Chương 29

The blood tree swayed as the silver bullet pierced through the bark and embedded itself in the wood. The bark around the bullet wound started to bubble like blisters on skin from a severe human allergy. Even as Oliver watched, the blight spread slowly across the trunk. And the tree lacked any means of extracting the silver bullet from within itself. In time, the tree would be felled no matter what. Unfortunately, Oliver lacked time. The tree lashed out, one of its roots shooting in Oliver's direction.

However, it was like dodging a blow from a drunkard. He side-stepped and retaliated by chopping down on the over-extended root. Rather than hanging around the dying tree, Oliver used Shadow Slink to duck away. The tree, now thrashing about in pain and repeatedly jabbing its roots into its own trunk, paid him no mind. He decided that at the very least, he could use the tree's death to act as cover for his infiltration. Better to make the best of a bad situation than to abandon his mission altogether.

He dashed off in the opposite direction of the rampaging tree. Avoiding the main path, Oliver did his best not to rub up against the foliage as he ran. He mostly succeeded. His legs itched from where a plant's thorns had pierced through his trousers and scratched him, but he avoided the more deadly threats, like the snapping giant fly trap. He ignored the twinge of pain in his leg as he reached one of the castle windows.

He wedged his shovel between the sill and the glass window and heaved down his end, the sill acting as a fulcrum. The window popped open and he slipped inside, carefully closing it behind him and pulling the red curtain across to hide himself from outside observers. While a keen eyed tracker might still pick up on his dash through the garden, the goal was to not leave an obvious trail of stomped on plants and broken glass to reveal his path too easily. Now inside, Oliver took careful note of his new surroundings.

He currently stood in what looked to be a dining hall with a long empty table. In lieu of silverware and plates, each chair had a single empty goblet and pristine white napkin placed in front of it. Portraits of terrifying individuals with sharp features stared down from the walls above. He needed to find his way to the basement.

"Hey, Ben," Oliver whispered.

"Do you know which way to the dungeon?"" Bzzzt—" Oliver winced at the noise coming from his pack.

"Stop responding!" he hissed at Ben.

"Your communications are haywire." His bag went silent. At the very least, it seemed that Ben could hear him. So only the incoming signal was being blocked. Oliver sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He supposed that one-way communication was better than no way communication.

"I'm going to scout out the castle," Oliver said.

"There's a bit of chaos outside right now. But do not let Kiki come up the hill yet." If the [Neon Samurai] got involved, Oliver had zero doubts that everything would end up ten times worse.

"Keep her in reserve until I say I need her. And remain silent. The last thing I need is for your communication device to start blasting noise when I'm creeping around this place." No response. Oliver decided to take the silence as an affirmative that his request would be carried out. Oliver exited the dining room and entered the kitchen. There he encountered his first non-vampire resident of the castle. A man stood there, looking gaunt as he stirred a pot of boiling blood.

Even while standing, his body sagged and his movements were jerky as he added spices to the pot. Oliver used his Appraisal skill to get the man's basics. Jonathan Goodly. Vampiric Thrall. Level 9. Oliver knew of vampire thralls, but only seen them as part of an entourage. Never alone. They usually weren't allowed out of the sight of the vampire who controlled them.

Rumor had it that they could be broken from their stupor under the right circumstances so vampires kept their favorite thralls all hidden away, lest they lose them. He wondered about the viability of breaking Jonathan away from his master, but decided against the attempt. Even if Oliver knew exactly how to snap a thrall from a vampire's control, which he didn't, the action might alert the master that something was wrong. And a man like Jonathan at level 9 would only get himself caught again by the vampires.

Which would, in turn, expose information on Oliver as well as risk Jonathan's life. As horrible as it was, the best thing he could do for the thrall was to leave him alone. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Oliver snuck behind the cook and slid into the next room. The pantry. Most of the shelves inside were bare. Vampires didn't need physical food to sustain themselves.

But Oliver did still find quite a bit of hard bread, pickled vegetables, and barrels of water. Likely to keep the thralls alive. Though Jonathan's skeletal stature showed that his masters weren't doing a particularly good job at it. Oliver supposed healthy and alive were two different things to the bloodsuckers. In the corner of the pantry, Oliver found a trapdoor. He gripped the handle and yanked it open to peer down into the darkness below. He lacked the equipment and skills needed to see with so little light.

Uncanny Sight granted him the ability to find invisible enemies. But darkvision remained out of his arsenal. After half a decade lurking about in the Nightmare Biome, something as mundane as the dark would hardly remain a hurdle for Oliver. He had resources to counter it. He rummaged around in his pack. He found a candlestick quickly. However, he wasn't fond of the idea of carrying an open flame. He wouldn't be able to cover it up easily without snuffing it out and leaving him blind.

His fairy ring was another option. He could summon the little fairy and let it guide him with its light. Again, not ideal since it had a strict time limit on it. Then something else in the pack caught his eye. A blinking yellow light came from the piece of Ben's drone that the [Technomancer] used for communication. Not a lot of light. But it was at least something.

"Ben, I'm speaking to you again. But don't respond with noise," Oliver said.

"I need light right now. Can you boost any lights on this drone piece?" In response, the blinking yellow light stabilized and another red light appeared on the other side of the drone piece, a bit brighter than the yellow one. Not much, but Oliver would make due with it. And now he had confirmation that Ben could hear him.

"Excellent. And you can dim it on command as well?" The light dimmed. A few seconds later it returned. Still not absolutely ideal since it required a vocal command from Oliver, but good enough. He climbed down the ladder and closed the trapdoor behind him. Ben's lights held a bit of the darkness at bay. The room under the pantry was a wine cellar. Which made sense. Another stairway off to the side led in a different direction.

Probably a way for the vampires to access the cellar without needing to enter the kitchen. Oliver crept up to one of the wine racks and examined the bottle. Human male. 11 years old. Sweetened with a hint of sugarcane. Not wine. In hindsight, that was pretty obvious. He was currently inside a vampire lair. A cursory glance around revealed a few different races listed. All originating from the Nightmare Biome. Werewolf included.

But seeing as his quest remained active, his target wasn't likely among those bottled down here. Both a kill and level up notification flashed across his vision. He blinked them away instantly, alert and confused. Then he realized he received it from killing that monstrous tree. After rampaging for several more minutes after his departure, the plant had finally died. It must have carried a steep amount of experience points to grant him an entire level.

Likely his silver bullet and his unique class's strengths were the only reason it went down so easily. Now at level 55, he put his free points in Strength again. Then he glanced at his full spread of stats. Strength 46, Dexterity 136, Resilience 63, Mental 5, Speech 5, Luck 0. Not bad. But it hadn't been enough to push him across any thresholds so he wouldn't see any significant gains until his next level at the very least.

It used to take several weeks of effort for a single level, he now received several in just one day. He needed to be careful so as to level so fast that he hurt himself, like Ben had warned him about. Still, even with his monumental growth, he doubted he'd be receiving more than tens of levels in a single day. Not wanting to ascend the steps just yet and risk encountering a vampire, Oliver decided to explore the cellar a bit more.

In his second year living in the Nightmare Biome, Oliver recalled picking up a quest that involved destroying the documents of an old architect. They'd been buried with his corpse and required Oliver to do some grave robbing to acquire. Mostly, they'd been schematics and trap filled dungeons, never used and viewed as too dangerous should they fall in the wrong hands. After dispatching the zombified architect and before burning them, Oliver had flipped through.

Not all that interesting, but he now suddenly recalled the mention of a wine rack door. Not expecting too much, Oliver searched around on a whim, groping about in the shadows with his hands more than using his eyes. Then his fingers brushed up against another smaller wine rack beside the main one. He traced the edge of it. It was definitely distinct from the main rack. Curious about the differences between it and the main rack, he tugged on one of the bottles. It didn't budge.

He tried another and it slid right off the rack. He raised Ben's drone piece up to get a look at the words written. It was nothing special. Just the blood of a random middle-aged man. He replaced it and tried again to tug out the stubborn bottle from before. Nothing. Frowning. He considered it. Then, on a whim, he tried pushing the bottle. It pressed in with a click. Then the wine rack swung inward.