“Did I say something wrong?” She asked herself. “No. I’m pretty sure I used the right word.” She then turned to me. “Dad is the right word, right?”

  “Who are you? What are you?” I asked, trying to get at least some answers to my ever-increasing list of questions. What did the miniature woman mean by calling me dad? I’ve never had kids, and even if I did, I doubt they would be 6 centimeters tall and have insect wings.

  “What do you mean ‘what am I’?” She said, pouting a little. “Can’t you see that I’m a fairy?”

  She spun in circles, releasing a bit of pink dust that sparkled as it floated through the air before vanishing completely.

  “A… Fairy? Like, a fairy fairy?” I asked.

  “Wha? Of course a fairy fairy! What other types of fairies would there be?” She seemed offended by my question.

  “Sorry, it’s just… I’ve never seen a fairy before, and for all I knew up until this moment, they didn’t exist.”

  “So. For your information, we exist. Okay?” She crossed her arms at me. “And about your other question, my name is Allay Vinicius Lohein.”

  I paused. That was my surname. Why would a fairy have my surname?

  “By your expression, you’re confused about my name,” she stated. “It’s very simple. All fairies are born with names already. We just know them. The 'Allay' part of my name came from the world itself when I was born, and the rest came from you, dad.”

  “This is the third time you called my dad. Why?” I still didn’t understand it.

  “Hm? Well. You created me. That makes you my dad, doesn’t it?”

  “But how did I create you? I don’t remember doing…stuff… with anyone.”

  “Well. You pressed the ‘help' button, didn’t you?”

  “That created you?!” I asked, my voice increasing an octave.

  “Yes! Well, actually, no.” She began flying backwards. “The help button you pressed would have downloaded a lot of information into your soul using Somi’s divinity. But it reacted with some of the polluted aura that was still inside you that you hadn’t converted yet, then it reacted with your own magicules. Usually, it’s pretty rare for a fairy to form, as it takes a lot of magicules and aura, and only when the planet is right inside a ley line, but your unique situation, mixed with Somi’s divinity, created little me here!” She smiled as she flew around the glass cylinder.

  Unfortunately, I had failed to follow the explanation somewhere in the aura thingy… No, I started to get lost when she mentioned downloading stuff to my soul. What the heck does that even mean? And did I hear her saying something about ley lines? There were too many random words being thrown around for me to follow.

  “So, it would be pretty normal to consider you as my dad and Somi herself as my mom, but considering she is also your mom would make her my grandma? My grandmom? momdma?”

  “Could you… Could you explain again?” I eventually asked.

  “Oh? Sure. Which part?” She asked me.

  “Everything”

  “Wha? Didn’t you pay attention? You need to learn how to pay attention to things. Even more, as you grow and need to take care of more stuff!”

  “...I’ll ignore the second part of what you said for now, as I already have a big enough list of questions, and I am sure it will just grow more and more the more you talk, so let’s slow down a little.” I felt that I should be having a small headache now, but strangely, it was absent.

  “I have already slowed down!” She pouted. “If I weren’t, we would already be planning how to set up floors and create monsters! I have the entire information package Somi provided for you inside my head, and I have already read it three times!”

  I stared at her for a moment. “Could you please go a little slower, then? Please?”

  She sighed and waved her hands in a half-shrug. “I guess.”

  “Great! Now. Could you try to explain to me again the part of how exactly I created you?”

  She explained again, but this time I interrupted her so many times she lost her patience once or twice, but basically, the button I clicked, the “help” button, should have just put a bunch of information into my own brain using the divine energy of this goddess called Somi or whatever, but it got mixed up with this “aura” thingy, the invisible gas I could somehow see, and then drew upon something called magicules that power this place. The mixture of everything caused her, a fairy, to be born. And because the magicules, or whatever, were my own, I am technically her father.

  “Honestly. That’s a lot,” I said while sitting down, still not really understanding everything. Gods? Fairies? Did my mind get uploaded into a fantasy game or something like that?

  “Oh, believe me. We didn’t even scratch the surface of the information Somi has left you!” She giggled. “But I understand, at least a little. Dying must have been a very traumatic experience.”

  “What? Dying?” I looked at her with a confused expression.

  “Hm? You didn’t know?” She then made a movement with her hand as if she were reading something invisible. “Oh. That part got converted. I see… Do I?”

  After reading more stuff, she nodded her head and looked at me.

  “Okay. Now that I've got the gist of it, let me start with the most important thing. Congratulations, you died!” She shouted as rainbow letters with the same words appeared above her.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “What do you mean, I died? I am here, aren’t I?”

  “I’ll get there, don’t worry,” she said as the letters vanished. “Now. Apparently, you died, and when you went through the reincarnation cycle, you resisted. You resisted so much that your soul crystallized…Not sure what that means. Somi didn’t include it. Anyway. Your soul crystallized, and because of that, Somi received a request to deal with you. From whom, I don’t know, but it must be powerful if it can easily request stuff from Somi.”

  “Who is this Somi? You said the name a few times already,” I asked.

  “Well. She is the Goddess of Chaos, of course,” she said it as if I should’ve known it already. “Now, as I was saying. She received this request to deal with you before you got sent to another type of reincarnation cycle, which I don’t have any information on, but it doesn’t matter because Somi agreed to take care of you!”

  I nodded and made a movement with my hands for her to continue. It was a lot to take in, and some things didn’t make much sense to me, but I was at least understanding the basics.

  “Somi received you and was shocked at how much corrupted aura was stuck on your soul. So much that could turn those more sensible to it insane,” she shook her head. “Luckily for you, Somi has created a species that is capable of consuming this corruption and refine it into pure magicules. The only problem is that they couldn’t be born naturally or created artificially. The only way for them to be born is for Somi to select an individual and transform them into this species.”

  “And what species is this? I assume I have been transformed into this as well. I already know I’m not human anymore,” humans don’t explode after walking through a door, or have absolutely nothing inside them but a thin layer of something.

  She smiled and nodded her head excitedly. “Now you’re getting it! The species that Somi has transformed you into is called ‘Dungeon Core’.”

  “Dungeon? Like those things in video games and anime?” I asked her.

  “What is ‘video game’?” Allay asked me.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I shook my head, then continued asking her. “Dungeons. Hole in the ground. Full of monsters and treasures?” I wanted to make sure my mental image of what a ‘dungeon’ is was the correct one.

  “Oh, wow! How did you know?” Allay said with a surprised face.

  I frowned. “But how can a physical location be a living creature? They are just structures.”

  “Huh? No? I mean, yes. Dungeons are kind of just structures, but only if you look at them from the eyes of an EXCEED.” She shrugged.

  “Exceed?” I asked, frowning.

  “Doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is that Dungeons are the body of a Dungeon Core.” She flew right next to the glowing orb inside the glass cylinder. “You see this thing?” I nodded. “This is your true self.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She slapped the glass a few times. “I mean that this glowing thingy inside this thingy is your real body. A Dungeon Core, a being made out of pure magic turned matter with a small touch of the divine. Everything else.” She flew around, slapping everything she could. “Is just a shell, something built to protect the core, aka you, from external forces so that you can continue absorbing the corruption to clean the environment.”

  My mind raced through the new information she was dumping into me. If this wasn’t considered an info dump, I didn’t know what one would be.

  “But then. What am I?” I pointed at myself and my whole body.

  “That’s easy. An avatar”

  “An... what?” Last I checked, I wasn’t 3 meters tall with blue skin and a tail, nor could I control the four elements.

  “An avatar. A vessel created for your consciousness to inhabit. Honestly, I don’t know how you managed to create one so easily, considering you don’t even know half of what I’m saying to you.” Allay tilted her head as she spoke.

  That made sense, I think. It would explain why I was hollow and why I couldn’t pass through the door. If what she was saying was the truth, and I was starting to believe it was, then I couldn’t project my consciousness past the door, which in turn kicked me out of my avatar, and without me, it crumbled.

  “Ok. Let’s say that everything you’re saying is real.” I said.

  “It is real.” She stated.

  “Okay, great. Now, you were talking about gods and magic and whatnot.” She nodded. “Then why is everything here so futuristic? It all seems made out of highly advanced tech.”

  “I dunno.” Allay shrugged.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “Each dungeon has their own set of rules. My guess is that you copied Arcadian magitech. Which is better than being purely magical, or purely technological, or worse, purely evolutive.”

  “I... Gah! What?” I was completely lost about it.

  “Just understand that you won the dungeon lottery and get to play with stuff the Arcadians keep to themselves, those pricks. Did you know they kill fairies on sight?! They’re so meanies!” Allay pouted.

  “Who are the Arcadians?” I asked curiously.

  “A bunch of meanies! That’s what they are!” She threw her hands above her head in anger.

  “...”

  “Ah! Now I’m angry!” She flew in circles around the main cylinder for a few minutes before slowing down.

  “There. Now I’m better. What were we talking about?” She calmly said.

  “...” If I said anything about magitech, arcadians, and stuff, she was probably going to get angry again. I needed to steer the conversation back onto the tracks. Maybe I could ask about this new world I was apparently transported to. “Tell me about the world we are in.”

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  I almost facepalmed with her answer, almost.

  “... What do you mean you don’t know? Weren’t you saying a lot of stuff about this magical land a few minutes ago?” I asked, a bit frustrated.

  “Yeah. That’s the world where fairies are usually born into. I don’t know anything about this one. You should be the one telling me about it.”

  “How could I know this magic land of fantasies better than you?” I asked as my frustration grew.

  “It’s your world.” Allay stated.

  “What?” Now I was confused. What did she mean by that?

  “Didn’t I say it before? Somi transformed you into a Dungeon Core and sent you back to your original world. We are currently attached to it. You saw what’s beyond the anchor portal, haven’t you?” She tilted her head.

  “...I mean, yeah, it seemed like an in-construction building. I don’t think I remember you telling me that I was sent back.”

  “I did. Didn’t I? I’m pretty sure I did.” She thought for a moment but shrugged. “Anyway. Yeah. You aren’t in any other world. You’re back into your original world with the main purpose of cleaning the environment from that corrupted aura!”

  “I don’t know what to say.” My frustration was gone, replaced by a mix of confusion and…disappointment? I don’t know why, but I think I was somewhat eager to start a new life in a fantasy world.

  “Don’t be like that! Hey, I haven’t seen the place with my eyes yet. Let us take a stroll through your world. You can show me funny things!”

  She then flew right past me, crossing the door to the corridor and pausing for a moment to select a direction. She chose the one leading to the living room and flew towards it. I sighed, got up, and walked behind her.

  My mind was still a hive of activity from all the information she had dumped onto me. I wished nothing she said was true, a part of me screaming, saying this is just a dream and that I just needed to wake up, but there was a larger part that somehow knew this was the truth.

  I didn’t know how much I could actually trust her, but for the moment, she didn’t seem that awful of a person…fairy? I decided to keep a close eye on her for now and go with the flow and see what the best course of action is when shit inevitably hits the fan. I just hope it’s not my fan.