another cosplay again. I guess it is basically tradition for her at this point. Today, it was a cutesy nurse uniform. She also had large white wings, most likely copied from Injection Fairy Lily.

 

“Papa!” She called as she took rushed into me. Her wings fluttered like she was trying to take flight, but we both learned that just having wings wouldn’t let you fly the hard way last evening, so she was still just running.

I kneeled down a bit and took her into my arms.

 

“... so, what is all of this?” Lua asked after looking at my family lineup.

 

---

 

“Lua, this is Tahlia. She is the avatar of my Inventory skill. She is a bit special of a case in terms of being an Inventory, as she was born from a card I installed into myself. Tahlia, this is Lucia. I think you know this already, but she saved my life when I almost died.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lucia.” Tahlia greeted Lua.

“Yes. A pleasure.” Lua said, seeming a bit nervous. “Please just call me Lua. No miss or anything.”

“As you wish, Lua. Feel free to call me Tia as well.” Tahlia responded.

 

Tia? Why didn’t I think of that? And if she is Tia, then Fantasia would be Fia. Fia and Tia.

 

“And then there is Fantasia. Lua, this is Fantasia. She is the avatar of Different Dimension Factory, aka this space we are inside of. Fantasia, this is Lucia. Treat her well.”

“Yes. Hi, Miss Lucia!” Fantasia greeted Lua.

“Hi. It is good is great to meet you, Fantasia. You can just call me Lua.”

“Yes, aunty Lua!”

““Aunty?”” Both Lua and I asked at the same time.

“When did I become an aunt?”

“How did she come up with that?”

 

“... papa? What is wrong?”

“Why did you call Lua aunty?” I just decided to ask her.

“Is she not? Laura is mama, aunty Maria is mama’s sister and aunty Lua is aunty Maria’s sister. So Lua is also aunty.”

“... okay then…” Yeah, the logic checks out. Except that Mia and Lua aren’t sisters. “But Mia and Lua aren’t actually sisters.”

“... eh? So aunty Lua isn’t my aunt? Then what is she?”

“I think cousin would be the most accurate.” Laura said. “Considering that Maria was originally based on Lua’s mother, and has now taken on the name of her grandmother, cousin would be the most accurate term.” She told Fantasia.

“... so cousin Lua?”

“Yes. I can be your cousin.” Lua answered. “... she is adorable …” I heard her mutter afterwards.

 

---

 

We first spent some time speaking about things around the table. Tahlia used a tablet to bring up the security footage from this morning, so she could show Lua what Mia looks like inside the factory. Lua was a bit taken back by how Mia was dressed, but otherwise seemed to find her good looking.

I also asked Lua about her system mission, but it hadn’t rewarded her yet. As of now, only Rosemary, the elder of the village, and Ria had evolved their blood magic into true blood magic.

After that, I gave her a quick tour of the factory, mainly pointing out the places she shouldn’t enter, like the control platform and the Different Dimension Treasury room. I don’t want her to get beaten up by the goblin guards. And there is a force field of some kind so she can’t even get to the control platform.

I made sure to show her the places which would be the most useful to her. The vampire room, the Umi rooms, as well as The Sanctuary in the Sky room. Vampires for obvious reasons, the Umi rooms for water magic practice and Sanctuary as most of my healer monsters were fairies, so they could be found in that room. And a lot of fairies were also light attribute, if she wanted to learn light magic.

“Don’t worry Lua, if you get lost, I’ll show you around.” Fantasia offered. She had been holding Lua’s hand ever since we began the tour, and it didn’t seem like Lua wanted to let go either.

 

---

 

“What are they making?” Lua asked.

We had gone into the Vampire Kingdom room of the factory, as Lua wanted to see it. There, we had heard some sounds of hammering and decided to go take a closer look. We entered one of the buildings that had appeared on the outskirts of the hill after Different Dimension Treasury got to level 2.

There, we spotted a team of four Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu hammering a piece of steel or iron, while a new vampire was using blood magic to add some blood into the metal.

I say new vampire, as it is one I haven’t met yet. Dressed in black armor, with gold accents and holding a giant lance. Even the horse that had been tied up outside belonged to him. 

Vampire Red Baron. Cain must have gotten him with Vampire's Domain at some point.

After finishing the fold they were working on, the hammering stopped and the ingot was tossed back into the fire. Then the four blacksmiths joined bodies and became one. 

“Miss, we are making blood iron.” He then answered.

“Blood iron? Really? You can do that?”

“Yes. You can take a look at the samples over there on that table.” He answered, pointing at a pile of ingots. There seemed to be about 50 of them.

Lua stepped over with Fantasia, and proceeded to look over the ingots. But I had something else I wanted to find out.

 

“How did you combine like that?” I asked the smith.

“We just did. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.” He answered.

“Father, if I may.” Tahlia offered.

“Go for it.”

“Your monsters, if they are the same monster from the same set, can combine themselves like that. It allows them to share information from the times they are summoned easier, so your monsters often do that. That way, they can also alternate which one of them you summon every time you take out a monster of that kind, unless you specifically specify which one you want. But as Pack Opener’s collection doesn’t differentiate between two or more copies of the same card, if they are in the exact same state considering install, sleeve and toploader status, and so on, it is impossible for you to call on a specific monster, unless you have somehow differentiated it from the other copies of itself. Mainly, by installing a card into it.”

“... okay. I think I got it. Maybe.”

“It is quite simple really. But if you want me to put it into words you better understand, just don’t worry about it, because it works.”

“Yeah. That does sound like something I would say.”

 

“Is this really blood iron? This feels different from the others.” Lua commented, holding one specific ingot in her hands.

“You have a good eye, miss. It is an attempt at making vampiric steel, but it is still just an unsuccessful prototype.” Vampire Red Baron explained.

“Vampiric steel? That metal that the vampire’s of old used to forge their weapons?”

“I am not too familiar with the history of your world's vampires, but that might be the case. Vampiric steel is the stronger form of blood iron, requiring true blood magic to be used while it is being made. We are even using dragon blood to give us the highest chance of success, but even then, that piece is the only thing even remotely close to what we are trying to make.”

 

So they stole some blood from one of my dragons? Well, I guess as long as they didn’t kill said dragon and said dragon gave permission, I have no issues with that.

But vampiric steel, huh. That does sound interesting. Perhaps I should make Ria stuff out of that metal, instead of blood iron.

“Laura, how good is vampiric steel?”

“It is considered a greater metal, like mithril and hihi'irokane. It has some advantages over those two materials, but it also has its own disadvantages. According to the information I have access to, it is considered the overall lowest rank of the three.”

“Ah. Alright.”

“That might be.” Vampire Red Baron said. “But that is only for a human. For a vampire or even a dhampir, vampiric steel is better than adamantite.”

 

I turned my gaze back to Laura, waiting for an explanation.

“Adamantite is a part of the greatest metals, on level with orichalcum. It is extremely heavy and sturdy making weapons made from it difficult to wield for anyone but the people with extremely high strength. But it also holds an edge better than any other metal. The dragon slaying sword of Buster Blader is made of adamantite.”

“And let me guess, the dungeon cannot make it.”

“Exactly.”

“So the staff of Dark Paladin is also adamantite?”

“Not entirely. It only has an edge made of it. The rest is other materials, like orichalcum, star titanium and void uranium.”

“... oh god. Why do I ask?”

“I believe that means that you correctly identified both star titanium and void uranium being on the same level as orichalcum and adamantite.”

“Yeah. Kind of figured that out.”

 

“So, how can that vampiric steel match up to the other metals?” I asked Red Baron.

“Yes, that. Miss, would you hand that ingot over?” He asked Lua.

“Ah. Sure.” 

 

“Now, please observe.” He said before as the ingot in his hand began to move. 

He turned it from an ingot into a dagger, then a whip looking thing, then a gauntlet, finally returning it back into an ingot.

“Vampiric steel can be controlled in this way with the use of blood magic. Of course with the quality of the ingot that one isn’t great for it, but if we can make a perfect one, I could do way more. And also, while it can be done with just blood magic, making certain things like that whip would be more difficult, so it is only recommended if you can use true blood magic.”

“Wow. So I could do something like that?” Lua looked on in wonder.

“Yes. As long as you practice enough and obtain some vampiric steel.”

 

“Brian!” Lua turned to me with her eyes shining. Literally. “May I buy some of this steel from you?”

“... sure. But it isn’t ready yet, as you just heard. And the matter inside the factory isn’t exactly real. I’ll have to have them make some in the real world, before I can give it to you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. This place, at the end of the day, is just a mental plane. My monsters can learn things here and so on, but things made here cannot be taken outside.” I explained. “Just think about your clothes. I could just change them, without having you to strip or anything. You can think of this as the same.”

“Ah. I see. Then would you sell me some when you have some made?”

“No. I think I’ll just give it to you as a gift instead. This isn’t something I can really put a price on, so I don’t want to sell it.” I answered.

“... thank you.” Lua took me into a deep hug.

 

---

 

We returned to the table at the bottom of the control platform and headed out of the factory. Even with the time dilation of the LV.2 factory, we had still been in here for over one real world hour, so it was time for us to return.

 

I closed my eyes in the factory, and opened them in the real world.

“Welcome back, Master.” Cosmo Queen was the first to notice me coming back. I wonder if my monsters can instinctively feel me returning.

“Brian? I wasn’t…” Alice panicked a bit as she let go of my hand, which she had been holding against her cheek. Ria was on my other side, doing the same.

“Ria?”

“Just a bit longer.” She said, holding on even tighter. 

“... so this is what you have been up to.” 

 

I let Ria keep a hold of my arm, as I sat up. I looked over at the bed where Lua laid, but her eyes were still closed.

(Laura? Did something go wrong?) I confirmed.

(... It’s just the lag. She will be there shortly.) Laura responded.

 

---

 

[In the factory, just after Brian left.]

 

“Miss Lucia, you should head back as well.” Laura said to Lua.

“I will, in just a second. I wanted to ask you something first, while Brian can’t hear us. He can’t at the moment, right?”

“Yes, he cannot.” Laura confirmed. She knew that this would be recorded, but she could also ask Tahlia to alter or delete the recording if necessary.

“You took on the body of his … girlfriend, right?”

“Yes. And her voice and Master also named me after her.”

“Then could you please speak with him. Not as his System Support, but as his girlfriend. You need to give him permission to move on. Otherwise, he will never find someone to love.”

“... I’ll try. But he can be stubborn, so I can’t promise that just my words will do it. May I ask for you to also act towards that goal on the other side?”

“Yes. I will.”

“Then we are in agreement. You need to head back. Master is starting to worry because you haven't woken up yet.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Lucia said before she disappeared from the factory.

 

Laura then turned to Tahlia and ordered. “Make sure you delete the recording of this conversation.”

“Yes, Mother.” The daughter that was always ready to follow orders responded. Luckily Fantasia had stayed in the Vampire Kingdom room, as she might not be able to stay quiet about this.