"The dungeon must have reinvigorated her soul somehow." I suggested.

"Dungeons can copy souls and extend their lives," he agreed, but before I could say anything else he continued, "but every time they copy the soul, that soul would be corrupted. The fidelity of copying lore is lacking, and dungeons are perhaps the worst at it. At best, she would have had a miasmic soul, and if she had a soul as old as you suggest, the lore would have been corrupted long past the point that she would have been nothing but a monster, trapped within her cursed existence."

I wanted to argue with him, but he was making sense. It took talking to someone else who was also familiar with golems and dungeons for me to finally see the truth of it. I had known this all along, but I had convinced myself that this was an exception.

"Master…" Terra looked at me worriedly.

"It's alright, Terra." I smiled at her. "You did make it through. That's all that matters. You're still you."

"We just don't know what you are." The master who was used to dealing with puppets had a lot less finesse, causing me to cringe slightly.

"What does that mean? I knew my mother and father! I'm human." Terra's eyes managed to display a hint of panic as she turned to me. "Right, Master?"

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I didn't want to worry Terra, but I wasn't willing to lie to her either. "You're… a special existence. Remember in the deep? Your ability to survive and resist Twilight wasn't normal. Your soul is far more resilient than any being I've ever met. That's what makes you Terra. It's possible that your parents, and by extension, you, weren't human. You told me yourself that they were geniuses, refuges of some war, who only fled to Osteria and didn't belong there."

"But…" she lowered her head and I wished I could see the expressions on her face, but they were so limited in that body. "I understand. It doesn't matter what I used to be. I've been a golem longer than I had a mortal existence. I'm Master's guardian. I'm Master's slave. That's all that matters."

As she spoke, her hand tightened. Sapphire put her hand on Terra's giant rock hand. She was a bit of a quagmire herself. She was nearly as old as Terra, in all likelihood. She had pieced the parts of her soul back together from countless dungeons. Her case was also extremely unusual as well. Although Sapphire tried to give her a bit of sympathy, she wasn't the best for it. She didn't handle this emotional crisis as well as some of the other girls.

I still watched Terra for a few moments, making sure that she was going to be alright, but I still had the most important question to ask. "However the likelihood of Terra's existence, the reality is that she does exist. Can you help us restore her to her original golem body, or improve on it?"

"Ah…" He looked down, his highbrow attitude dropping like a deflated balloon. "As to that, I don't believe I'd be able to help you."

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