9/14 0:21 (Summer, Sunrise)
As the Cleric and the Swordswoman decided to ignore their artistic rogue and restarted to bicker at each other with slowly rising voices.
"I was only trying to make sure she was alive!"
"Oh, yeah, you bi-disaster?"
"Yeah, look! She is not even breathing!"
"Yeah, sure, so you can tell me that I am a pervert because I looked at her chest. And even if she is not breathing, she is alive. Her Vital Energy is slowly rising. Thing you would have noticed if you bothered to observe her instead of perving over her body. As you are doing right now."
"W-what are you talking about! I-I'm not p-per-"
"Shut the fuck up you two, I'm drawing and you are so loud I can't concentrate!" Jay finally shut them up.
This was only a first draft and so he concentrated particular care on the Half-Elf before them, especially her peaceful expression, and the cave in the background where Miasma was slowly ammassing.
The two ceased their quarrel, knowing very well how the oldest of the Party thought about things and his priorities and so they merely sat down, launching each other challenging looks, while Sabel tried to not look at the one before them.
A good 30 minutes later, once the draft was finally finished, Jay carefully posed it in his place for new drafts before doing the same with his instruments.
"Done. Now we can proceed."
"Finally." Hale took a stick and slowly neared the sleeping one.
"What do you think you are doing?!"
"I'm making sure she is okay."
Having said that he rose the stick before, carefully and slowly, he went to poke one of her shoulders.
As a result, the stick was forcefully grabbed before he could even touch her, being conseguently shattered into splinters that failed to even pierce her eyes to not speak of her skin.
The three quickly backed down, their weapons hesitantly raised to try to defend themselves.
Efforts that would have been futile considering the differences in power between them.
While Jay was not officially D-Class when it comes to the Guild Ranking, that was only because of his problematic behavior of caring only about his paintings.
He was very good as a rogue as he was very attent to details so when he relaxed his guard after carefully observing their potential enemy, the other members of his Party slowly following his lead.
As she rose to her feet, the Adventurers stepped back while she calmly stretched.
"What do you three want?" Her indifferent voice echoed in the area, a shiver passing through their bodies at the sound.
Sabel stepped forward, the most competent direct fighter of the three and the one who, except for her closeted nature, had the most ability to interact with other people as someone who was born in a noble family even if she was somewhat rusty with the so-called noble speach.
"I'm sorry we disturbed you, my lady. We were investigating the area when we found herself upon your body and wondering after your health."
"I see. I was merely resting. Now, what would you be seeking in this place?"
"We recieved a Quest to investigate the area as a disturbance was felt."
"Oh? Yet you are quite weak. I doubt you would be able to resolve a situation causing such a disturbance."
This could have been interpreted as an insult or a threat however, it was quite true.
Even if all of the three of them attacked her at once while she was sleeping while they were fully prepared, she would have simply and casually murdered all of them, after all none of them had any special way to survive being ripped to pieces.
"You are correct, we are merely to examine a section of the affected area to see if it is the cause or if there are any other strange occurance."
"I see. In that case," what the Party was now thinking a Dhampir rose her left arm, indicating the cave behind her. "That is an anomalous Dungeon. Not only it is at least a D-Rank Dungeon with a minimum of two floors specialized in Undeads and Curses."
"Could you please explain more?"
That request had two motives, one was simply the fact that they needed informations for their Quest.
The other reasons, however, was quite a bit more personal.
Sabel, the official spokeperson of this Party, simply found the voice of the person they just meet to be the most beautiful sound she ever heard and she wanted to hear more of it.
The other two members of the Party were to the side, well aware of the reason she subconsciously thought more important.
"Very well, but I suggest you don't enter it. You are too weak to leave that place alive. All the Undeads on the first floor had "Undying Body" at D-Rank and the moment you enter the Dungeon, two Liches will start to chant to Curse you and the Boss has "Undying Body" at C-Rank and an ability to amplify Curses."
"But that would mean…"
"Yeah. Addictionally I'm quite certain that it was at least in part modified by a Person."
"What?!" Sabel.
"Are you sure?" Hale.
"How interesting." Jay.
"Yes, I'm sure. The Liches were taught Formalcraft and the Boss had a Skill based on a Territory and was teached a version of Druidcraft, Skill that an "Undead Abomination" would never have."
"This is terrible. Would you like to accompany us to the Guild?"
"Nope. I have no intention to."
"I-I see… O-okay, I'm sorry for asking."
"Oh? Why so disappointed?"
"She is disappointed because she finds you attractive and wants to spend more time with you." Hale responded with Sabel not being able to refute it.
"Makes sense. I'm, after all, the most beautiful being on the World and she is not the first person I lead outside their closet."
"Oh? Does it happen often?"
"All the time."
Unaware that the previous her caused the sexual awakening of her own sister when this last one was 16 years old, further worsening her obsession and lowering her self esteem even further at the fact she found her sister attractive as a prospective partner or the fact that a couple broke up because of her and both of said ex tried to ask her out, unaware of each other.
"W-wait, I never said-"
At Sabel's protests, their new acquaintance started to walk towards her until she found herself with her back to a tree.
"My name is Luna. Remember it well." Her left hand slamming against the tree at the side of Sabel's head while Luna's right hand held her chin, rising it until their eyes met, before one of Luna's finger caressed Sabel's bottom lip.
Sabel became more and more red, her eyes swimming, as her embarassement and other emotions grew and grew while her brain heated up again and again until…
Luna's arms moved, keeping the black haired, 17 years old's body up as she lost consciousness.
She turned around, a smug smile on her face.
After all if you are attractive enough you can get away with behaving like this if you want to and she certaintly was attractive enough to.
She held her in what would be called a princess carry before moving back towards her tree before sitting down with the fainted swordswoman resting on her lap, her head leaning against Luna's shoulder.
As they waited for the 17 years old to wake up, the other members sit down nearby starting to converse with the other one.
"So, where are you going?"
"I have something of a temporary destination in mind, but not really a definitive one."
"You are a Dhampir, right? How does blood taste like?"
The reason why all of them thought her a Dhampir was simple, all three of them had seen her fangs and red eyes and she was standing calmly under Sunlight.
Ancestors were already unknown to Humans that didn't specialize in Vampires with their origin having so many theories ranging from a blessing or curse of an unknown God of the Moon or Blood, by a scientist that altered themselves or some subjects to make the first Vampires to even some more absurd ones like the theory that the first Vampire was a high-rank Cleric falsely accused of a crime and executed for it only for their corpse to rise again; Additionally the only People that knew anything substantial about Lunarians were Dragons, Phoenixes and some Vampires themselves.
Jay's questions could be considered quite rude, but Luna didn't particularly care about that.
"Something like that. And about the blood… it depends on whose blood is drunk, their strenght and taste, and the likings of the drinker, both flavourfully and sexually. In my case, I have an heavy leaning in favour of women." One of her hands gently touched the waking up Black-Haired girl's neck, rendering her red in the face again and she started to stutter uncontrollably.
Hale and Luna enjoyed her embarassment, one mostly because of a sense of schadenfreude and the other because she simply loved being admired, whetever because of her power or her beauty didn't matter, she just loved it, her previous lives or no didn't change it.
Sabel jumped away from her, her face completely red as a whine escaped her mouth, while Luna rose to her feet, her Vital Mana restored fully as she stretched before moving back towards the Dungeon.
"I will travel the First Floor of this Dungeon again. I need to test something."
"Can we-"
"Why not. I'm strong enough to be able to babysit the three of you." She said confidently.
This time she would have to fight quite differently from before as she needed to save as much time as possible.
Without any hesitation, she Shaped a True Curved Sword, Mana Forged with both [Greater Self] and [Mana-Clad Warrior] in her right hand and for the first time Summoned Ash within not a Drone, but a Weapon.
Her Curved Sword, seemingly made out of black glass and outlined in purple with an hilt long enough for her to use two hands on it if she wanted to, transformed.
A purple pattern was etched in the sword, from hilt to the tip of the blade, portraying a savage flame ready to consume everything, before said flames bursted from it, surrounding it in a dense layer of flames passively.
She entered the first room, finding herself before 7 Zombies again.
She didn't hesitate.
She launched forward, [Mana Burst] released from her feet to accelerate and a Magic Circle formed behind her out of her Black Blood, releasing a shockwave on herself that she modified with "Formalcraft" to have minimum power, but maximum knockback, accelerating her even further.
"[Knockwave]."
Before anyone could react, she already crossed the whole room and swung down, bisecting the central Zombie and leaving behind a trail of fire.
She didn't wait anything, her sword changing direction as she cut straight through its right leg, releasing a wave of fire that burned the three on that direction before she continued the swing, spinning in place and cutting in half both the already bisected one and the one at its immediate left.
As they burned in pieces, she moved to the final twos Zombie, launching her sword in the air and grabbing their heads with her hands, ignoring their Auras as she destroyed their heads by forcefully clenching her hands, shattering bones before taking back her falling Sword and cutting both of them in half.
She finally activated the version of the Skill of Ash she had access to, causing her flames to violently burst and burning the corpses to ashes.
She didn't wait, moving to the next room finding herself before the group of Zombies and Skeleton and releasing a shockwave of flames that bisected all the Undeads.
As they fell, she moved in, cutting the falling Undeads into pieces again and again until, their Vital Energy exausted, they all died.
In the next room she was even more savage, moving to the Liches instantanously, severing both of their heads, their arms, their legs before cutting them further in half.
She calmed down, they would no longer be able to Chant their "Curse-Attribute Magecraft" and so her time limit was destroyed with the two of them.
But that was no reason to slow down in her destruction.
Her sword changed shape, becoming a whip and grabbing on to the other Undeads, pulling them into a single place before, her flames exploding as for the second time she used Ash's Skill to make all of the Undeads burst into flames, ending all of them before they could even use Vital Energy to heal.
"So, next room is the Boss. What do you think until now of this Dungeon?"
"Well, on one hand we finished this floor in around one minute and everything died immediately, on the other hand if we were in the place of any of them, we would have died in a similar matter, so it's hard to misure power appropriately."
"I suppose so, but the Boss should help you understand at least a little, even if we don't have any Curses for him to Amplify."
Luna fought in a way vastly different from before for two important reasons.
The first was that she already understood the threat of this place.
The second was very simple yet incredibly important.
She was not alone.
And while their… leader? May have been fascinated by her, as was natural, that didn't mean they would not indeer her, directly or not, in the future thanks to the knowledge of how she fought and this way, this possibility would fall in her favor as their misinformation would prove to be another weapon in her favor, if necessary.
It's the reason why she didn't correct their assumption she was a Dhampir while still giving them her name instead of a false one or why she didn't drink the Blood of the Undeads.
She moved towards the Gate to the Boss Room, guiding all of them to the final fight of this Floor.
They may have been too weak to properly fight the Boss, but she was more than strong enough to beat the Boss while protecting the others.
As she found herself in a plane of bones, before the "Undead Abomination" again she could not help but smile, her eyes showing the playfull sadism of a predator finding an amusing prey to play with.
"What is this situation called, I wonder? Ah, yes. Déjà vu, correct? Now, be entertaining before you die!"
She swung her blade casually in the air, a trail of hungry flames following it as it roared, some of its hands and heads already Chanting "Curse-Attribute Magecraft" as it prepared to fight, rembering well the one before it.
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