Within the Administrator Dungeon on the Eighty-Fourth Floor

A loud eruption sounds out from within the magma-coated cavern as a strong geyser of lava blasts out of the wall. Before it can hit either Lily or Chris, Chris throws out his fist towards the lava geyser while turning it to metal, sending a powerful shockwave towards it. The shockwave slams into the lava, sending it back towards the wall before Chris – otherwise known as Unbreakable – picks up Lily and carries her around the corner into another cavern.

However, he stops almost immediately after turning the corner to the sight of a man with extremely pale skin, wearing a set of black leather armor while wielding a sword in both hands.

“Nosferatu,” Chris mutters before looking behind him to see the lava slowly encroaching on them. He then continues running towards the dhampir, who is in the middle of fighting with a large, magma-coated spider.

Norbert turns his head to glance at the two running towards him before quickly dodging the spider’s strike and piercing it through with one of his swords. He then jumps off of its body as it falls to the ground and narrows his eyes at the lava flowing behind Lily and Chris.

‘Well, that’s annoying,’ he thinks right as he begins running away from it with the other two Competitors following after him.

After several minutes of running, the lava flow begins to slow down, and the three Competitors eventually stop.

Several seconds pass in silence as Lily catches her breath before Norbert asks, “Was that from a lava geyser?”

“Yeah,” Chris answers while wiping some sweat off of his forehead. “It happened right after we finished off one of those spiders.”

The dhampir grunts in response and opens up his menu. He then begins messing with it while the other two Competitors chat amongst each other.

“What do you think about the news that Techral and The Winter Wolf knew each other as kids?” Chris suddenly asks Norbert after approaching him.

Norbert continues typing away at the screen for a few seconds before eventually saying, “It doesn’t interest me much, but from what I’ve seen, Wolf doesn’t actually recognize him. And if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter if Techral does or not.”

Chris’s eyebrows raise slightly in surprise at the dhampir’s use of designations between the two Competitors.

‘Why is he calling The Winter Wolf by his name, but not Techral?’ he thinks with a frown. ‘Also, the tone he used when saying their names were completely different…’

After thinking about it for a few seconds, Chris nods his head and says, “True enough.”

Norbert continues typing for several more seconds until Lily suddenly approaches him and asks, “Would you mind telling me about yourself?”

Both Norbert and Chris turn to stare at her in surprise, but Norbert eventually asks after a brief silence, “Why?”

Lily just stares at him and says, “Because we’ve met several times already and still don’t know anything about each other.”

The dhampir raises an eyebrow at that but closes out of his menu and answers anyways, “I was an officer in the military of my home kingdom.”

“An officer?” Chris mutters in surprise.

Norbert glances at him before focusing on Lily again as she asks, “What about family? Or friends? Is there anyone you miss?”

His eyes widen slightly at the barrage of questions, but before he can say anything another loud eruption sounds from the cavern and a large geyser of lava shoots out of the wall.

“Damn it, again?!” Chris shouts in irritation as he and the other two Competitors begin running away from the lava. “I’m getting really sick of this floor theme!”

The three continue running away for a few seconds before Lily repeats her question to Norbert.

Norbert sends an incredulous look towards her, only to let out a short laugh and shake his head.

“You’re certainly an odd one,” he mutters before answering, “my father is the only one I have left back on Aegis. He’s also the one who trained me in my swordplay.”

“Really? He did a good job then,” Lily says with a smile in between breaths as she runs.

Norbert faintly smiles at her words without saying anything in response.

Meanwhile, Chris glances between the two with a strange look on his face. He then asks the dhampir, “What was your world like?”

However, unlike with when Lily was speaking to him, Norbert simply glances at the man before ignoring him.

Chris frowns at this, only for Lily to ask the same thing he did, getting Norbert to look towards her with a warmer look and answer, “It was a cold world, almost completely covered in snow.”

‘Wait, so he ignores me and answers her?’ Chris thinks as his frown grows.

“The world was ruled by the vampires, who were upper nobility for us,” Norbert continues, still ignoring the frown Chris is sending his way. “Us dhampirs on the other hand were considered lower nobility.”

A few seconds pass in silence as he pauses.

“What about the humans?” Lily asks out of curiosity.

Norbert glances behind them at the lava before facing forwards again and saying in a slightly less warm tone, “The humans were often treated rather poorly by the vampires, and even the dhampirs. Although some kingdoms treated them better than others.”

For the first time during the conversation, Lily frowns at his words. “Treated poorly?”

The dhampir glances at her again and frowns before facing forwards and saying, “Yeah. And from what I’ve heard, that’s a rather common thing in a lot of vampire worlds.”

Lily’s frown deepens even further at this.

Wolf

A day later, on the Ninety-Sixth floor

“Okay, this is really starting to become a regular thing, isn’t it?” I ask out loud despite knowing that the little immortal chicken can’t understand me.

The thing is currently sitting on top of the frozen statue of one of the scythian archers I dealt with earlier.

A round of screeching comes from my shadow before Sapphire jumps straight out of it and rushes towards the chicken, just like with the last times we’ve run into it.

“Will you please stop that?!” I shout at her while chasing after her.