Chapter – 2

Finally, he had done it.

After countless days… weeks… months… he had finally breached the surface.

As for the results?

Well, it was a fairly generic cave opening on the side of a mountain overlooking a fairly generic forest.

But that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that he had finally done it.

He could practically taste the fresh air, feel the warmth of sunlight, and rest his eyes on something other than endless gray stone.

That was assuming he still possessed things like a mouth, skin, or eyes.

Still, pretending he could with his disembodied existence felt nice in its own strange way.

More importantly, he finally had access to two very important things.

Aether.

And creature blueprints.

Because what exactly did the wilderness contain?

Animals, of course.

Rabbits. Frogs. Snakes. Wolves. Birds.

So many birds.

As Hikaru happily observed the beautiful display of nature before him, he suddenly watched a feline creature dart from the trees, spit out a nearly invisible blade of wind, and promptly disappear back into the bushes with its unfortunate meal hanging from its jaws.

…

Right.

Apparently that was perfectly normal in this world.

After a brief Q&A session with the System, Hikaru had managed to learn more about souls and the creatures inhabiting this world.

Souls were indeed formed from aether, but they weren’t simply concentrated masses of it. Instead, they functioned somewhat similarly to his own core, continuously converting aether into mana.

Most of that mana was consumed simply maintaining life itself, because apparently biological processes worked very differently here.

Any excess mana naturally leaked from the body unless it was actively utilized somehow.

Because unlike Hikaru, mortals were apparently soft and fragile creatures that suffered from unfortunate conditions such as extreme mana poisoning.

For humans and the other mortal races—whose names the System stubbornly refused to reveal—mana was utilized through skills and spells that strengthened both body and mind.

Animals, on the other hand, developed something called a Beast Core.

Beast Cores were somewhat similar to mana crystals, though they were usually aligned toward a specific affinity and granted creatures access to supernatural abilities.

Like that wind cat from earlier.

Which naturally brought Hikaru toward an important problem.

How exactly was he supposed to lure one of those creatures into his dungeon and kill it when they could casually spit out fireballs and wind blades?

…

Good question.

Thankfully, Hikaru had an answer.

For that, he would like to introduce his latest creation.

Prototype No.13

Not exactly an original name, but he wasn’t planning on keeping it long-term anyway.

The creature was the result of countless hours spent experimenting on the various cave critters he had studied.

It had eight legs. A reinforced exoskeleton. Even a pair of wings, because why not?

Deep within his heart, Hikaru knew the Xenomorphs from his old world would either be proud of his creation…

…or so horrified they would immediately kill it on sight.

Possibly both.

Still, appearances weren’t the important part.

The important thing was that it worked.

Like all creatures created by a Dungeon Core, Prototype No.13 was naturally linked to him. Through that connection, Hikaru could perceive the creature’s senses as though receiving a strangely low-resolution drone feed directly into his mind.

Hikaru had also somehow managed to give it a good enough brain to understand basic instructions.

And with that, Hikaru finally set his plan into motion.

Capture something interesting.

Study it.

Then create something actually worth keeping inside his dungeon.

Hikaru finally released Prototype No.13 into the greater world.

The creature quickly disappeared into the surrounding foliage, vanishing into the dense undergrowth within moments. Hikaru could no longer perceive it directly and instead relied entirely on their link, watching the world through the creature’s strange, low-resolution vision.

For a while, nothing happened.

Prototype No.13 crawled through bushes, climbed over roots, and navigated between trees while Hikaru patiently observed from afar.

Eventually, it found something.

A small rabbit-like creature lay sleeping peacefully within a clearing.

Hikaru immediately focused.

Prototype No.13 slowly lowered itself toward the ground and carefully maneuvered around the sleeping animal, moving with surprising patience for something that looked like a rejected nightmare from another universe.

Closer.

Closer.

Then it struck.

The creature lunged forward and buried its fangs into the rabbit.

Hikaru had spent quite a while experimenting with its body structure. While it wasn’t particularly strong, he had made sure it possessed several useful features.

Eight legs provided excellent stability.

Its exoskeleton offered decent protection.

And perhaps most importantly—

Fangs.

Specifically, fangs connected to poison glands.

After all, evolution had already done the hard work for him. He was simply borrowing ideas.

The rabbit immediately jolted awake and for a brief moment, panic exploded across the clearing.

The rabbit kicked wildly and tried escaping while Prototype No.13 desperately held on for dear life.

“…Wait wait wait—don’t die!”

Hikaru immediately regretted not making it larger.

The struggle continued for several chaotic moments before the poison finally started taking effect.

Silence returned to the clearing.

Prototype No.13 remained attached to the creature for several seconds.

Just to be safe.

“…You know what? Fair enough.”

After finally releasing it, Prototype No.13 grabbed the unconscious rabbit and began dragging it back toward the cave.

The journey back took a while.

Mainly because Hikaru had forgotten to account for the fact that dragging something nearly your own size through a forest was difficult.

Very difficult.

Several awkward minutes—and one incident involving rolling down a hill—later, Prototype No.13 finally reached the cave entrance.

There, Hikaru ordered it to finish the job.

His first proper soul.

And, more importantly—

His first decent blueprint.

Hikaru immediately started studying the creature while simultaneously ordering Prototype No.13 to continue searching for more specimens.

Capture them.

Bring them back.

Prototype No.13 obediently followed the command.

And so the process repeated.

---

Hikaru looked at the proud face of his latest and most successful creation, surveying the fruits of its labor.

Or at least, he thought it was a proud expression.

He hadn’t exactly been thinking about appearances while creating Prototype No.13. Most of his attention had gone toward practical matters such as functionality, survivability, and whether or not the thing could successfully kill targets without immediately falling apart.

Facial expressions had not been high on the priority list.

Though perhaps they should have been.

If nothing else, it deserved some kind of reward after all its hard work.

Because spread before the cave entrance was a small mountain of dead creatures.

Two birds. A snake. Another rabbit.

Various smaller creatures.

Prototype No.13 had apparently been extremely productive.

However, among the pile sat the undeniable crown jewel of its hunt, displayed proudly before Hikaru while he slowly stripped away bits of its flesh.

It was one of those feline creatures.

The same ones Hikaru had seen earlier while observing the forest.

Though after a closer inspection, it actually resembled a fox more than a cat.

Soft brown fur covered most of its body while green stripes ran along its sides. It possessed long ears and a fox-like snout, though its tail more closely resembled that of a panther.

Most importantly—

It was a magical beast.

An actual magical beast with an actual Beast Core.

Hikaru was still struggling to believe Prototype No.13 had somehow managed to kill it and drag the body all the way back to the cave.

He was certain the battle had been an epic one.

Surely there had been brilliant tactical maneuvers from Prototype No.13 and dramatic magical exchanges with its opponent.

Maybe some life-threatening struggle against overwhelming odds.

Unfortunately, Hikaru had absolutely no idea.

At the time, he had been busy creating Prototype No.14.

Still, one glance at the aftermath painted a fairly clear picture.

Prototype No.13 had lost three legs.

Both wings were gone and cracks spread across large portions of its exoskeleton.

In fact, several sections of its body looked one strong breeze away from completely collapsing.

…

Honestly, Hikaru felt a little ashamed of himself.

As its creator, he had thought far too little of it.

Though it wasn’t entirely his fault.

He had learned very early during his creature experiments that larger and more complex designs required increasing amounts of mana just to remain functional.

Wild creatures could get away with that because of Beast Cores.

Without access to one himself, however, Hikaru had focused on creating disposable tools that were as compact, efficient, and deadly as possible.

The goal had simply been to gather enough knowledge and blueprints to eventually create a Beast Core of his own.

Prototype No.13 had only been intended as a temporary solution.

A stepping stone.

A tool.

…

Now he had a Beast Core.

More importantly, he finally had the ability to study one, deconstruct it, and eventually create more in the future.

Hikaru looked at his loyal champion.

At its damaged body barely holding itself together after successfully following his commands.

He arrived at a decision.

“You know what, Prototype No.13? Prototype No.14 is shelved for now.”

He paused.

“Possibly forever.”

His attention drifted toward the magical beast’s body and the Beast Core hidden within.

“As soon as I figure out how this thing works, and more importantly, how to give you a new body without accidentally exploding your insides…”

A grin spread across his nonexistent face.

“We’re giving you a makeover.”

Hikaru wasn’t entirely sure.

But he decided to believe that the slight twitch of Prototype No.13’s fangs was its own way of smiling back.

---

Once again, Hikaru had done it.

In his hands—

Well, technically it was floating in front of him, but that was just semantics.

The point was that he was holding it.

A Beast Core.

Not one of those naturally occurring, mass-produced ones found in wild creatures.

No.

This one was his.

Designed by him. Created by him. Improved by him.

It was magnificent.

And in his entirely professional opinion, significantly better than those cheap knockoffs nature kept producing.

He had spent an entire week deconstructing and understanding that first Beast Core. And yes, now that he had access to sunlight and an actual day-night cycle, he finally knew exactly how much time was passing.

The second week had been spent improving the process.

The third week had gone toward creating elemental variants and eventually experimenting with dual-affinity cores.

He still couldn’t add a third affinity before the entire thing shattered into useless fragments regardless of how large he made the core.

Still, progress was progress.

After all that effort, however, the object floating before him could no longer be considered a simple Beast Core.

The original core had been around the size of an apple.

The one before him was closer to a large plum despite possessing significantly greater capacity. He had optimized the crystallization process to the point where mana density and efficiency had improved dramatically.

He had also finally figured out how magical abilities functioned and had somehow managed to integrate artificial skill structures directly into the core itself.

Instead of natural instinctive abilities, creatures could now possess something much closer to actual System skills.

Of course, all of this had required a lot of experimentation.

And by experimentation, Hikaru unfortunately meant sacrificing several generations of prototypes.

Prototype No.14.

Prototype No.15.

Prototype No.16.

All had been created with the sole purpose of gathering additional Beast Cores.

All had valiantly fallen in battle.

May their artificial souls rest in peace.

Prototype No.13 was fine though.

His loyal guardian currently rested atop Hikaru’s crystal with the sole intention of protecting his main body.

After all, Hikaru still had a promise to keep.

Which led directly toward his current problem.

Now that he had finally overcome the biggest obstacle preventing his glorious creature creation plans, he suddenly found himself unable to decide what exactly he wanted to make.

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With the improvements made to Beast Cores, the greatest limitation was no longer resources.

It was imagination.

Which was unfortunate.

Because his parents had always told him he possessed far too much imagination for his own good.

Whatever he created next had to remain an insect.

Otherwise it wouldn’t really be Prototype No.13 anymore.

It would become Prototype No.17.

And he absolutely couldn’t have that.

So Hikaru began considering various arachnoid monsters from fantasy stories.

Aragog. Arachne. Ungoliant. Driders.

…

Honestly?

They were boring.

Most of them were just spiders made larger or spiders awkwardly glued onto humans.

Where was the magic?

Where was the wonder?

Where were the cool fantasy creatures that made people look at them and immediately think I want one?

Finding himself completely lacking inspiration, Hikaru created a sheet of paper and a stick of charcoal before sitting down in the center of his core room.

And before anyone questioned that decision—

He could create artificial souls now. Creating paper wasn’t exactly difficult.

Anyway, Hikaru absentmindedly sketched possible designs while quietly humming an old childhood tune.

“I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was…”

The charcoal paused.

“To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause…”

The paper slowly lowered.

“Pokémon…”

Silence.

Then Hikaru froze.

Slowly—

Very slowly—

He raised his head.

“…I can do that.”

His eyes shifted toward Prototype No.13.

“…Right?”

Prototype No.13 was sleeping soundly atop his crystal.

Receiving no response whatsoever, Hikaru chose to interpret the silence as enthusiastic support.

He immediately stood up.

“I can definitely do it.”

He started pacing.

“But should I?”

Another step.

“I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Nintendo sues me?”

He paused.

“…Not like Nintendo even exists here.”

His movements became faster.

“I could actually do it. I could finally do it.”

A grin spread across his face.

“All those late-night meetings, all those deadlines, all those sleepless nights and hand cramps… they could finally have a purpose.”

By the end, Hikaru was practically shouting.

“AND I COULD FINALLY HUG A PIKACHU!”

Prototype No.13 slowly opened one eye.

It stared at its creator.

Observed him rapidly pacing around the room while apparently descending into complete madness.

Then it promptly closed its eyes again and went back to sleep.

Now, before anyone starts agreeing with Prototype No.13, there is one very important thing everyone should understand about Hikaru.

Back in his previous life, when Hikaru was still human and had normal human ambitions…

He worked for a little company called Game Freak.

More specifically, he had worked as an artist under the broader design team responsible for creating what the world knew as Pokémon.

He had never met Ken Sugimori personally, though he had heard his boss’s boss had shaken the man’s hand.

He had simply been one of the countless cogs in the machine.

But that didn’t matter, because Hikaru knew these creatures.

Their designs. Their abilities. Their behaviors.

He had spent years surrounded by them.

And now?

Now he was a miniature reality-warping dungeon god capable of turning imagination into life.

So on that day—

Hikaru, the [Unnamed] Dungeon Core, made a decision.

“Fuck it.”

“We’re bringing Pokémon to Esalia.”

---

Now that he had a concrete direction, Hikaru immediately jumped into the execution.

Bug types might be among the most underrated Pokémon types in existence, but Hikaru already had several potential forms in mind for Prototype No.13 to choose from. Since most bug-types had relatively simple first-stage designs, he was confident he could create something good enough to satisfy both himself and his loyal creation.

Picking up a stick of charcoal from the ground, Hikaru immediately began putting the ideas in his mind onto paper.

Let’s see…

There was the classic Spinarak.

Joltik was adorable and surprisingly strong for its size.

Dewpider and Dwebble would be a little more difficult to recreate, but he was fairly confident he could figure them out somehow.

Then he paused.

There was one more.

Technically, it wasn’t a bug type and creating it right now would probably be a complete nightmare.

Actually, no. It would definitely be a nightmare.