I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

Amanda’s tone was breezy and dismissive, as if she were describing a standard operating procedure on an assembly line, rather than a monumental project involving the life and death of countless worlds.

“Once you hit this step, the unclaimed Fragment World essentially becomes the Academy’s property. Which is what we call: an Orchard.”

Pandora listened in silence. This information wasn’t entirely new to her, but Amanda’s blase delivery really crystallized her understanding of what an “Orchard” truly was.

“Now, or rather... recently,” Amanda’s voice dipped a fraction. “While you were serving your time in the Sentence of the Void, the Academy captured a fresh batch of Fragment Worlds. Currently, they’re in the ‘Purging the Fragment World’ phase. This phase requires a massive amount of manual labor, but it’s not exactly the kind of work that requires Demon Hunters to get their own hands dirty. So...” Amanda looked at Pandora, “they need Apprentices just like you.”

A flash of realization hit Pandora. Now that she thought about it, she had actually heard about this, hadn’t she?

Over a year ago, back when she was still living in Tsukimidaira, Nicole had mentioned that the Rank-3s were prepping for something and moving about frequently. That something, it seemed, was the cleanup operation for the newly captured Fragment Worlds. It was just that back then, the Academy was still in the prep phase; only now were they officially rolling out the operation to recruit Apprentices.

“As for what I need... it’s certainly not a Fragment World.”

Amanda’s gaze drifted into the distance. “Those things are pretty much meaningless to me. It’s not like I have a surplus of kids to raise.” At this, her expression turned a bit awkward, tinged with a hint of hesitation and internal conflict. She paused. “What I need is something far more... well, unconventional. Something much more precious.”

Looking at Amanda’s hesitating, tongue-tied expression, Pandora already had a solid guess.

“Contraband?” she cut straight to the chase.

“Impossible! Not me! Do I look like that kind of person?!” Amanda reacted violently, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, instantly firing off a rapid string of denials.

But immediately after, under the unyielding, crystal-clear stare of Pandora’s eyes, her facade crumbled.

“Fine, you got me. That’s exactly what it is.” Amanda sighed. “The Academy forbids me from entering Fragment Worlds. Strictly prohibits any ‘legitimate development’ on my part within them. But,” her tone took a turn for the shameless, “the Academy hasn’t forbidden you from doing it. So, if you do it, it’s perfectly legal.”

“Don’t look at me like that. Would your beloved Mentor actually steer you wrong?” Amanda spread her hands. “Anyway, that’s the job. It’s very simple.”

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“...”

Pandora fell silent for a few seconds. No matter how she looked at it, this screamed ‘sketchy’. But, as Amanda had pointed out, she was the Mentor here, and this was an officially assigned task. Plus, it seemed, roughly, probably... actually legal... right?

Pandora came to a tentative conclusion in her mind, and finally opened her mouth to ask, “So, how exactly am I supposed to do this?”

“That’s the easy part.” Amanda’s expression instantly shifted from cloudy to sunny as she snapped her fingers.

Then, she unclipped an inconspicuous leather potion pouch from the waist of the ever-silent attendant. The pouch was dark brown, slightly scuffed, looking exactly like the standard pouches Demon Hunter Apprentices used to carry vials and knick-knacks.

“Here.” Amanda handed the pouch to Pandora. It felt lighter than expected, the leather soft and supple.

“Inside are special seeds. All I need you to do is head into the Fragment World, find a suitable spot, and plant them. Sow, cultivate, harvest... The flowers you harvest at the end are what I need. Simple, right?”

“The inner pocket of the pouch contains a planting tutorial and notes I wrote myself. You can read through them when you have time.”

“All in all, it’s a very simple task. Just like a gardener tending to their own garden.” Amanda was brimming with confidence, her expression relaxed.

However, when Pandora took the potion pouch and opened it, her eyes widened sharply!

The internal capacity of the pouch was vastly larger than it appeared from the outside. No, not just larger. It completely defied common sense!

Amanda then seemed to suddenly remember something, putting on a face of sudden realization. “Oh! Right!”

Her voice floated over from behind, carrying a hint of deliberate mischief. “Almost forgot to mention, this pouch is a portable miniaturized spatial device. This thing is worth a fortune on the market. You couldn’t afford it even if you sold yourself.”

“But,” she looked at Pandora, her tone suddenly turning affectionate, “your beloved Mentor is giving it to you. Free of charge!”

“You’re welcome!”

Just as Amanda said, Pandora was indeed looking at an independent space hidden within the pouch. And matching the stellar value of such a portable spatial device, the interior space was shockingly vast.

However, having seen her fair share of the world, how could Pandora be easily intimidated by mere “large space”? What truly shocked her was...

“Exactly how many seeds are in here?” Pandora closed the pouch, looked up, and stared at Amanda with an incredibly bizarre expression.

“Uh... it’s really not that many.” Amanda’s gaze began to drift, trying to hide something. “Just about... um...”

“Exactly how much is there in total?” Pandora pressed.

“Around ten million...”

“Kilograms?”

“...Tons.”

“TEN MILLION TONS?!”

Pandora’s voice jumped a whole octave. She stared dead at the utterly unassuming potion pouch in her hands. If Amanda had used any other unit of measurement besides “tons,” she might not have doubted her own ears. But right now, her mind went numb.

When she had opened it just now, she had sensed something was off. A tiny pouch, yet the space inside was ridiculously huge—she couldn’t even see the end of it at a glance!

Planting a pot of flowers might be easy. Planting enough to stock a flower shop might not be too hard. But...

“Mentor, if you want to work me to death, you can just say so.” Pandora twitched her mouth, her smile dripping with sarcasm.

Amanda instantly looked embarrassed. “Don’t panic, I told you it’s simple. There might be a few seeds in here, but you don’t have to plant them all—that would just be insane.”

She quickly explained, “These are just my personal hoard accumulated over the years. You only need to... roughly... well, I can’t confirm the exact number, but as long as your luck isn’t total garbage, you’ll only need to consume at most one ten-millionth of them to get the specific flowers I need.”