Author note:
Just to give info, it was not a new chapter, instead a rewritten chapter.
Another info, I think my motivation to write and live is low now, so I decided to fully rewrite my story this time, in hope to raise one of the two, I'm fine in whichever.
After weighing the benefit and risk between Alice and Marisa, Iyan decided to transform Alice. He believed dealing with the aftermath of the loner Alice would be much better than the kleptomaniac Marisa. Of course there is another benefit of being Alice, and that was fulfilling one of the condition to unlock All of Touhou's cast clothes. That way even if he doesn't have any points, he could at least still have clothes that fit him.
"Transform, Alice."
In Gensokyo's forest of magic, lived a magician named Margatroid Alice. Inside her house many doll were present, and each one of them was handmade by her. Their design was similar to herself with blonde hair and pale colored skin, if one saw Alice some thought that she too was a doll.
Unlike Patchouli with her many variety of magic, her magic mainly about controlling a lot of doll. Her expertise with that magic was impressed even Patchouli. Her fighting style was like a puppeteer that controlling the doll and the enemy like it was a play. With her perfect control of the doll, she made her enemy dance in an outnumbered fight against her many doll. But any fighting against her never ended up as her curb stomping her enemy. She preferred to limit her power equal to her opponent, that way she could enjoy the fight more.
Despite that, unlike many residents of Gensokyo who tended to be hostile towards humans, Alice was a friendly magician. She would offers shelter to those who were lost in the forest of magic and found their way to her house. However, despite her hospitality, many who she sheltered in her house would wanted to ran away as soon as possible because of Alice's doll and her behavior during her experiments. Even so, most of them endured the eerie atmosphere and choose to stayed in her house, since the magic forest at night was much more dangerous place than inside her house.
Once in a while Alice would go to the human village, and performing a play with her doll. With her skillful display of manipulating the doll many villagers showed a great interest toward her show. While performing her show Alice never failed to observed her audience expression and emotion. She would changed her story on the spot to elicit more reaction from her audience. Their reaction was an important material for her since they would be used as a study material for fulfilling her goal of creating an autonomous doll.
One day, after Alice performed in the human village and going back to her house, she found Patchouli's familiar Koakuma waited for her.
"There you are miss Alice," Koakuma said.
"It is rare for Patchouli to let you out. Is there something she need from me?"
"Yes, miss Patchouli told me to inform you to be prepare getting transported to another world."
"Huh?"
As Alice going to invite Koakuma into her home for a deeper discussion, she suddenly found herself inside herself inside a room she was not recognized. Confused by the situation, Alice looked around and found herself in a basement library with minimal light, something that Patchouli would like. Then shortly after that a fragment of memories she never had stitching themselves together with her own memories. It was quite disorienting feeling for Alice, but it explained why and how she ended up in this situation.
"So this is what Koakuma means."
After getting Iyan's memories, Alice quickly adapted to this world. The first thing she did was opening the Item Shop and exchange the point with the material to create her doll, including the gun powder. Unfortunately, the amount she could exchange the material was not enough for her. But still Alice exchanged it and started creating her doll.
Meanwhile, as Lucifer diminished into nothing more than a background for Alice, it made him interested in Alice. For Lucifer it had became a normal occurrence to witness people cower in fear at mere sight of him. However, being ignored completely was something he never expected would happened to him. It made him wondered what kind of thing lived in Gensokyo that his existence was something to be ignored.
After some time passed, Lucifer got bored getting ignored by Alice. Seeking to get her attention, he sent a subtle killing intent toward her. However, in an instant, he found himself in a dangerous situation. A high-speed doll wielding a spear with deadly precision hurtled toward his head. Instinctively, Lucifer moved his head away and managed to avoid being impaled by it.
"If you are going to pick a fight with me then I accept it." Alice said.
Two flying dolls appeared near Alice, one holding a shield and a rapier, while the other held a cleaver. Since Lucifer had no intention to fight with Alice, he raised his hands in surrender.
"Sorry, I did not mean to start a fight with you. I just wanted to have a little talk."
Alice sighed and returned to her seat, continuing to sew clothes for her doll. Lucifer anxiously awaited her response, unsure of how she would react.
"You can speak. I will listen."
"Thank you, Miss Alice," Then Lucifer gracefully bowed. "Did you also coming from Gensokyo, Miss Alice?""
"Yes,"
"May I ask your relation with Miss Patchouli?"
"We are nothing more than acquaintance."
Then Alice finished sewing a cloth for her doll, and immediately put on the dress she just made to one of her finished dolls. If it wasn't Lucifer who saw it, they would mistaken believed that the doll suddenly spring to life and then helped Alice willingly. But Lucifer knew that even the newly created, and the three previous doll was controlled magically by Alice.
"I must say, Miss Alice, your craftsmanship is truly remarkable. your control of magic was much more amazing than Miss Patchouli."
"That should be obvious, she may have a more diverse magic than me, but if it is about control, then I am much more superior to her."
Alice finished another dress and put it to another doll. Just like before the doll immediately help her create another clothes.
"Is there anything else you want to ask?"
"No, there is not."
Despite still having a lot of questions, Lucifer decided to stop asking. He knew Alice wanted to focus more on her doll creation than answering his question. As for Alice, she continued creating another doll and clothes for it.
After three hours and creating ten dolls, Alice stopped making another doll, not because of fatigue, but because she did not had any material left to create another one.
Alice turned to Lucifer and asked, "Lucifer, do you know where many monsters gather near this area?"
"I know," Lucifer quickly responded, "But may I know why you want to find them?"
"I'm out of material for creating more doll, and there are no more point left to be exchanged."
"Points?" Lucifer was momentarily confused until he remembered what Alice meant. "Oh, the point for the exchange points system. If that's the case, how about the dungeon? That place is always full of monsters."
"That's good idea, but let's go there tomorrow. Since I had perform in the village in Gensokyo, my body feel sluggish. I want to rest for tonight."
"Very well, Miss Alice. Allow my imp to show you your room."
Lucifer summoned an imp, and it immediately bowed down in front of Alice.
"Interesting, puppet you have there Lucifer. Let's have a discussion about this too tomorrow."
As Alice followed the imp to her room, Lucifer's attention shifted to the messy desk that Alice left behind. Having lived for a long time, Lucifer had experienced many things, which made it difficult for something to truly intrigue him. However, the items that Alice and Patchouli had purchased from the exchange points managed to capture his interest.
Lucifer had always wanted to examine the writing utensils that Patchouli bought from the shop, but unfortunately, he never had the chance to do so. Patchouli constantly relied on his presence, or the item she bought was used by her all of the time. Not only that, when he was going to inspect when the item became trash, the item gone immediately after Patchouli buying a new one. However, Alice was different from Patchouli, she left some of the cotton that she could not use to create a complete doll on the desk.
Seeing the opportunity, Lucifer took the cotton and started analyzed it. Though despite the item intrigued him, he had a hunch about its origin. As he concluded his analysis, his suspicions were confirmed.
"So those thing still playing with the system."
While Lucifer was curious about the intentions of those "gods" and what they would do with the system, he was much more interested in Iyan and Gensokyo's denizen. Breaking free from the status system had long been one of his goals. Something that he failed to achieve and considering to be impossible. That was until Patchouli with her out of the world magic showed him that he could break from the system. Now Lucifer wondered what kind of magic Alice would showed him.
But first, he needed to made an excuse for Alice to join the adventure Guild. With their registration system Lucifer would knew Alice's status without him raising her suspicions using appraisal skill, or get blocked by her. He then remembered that she wanted to have more material for her doll, maybe he could use that to persuade her.
Alice woke up early in the morning, rubbing her eyes and stretching her arms. Normally, she would change into a fresh outfit, but since this was her only clothes, she decided to skip that step. Then she usually doing cleaning and cooking using her doll after that, but the imp summoned by Lucifer had taken care of those tasks. With unexpected free time on her hands, Alice pondered how to make the most of it and decided to prepare for their upcoming dungeon journey.
As she gathered her belongings and reviewed her supplies, a sweet aroma filled the air, capturing her attention. She followed the enticing scent, which led her to the doorway where Lucifer stood.
"Good morning, Miss Alice," Lucifer greeted her with a warm smile. "Breakfast is ready if you'd like to eat first before we leave."
"Nice smell, I think I will take breakfast first,"
Together, Alice and Lucifer made their way towards the dining room. As she entered the dining room, she saw many dishes prepared for her. Most, if not all of the dish was using fruit and herb she never saw in Gensokyo. She wondered whether those herb had an effect that could help her with her experiment.
Then she took a seat at one of the chair. The first bite she took from the meat was so good that she could compared it with dishes made by the scarlet devil's maid, Sakuya.
Looking up at Lucifer, she asked, "This is delicious. Did you cook this, Lucifer?"
"It's my imp who cooked this."
"About the imps, I'm curious, are they a part of your summoning magic, or you summoned them from somewhere and bringing them here?"
"It's a combination of both, actually. I found them somewhere, and then infused them with my magic, that way they will forced to be obedient to me. After that, I would just put them in an easy place to get whenever I need them."
"Heh, must be nice to be able experimenting like that. If I were to do something similar with humans in Gensokyo, I'm certain the shrine maiden would pay me a visit."
"Ah, since you mentioned the shrine maiden, can you tell me more about her? Iyan has spoken highly of her since she is his favorite character. I think he has a bias because of that, I wonder if the shrine maiden is as strong as he claimed."
Alice paused her meal as she memorized everything she could think of about Reimu, including what Iyan had said to Lucifer in the dungeon.
"Whatever Iyan tell you about her is exaggerated," she remarked. "She is weaker than me, but I rather not fighting her. Fighting her is a bother, I will spend too many doll against her. Then when I win against her, the aftermath will be another troublesome thing. Rather than fighting her I preferred to spend my time continuing my research. Of course, if she is the one who ask to have a match with me than I will be more than happy to give it to her."
"I see," Lucifer noted the shift in Alice's mood and decided to steer clear of further questions about Reimu. "Anyway, Miss Alice. Before we go to the dungeon I suggest we visit the adventurer guild first."
"Why would we need to go the guild first?"
"Aside from earning points, we can earn some money by selling the monster material to the adventurer guild. With that money we can buy some of the cotton from the local market. However we must register first as an adventurer since the adventurer guild only buys materials from registered adventurers. "
"That is good idea, then let's visited there first."
Having his suggestion accepted by Alice, Lucifer decided to stop questioning her, in fear her mood worsen. "Then let me finishing your earlier preparation,"
"You don't have to, I have done enough to left immediately."
"Oh, that's great, then please enjoy your food."
After that, Alice continued her eating. This time Lucifer stayed silent so she could enjoy the food without any distraction. Once Alice has finished her breakfast, she and Lucifer left the mansion.
As Alice and Lucifer made their way to the adventurer guild, they was met with many curious gaze. Despite the infamous rumor of Lucifer had been spread around the kingdom, it didn't deter the gazes upon Alice and her doll. Her captivating beauty, perfectly matched with the doll's exquisite craftsmanship, captivated the attention of both men and women alike. Other than that, the doll's movement was lively, making them questions themselves whether it was a familiar not a doll.
From time to time the doll would wave cutely to anyone who showed the slightest interest. Seeing the cute movement of the doll, many couldn't resisted to not waving back at the doll. Some of the kid that they passed would asked their parent to get closer, and if it had not because of Lucifer's reputation then they probably would do so.
Walking beside Alice, Lucifer couldn't help but share in the astonishment of the onlookers. With just a swift glance, Alice could accurately knew which person that interested in her doll, and made the doll waved at them. Lucifer knew for certain that her doll was just a normal doll, and nothing special about them, save for the gunpowder inside them. But anyway, every movement that the doll made was manually done by Alice. He was amazed that Alice could manipulate the doll to do complex movement while stealing glances at the onlookers.
Lucifer found himself in awe of Alice's remarkable multitasking ability. If it was a simple task then he could do what Alice did. But manipulating multiple doll movement and determining which person was interested or not was something he probably could not do. Once again, he was in awe of the exceptional skills possessed by the residents of Gensokyo.
Without encountering any event along the way, they arrived at the adventurer guild within ten minutes. Coincidentally as they arrived at the adventurer guild, Eric's party was exiting the guild's entrance. Once they saw Lucifer, All of them got tense and prepared for a fight, except for Willes.
Willes was captivated by Alice's beauty that he completely disregarding Lucifer's presence beside her. Throughout his adventure, he had encountered countless attractive women, yet none could be compared with Alice beauty. Perhaps it was because most of those attractive woman he met was an adventurer too, so they were vulgar and rough. Contrast to that Alice was like a beautiful and fragile doll to him, it awakened his desire to protect and cherish her.
"Beautiful," Willes blurted out while looking at Alice.
In response to that Alice snicker and replied, "Thank you for the compliment, but could you please move aside?"
"Ah, of course!" Willes promptly pushed Eric to the side. "Step aside, you're blocking the way for everyone."
Eric, taken aback by Willes' sudden action, wore a confused expression. Meanwhile, Lucifer, observing Willes' antics, couldn't help but snickered behind his hand. However, his amusement was short-lived as someone he had anticipated approached.
"It looked like the most bothersome person is coming to greet us, Miss Alice,"
Shortly after Lucifer said that, the guild master of the adventure guild showed up behind Willes's groups.
"What's the commotion in here? Why all of you blocking the entrance?"
Instead of looking at Willes's party whose blocking door, the guild master immediately looked at Lucifer and Alice.
"What's this fallen angel wanted here? Who is the one next to him?" the guildmaster thought.
"Morning, guild master," Then Lucifer exaggeratedly bowing to him, "My apologies, but this whole situation is not our fault. I'm just escorting my master friend here to register as adventurer, and these guys suddenly blocking us." Lucifer pointed to Wille's party.
This time the guild master glanced at Alice, "Regisering? With that looks I think it much easier for her to strike a fortune by marrying some noble than being an adventurer. It looked like I need to add more task to that scout for finding out her background."
"Yes, this commotion is our fault Brax, I'm sorry, Miss ...?"
"Margatroid Alice,"
"Once again, I'm sorry Miss Margatroid to interrupt you. We will leave now since we need to prepare for our quest to the golem dungeon."
"Would you look at that, even that stubborn Willes, getting charmed by her. Why does she wanted to be an adventurer?" Brax the guild master thought.
Then Willes left the guild, faster than his party member. The rest of member followed him, except for Eric. Eric glared at Lucifer, though before he could say anything Lucifer teleported him somewhere else.
"I'm sorry for that unsightly display Miss Alice, but that guy irritated me."
"It's okay," Then Alice looked at the guild master. "I'm flattered by your gaze, but could you please stop staring at me so intensely?"
Realizing it was meant for him, he cleared his throat, "I'm sorry, then please follow me."
Brax, walked inside into the guild, with Alice and Lucifer following closely behind. Despite the usual straightforward registration procedure of paying and being appraised by the Guild's tool, Brax had a different plan in mind. He decided to take Alice to the guildmaster's private room for an interview.
When Alice and Lucifer walked toward the guild master's room, the sight of Lucifer now struck fear into the hearts of most adventurers present. Those who had experienced close encounters with death instinctively recognized that Lucifer was not someone that they should trifle with. However, their fear did not quell their curiosity about Alice. Yes she was beautiful, but that was not the adventurers curious about. Hearing from the commotion outside, they wondered what made Lucifer looked like he obeyed her. But with no one dared ask Alice, their curiousity would not be satisfied for now.
The guild master room was located at the second floor of the adventurer guild. Once they inside the guild master room, Alice and Lucifer saw two armor that was enchanted fully by strong magic beside the guild master desk near the window.
"Wow, you stack a lot of inefficient magic on that armor," Alice said.
"That thing could move to protect me for awhile and still working properly, so I don't care." Brax responded. "Please sit down, Miss Margatroid."
"You are right let's make this as fast as possible."
Alice sat down on the sofa presented in the middle of the room, and then Brax sat on the sofa in front of her. As for Lucifer he stood behind Alice decided to not join the conversation.
"Since you realized about the armor magic, why you choose the adventurer guild and not the magician guild?"
"I heard from someone that you will buy monster material."
"The magician guild will do the same."
"Huh? Then that person failed to mention that to me."
Lucifer who at first going to just listening to the conversation, interjected, "In my defense, the magician guild will pay less than this place,"
"So this is the idea of that demon, huh," Brax thought.
"He's right for that matter," Brax could guess what Lucifer wanted, and it would be a fool of him to not play along with it. "Anyway, since I know now, I will not make this interview longer than it need to be. Let me get the appraisal ball first."
Brax stood up and searched for the appraisal ball on his desk drawer. Once he found it, he put it on the desk in front of Alice.
"Put your hand on this,"
Alice put her hand on the appraisal ball, and then her status projected on top of it.
Margatroid Alice
Race : Human
Level : 15
MP : 530 / 530
AGI : 157
STR : 80
MAG : 305
INT : 230
LUCK : 39
PHY Def : 104
MGC Def : 65
The result of Alice appraisal was making Brax confused, while Lucifer smiled awkwardly since he knew that this status is belong to Iyan.
Lucifer who knew that the status was belong to Iyan showing an awkward expression, "Looked like she knew what I wanted. I should apologize to her later."
While Brax getting confused by it, "Huh, this doesn't make any sense! I'm pretty sure I see her using doll magic outside. Why her skill is not listed in it? Is this thing broke? No, I'm pretty sure this one still work properly."
"Did you somehow change the result of the appraisal?" Brax asked Alice.
"Why would I? Is there something wrong it?" Alice answered.
"Nothing, but this is the status of a lazy mage. Though I never heard about someone capable of manipulating the appraisal ball result, but I don't think this status belong to you."
"Just like you said, the result of this thing cannot be manipulated. Maybe I'm a lazy mage."
"Urgh, fine, I will create your adventurer card so please wait a little bit."
After confirmed that Brax has leaving far enough, Lucifer bowed to Alice, "I'm sorry for my crude behavior, Miss Alice." Alice just smiled at Lucifer and saying nothing, making Lucifer bowing even lower. "I'm really regretful for trying to probe you with this indirect way, I would be grateful if you are going to accept my apologize."
Alice laugh a little, before saying, "It's okay, I accept your apologize, I just want to tease you a little."
"Thank you, Miss Alice," Lucifer stood up and asked Alice again, "Can I see your real status value?"
"It's not that important, right? I mean it's just an arbitrarily number without meaning. Do you still wanting to see it?"
"If you put it that way, I supposed I'm not that curious about your status. I'm much more curious about your magic."
"Then I will show you later in the dungeon."
"Thanks you. By the way, Miss Alice, which dungeon you will visit?"
"Hearing from that group earlier, I think I want to go to the golem dungeon. I am curious about the golem looked like in this world."
"I actually wanted to suggest that dungeon, despite there is a chance we will encountered that annoying group. I get an information from Iyan that you want to create autonomous doll, maybe you can learn from the automata monster in floor 15 of that dungeon."
"There is something like that. Now I wanted to go to that dungeon even more."
Shortly after that, Brax entered the room again while bringing Alice adventurer card in his hand.
"I supposed you know the general rule of being adventurer, right?" Brax asked.
"Yes, we know. You don't have to explain it to us. We will take card and immediately go the dungeon." Lucifer answered.
"Good thing I prepare an adventurer card with permit to go inside the dungeon. Here is your card,"
Then Brax giving the card to Alice. Alice take the card from his hand and give it to one of her doll. The doll move like it will guard the card with everything it had, and two doll act like they are the guardian of the doll that held the card.
"As I thought, it is definitely not her real status. Argh… whatever, I wonder how many people will believe me that the appraisal ball result can be forged," Brax thought.
"Thanks you guild master Brax. I will take my leave now,"
After that, Alice and Lucifer leaving the guild master room. Many adventurer watched them as they left the adventurer guild. None of them dared to say anything until Alice and Lucifer left.
Once Alice and Lucifer left, every adventurer started gossiping about them. Some were talking about Lucifer dangerous area, some wondering about Alice's origin, and a minor of them thinking that they wanted to get their hand on her cute flying little doll. None of the adventurer expected that there would be an event that shake the whole kingdom shortly after today.
Another Author Note :
In this chapter I learn the importance of something that I purposely left when writing this.
1. Descriptive text about the character is needed to make some situation more exciting. Like when Lucifer and brax met, difference in their respective description can be interpreted (at least by me) to be different situation. For example, if Lucifer shorter than Brax then it show he was not intimidated by him, and if he as tall as him it feel like two enemy sizing each other. OH for your information in case I never descriptive enough about Lucifer appearance (I bet I never) he has three demon wing at the left side and three angel wing at the right side, his tall is the same as Meiling, so Marisa will be smol compared to him.
2. Our world Culture :
I mean what I should I care right? This is another world after all. Then I getting confused what the other character must call Alice, it is Margatroid or it is Alice? In Japan (or at least the anime I watch) calling Alice is reserved to special person, so Alice should show more expression when she called by it. In my country (or at least my city) we don't care as long we agree (or accepting it) we can call the other whatever part of the name we like. After all, there is no family name attached to our name, so Alice would not care which part of her name called.
But then again, that is the world building part of the story, LOL. It's hard but I must do it, if I want my future reading it without editing any line of it.
