Mmh… Seems like about a year has passed. Which is the same amount of time you spent inside the A.R.DL. Time was not distorted or warped in any way. Time flowed exactly as it appeared… But I think it is a good thing, actually. By now, any problems or enmity we might have cultivated should have been left aside

  As far as it looks, we’ve truly been gone during the events of the alternate reality. Otherwise, SHLAD-01 would have destroyed your steel body far more thoroughly–Much like when you go into a nightmare trial, your physical body was absent from the material world entirely

  This could be big. We might be able to reinsert ourselves into the framework of the real reality without anyone suspecting that you are the nightmare master. In fact, SHLAD-01 might have just been decommissioned, or at least, is likely to have been deactivated, since he shouldn’t have been able to detect your location in the least

  …We just need to figure out what we are going to be doing. Unfortunately, it seems like this whole ordeal awarded no XP or anything else other than the ‘Nightmare Form’. What do you think, Big Sis? Although your plans often make me worry for your safety, they’ve proven to be quite efficient

  Heheh, thanks, Nara. I do have an idea, but it will require a bunch of planning and some boring stuff to even be possible… But to be perfectly honest, even if time has passed, I am still in a bad position. There is no way Leton actually wholeheartedly believes that I am gone. If I make too many waves, he’ll be on my ass instantly–Also, if I use my nightmares too much again, I’ll definitely trigger at least several kingdoms to go into a witch hunt.

  They know what I am capable of when given the means now. If they sniff even a bread crumb of my presence… They’ll lose their freaking minds. I need new allies to hide behind, and more importantly–I need new forms with completely different powers from what I have shown.

  Mascot Form

  Revenant Jack-Out-Of-The-Box

  Wire Mess Form

  Pure Spirit Form

  Rusted Plague Form

  Biobot Form

  Ghost In The Machine

  None of those seems to have their conditions close to completed, however, and apart from perhaps the ‘Wire Mess Form’, I don’t have a single flying clue what the conditions I need to fulfil are. Even then, the ‘Wire Mess Form’ seems to crave wire-based upgrades, and I am starving for even a single upgrade these days. The cost in experience to get even a single pick is simply outrageous.

  It is to the point that it feels like aeons since one last graced my sight–Say, Nara… Will something be done about this eventually? Or do I need to figure out a new way of getting upgrades so that they aren’t so freakishly rare and difficult to attain?

  The second option is the way to go. My fingers will be–Metapohtically speaking–Whacked if I elaborate too greatly, but there are indeed additional ways of acquiring upgrades other than through the system and accumulating experience. I am sure that you can figure it out on your own, though

  You always believe in me, don’t you? What an adorable little munchkin you are. I hope you like being held, because you aren’t leaving my arms for a while when you get a physical body.

  I am starting to think that I am going to get squeezed…

  You would be correct in thinking so. Hehe.

  Anyway, I think I am done with this more difficult instance of Glown’s Wonderland. Somebody is definitely going to have a whole lot of fun with this one in the future!

  I could test it myself to see if things actually worked properly. As far as I was aware, if I made a trial actually impossible, it just wouldn’t ever be picked out of the instances for the pre-final nightmare trial. As far as I could tell, even when I asked my clown girls to go for the nastiest, least forgiving combination of attacks and timings–It was still technically possible to survive.

  There was definitely luck involved, but luck was involved in everything, wasn’t it? I couldn’t be blamed for this. Any future misfortune could only be blamed on the challenger and certainly not on any conceptual flaw on my end. There were no flaws, it was just that the challenger was a second though… Challengers were only here to gawk at my beautiful creations, struggle, cry, have panic attacks, and get slaughtered.

  In any case… Where are my other little sisters?

  I summoned my phantom troupe, and they manifested above ground. By all means, they seemed quite confused and turned around.

  Elowen helped me extract myself from my shallow grave, and I found myself in what seemed to be the exact spot I was in just as SHLAD had been about to turn me into scrap metal. Even if a year had passed, I found it a bit odd that I would just be spat back out underground. Surely the landscape couldn’t have changed this much in such a short period of time…

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Niiiiiice… JooooOoooob…”

  Oh, my voice was messed up–In a different way than normal, I mean. I guess I had indeed suffered a whole lot of damage before being dragged into a dreamland.

  Not to mention that somehow, I looked even more messed up now. Did the passage of time take effect even though I literally wasn’t even physically present? This is quite some bullshit.

  …Actually, is this even the correct kind of damage…? I was fairly certain that I had lost my entire jaw at one point, but now, I was only missing the lower portion of it. Also, I remembered losing my right hand, but the left was gone instead, but at least I was missing the right foot–Which was the left, in this case.

  I don’t have any idea why the damages I sustained had somehow managed to change, but on top of a whole bunch of damage across my entire body, I was also rusty. My joints were grinding and creaking with every motion, slowing me down quite significantly. Coupled with my limp since my left foot was gone… I was really out of shape.

  Even the right hand that I still had was mangled. The hand and fingers were fused together, the scars of me pounding down on the reinforced frame of SHLAD-01 using my full strength. Well, at least my little sisters are fine.

  “Big Sis… What… Happened…? It feels like… We blanked out…”

  Poppy spoke up, and I placed my misshapen hand atop her blonde head. I still remember how happy she had been as a mother in the A.R.DL… It was quite the whiplash to see the difference. Not just the fact that she was ghostly with the appearance of a bloodied undead here, but just how much younger she actually was.

  The other version of herself could be an entirely different person. They were alike, but the alternate one had actually lived a full life and ended up as the wife of the freaking city lord.

  The Poppy in front of me was still a young woman–Still cute and adorable… My little sister…

  …I much preferred her this way.

  “IIIIIt isssss A loooong StooOry…”

  With my ‘glitched’ voice–I had learned quite a lot of words from this A.R.DL thingy–It was rather difficult to speak coherently, but my little sisters were used to my speech bugging out all the time. They listened attentively as I explained that I was transported to an alternate reality, a sort of parallel world where things were different, and that we had all been absent from the real world for more than a year.

  It seemed like they had been completely dormant, just like Nara. The versions of themselves I interacted with in the A.R.DL had not had anything to do with them. I would have thought that they would have been transported and given new roles alongside me, but it truly seemed like I had been fully alone.

  Which was greatly reassuring, it meant that the actual Mari of this world had no idea of the things that I had done… After mixing a concerning amount of saliva with that other version of her, I came to realise what the look she had given me back inside the nightmare trial had actually been… Which explained why, in this other reality, she had been immediately attracted to me like Adem.

  I guess it was just a thing that was so strong that I had to be in even other realities…

  I still think it would be a good idea…

  Now, do not play matchmakers with your big sister, Nara! Or at least, do it with a handsome, muscular, and influential man.

  I just think that you are more suited for someone like Mari… I feel like it isn’t really in your blood to be the obedient wife that you aspire to be

  Well, I never got to try, so we don’t know!

  We could ask for the opinion of my sisters on the matter

  Definitely not! I know you all. You’ll definitely all agree.

  I am not claiming that the opinion of the majority is so because it is the truth, but you know… Sometimes, a lot of people believe the same thing because it is simply correct!

  Mmh… I won’t be hearing the end of it, will I? Well… Calm down about trying to marry me to Mari for now. I need to recover and get a footing. The power balance of the continent has surely changed since the last time I was here. As far as I know, Beelmart was crushed.

  As stuck in the past, and as much of a bad position they were in because of it, they might have been–Beelmart had still been a major player on the continent, whatever happened to the slave-driven kingdom definitely hit it hard…

  I limped my way out of the woods, picking my head out from behind a tree. There, the beastfolk city, whose main trade method I had brutally destroyed, still stood tall, surrounded by the same great lake as before.

  It would be really nice if I could transform into that tigress form I had in the nightmare right now. Alas… I guess I’ll have to invent another story to get information peacefully.

  Of course, I could just grab someone and squeeze them for all the information that they had, but I would rather not kill anyone for now. I wanted to lie low–Really low until I got a good idea of what trajectory I was going to take.

  The first step was to find some creatures to devour and return to my top shape. The second step was to fix up my attire as best as I could–For some reason, only my actual body seemed to suffer from the passage of time. The fancy clothes I had been wearing were in the same state as they had been last time.

  They weren’t pristine by any means, but they were still good enough in my opinion… Not to mention that the violet cloak featured a rather wide and big hood that I could use to conceal my more monstrous traits.

  The plan was simple. Pretend to be a sapient golem–I know that they are a thing that exists, many people should know that they exist, therefore, I should be able to fool people well enough if I actually try.

  I was going to inform myself about how things were nowadays, and then calmly–And without bloodshed, massacre, slaughter, or any form of murder–Find my way to a place or organisation where I can do my thing without risking getting stomped on by the power of one or more countries.

  Ahh… How unjust. Can’t a girl live her life like she wants to? I have little sisters to take care of, and they won’t let me eat people as I please…

  Heheh. I have a good feeling about this, though. I think I’ll do quite well–As long as I don’t attract attention, at least.