"So the dungeon really was active," Lunaria said, suddenly lunging at Aiki from behind. Her momentum made Aiki slip slightly on the muddy floor, slick from the rainwater that had crept down.
She took a dramatic sniff.
Instantly, she was punched square in the nose.
"Ow! My nose!" Lunaria whined, stumbling backward and landing in the mud with a splash.
"This is exactly what your Onii-chan warned me about," Aiki growled.
Lunaria sat in the mud, her pristine white robes now stained brown. She healed herself with a small spell—more dramatic than necessary—letting the healing glyphs linger, as if pleading, Have mercy on this pitiful creature, you heartless ogress...
"Love really does hurt," she added in cutesy Japanese, pouting as she rose.
"Then let me hurt you lots, Lunaria-chan," Aiki said lazily, drawing her wand and launching five small fireballs.
Lunaria shrieked playfully, spinning her robe to block the flames. "I said love hurts, not burns!"
As she dusted herself off, a scratching noise echoed from deeper within the tunnel.
"Hm." Lunaria turned serious. "Sounds like our little friends called for backup."
Aero stepped forward, sword drawn. The knight who had led them here clenched their blade, armor soaked with rain.
"Should I confront them, my ladies?" the knight asked, one hand on the hilt, the other gripping the sheath. The clamor grew louder.
"No need," Aiki replied coldly.
The storm responded.
Rain poured in sheets as a flash flood surged through the broken town. Horses neighed in panic; only the seasoned knights managed to control them. Adventurers scrambled, caught off guard by the sudden escalation.
Wizards and witches calmly shaped the water's flow around them, their magic glowing in hues of blue, red, and green. Steam hissed. Lightning crackled. Winds howled.
The sky churned above.
Aiki raised her wand skyward. Clouds spiraled.
FLASH!
"Fall," she whispered, lowering her wand.
The spell ignited.
From the glowing white core of her staff, multicolored spells erupted—and a thick bolt of lightning surged from the sky. As it fell, glowing glyphs formed at intervals along its path.
FLASH. FLASH. FLASH. FLASH!
The bolt intensified with each sigil, and in a single breath, the heavens erupted into blinding white light.
The knight closest to the entrance flinched and jumped back, barely avoiding the blast. For a second, his instincts screamed to strike at Aiki—was this madness? But he held back. She hadn't aimed for him.
The lightning tore into the earth, splitting through the ant labyrinth like the wrath of the gods. Rainwater flashed into steam. The ground quaked. A deafening boom shook the foundations of the ruins.
"That should clear them out for a while," Aiki said, stepping forward without hesitation.
No more scurrying. No more splashing.
She neared the entrance, eyes scanning the tunnel. As she suspected, the defensive glyphs along the wall were shattered—but still pulsing faintly, trying to recover.
"What now?" she muttered. "If it's already repairing at this speed... that means the main core's nearing adapt stage. And I've only got a few Adapt-rankers with me."
She traced the wall with her fingers, already calculating.
"We can't just charge in. These types of dungeons shift their layout constantly. A direct descent is suicide."
She sighed. "Then… let's drag it up here."
Her voice changed—gentle, airy, almost angelic. Her eyes shimmered a pale blue, and a silver halo flickered into existence above her midnight-black hair. Armor formed over half her body, sleek and divine.
"Let's stir the nest a bit, shall we~?"
She pressed her hand into the wall. Magic surged. The glyphs glowed—blue, then dark blue, then violet.
The entire labyrinth beneath the town pulsed violet. Runes lit up the soil around them as her magic traced the tunnels, the monsters, the queen ant... the fifth floor...
Then, a force pushed back.
She smirked.
BOOOOM!!!
A violent explosion shook the ground, funneling heat and smoke from the dungeon entrance. She had struck something vital.
"Let's regroup," she said, turning calmly.
Steam hissed around her legs. The running water swirled at her heels. As she stepped, it hardened under her foot, glowing with magic sigils—water bending to her will.
The water obeyed.
Every drop became her eyes. She felt the shifting tunnels. The monsters. The anger.
"I just triggered a dungeon-break," Aiki said softly. "So we'd better act fast before they tear through."
Lunaria beamed and followed behind her. "I think Aero split off to the west," she added, as she trotted through the calf-length rainwater, her voice muffled by the thick storm as she pushed through the water.
The rain and flowing water made it hard for her to maintain balance and see ahead, and her wet hair didn't help either, as the misty rain blocked her vision. The water also made it hard to find a solid foothold, as she kept sinking into the soil.
"But, Aiki-sama… I think they should all be heading this way after the spells you let off, and I'm sure the lightning bolt you shot gave them a direction to look in," Lunaria said, wiping her face and running up close toward her.
"So I think it'd be a better idea if we made an outpost instead," she asked, not wanting to trot around in the rain for people who were probably already heading this way.
Her boots were already filled with rainwater and mud. "Please~ I don't want my feet to get cursed with whore's foot," she complained as she followed along.
Lunaria continued to try and persuade Aiki… but eventually, seeing that she had no intention of stopping and continued walking forward, she just stopped, sulked, sighed, and cursed something about the sea goddess underneath her breath as she followed along in the mud and debris.
Her violet eyes sank as she felt the mud and water seeping into her shoes.
The knight still remained at the entrance of the dungeon, the scent of burning soil and smoke coming from it as water flowed in, attempting to douse it. A light chuckle joined the sounds of pouring rain as the armor-wearing, Silver-Ranking Adventurer took off their helmet.
Their brown locks of hair were let free, and her blood-red eyes exposed to the world, as she pulled the helmet off.
"So this is the power of the Hero of Veyrunth," she thought, licking her fangs, her eyes slitting slightly. "If I hadn't held myself back and acted on my paranoia, I would've ruined the lady's plans~" Her eyes shone with a red glow, her bloodlust growing and her muscles tensing beneath her armor as she put her helmet back on and followed behind them.
Hmm? Interesting, Malrik thought, his idea to mix his two Authorities had led him to uncover something strange, after he felt something weirdly off about the knight. "I guess there are still remnants of my grandfather's army sinking their roots into this kingdom," he toned, his ethereal eyes staring at the woman walking behind Aiki—or more specifically, the panel floating beside her:
──────
Name: Malady Malay
Race: High Ghoul (Half-Vampire Fledgling)
Class: Swordswoman
Level: 110
EXP: 47,056 → 47,057 → 47,058 / 83,200
Alignment: Evil
Affiliation: Demon King's Army / Elizabeth Bloodworth
Title(s):
Daughter of Arack Malay
The Guardswoman of Greenstone Village
Murderer
Ghoulish Hound
???
???
???
──────
HP: 4,320 / 4,320
MP: 0 / 0
Stamina: 2,160 / 2,160
Strength: 129
Dexterity: 100 (MAXED OUT)
Vitality: 100 (MAXED OUT)
Intelligence: 60
Charisma: 25
[ESS: Mist II] (Dark)
──────
ABILITIES
Enhanced Body (Passive)
Night Walker (Passive)
Blood Lust (Active)
──────
Malrik licked his lips, the golden glow of her panel tempting him. "Hmm, Elizabeth Bloodworth… that rings a few bells," he thought to himself. One of his father's servants had informed him about a backup plan in case he was found too quickly. My father said I'd be watched over by Elizabeth Bloodworth and that she'd be there if I needed something.
That turned out to be a blatant lie. Aiki almost killed me and she didn't even show up.
But… his memory of that day resurfaced:
"Young lord~" a pair of breasts said. "The Sixty-fifth Prince has..." Her panting voice blurred, the two mounds getting closer. The pair of 'breasts' reached into his crib and picked him up.
He remembered their soft, cold touch as they enveloped his sleep-heavy face. Their low heartbeat as he felt her taking him out of his room in a mad dash to secure some privacy and finally finding some in a broom closet.
His lord—Thorneveil Tenebris. And lady Malish... Elizabeth Bloodworth.
Plan… blood. It won't hurt, I promise~
A black-haired girl—who looked to be only fifteen or sixteen—rambled as she pulled away an infant dressed in white from her black and red frilled dress. It beautifully accentuated her body, along with her blood-red lips and fangs—
A vampire.
That was the first thought that came to his mind, but that thought was briefly washed away by the horns on her head, then reinforced again as she brought his neck to her maw and bit down.
Not in the classic bite expected from a vampire. Instead, her fangs continued biting down—and were then joined by the rest of her teeth. Her teeth were instantly stained crimson, and her taste buds screamed with joy. But she didn't get the time to enjoy the experience as the infant went on a full-blown trip and cried its lungs out.
Tear…
The sound of flesh ripping echoed through the room, and then his cries stopped as an elongated tongue shot through the wound, crawled down his esophagus, and pierced into his heart.
And then—
Everything went black.
Wait! Wait! Wait!
The hell!? Was I molested!?