"Look, Eve! Our first treasure chest!" I say with a smile, pointing at a wooden chest we found. We've been in this dungeon for 14 days total and are currently on the 21st floor.

Thing is, for Eve, the monsters are easy to kill. Of course they are, since I chose a dungeon that wasn't supposed to be too hard. But starting from the 20th floor, the monsters began to get more powerful and appear in massive groups.

On top of that, they've gotten smarter and more dangerous, even using magic, so our progress downward has slowed, and we now need to be cautious when we rest.

We also left that plains area with mountains behind easily. The golems, while strong, appear rarely and in small numbers. But now we've reached a swamp area that started on the 20th floor.

And this place is dangerous. Monsters hide within the swamp and attack by surprise; they've become too clever for us to advance carelessly. And since it's been 14 days since we started this dungeon, I'm finally getting better with the whole death thing. I mean, I had to dissect a lot of monsters to get used to it.

Fortunately, golems don't have organs or flesh, so breaking their bodies to get at the core wasn't really that complicated or mentally draining.

Of course, I still think it's disgusting. I hate being a part of it, and I don't like having to dismantle the monsters' corpses, but I also understand it's important.

And now I can handle it better. I'm even slowly starting to forgive Eve for forcing me to do it. I realized that staying angry at her was hurting our performance and teamwork.

So it's better to leave the past in the past and forgive her completely. I'm trying to be positive again. She just defeated a vine monster, and this chest was in its "nest."

Finally, some good news. We've walked so far and haven't found any chests or really good items until now. Not many people come to this dungeon precisely because it doesn't have many items and it's already been explored to death.

"I see it, Evelyn-sama. You seem excited," Eve says, trying to get back to our usual casual dynamic. She still seems a little off from our normal, but it's okay.

"Let's see what treasures we'll get here!" I know I can't carry too much; Eve and I don't have a spatial or dimensional storage item. The truth is, I didn't choose this dungeon to make money.

I chose it for two reasons: first, to register on my card that Eve and I made it deep into a dungeon, which should earn me some degree of respect from others. And finally, the most important reason, to obtain the materials for the mage puppet.

"...H-Huh? KYAAA!!" The moment I open the chest, I see teeth, a tongue, and no treasure. I'm confused for a second before the chest snaps shut, swallowing half my body.

"H-Help, EVE!!" I shout, my voice muffled. It doesn't actually hurt; its teeth didn't even break my skin, but it's trying to swallow me whole, and it quickly succeeds because I'm too weak to put up any resistance.

I'm quickly covered in a disgusting, odorless liquid—I can't tell if it's saliva or something else. I try to move, but the space is cramped. Then, the lid is forced open, and Eve pulls me out.

Once I'm free, she shreds the chest to pieces while I'm completely covered in that crap.

"..." Eve looks at me with pity and averts her eyes. I tried to be positive, but the damn chest was a fucking mimic, and I fell for it like a total sucker.

"Dammit... dammit... why am I so unlucky?" Twenty-one floors and we haven't found anything valuable aside from the core we got way back at the start. And that core alone isn't enough; we're still missing a material for the puppet's body.

"Hic..." I let out a choked sob but force myself not to cry. I hate being so unlucky. I'm sure finding this mimic was the fault of my shitty curse.

"You piece of trash! You piece of trash!! Why does this only happen to me?" I say furiously, kicking the pieces of the mimic.

"Why does the universe just want to fuck with me? It's not fair! Why all this stupid, pointless hatred aimed at me?!" I scream, filled with a sense of injustice. I can't even open a single chest without finding a miserable mimic.

The worst part isn't finding the mimic—that's normal in a dungeon. The worst part is that it was literally the first chest.

"Evelyn-sama, please calm down..." Eve says, but I kick the ground hard.

"Shut up! I don't need to calm down!! It's this shitty universe that—"

"ARRGGGG!" A thunderous roar cuts me off.

"..." In a moment that seems infinitely slow, I see Eve shove me with all her might, and then she's cut in two by a monster. She has a look... of relief, as if getting me out of the way was the most important thing.

"..." I soon see what cut Eve in two: a huge tiger-shaped monster. It's completely white, covered in flames all over its body, and stands over 3 meters tall. However, it's missing several teeth, one of its fangs is broken, and one of its eyes is completely torn out.

It has many other large wounds all over its body. Even so, it was faster than Eve, who focuses on speed.

"E-Eve..." My mind starts to reel as the tiger begins to devour one half of Eve in a single bite. Soon, it goes for the other half and starts "dismantling" it, tearing off her arms and head as it eats.

'Eve died?... She died? Am I going to die?... What is this? Why is... this thing here?' My mind spins completely, full of questions as tears stream down my face. Eve sacrificed herself to save me.

And I recognize this thing. It's the [Mountain Black Tiger], a flame tiger that isn't actually a dungeon monster but a summon. And from its wounds, it looks like someone summoned it here, probably to kill a specific person or group.

The tiger fought and probably won, but was abandoned here. That's why something like it is on such a low floor. It's undoubtedly Rank B, bordering on Rank A. And that wave of magic we felt earlier was probably because it was still fighting.

And since it's an opportunistic predator, it's good at hiding. That's why Eve and I didn't notice it was on this floor, hunting us.

I make a face of pure horror as I scramble backward. Watching Eve get torn apart and devoured is like looking in a mirror. She's exactly like me, so it's like watching my own future, which will happen in less than 30 seconds once the tiger finishes with her.

"Haa... Haaa..." I start to hyperventilate as I watch this purely cruel scene. My mind tries to comprehend the brutality I'm witnessing while my body trembles for its own life. I can't even stand up because my legs are shaking and my heart is pounding like crazy.

I hear the cracking of bones being crushed and broken. The wet, agonizing sound of flesh being chewed completely terrifies me, making me cover my ears in fear.

'E-Eve's not dead... I-I know... I know, th-there's no way she's dead... sh-she wouldn't die and a-abandon me... sh-she's alive... th-this is just a nightmare.' My mind goes into shock. I'm right; Eve can't be dead because she's a puppet.

'I-I can rebuild her... b-but how?' If I don't get out of here alive, I can't rebuild her. But without her here to save me, I'll die. And I don't have the materials to rebuild her.

'Dammit, it's all my fault! I was an idiot! I should have listened to her.' My stupid complaints messed everything up. If I hadn't made her feel bad, she would have been more alert and would have noticed the tiger approaching.

But I distracted her the entire time over the last few days, all because I didn't forgive her when she was just trying to help me.

Soon, the tiger finishes eating. It took less than 10 seconds for it to completely consume Eve's body. It seems to be hunting for food to recover. It quickly notices me and starts to approach.

It doesn't even see me as a threat, so it doesn't bother to charge at speed. My mind seems to short-circuit as I cry like a helpless child, scrambling backward and throwing mud at it as if that could keep it away.

'I-I don't want to die... I-I don't want to die again!!... S-Someone, p-please save me.' I had the rare chance to live again. I don't want to die again, and worse yet, die as the usual coward who only knows how to hide.

I'm afraid of death, and that fear fills my heart with despair, making it race. But I'm not that failure from the past anymore, and the original Evelyn wasn't the failure everyone said she was either.

'I-I will survive! Even if I have to risk everything... I-I need to survive.' I'm not a fighter. I never have been and never will be. That's my fate for having this Puppeteer ability.

But there is something I have precisely because I'm a high-ranking demon in terms of race. I have something that only powerful lineages possess, something that has always been with me, even though I've never used it.

"DOMAIN [Puppet Theater]." I use my Domain, something that could be called a trump card for any demon—a personal dimension where I am the one with all the advantages.

I don't even know how to use this. In pure desperation, I just spend almost all the power I have to try and use my one chance at salvation. After all, Eve is a puppet that already exists.

Meaning, she can be fully restored within the Domain, even if I don't have the materials, because that's what a Domain is: a stolen ability that exacts a great cost from the user in exchange for giving "absolute" advantage within its area.

Immediately, the entire area is covered in darkness and begins to fragment as if reality were shattering like glass. The tiger and I are locked in place as everything is reconstructed, as if time were reversing to connect each shard of glass again.

But what is rebuilt is something totally different from before. We leave the swamp and are now on a puppet stage. It has a classic, simple style, like a child's puppet theater, with a stage made entirely of wood and large red curtains separating the stage from the audience seats.

But the biggest difference is the absurd size. A normal puppet stage would be about 5 meters in every direction as a standard, but my stage is 500 meters in every direction.

'It's so... big...' All the knowledge I need about this dimension just pops into my head.

Literally the size equivalent of 35 soccer fields, or an entire neighborhood in terms of area, which is completely abnormal. Of course, considering its function as a dimension, it kinda makes sense for it to be this big.

But this is just the stage. Attached are the audience seats, measuring 1500 meters in every direction, which is equivalent to 315 soccer fields. The audience seating area alone is 2,250,000 square meters.

'4,000,000 square meters total... It's so... marvelous...' I feel strangely good in this place. It gives me a pleasant, pleasurable tingling sensation.

Literally a dimension that, considering the stage and audience area combined, is the size of an entire city. Perfect for a puppeteer like me.

I look coldly at the tiger, feeling a strange sensation as I begin to use the Domain's benefits.

"Welcome to Scene 1. This is where you die, you piece of trash." My voice comes out with a bone-chilling coldness as I point at the tiger.

"You will pay dearly for hurting Eve."

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