The Fiend's Creation System

Procuring Materials 1

Julius immediately felt the connection between his mind and the homunculus in front of him. When the link was established, the system prompted him with something.

[Minimap function has been unlocked.]

“What?”

A large screen appeared in front of Julius in the next moment. There weren't many details or writing on this screen. Instead, it just showed a green dot in the middle with his name floating on top that signified his current location. There was a blue dot next to him while another 2 were farther away from him and moving.

On one of those blue dots away from him, there was Eisha’s name floating on top of it. As they kept moving, details began appearing on the screen. 

“Oh, it’s showing everyone’s positions… blues are allies and green is me…”

As the Eisha and the homunculus continued moving around, Julius’s minimap was updating itself in real-time. The terrain and the details of the area that Eisha and the homunculus explored were also shown and he could change the perspective from a bird’s-eye view to a third-person view around any person he selected on his screen.

[Some advanced functions of the Minimap have been locked. Please raise your level and civilization level to unlock more functions!

Shared Sight (Locked)

Detail Upgrade (Locked 

Minimap Link (Locked)

Thought Network (Locked)

Note: Unlocked functions can be upgraded

]

Now, this was something. The Shared Sight function allowed him to see what an ally was seeing directly, the Minimap Link let others he designated gain the ability to use the minimap while the Thought Network let him create a mind network that connected his mind to his allies.

War was always about communication and timing. Being able to precisely see his allies and enemies' locations was already a big plus, but if he was able to command them promptly and have them react quickly to their enemies’ movements, he’d have an edge in all the battles he conducted.

If he was going to fight his brother and kill Maximilian, the bastard who led the coup in his brother’s stead and killed his father, this was going to give him an advantage. However, he needed to unlock all the minimap’s functions first.

“Homunculus, go and scout the area around this cave,” Julius ordered.

He needed to map the terrain around him for tonight’s operation. He needed to find any advantage he could to hunt one of those monsters down. He didn’t know exactly how powerful they were or their numbers, so it was better if he used every advantage he could get.

“Understood.”

The faceless homunculus quickly dashed out of the cave on all-fours. As soon as he rushed out, the homunculus began moving around the cave in a circle, slowly moving away after it made a full rotation.

Julius’s minimap began filling up with the details of the terrain around him, giving it a little bit more detail than earlier. Naturally, since it was just a barren wasteland, only the differences between the terrain’s height were shown. 

There was nothing more except for that because there were no trees or rivers. Some other rock outcrops appeared but they didn’t have any caves like his. Julius also began thinking that it was such a pleasant coincidence that the cave he was led to by the system happened to have no monsters living in it.

He didn’t question it any further because it was a good thing for him that he managed to find shelter. Naturally, Julius didn’t know that the monsters living in the Shifting Hallows all had one thing in common, they were afraid of and weak against water.

This was why they lived underground and stayed away from the cave where there was a natural pool of water there. 

As his minimap continued to update with more details occasionally appearing here and there, he turned his attention back to Eisha and the homunculus with her. They had arrived at another distant outcrop and their positions had remained stationary for a good 30 minutes.

“Maybe they found something. Also, I have to name that homunculus that looks like me. I didn’t think the spawned homunculus and the ones created by me would look so...different…”

Over at Eisha’s side, just like what Julius saw on his minimap, the maid and the homunculus had both stopped at an outcrop a distance away from the cave.

They didn’t need to worry about distancing themselves too far from Julius since they could easily go back by following the link they had to each other. They could faintly feel each others’ presence despite being physically far away.

The two stopped at the outcrop because they had found a tree growing out of it from the side. Just like what Julius said before, the outcrop probably had some water stored underneath which allowed the tree to grow.

Eisha thought that it would be a good idea to pull out the tree and replant it back at their cave. She also wanted to test how strong her D-rated strength was. 

“Help Eisha pull this out. Be careful not to damage the taproot!”

“Yes, Lady Eisha…”

Being called Lady Eisha, was quite weird for her. Only people of high peerage could be addressed as a lady. A commoner like her wouldn’t have that privilege. 

“Enough talk,” Eisha took a sharp rock nearby and was about to dig out the sides of the plant, but the homunculus quickly stopped her.

It stepped forward and its arms began transforming into funnels. The homunculus then began sucking away the earth around the tree making sure not to accidentally suck in the tree’s roots.

“Well, aren’t you convenient!” Eisha exclaimed as she dropped the rock and patted the homunculus’s head.

The homunculus continued to filter away the dirt and soon, the tree began toppling over because it had lost its base of support. Eisha quickly stepped forward to try and keep the tree straight. If it fell right now, the taproot would immediately snap and this wasn’t what she wanted.

To her surprise, she was actually able to keep the tree upright and with little effort. She didn’t need to strain herself like she initially thought.

“D-rank strength...I’ll be of more use to my prince now!”

The duo was soon able to safely pull the tree out and with little effort, they began dragging the tree back towards the cave.

Julius saw that the two were on their way back so he waited for them at the entrance. A few minutes later, Julius was able to see the two in the distance, dragging back the tree that they had uprooted.

“Oh, nice!”

They soon reached the cave and Julius greeted them, “Good job. We can use this!”

“Prince, Eisha thinks that it would be better to replant this tree. Eisha had looked around and this was the only one in the area. If we use it now, we won’t be able to procure more in the future,” Eisha suggested.

“That’s true, Eisha...but trees take a long time to―”

[Solution: the nutritional fluids from the hatchery can be used to speed up the growth process of living organisms]

“Okay, nevermind. We’ll plant this and water it with the nutrient fluids from the hatchery.”

Eisha nodded and with the homunculus, the two began replanting it. After the hole was dug and Eisha hefted the tree up into the hole, Julius finally noticed the queerness of the situation.

“E-Eisha! When did you―how did you―”

“Hehehe, Prince, do you like Eisha’s new powers?” Eisha said as she gave him a pose.

“Yes! If you’re that strong, we’ll definitely be able to kill one of the monsters later!” Julius said as he rushed up to hug her.

Eisha was a little surprised but she gladly returned the hug. 

“Prince~”

“Eh? O-oh, I’m sorry...haha…” Julius quickly released her when the maid blew into his ear and seductively whispered to him.

Julius felt a little puzzled as to why Eisha did that but he immediately stopped thinking about it. 

‘Pure thought, pure thoughts...remember, she’s your sister. Your precious older sister…’

He released a breath and tried to shake all of the negative thoughts in his head.

Julius’s homunculus look-alike finished the replanting by itself while Julius led Eisha back into the cave with him. 

During the spare time he had while waiting for them, he had carved a rough outline of the minimap on a flat section of the cave’s walls.

“What is this, Prince?”

“While you two were away, another homunculus had spawned from the Creation Pod and I unlocked a system function, the minimap.”

“Minimap?”

“Yes, I can’t share it with you yet, but I’ll be able to in the future. For now, you’ll have to make do with this,” Julius said as he pointed at the wall. 

Eisha saw a few worn-out rocks on the ground. Her Prince had been busy even though he should have been resting. She looked at the map drawn on the wall and quickly memorized it.

Her D-ranked intelligence allowed her to achieve this feat of simple memorization. She judged that it was just a map of the area around them. 

“Prince now has a map… don’t tell me you personally walked out and scouted the area around us? Please leave that kind of work to me, Prince! You’re still recovering!”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything. It was you and the other newly spawned homunculus. Any place you go to, it will update my map. So you don’t have to worry about a thing, Eisha.”

“Really? Ok, good. So right now, is that new homunculus still scouting out the area?”

“Yes, I’ll call it back once it’s almost nightfall.”

Julius then began explaining his plan. He wanted to lure one of the monsters at night into the cave by using the new homunculus as bait. He could open and close the fleshwall at will so it would be easy to trap just a single one of the monsters inside.

The only problem was finding out what kind of monster they were going to be up against. Julius hoped that it wouldn’t be a ridiculously strong monster that could wipe them all out.

“You’ll be the main attacker. We don’t have a weapon so you’ll need to use brute force later. Naturally, if the target is too strong, we’ll just sacrifice the homunculus and think of another way.”

“Yes, Prince.”

*****

Night soon fell and they quickly began preparing. Earlier that day, when the other homunculus returned, Eisha nearly attacked it because of its strange appearance. She thought that the homunculus would look more like her Prince’s look-alike homunculus, not this freaky no-faced monster.

The howls and shrieks of the Shifting Hallows’ nocturnal monsters began echoing through the night. This time, however, Julius and Eisha weren’t sleeping. They were ready to hunt the sources of those terrifying sounds.

“Number 1, you and number 2 will go and lure one of those monsters over here. Make sure you lure only one of them in!”

“Understood, Lord.”

The two homunculi responded together in unison before quickly walking out of the cave. The fleshwall opened up for them and quickly closed once they passed through. 

Eisha was left behind with Julius and it wasn’t because he was doubting her abilities. He saw the 2 homunculi as expendables so they could play the part as bait. Eisha, however, was not expendable. 

Eisha wasn’t mad that she was excluded from the operation, instead, she felt quite happy that her prince saw her in that way. She moved up next to him and began rubbing her body on his back.

“Eisha?”

“Hm?”

“N-Nothing…”

Julius rather enjoyed feeling Eisha’s two plump mountains against his back. His body was about to react to it so he quickly grabbed Eisha’s hand. He held her hand like he did back when they were younger. 

His mind calmed down so he quickly focused his mind back onto the minimap and kept track of the two homunculi’s location. He also noticed that multiple red markers began appearing on his minimap in significant numbers.

Eisha stopped misbehaving when she saw the serious look on her prince’s face. She was already content that Julius had taken the initiative to hold her hand though she felt that it was different from how a romantic couple held hands. 

However, this was already progress. At the very least, it wasn’t like before when they were still at the castle where it was harder for them to do any skinship when they got older and more mature.

“I’ll have you for myself, my prince~”

“What’s that Eisha?”

“Nothing~”

“?”

Julius turned his attention back to the screen and began clenching his other free hand. He was nervous because the red markers on his minimap continued to grow more and more. 

The sheer number of markers frightened him at this point as the minimap was almost entirely covered in red markers, save for the small area around his cave which seemed like the only haven in the nearby area.

The two blue dots that signified the two homunculi had come to the periphery of where the red markers were at as they began moving to and from it. A few red markers chased after the two blue ones but they began moving back when they got too far away from the red area.

“They’re a herd...even if we try to bait one to follow, they’d just get back into position once they moved too far away…”

Julius closed his eyes and began thinking hard about what he wanted the homunculi to do. He had just figured out that even without the Thought Network function of the minimap, he was still able to control his troops to some extent by strongly thinking about it and relaying the commands through the connection he had with them.

They were all part of the collective consciousness so they were interconnected in some way. After Julius sent out his command to the homunculi, he soon noticed that their actions on the minimap began to change.

Instead of poking in and out of the red area, the two blue dots quickly plunged deep into it before making their way out. This time, they attracted quite a lot of the red markers.

One of the blue dots disappeared but the other one was still making its way back. Behind Julius and Eisha, another flesh sac from the Creation Pod fell from the ceiling. 

[Homunculus Spawned

Spawn Timer: 10 hours 30 minutes]

Apparently, he could only have 2 homunculi with him for now. The timer would continue to move but once the next spawn timer reached the end, the other homunculi wouldn’t spawn unless the previous one died.

Julius had experimented with one of the homunculi before this. He had it dig underground until it found the monsters and when it did, it immediately died. A new spawned a few hours later once the timer was finished.

They waited for the next one to spawn but it didn’t. It only spawned just now when the other homunculus had perished. The newly spawned homunculus quickly walked over to Julius and Eisha. It stood behind them on standby, not making any noises and waiting for its lord or lady to give it an order.

The remaining blue dot was still being chased by the red markers. A few of them had broken off and returned to the red area but there was still quite a bit that chased after the surviving homunculus.

“Eisha, get ready. It’s almost here!”

“Right!”

Eisha reluctantly released Julius’s hand and quickly went over to the fleshwall and got ready.

The fleshwall soon opened and the Julius look-alike homunculus, number 1, quickly passed through. It was injured and bleeding in a few places. Maybe because it was small, the monsters had a hard time targeting it.

Behind the number 1, a few monsters were chasing after it, as the first monster quickly stepped through the fleshwall, Julius immediately closed it.

“Close!”

The other monsters lagging behind smashed into the fleshwall and rebounded backward. Julius was a little anxious since the monsters might be able to tear the fleshwall down but that was the least of his worries right now.

“Number 1 and 2! Quickly restrain it!”

The two homunculi inside the cave made their move at his orders. Even the injured number 1 didn’t hesitate to move once it received the command. 

Julius inched a little closer and glared at the monster now trapped inside the cave.

“A herd...now...it was actually a swarm…” 

Julius stared at the large insect monster in front of him. It had the shape of an oversized praying mantis. Its mandibles clicked threateningly as it scuttled around in a circle, swinging its dangerously sharp arms at the two homunculi who were trying to restrain it with their tentacle transformed arms.

“Kiiiieeeeeekkkkkk!”

“Eisha, now!” 

“AHHHHH!!!!”