Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

There weren't many doors along the paths Mera and I took.

Based on the design, an authorized personnel would touch the pads next to the door, and the door would automatically open to the side. Majority had these designs, at least where we were.

We actually nearly ran into a sentry. These were human sized drones wondering around. Some of them were clearly created for the purpose of cleaning duties while others were armed to the teeth with strange weaponries. Really though, they weren't as dangerous as she made it out to be.

In the next area we reached, the designs for the doors had changed, or at least started to vary. This meant it was time for a short break as sentries would no longer be a threat to our safety.

Anyway, I picked the nearest door to us. Once I was able to confirm the room interior posed no threat, the two of us entered.

"That ability of yours is sure convenient." Mera remarked with a hint of envy.

Inside the room was a familiar scene, a dojo from eras past. There were bow racks lined up in one corner along with circular target practices. In another corner were wooden swords and blunt practice swords.

"Wooden floor, wooden ceiling...? It gives a different feeling, doesn't it?"

"Yes it does." I nodded.

She took a breather and sat on the floor.  

I remote viewed the adjacent rooms and found that most of them carried different functions. There were bedrooms of various eras, living rooms, and even museums and theaters. Anything I could imagine, there was a "room" for it. I had even found various types of factories and research facilities, though those tended to be on the rarer side of places. Farmlands and places that processed foods were uncommon either.

One conclusion I easily came to was that a person could easily live here for eternity. Of course, one could easily get lost here for eternity. That was to say, this place was completely self sufficient.

Is this a form of heaven? This reminds me of a famous line in an ancient scripture. "God's mansion has many room" or something like that. That person probably tried to replicate it.

Far and between, there were teleportation gate rooms or simply doors that acted as gates. As for where they lead to, I couldn't exactly tell until from just looking. I'd have to dig in a bit more to find out.

I tried to derive some kind of pattern to the method this subspace was laid out, but it almost seemed completely random. If I had to make a guess, then I could be sure there should be a core to power the energy consumption of this place. And, since I couldn't locate the edge of this subspace nor a centre, perhaps this was only the outer layer of this subspace.

Anyhow, I was able to ascertain the locations of several demons living lavishly around here. Furthermore, high level minions such as devils also took residences in this subspace.

I went on to describe them to Mera to determine which one was the one we were looking for.

"None of them are it."

Since there was a limit to how far I could see, I might have missed a few. Even so, to think there were this many demons casually resting here was kind of mind boggling.

"Do you even know what he looks like? I mean, if he used fake status, he could have easily faked his appearance, right?"

Gender couldn't be confirmed either... Seriously, do you not have a plan?

"Huh..."

"You also mentioned that your fiancée saw him speaking with another demon? Can you tell me where?"

"It was in this place somewhere but when he tried to lead us to him to confirm for ourselves, we ran into the sentries and had to scatter. I was lucky to have survived."

"Do you know where everyone else in your party is?"

"No clue. Some of them might still be trapped here. After I escaped this place, I was captured by a demon and sent to that facility blindfolded... You know the rest."

Any scars of past battles had been erased as if this place could initiate self repair, like a living organism.

In the end, she didn't know where exactly that demon was.

"Do you mind waiting for a bit? I want to try something."

She agreed with a subtle nod.

Within a foreign subspace, my control and sight were limited. Since that was the case, I had to expand them and locate the core and the boundaries. If possible, I would like to know where exactly all these teleportation gates lead to.

The only issue now was the amount of mana I had. Despite continuous mana regeneration from |singularity| trait, whether that itself would be enough to later combat the administrator here was doubtful. It would also be best to assume that Mera's soul energy being insufficient to cover the cost required for her task. That meant in the worst case scenario, I might need to dip past my mana pool and utilize my soul energy as a fuel after using up these demons souls as my energy source. And if came down to using my own soul energy, I'd consider it a loss and escape.

Obviously, it would be a different matter if this subspace didn't have a core at the centre but I decided to be optimistic. Because, without a core somewhere, there was no way all these mana intensive teleportation gate could be functioning.

Now, if I could somehow locate the core, I could redirect that energy as my own energy source and hijack it. That would be ideal, of course. If I could hijack this subspace, it would mean I could trap all the powerful demons here and do with them as I pleased. Not only that, with so much resources here, I would never get bored again!

Also, if I had to make an educated guess, reptilians had access to at least some portion of this subspace. Magitech was basically mana infused technology, or consciousness based technology given what the origin of mana was.

Echo, I would like to take over this subspace. Is it possible?

[Yes.]

Can you help with it?

[No.]

That's a pity. Looks like it's all me. All me!! Let's show them what we're made of! Yeah!

Although I wasn't showing it, the soul exhaustion I was feeling was still there. Because I hadn't activated |dedicated one| again, my conditions hadn't worsened. However, to actually recover, the time required would be too long for me to consider, probably in the thousands of years minimum. If an easy solution came up later down the road, I wouldn't mind trying it.  

Alright, I just have to do it slowly for now.

"How long is it going to take you?" Mera asked.

"I'm not sure. Since I don't want to alert our enemies, I won't be accessing my subspace while we're inside unless there's an emergency. That means what you see here is all I have with me. So, be patient? I'm trying to locate the core of this place to take it down all at once."

"Ah I see."

"Just sit tight. If we mess up, I might even die."

"Right... Let me know if there's anything I can help with."

"Mm... Actually there is!"

I began using phantoms to carefully navigate the areas beyond my tactical sight. If I stretched my control, my reach could easily triple but I would lose my sight on the overall picture.

Luckily, we had a professional map maker in the group. I had Mera draw everything with a pen and a stack of paper. To help her with her task, I was simultaneously displaying a holographic projection of what I was seeing with tactical sight.

Once she mapped the area, I would shift us to an unoccupied room and continue the same process.

"There's no need to draw too much details." I suggested, "Just have the important features and where the enemies are. We can bypass the walls and passages so..."

"Alright."

We mapped it by splitting the subspace into eight equal sections consisting of four quadrants above and four quadrants below. From there, sections were split into subsections and so on.

This whole process lasted for several hours until my mind started to wander for alternative methods, which, I did have an idea for an alternative way, albeit an extremely risky one. Thus, I scrapped the idea and refocused my mind on my current task.

After an extensive mapping session, even Mera was exhausted. "Is there no end to this subspace?"

"Seems not... It might actually be bigger than my subspace."

"Your subspace wasn't that big."

"Oh, you haven't seen even five percent of it."

"You're kidding..."

Oh that look of shock on her face, it's nice.

"I could make subspace bigger but it's empty as is. It's too much work to create contents. Anyway, since you have a physical body, you should eat and drink something. Take a nap, and we can keep going tomorrow."

"I don't mind being careful and taking our time but do you think the demons would know their way?"

"Maybe... Wait a second. No, wait a second!" My mind was racing as I raised my voice saying that. 

Shouldn't Oortez know about this place? Yet, he never mentioned this place to me. That's super suspicious, super extremely suspicious... No, hold on. He did say something about studying ancient ruins. Could it be? This isn't a coincidence! This has to be the "ancient ruins" he was talking about!

Right, it was the soul library that he never found...

I've been blindsided once again. How careless of me! Meanwhile, precious time is wasted. Hmm... It's not like I can just call him here.

Never mind, I'll rely on myself to figure this out. Taking a bit of time here is fine.

"Did you figure something out?"

"I've been keeping a demon inside my subspace... Now, the thing is, I'm not sure how much I can trust him. If we're exposed, it'd be the end of us."

"Is that so?"

She didn't seemed surprised about the part where I kept a pet demon.

"That reminds me, I still have a few I captured that I planned to use for my sustenance."

Her face twitched before saying, "You know, sometimes you say the creepiest things."

"Ahaha, well, that's life! You have to eat!"

The four demons that I captured in Rotask were likely from this subspace since I noticed little changes on my radar. They were nicely sealed away in tiny black spheres and held inside my body since I had yet to dissect them and stuff into my soul library.

Now was probably a good time to sort them out.

Meanwhile, Mera followed my advice to have a light meal and take a short nap.

"Protect me while I'm in this subspace."

That was her first command, which, I agreed since I had no objections.

Then, she added, "This isn't a command but don't teleport me out or anything. We're not leaving until we get to the bottom of it."

She just had to emphasize on the "we" part.

Oh well, there's no backing out now.

"Ah... Okay."

Personally, I'd like her to rest somewhere else, like outside of this obnoxious maze with no end in sight.

I wonder if she'll lose her composure soon? This isn't a place I'd want to stick around for years at a time...