I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

The heavy door slid inward with a low hiss, opening just enough to admit them. Once inside the building proper, the three parted ways at the staircase. Betty hoisted her share of the supplies and turned toward the right-side stairs, heading for the second floor.

“I’ll get to work then, My Lady.”

She dipped a small bow, her voice soft, then turned and climbed the steps to the second floor.

Pandora watched her silhouette retreat until it vanished around the stairwell’s bend. Her gaze deepened with thought. She knew the second floor—along with the soon-to-be-renovated third—had been designated as the Live Iron Golem production and calibration hub.

It hadn’t yet become the full-blown cultivation-tank setup she’d once seen in that Orchard world’s forest, but the skeleton was already taking shape.

From the very first day they’d landed in this Fragment World, the cleanup squad’s core fabricator had been running.

Over the past month, using its initial stockpile of resources, it had already produced four basic engineer golems. The supply drop they’d just received was precisely what they needed to progress to the next stage—producing Live Iron Golems with genuine baseline mobility and task execution capabilities.

Of course, the first batch of Live Iron Golems would require extensive debugging and parameter calibration. The materials used to make them weren’t exclusively drawn from the Academy’s specially treated, extraordinary-grade supplies. A significant share of the baseline materials came from ordinary industrial resources procured locally, straight from this world itself.

Materials from different worlds always carried subtle discrepancies in microstructure, Ether compatibility, and physical properties. Those differences had to be compensated for and corrected through meticulous tuning.

And once the calibration was finished, the very first task these Live Iron Golems would take on—the very first targets they’d replace—would likely be those students who’d been unlucky enough to die under the Gunman Anomaly’s bullets.

The cleanup squad would use the golems to systematically replace everyone who perished at the hands of an Anomaly, gradually warping this Fragment World into something resembling the Orchard world Pandora had seen before.

Meaning: everyone except the children would be a Live Iron Golem.

The process would be long, of course—years, maybe longer. The cleanup squad’s work was just the beginning.

Beyond those directly killed by Anomalies, once the operation hit its stride and the Orchard’s framework stabilized, children between the ages of 14 and 16 with some degree of supernatural talent would be slowly sifted out and identified.

They’d be shipped off to the Demon Hunter Academy, winnowed through brutal selection, and eventually turned into new Demon Hunter apprentices.

Their original existence in this Fragment World would then be inherited and replaced by carefully crafted Live Iron Golems that mimicked their behavioral patterns to sustain their presence among friends, family, and social networks—until the role naturally faded away or was overwritten by a newer, more complete Orchard script.

………………

Pandora pulled her mind back to the present.

Retracting her gaze, she took Miss Anomaly’s hand and continued up the stairs.

One floor. Two floors. Finally, the fourth floor.

This was entirely her domain—her laboratory.

The cleanup squad’s planning had allocated this entire level to her; squad members didn’t set foot here lightly.

Elsa wasn’t around at the moment; she had other errands Pandora had assigned.

The corridor was silent, only their two sets of footsteps echoing softly.

Pandora stopped before a heavy metal door. A simple placard hung on it, engraved with plain Common script: “Laboratory – No Admittance.” She pushed it open. The air inside carried a faint, familiar scent of potion reagents.

First, she ferried the delicate, precious potion-making instruments into her small potion workshop. The space was already outfitted with a basic workbench, storage shelves, and a simple ventilation system.

She inventoried each item, one by one, checking for breakage or missing components. Then she classified by frequency of use and function, arranging them neatly across the bench and shelves.

Only after confirming every instrument was intact and in its rightful place did she let out a soft breath. These tools were critical.

Whether it was fulfilling Amanda’s commission to cultivate those peculiar plants, advancing her own research to brew the potions required for her next breakthrough, or upholding her cooperation agreement with the cleanup squad by supplying essential potions… so many plans depended on these instruments. No room for error.

That done, Pandora didn’t linger in the workshop. She turned and entered the adjacent laboratory. This one looked more “modern”—at least in line with this Fragment World’s current technological level.

Most of the equipment here had been locally sourced: centrifuges, microscopes, incubators, plus a few smaller contraptions she’d designed and assembled herself. The room’s core reason for existing was singular.

Pandora approached a workbench by the window. On it sat an intricate plant cultivation apparatus. Its main body was a fully sealed glass dome, connected by precision valves and tubing to an external gas supply, water source, and nutrient delivery system.

The interior was completely isolated from the outside environment, keeping light, temperature, humidity, air composition, and even soil pH under absolute, adjustable control. Every cultivation parameter could be precisely set and tweaked.

In the exact center of the glass dome, nestled in a carefully sterilized and conditioned patch of light-brown nutrient soil, lay a single milky-white fruit. It wasn’t large—something like a currant in shape—but its color was a pure, near-translucent cloud-white.

Amanda hadn’t provided a formal name for this fruit in her commission, so for now, based on appearance alone, Pandora had simply dubbed it the “Cloud-White Currant.” She’d planted it carefully several days ago, dialing in the environmental parameters she’d calculated to be theoretically optimal for germination.

And indeed, two days ago, this particular Cloud-White Currant had successfully sprouted. A tiny slip of cloud-white shoot had pushed through the soil and poked its head out, trembling faintly.

Unfortunately…

This hard-won pale sprout, today—day three of its existence—had once again, thoroughly withered. The shoot’s once-plump form had shriveled and collapsed, its tip taking on a lifeless grayish-brown. It lay limp against the soil’s surface.