Delta wasn’t sure exactly what she did, but she felt it wasn't the worst option of the lot.“Ignorance or ‘being children’ doesn’t excuse them.

They made monsters, they invited outsider gods, they made Dungeons...

the Sister and Brother have caused untold amounts of destruction to everyone!” Mharia said with a snarl, her soul-space where her seed resided was twisting, reeling from the removal of two of the dark seeds from her main cluster.Delta nodded as she eyed the damage.

She was a little rougher than she meant to be, but Mharia was a big necromancer-lich girl, she could handle a little pain.“Sure, but what you chalk up to malice is actually just incompetence.

People trying to make things right aren’t the enemy.

I gotta ask, what do you think will happen if their little brother returns?” Delta crouched down.Mharia slowly rose to her knees, smoothing down her dress with a stiff expression of some princess.Well...

she was a princess, but Delta wasn’t too impressed.

She had Lord Mushy in her walls and he just oozed elegance.“Delta...

you don’t really get it, do you?” Mharia said with a small smile and the sudden tone shift threw Delta for a moment.Mharia’s smile fell away and Delta had a sense of something being wrong...

not a danger to her, but something occuring within Mharia.“Sorry, big sis, but I want to go to sleep with Sun...

my best friend.

He’s the purest form of the future and he has lived by his word.

Perhaps you were told what the little sibling actually was? Did you get told he emerged with teeth and claws trying to devour all? Oh sad...

that you listened to the first line of propaganda and didn’t ask more,” Mharia said with a sigh.Delta crossed arms, scowling.“Yeah, but if I ask the question you want me to, you’ll just go ‘oohhh spooky one-liner’ and vanish,” she accused.

Mharia’s mouth fell open before her cheeks flushed.“T-that’s besides the point!” she said, waving her hand in an annoyed manner.“I’ll make you a deal,” Delta offered abruptly, thinking of a potential solution.

Mharia thought about it.“A deal with the monster who kidnapped your friends and has a horde of minimal-wage workers developing dark science?” she asked slyly.Delta tilted her head as they slowly returned to the real world, sitting back in Mharia’s throne room.“You can still pay your workers after being down here for so long?” she asked incredulously.

Mharia raised a brow.“It’s easy when you pay in compliments and days off,” she said easily.“How about you send two of your crazy siblings off to your leader and I keep you as a devil’s advocate? You can try and corrupt me and I can pull secrets from you like a hairball from a crocodile’s throat,” Delta offered bluntly.The throne was quiet aside from the stomping of Delta’s giant mound of cute critters.“Why?” The question was said without any hostility or malice.Honestly, Delta did sort of need someone who wasn’t jacked into the system or created by it to be able to offer her some answers.

If the system put Mharia on a lock down...

or removed her memories, then Delta had a good idea something was up.Also, the first act of taking down an unknown enemy was to make them known.Mharia was high up on the totem pole of their group.“I already planned to make you absorb me, but there’s little point if it’s just my seed,” Mharia muttered but then shrugged helplessly.“I accept, only because I am confident you’ll see the truth soon enough without any prompting on my end,” she said and looked away.“Let me just say goodbye to my siblings,” she asked and closed her eyes.Delta guessed she could be activating some trap or sending some last minute to her leader, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

Delta would take them in or out one by one.

The only one getting no mercy was the one who did the unspeakable acts upon Renny’s family.Moment’s later, two dark glowing lights exited Mharia’s chest, the mere sight of them made her almost Dungeon-out.

It took every inch of control for Delta not to reach for the seeds and cleanse them.But she managed it by pretending they had puppy ears and big eyes...Also those little thin tails puppies and kittens had.

What if it was some mix of puppy and kitten?A puppen or kippy!“And a hearty ‘Go to hell to you too’,” Mharia scowled as the seeds shot off.“Family issues?” Delta asked innocently, her mana surrounding the room, checking for any traps or incoming danger.

She was confident, but being careful also didn’t hurt.“Imagine sharing a room with your two siblings, but 10x more intimate and then doing that for a hundred years with no sleep.

You’d develop some hostility too if they were stark raving mad,” Mharia said defensively.“I don’t remember my brother.

My memories are either scattered around the abyss, locked up in a system folder or coming back slowly,” Delta said bluntly.“Maybe you should ask for them?” Mharia said casually.“Starting this corruption thing a little blatantly aren’t you?” Delta asked as she stood up, her orange avatar making the throne room glow.“Subtlety is for those who have need of it.

I’m rather exposed as the enemy at this point,” Mharia said with a smile, sipping her tea.Delta guessed she had a point.“I guess welcome to the Dungeon,” Delta said, drawing her mana into the room.

Mharia eyed the rising orange tide, turning nervous.“Why is your mana chanting?” she asked suddenly.

Delta listened, but didn’t hear anything.“Maybe you have a ringing noise in your ears?” Delta suggested.

Mhaira leaned forward and the illusion of flesh melted away, revealing the dark skull of her head.“I don’t have ears!” she said before pointing at Delta’s mana again.“They’re chanting war crimes-” was all she said before she was smothered in the orange tide.Mharia’s attempts to sow chaos in Delta were mostly just confusing her at this point.Chanting mana? For real?The room began to shine as Mharia was broken down to her seed.---Delta’s ocean was churning on the surface, but once Mharia broke past that, she saw how...

calm it was underneath.Mharia knew she was effectively really dead this time.

Beings absorbed by a dungeon came back in appearance only.

Contracted humans got the better deal, but in the end...

Mharia wasn’t sure if she’d be herself after all was said and doneWhat she saw...

felt...

experienced?It was all symbolic.Being broken down into mana meant what she was feeling couldn’t be real, not entirely.But Mharia kept falling until she understood she was falling upwards.After time passed, she found herself in a strange room, a central chair surrounded by screens that curved and flat runic consoles, some of which had mushrooms growing out of their sides.“What do I call the adopted sibling of my Nephew?” a girl asked, bemused as she turned in the chair.

Mharia blinked, on her hands and knees as it felt so hard to stand here.“You are the...

Sister,” Mharia said, gritting her teeth.

It felt strange to have real muscle and flesh again, even in a simulated spell sense.“And you are Mharia of Turtog,” announced the being that was so beyond Mharia’s power it was laughable.“So, is it time for you to begin your interrogation? The turning of my mind to your cause?” Mharia asked and found it hard to keep in mind exactly what Sister looked like.

A young girl with long hair and a white dress...

but the details kept eluding her.It was like staring at the sun, ironically enough.“Perhaps once I would have simply dissolved you for your blooming seed, breaking you down to stare at the pieces to find an answer lurking in your existence.

Like taking a jigsaw apart to see what shape each piece is,” the god admitted before she spun in her chair once, legs dangling.“But I’ve learned a lot, just like you,” Sister said easily.“...I have no idea what you mean,” Mharia responded, managing to get on her knees despite the force nearby.Sister tilted her head and smiled.“I’m going to tell her, I just didn’t want to drop it in the middle of her fight with you since it felt like a bit of a...

what would Delta call it?” she mused, leaning back in her chair.“Ah, a ‘dick move’,” she said sagely.

Mharia stared before she clucked her tongue.“Then Delta will despise you,” she declared as the screens around the Sister shifted.“I think she might be angry, but I’ve learned a lot from her.

I think it’s better for her to be upset with me than to simply keep on doing what I’ve done without her knowledge.

I think that’s how people show they care.

When the other person matters more than themselves,” Sister said slowly before she looked down as if she could see something.“I only ever felt something like that towards my Brothers,” she admitted and this pissed Mharia off to no end.“You mutilated and made your little brother fall into the abyss,” she accused and the Sister was still for a long time, making Mharia feel a twinge of fear.“We did.

I am a terrible person really.

But I think since I can admit that?” she looked Mharia right in the eye.“I’m maturing a little,” she declared and her form shifted...

ever so slightly.

Her cheeks lost some of the roundness, her hair grew longer, and she seemed to stretch out.“And as for your fate...” the slightly older girl said, bemused.Mharia felt karma crawling up her back.---Delta could feel the third floor shaking as her mana went berserk with work.

Third floor was conquered! All excess rooms are being absorbed.

Please stand by...