"Stop, stop—!"
After a long snowball fight, the white-scaled dragonkin was the first to break.
Neither side had actually managed to hit the other in the face, but the problem was that this was her bedroom. Hit or miss, it was the one who had to deal with the mess in the end.
Even if the "snow" wasn't real snow at all, but rather condensed soul crystals that left no trace, the discomfort of it still lingered.
Once Seath realized that, she simply conceded, dispersing the snowball in her hand.
Across from her, Lloyd studied her for a moment, making sure she wasn't faking. Once he was certain, he stowed away his own snowball and gave the dragonkin in front of him a once-over.
"Why the hell are you everywhere?"
Dark Souls I, the real body. Dark Souls II, the artifact. Dark Souls III, the possessed Demon King. Then the Lands Between—once in the Crystal Academy, once just now... and now here you are again.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
At those words, Seath arched a brow.
She hadn't said a word yet, but somehow the one who'd been hunting dragons was the first to start complaining.
Strictly speaking, she wasn't the same Seath that Lloyd had fought outside. But in a sense, she was the most Seath-like of them all.
To put it simply: long ago, in her search for a way to prolong the world, Lloyd set his eyes on Seath and roped her into research.
But as time went on, Seath could no longer endure it. She didn't want to endure it. After a long tug-of-war, she reached an agreement with Lloyd: using the technology of the time, she created a new Seath and left everything of herself behind for it.
If that were all, she would've just been a second-generation Seath.
But the problem was the materials. She had been forged from Seath's own corpses—more than one. The techniques used were composites of many different Seath. And the power she inherited was the strength of countless Seath combined.
As for why there were so many Seath corpses...
Well, that was thanks to a certain idiot's handiwork.
To put it briefly: conducting research in the Dark Souls world was extremely dangerous. Losses were inevitable—loss of materials, and loss of researchers themselves to madness, distortion, or death.
And when a researcher died, the work stalled. Even with notes left behind, knowledge had to be relearned and re-understood.
In a normal world, the solution would be to recruit new researchers, have them study their predecessors' work, and continue from there.
But in that twisted Dark Souls timeline, with history itself in shambles, a certain idiot had a "brilliant" idea.
When one Seath died, he would simply pull another Seath from an earlier point in the timeline and slot her in seamlessly to continue the research.
Time paradoxes? The essence of existence?
That idiot never thought about such things.
He simply believed it would work—and so it did. He paid no mind to the horrified stares of the Seath forced to witness it.
This went on for a while... until the idiot discovered another problem.
The more the research advanced, the more knowledge accumulated, the higher the learning cost grew. Progress slowed to a crawl.
Even plucking Seath from the timeline stopped working. If the copy was taken from too close in time, she would go mad or die within moments.
Take one from too far back, and she needed ages to study and catch up—and might collapse in the process.
Faced with this, the idiot had another "great" idea.
"Hey, what if I could just pull all the knowledge out of your head? Wouldn't that skip the learning part entirely?"
And with that, every Seath from then on was doomed.
Having knowledge force-fed into your mind was never pleasant. Let alone forbidden knowledge—the kind that drove you insane, killed you outright, or even made you relive death itself in the name of learning.
Moreover, knowledge had a unique trait: it could be accumulated.
It wasn't like one infusion instantly doubled everything, but after enough repetitions, both the knowledge and the pain reached an abstract, unbearable state.
When Lloyd discovered that shoving too much of it into Seath's head would cause the entire dragon to explode, he considered it for a moment—then simply went looking for an older version of Seath.
At that time, Seath possessed something called the Immortal Crystal, a method of immortality she had devised for herself. As long as that crystal existed, she could not die.
What happened next could only be summed up in a single line:
"I have never regretted creating the Immortal Crystal more in my life."
"Please, just kill me already."
"Eh, you dragon."
But even that wasn't the end.
Because if the Immortal Crystal worked, then by Lloyd's iteration method, it meant he could create a perpetual machine of infinite knowledge.
If resentment could be burned as fuel, Seath alone could have lit the First Flame.
Eventually, it reached the point where, whenever Lloyd entered another timeline, even without knowing what had happened, the Seath of that world would immediately attempt to destroy the Immortal Crystal. Lloyd often had to protect it himself, fearing Seath would ruin his one means of eternal life.
But time proved that even the "eternity" of the Immortal Crystal had limits.
Even when Lloyd embedded several Immortal Crystals together and poured knowledge into them, Seath's body still ruptured into shards. The crystals themselves crumbled into dust.
Seath was broken.
"Father—living father—please, just let me go. Do you want scales? Something else? Anything I can give, I'll give it to you—just let me die."
Lloyd agreed.
But on one condition: Seath had to provide him with a new researcher, one capable of bearing the weight of knowledge.
Seath froze.
If even an immortal Ancient Dragon couldn't withstand it, how in the world was she supposed to find such a being?
Wait... herself?
Perhaps from spending too much time around that fool, one white dragon glanced at the surrounding corpses, slapped her forehead, and came up with an abstract solution.
And thus, a new Seath was born.
Unlike any of the Seath before her, this one was a completely new being—and she possessed everything the others had dreamed of.
The scales of an Ancient Dragon. A full, unbroken tail. Four pairs of wings. Eternal life. Strength surpassing even the ancient race itself.
She was not Seath.
But she was more Seath than all the Seath combined.
When she opened her eyes, there was no hesitation.
She roared and swung her claw at that fool.
Because along with the power and knowledge, she had also inherited the resentment and hatred toward Lloyd.
No one can say exactly what happened afterward. But in the end, Lloyd gained a new researcher.
They bickered constantly, but they stayed together for a long time—until the day the gray flame was lit.
...
Returning to the present.
After greeting Lloyd in the old Undeads' favorite manner, Seath sat back down at her desk, crossed her legs, and studied him.
Then, noticing Lloyd's gaze lingering on her lower body, she raised an eyebrow.
"Still hung up on that missing tail of yours, are you?"
As mentioned earlier, this new Seath not only bore the scales of an Ancient Dragon but also retained a long tail.
In human form, she had transformed two of her tentacles into legs for walking. The last remaining one became a long, elegant tail.
It was, objectively, a very beautiful tail. White and supple, surrounded by a faint milky aura of sorcery, its surface covered with pale gray scales. Crystals, carefully arranged like ornaments, gleamed along its length, making it almost mesmerizing to behold.
But to Lloyd...
Tail? What tail? All he saw was the treasure chest hiding his reward.
Still, for the time being, he drew back his gaze, sighed twice, and then began talking with Seath.
"I won't waste words. You should have some sense of your own situation—and if you don't, I can't spell it out for you."
"But anyway, that delay mutation wasn't me screwing with you. Your spacetime structure really is that rotten. All I did was bring it to the surface and patch it up a little as you moved forward."
"And it isn't just me. I haven't met the one outside, but I can more or less guess her approach. Simply put, she's using fragments of worlds tied to you as bait, drawing out the problems within you bit by bit to be repaired."
"To put it more directly—whether it's the delay mutation or anything else, the enemy you'll face isn't someone else. It's yourself."
"Even I am the same. Because I left more of myself behind, I've got stronger control over this dungeon world. I can help you behind the scenes—adjust the knobs, lower the difficulty."
"But with the others, you'll have to carry your own burden while also facing their malice."
"As for me, though... much as I'd like to hand over the reward right now, that wouldn't fit your rules."
"If we're going to establish and solidify Order, it's not just you—I have to follow your rules too. Without a proper fight, I can't give you everything."
"But if we fight seriously..."
Seath raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
Click.
The sound rang out, and Lloyd's body froze in place, locked as if someone had pressed pause.
Seath rose from her chair, walked over unhurriedly, bent down in front of Lloyd, lifted his chin with one hand.
"Although outside I wouldn't be able to hurt you, here—if we're following your rules..."
Seath's tail coiled tightly around Lloyd. It lowered its head, pressing its forehead against his. A faint blue breath flowed from Lloyd's face into Seath's mouth.
Moments later, Seath lifted her head.
Lloyd's HP had dropped to a single point.
"See? This is—"
But she stopped mid-sentence.
Because while she was speaking, a pair of hands had started stroking her tail.
Lloyd wasn't paying the slightest attention to the fact Seath had just used a grab attack on him.
Compared to that, what really drew his focus was the tail coiled around him.
Maybe he should talk it over with Seath, suggest lopping it off here and now, just as a test...
He turned his head toward Seath with that thought—then froze.
Wait. Where'd his dragon go?
His eyes drifted downward.
"Why are you lying on the ground?"
And her body was trembling all over, no less.
You've got some nerve asking that!
After a moment, Seath dragged herself back up, yanked her tail out of his grasp, and shot him a murderous glare before tossing something his way.
[Obtained 'Eternal Core']
[Eternal Core]
[The nucleus of eternally solidified spacetime]
[A fusion of Crystal Sorceries and space-time magic]
[Can be used to open a special 'Spacetime Dungeon']
[It is said that pure Homing Crystal Soulmass can freeze time itself]
[Perhaps it could even delay the world's decline]
"If you want to repair your spacetime structure, you'll need to gather materials. I created this to help you locate them. When you're done, make sure you hand it back."
After giving him the item, Seath sat down again and flicked her tail.
"Alright, that's enough for today. I've got work to do here, and you've got your own tasks to deal with. Once you're free—or when you've gathered the materials—come find me again."
With a wave of her hand, the door shut.
...
The next moment, Lloyd found himself back at the Roundtable Sanctuary, slightly dazed.
Alice was still sorting through the books. When she saw him return, she turned her head.
"Finished talking?"
"Yeah. Finished."
He walked over, handed her the Eternal Core Seath had given him, and briefly went over what had happened in the dungeon.
When he was done, Alice glanced toward the shelves and spoke again.
"I've cleared a section here. It can house someone else now."
"But the space is still small. Aside from me, it can only hold one more person at most."
"Of course, there's a condition—they have to have made a Covenant with you, or they won't be able to enter."
"Don't worry, though. For now, I can handle the workload myself, even with all these books. It's just that later, once the collection grows, I'll probably need extra help. At that point, you'll need to decide who to bring in."
"And those girls—each of them has their own problems. If you're serious about bringing them here, it's best to resolve those first. Otherwise... things could get messy."
Lloyd didn't fully grasp what Alice meant, but he nodded anyway. Once their conversation ended, he clasped her hand.
Then, when he opened his eyes—
The familiar scene returned.
He was lying in a warm embrace, golden hair swaying gently in the breeze before his eyes.
"Alice..."
This time, when she heard his voice, the golden figure reached out and tenderly stroked his face.
"Yes. It's me."
"If you're tired, then stay like this a while longer."
...
[Upto 20 chapters ahead for now]
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