All I Did Was Fuck Her Senseless
Even to this day, members of the Demon King's Army worked tirelessly to harvest negative emotions from intelligent lifeforms, humans included. Those who yielded high results were granted rank within the Demon King's Castle, reaping wealth and glory.
Naturally, someone on the level of a High Executive—standing far above an ordinary Cadre—was an entirely different caliber of existence. Merely standing in their presence was enough to set anyone's nerves on edge.
After all, who knew? One slip that crossed him, and he might butcher me on the spot, carving flesh from bone.
“Are you nervous?”
As I cowered, Dolcetto's ocular lights flickered with a faint, metallic clatter of joints. I held my breath, desperately reading his mood, terrified that a single misplaced word might trigger an irreversible disaster...
“Fufu, yes. Quite natural, I suppose. However much you may be Isabella's apprentice, you are still a mere fledgling who has barely earned the qualifications of a Trap Designer, are you not?”
Yet despite his grotesque frame, the words that followed held what could only be called goodwill. In fact, contrary to his nightmarish appearance, his demeanor was surprisingly gentlemanly.
“Rest easy. I have not come to cause you harm. I merely had a chat with Isabella after quite some time, and upon hearing of you and the dungeon you maintain, my curiosity was piqued enough to pay a brief visit.”
“U-Um. Right... That's a relief, then.”
So he'd just dropped by out of interest in his old friend's student. Feeling a wave of relief wash over me, I tried to steer the conversation on lighter footing.
“Um, have you and Master been close for a long time?”
“It is an old bond that stretches back to our days as novice Dungeon Masters. She crafted traps for my dungeon, and I constructed golems for hers... That cooperative dynamic gradually blossomed into friendship, and even now, we keep in touch from time to time.”
“...So Master really did have friends after all.”
“Does even her apprentice find that surprising? Well, she hardly possesses an approachable disposition. Having ascended to the very apex of trap design—the most sadistic craft in the Demon King's Army—it is only to be expected.”
Just as he said, practically all the horrific traps riddling the Demon Army's territories were Master's handiwork, and legions of Trap Designers still took inspiration from her when structuring their own dungeons. As one of the principal architects who turned this world into a pit of hopeless despair, even her own comrades within our ranks recoiled from her.
...Come to think of it, didn't I take that terrifying woman's virginity?
And somehow I was still breathing. Good job, me.
“I crossed paths with her not long ago and shared a cup of tea... and in the midst of our conversation, I happened to hear a rather fascinating story concerning you.”
“About me?”
“They say you caught her in a trap she never saw coming and passed your examination with flying colors. Flustering an absolute master of traps using a trap of your own... The moment I heard, I knew you had to be an extraordinary talent.”
“Ahaha... You flatter me. I just aimed down a slightly different path than everyone else, and it happened to pay off.”
“Walking an unorthodox path and still producing results is no simple feat. Indeed, while nothing is guaranteed, if you have earned her recognition, your name may very well echo throughout the Demon King's Army one day.”
“Aw, you're too kind...”
Dolcetto looked upon me with proud approval while offering genuine encouragement. After an eternity of receiving nothing but scoldings and abuse from Master, his praise felt intoxicatingly sweet.
I had become a Trap Designer just to put food on the table, but... if a gentleman of character like him had taken me in, maybe I would have walked a very different path.
“Be that as it may, something has caught my eye for a while now. Is that Yuria standing beside you?”
As our chat settled down, his attention finally drifted toward Yuria, who had been standing quietly at my flank. She had listened to the entire conversation in silence, and even when singled out, she merely continued staring blankly into the face of her creator.
Was she feeling strange after coming face-to-face with a 'parent' she had no recollection of, or was she just holding back an emotional reunion?
“Come to think of it, I heard you were the one who built Yuria, Lord Dolcetto. Was she a gift for Master, by any chance?”
Whatever the case, this was a reunion between parent and child, so I figured I ought to play wingman and break the ice. But Dolcetto answered in a flat, detached voice.
“Less a gift, and more a part of an experiment.”
“An experiment...?”
“Indeed. An experiment to see just how cruel a golem endowed with a personality could become toward intruders. I handed Yuria over to Isabella, and in exchange, she transmitted Yuria's operational data back to me.”
His tone was as casual as if explaining the weather. But the underlying reality was anything but light.
“More than a century has passed, so my memory is somewhat hazy, but I was brimming with youthful vigor back then—and quite ambitious for advancement. Thus, I conducted relentless research on how to slaughter intruders in the most despairing manner imaginable, and in doing so, I formulated a single hypothesis.”
“A hypothesis...?”
“A mindless golem moving strictly according to algorithms versus a golem possessing a persona, capable of autonomous thought... Which of the two could inflict deeper despair and terror upon invaders? After all, does a living creature lunging with pure malice not impart far greater psychological pressure than an unthinking puppet?”
He wasn't wrong. A living entity—especially one radiating uncontrollable savagery and bloodlust—exerted far more pressure in battle than an inanimate automaton. Considering that adventurers in my dungeon struggled most whenever I deployed golems under Yuria's direct control, his hypothesis held plenty of merit.
“What I sought to create was simple: a slaughter puppet whose very instincts were engraved with autonomous learning and judgment, knowing precisely how to plunge its victims into absolute despair... If such a thing roamed the dungeon butchering intruders, it would become an emblem of pure horror.”
And born from that dark ideal was Yuria. The very entity that, upon our first encounter, had pulverized everything in her path—a being built for nothing but slaughter.
“Oh, yes! Once, I dreamed of such a puppet! A beast that smiled wider the more flesh it tore, displaying a spectacle of blood and severed meat for all to see, intoxicating itself on madness with their agonized screams as its song!”
Clatter, rattle. His skeletal frame began to tremble as he painted his ideal. Just as he had yearned for a puppet devoted entirely to slaughter, his crimson ocular glow burned with an increasingly sinister intensity, projecting that long-lost dream onto Yuria.
Ah, right. However refined his manners might seem, his core nature hadn't changed. In the end, the Demon King's Army was an organization dedicated to inflicting torment, and anyone who had risen to the rank of High Executive was fundamentally a sadist who struck terror into the world.
“Yet the masterpiece born of my youthful fervor ended in failure.”
“A failure...?”
“In the end, a golem is bound to prioritize the command to serve its master. When crafting a golem kept within controllable parameters, loyalty inevitably crushes the emotions that drive independent judgment.”
The red light in his eyes dulled as he looked down at Yuria. He had once projected his grand ambition onto her, but now that dream had faded, surrendered to compromise with reality.
“Focus on personality, and you lose control. Focus on control, and you lose the personality... To this day, every attempt to balance the two has ended in defeat. Though now, I suppose it matters little. Golems are merely tools, after all. There is no real need to bestow personalities upon them and force them to think and judge for themselves.”
Right. To the being before me, Yuria wasn't a child. She was merely the wreckage of a youthful dream, and in the present, nothing more than a tool. He felt not a shred of affection for her—something I, having grown quite fond of her, couldn't bring myself to agree with.
“Still, meeting her like this makes me curious. Just how much has this forgotten fragment of my youth changed?”
Was he still holding out hope for that one-in-a-million possibility? Just as it seemed to be nothing more than a faded curiosity, he slid his gaze toward Yuria and asked:
“Yuria. What was Isabella to you?”
“Lady Isabella...”
Master. Her former owner. Yet the response that slipped from her mouth was dry and completely devoid of emotion.
“She was my first master. Therefore, I obeyed. I am a golem, an existence bound to absolute obedience to my owner's commands. Thus, Lady Isabella's orders were once obeyed without exception. Because she commanded me to remain and defend this dungeon, I guarded this place ceaselessly. On and on, forever, because that is my purpose, it is so...”
“Indeed. Even with an artificial persona, emotion cannot supersede loyalty. Faithful when commanded, motionless when not—that is the extent of your limits.”
A machine was a machine, nothing more. Even faced with such cold, categorical logic, not a ripple stirred Yuria's expression. As if she knew it all too well. As if she had long accepted that as her immutable foundation.
“And that sentiment surely applies to her apprentice here as well. Speak, then. What do you think of this young Dungeon Master?”
“...My thoughts on Master.”
Yuria slowly shifted her gaze to me. After staring for a moment, her face twisted into a fierce scowl, and she declared her assessment:
“I hate him, it is so.”
“Indeed, just as I thought... Wait, what?”
A note of genuine bafflement slipped from Dolcetto's mouth, caught completely off guard. But now that the dam was broken, Yuria had no intention of stopping.
“He is my master, yes, but I hate him regardless, it is so. The things he does are revolting. Touching my body day and night, I hate it. What he does is filthy and depraved. He has a bizarre thing dangling between his legs. Dangling back and forth, every time I look at it, it disgusts me.”
“In conclusion, I wish you would vanish from my sight forever. Do you comprehend, it is so, dear Master?”
“Hey, isn't that a bit harsh?!”
“Go away. Shut your mouth. Please slam your nose into a wall and die. Hold your breath for five minutes, it is so.”
Yuria unleashed an unsparing torrent of contempt that moved past verbal abuse and into straight-up curses. Just as I was clutching my bruised heart, Dolcetto spoke in a trembling voice.
“Yuria... Did you mean those words... sincerely?”
“Sincere, it is so. Is there an issue?”
Yuria tilted her head. At her deadpan reaction, Dolcetto let out a stunned, breathless laugh and wheeled on me.
“What on earth did you do to this child?!”
“Uh, um. Well, you see...”
“Unless her algorithms suffered corruption over the past century, this child should possess absolute, unwavering loyalty to her master! She should be utterly incapable of feeling disgust, let alone expressing it... What witchcraft did you perform? Why is she radiating such sheer murderous intent toward you?!”
Uh... All I did was spray aphrodisiac gas on her and fuck her brains out.
“Yuria! Speak for yourself. Exactly what did he do to you?”
Was his curiosity thoroughly stoked? Prompted by Dolcetto's demand, Yuria began explaining everything she had endured in a solemn, matter-of-fact tone.
“When I inhaled the gas Master dispersed, my body's sensations grew vivid.”
“Vivid sensations... Indeed, you possess sensory receptors for pain, so you can gauge structural strain on your frame. But to you, that should be nothing more than a warning signal, not an actual source of suffering, no?”
“I do not know. But the gas he sprayed activated unfamiliar sensations I had never experienced. Since then, it throbs incessantly. My body grows hot, and I despise that strange sensation. I do not want to feel it... Yet feel it I do, and therefore, I hate him.”
“Oho! Awakened novel sensations through chemical agents, did he...? And is there anything else you wish to report?”
“He tortures me when my body turns hot. Sucking my lips, groping my breasts, and thrusting a monstrous implement mercilessly into my genitals. It is deeply unfamiliar and shameful, yet he tortures me without mercy. And he claims it feels good. But it is not good at all... It makes my body feel like it no longer belongs to me.”
“Awakening novel senses and then torturing her mercilessly, is that it? Haha! Yes! To transcend the limits of a golem through such a method...! This is truly worth researching! I can feel the embers extinguished in my youth roaring back to life!”
Creak, clatter. Dolcetto let out a delighted cackle as his joints ground together with a chilling sound.
A shiver ran down my spine at the sight, but worse than that, his sudden obsession with Yuria felt like bad news for me.
“Um... you're not planning to take Yuria back now, are you?”
For all I knew, he might drag her off to his laboratory and dismantle her piece by piece. Powerless as I was, I couldn't just stand by and watch that happen. Fortunately, his answer carried an unexpected benevolence.
“Have no fear; I have no such intention. She passed from my hands the moment I entrusted her to Isabella. And if Isabella entrusted this child to you, then her true master is you.”
...Well, well. He restrained himself even when faced with a subject that reignited his research obsession. Aside from the whole 'butchering people' thing, he really was quite the gentleman. But just as I thought that, he went a step further and offered an unexpected favor.
“However, in exchange for imparting such fresh insights, I am willing to offer tune-ups or modifications. Is there anything in particular you desire for Yuria?”
“Modifications?”
“Indeed. Anything within my immediate power, I shall grant. Of course, refrain from requesting anything overly extravagant. It would be a nuisance if Isabella accused me of interfering with her apprentice's training.”
Hmm, an upgrade... Come to think of it, Yuria was an outdated model whose combat specs had fallen behind. And more importantly, her current build caused quite a few inconveniences whenever we got intimate... Yeah, asking for this much shouldn't be a problem.
“Then, could you do this for me?”
“Hmm, quite modest, are we? If you wished, I could easily mount an array of sawblades or puncture spikes.”
“N-No, I'll pass on those.”
If he tacked those on and one slipped, it'd cut my dick right off.
Some time passed after handing her over for modifications.
“There, all finished. Is this what you envisioned?”
“Ooh, this is...”
The moment Yuria stepped out behind Dolcetto, an honest gasp slipped past my lips. Her previously doll-like exterior, where mechanical joints were plainly visible, had been cloaked in soft, human-like flesh. She had been reborn into a true, breathtaking beauty.
“Guardian of the Dungeon, Yuria. Following Master's orders, I have completed my modifications and returned, it is so. Do you find my current appearance satisfactory?”
Furthermore, her voice—which used to glitch due to her ancient manufacture—now rang out crystal clear. Overwhelmed with satisfaction, I flashed Yuria a huge thumbs-up, brimming with anticipation.
“Now we can have way more thrilling fun in bed! Isn't that great, Yuria?”
“...Is that really all you can think of after seeing me like this, you piece of trash?”
Yep. Her verbal abuse had become crystal clear too. Which, naturally, got me incredibly excited.