Before I can enter my house, I feel a shiver run down my spine as if someone was staring at me from behind.

I look around but there's nobody here besides Iris and me. And it certainly wasn't Justo, his presence always felt different than this. His is less burning all-consuming hatred and more cold indifference.

Maybe I just imagined that?

...or maybe not.

While hanging my head in frustration, I notice footprints on the ground, pretty steep ones. They come from the round and make a U-turn quite a bit before me. Strangely enough, they even extend unto the road. Seems like I'm not the only one that has a problem with the solidity of the swamp-like street.

Hmm, now that I look at it, neither Iris nor I have left footprints on the pathway despite the soft ground. Weird. I mean, I know that the physics around here are strange but... seriously, how heavy must that person be that the sum of a massive arachne with me on her back is magnitudes less?

I doubt these footprints belong to the stalker, if their size is anything to go by, we should have heard some stomps or felt the earth shaking. But who else could they belong to? I don't really have any knowledge about interpreting footprints or anything, I have to admit, I make a lousy tracker. So much for vampires being apex predators.

"Found anything interesting?", Iris asks me, finally growing impatient from my looking around aimlessly.

"Footprints."

"Eh, so what?"

"Not sure. But it is a fact that we two didn't leave any, just see for yourself. I wonder how someone that massive could go unnoticed. But more importantly, I have a hard time imagining someone can leave deep footprints like that if even the sum of us two doesn't make the ground budge. Look over there, ", I point towards the main road, "they even deformed the allegedly solid road, there must be something else to it, I just can't make heads or tails of it."

She shakes her head, "I don't think that is important right now, we have more pressing issues, don't you think? Let's go, the others should be waiting for us."

"Yeah, you're right."

Scratching my head, I finally enter my home.

"Hello, anyone home?", I shout in the main hall of my house.

Weird, not even Justo, the house itself, answers. Did the general weirdness get to him as well? Going by the amount of black dots in the air, that is a very certain probably. Either that or the Lord's Mansions simply don't work in a dungeon, which we are supposedly in right now. Considering how even some basic biological functions like sleep are misbehaving in a dungeon-like environment, that wouldn't surprise me either. Please, let it be that, we already have enough serious problems. Or rather, too many.

Iris guesses, "They are probably in the usual meeting room."

Cough Cough

Damn it!

"Yeah, seems like it. Let's go there as well."

Knock Knock

I knock on the door of the meeting room, not expecting any immediate reply, but to my surprise, Eclaire opens the door quite quickly, "Huh, I didn't expect you to be here so soon, Jared. Didn't I tell you to take it slow and rest a bit first?"

"Not needing to sleep due to [Sleepless] cuts both ways, and we could talk enough on the way here, not that Iris could tell me much after she was trapped down there for the majority of the time. So, can we come in?"

She forces a smile, "Oh, yes, sure. ...Wait, 'we'? Who did you bring with you?"

Iris finally stops looking around the main hall and hurries next to me, then waves hello, "Yeah, I'm here as well."

Eclaire grimaces, "Oh, my... that's... Well, come in and show yourself to the others."

That didn't sound as happy as expected, rather the opposite. Do they know something about this whole Hybrid ordeal that I should know?

We enter the meeting and look around.

Aside from Eclaire, Lucia, Therese, Karen and Darius are present. No sign of any of our other summons here either.

Eclaire guides me to my chair and reads me like an open book, "If you're looking for Maria and Lydia, well, Maria is on an errand and Lydia is playing with the kids at the church's orphanage, they'll be back later."

It is quite suspicious that she left out Elly. Should I be worried, or is this a secret I shouldn't ask about in public? I'll ask about that later but I shouldn't really worry; she is one of my summoned spirits, at worst she died and is waiting to respawn in a week, right?

...damn, now that I thought about it, I can already feel how Murphy is getting into gear, shit!!

While Eclaire returns to her seat directly next to the door, I ask "What was the meeting about anyway?"

"Nothing special, just a daily checkup on the current crisis, progress of countermeasures - or failure thereof - basic management stuff", she explains.

While she does so, I quickly check the status of my guests. Therese, Karen and Darius have the three usual familiar skills, but not a Hybrid class, guess they were familiarized early enough. Nothing else about them has changed, though they look a bit under the weather.

Lucia... has certainly seen better days. She has no weird class or status, but she looks sick and weak as if she were about to collapse. Shouldn't the recovery from [Sleepless], or the [Undead] state prevent that? What's going on with her?

No, her condition is even worse, every so often, her whole body flickers like a bad TV signal, as if she were about to cease to exist any moment now...

Name Lucia Delacroix Status normal, disguised Age 18 (frozen) Classes Battle Smith 16, Fallen Saint 9, Blood Witch 9, Lead Singer 10, Forge Wizard 9

Trickster Priest 9 Race Sunbound (human) 10 Extra Vampire 10, Noble 8, Lord 20, Progenitor 8 Divine Cursed Queen 10 Title W̴̦̿o̷͕̐ȑ̷͚l̴̮̄d̷͎͑ ̴̟̓R̶̰̍è̸̬s̶̙͊ȋ̷̯d̵͔̈́e̶̿ͅn̴̪̈t̶̥̊, World Navigator, Noble, Vampire Progenitor, Daywalker, Demon Lord, Regenerator, Title Holder, Demon, Fortress Lord, Fate Breaker, Happily Married, Master Crafter, R̶̟̐û̴̫l̶̩͋e̸̡͒ṙ̶̫ ̵̼͠ǫ̸̽f̸̯͗ ̴̱̊F̴̙́a̴̙͝m̶̲̐i̵̹͠l̸̕i̴̫̒a̴͚̔ṛ̸̽s̷̪̑, S̶̬̓u̸̖̿m̵̲͑ḿ̴̪o̷͉͛n̶̫͐ ̶̖͆M̸̢̆ạ̸̈́s̷̖͛t̸̪͑e̸̙̅r̵̤̊, Summon Master, World Resident, Three of Disaster

Title Level 7 EXP approaching zero - eventually - but still negative HP 3477/3477 [4347] MP 2390/2390 [3613] SP 3252/3252 [4066] STR 671+95 (hammer) or +143 (claws) or +47 (created 1-handed weapon) DEX 546 VIT 563+56 MAG 542+20 FTH 552+15 WIL 488+31 CHA 549 Equipment Smith Hammer, Robe, Habit, Sun Guard Ring Skills - Weapon Axe Training 10, Unnatural Claws 8 Skills - Magic Bless 9, Corrosive Rain 9, Enchant Weapon 9, Dark Magic 9 (Rank 1), Earth Magic 9 (Rank 1), Fire Magic 19 (Rank 1), Ice Magic 9 (Rank 1), Profane Bolt 9, Spectral Hand 9, Twisted Pillar of Light 9 Skills - Status Charm Eye 8, Create Weapon 16, Disguise 10, Energizing Song 10, Intimidation 16, Sharpen Weapon 16 Skills - Special Embrace 8, Familiar 20, Greater Vampiric Bite 20 Skills - Passive Affinity Magic 9 (Rank 1), Ageless 20, Armor Training 16, Beast Killer 8, C̷̨̒u̶̢̕r̸̲̅(̶̞͝s̴̺͝)̴̩̀ĕ̵͓ Magic 10, Dark Lord 10, Enhanced Regeneration 20, Forgery 9, Hard Worker 10, Living Undead 10, Sleepless 10, Supernatural Toughness 8, Undead 10, Unholy Matrimony 10, Vampire Hierarchy 10 Queen's Dignity 10, Royal Guidance 10 Weakness Fire, Light, Dark, Holy

But the appraisal shows nothing that hints at a cause. Aside from the two new skills [Queen's Dignity] and [Royal Guidance], everything looks normal, the status even says so. So what is going on here?

And her voice sounds distorted as hell, like two overlapping radio channels, "H̶-̸h̸e̷y̶,̷ ̷J̸-̴J̸a̸r̴e̶d̸.̸"

Without thinking, I reach my hand out to Lucia, but Karen stops me, "Do NOT touch her!"

Snapping back to reality, I retract my hand, "What? Why? What's... wrong with her?"

She elaborates, "You can see it for yourself, can't you? She's sick like a lot of us. Everyone that doesn't have one of those weird Hybrid classes suffers from the changed atmosphere, and Lucia has gotten it the worst by far."

Lucia tries to say something but I hear only static despite her sitting just across the table, "I̸t̷ ̵i̵s̸ ̷n̵o̵t̶ ̶y̴o̸u̷r̸ ̷f̷a̵u̸l̸t̵,̵ ̷J̸a̴r̸e̶d̸.̴"

"What has the Hybrid class phenomenon got to do with it, or with anything?"

Therese explains, "Mostly observation. Everyone that has the Hybrid class seems absolutely fine, your spirits are only slightly worse off so far and the familiars without the Hybrid class, like us, currently show only light to mild symptoms at worst. But Lucia is none of these and got it the worst. No one understands the relation."

She sneers before continuing, "Of course, if we had your world's oh-so advanced technology and knowledge on magic, medicine and glitch-based anomalies we not only would've stabilized the situation by now but also were halfway done with developing a cure, am I right?"

Yep, Therese still doesn't like me - and the feeling is mutual. Rightfully so.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but we didn't have magic, so that would be beyond us as well", she doesn't need to know that I really have neither past-life memories nor knowledge worth speaking of.

Therese is surprised, "What, no magic? How else would you operate a higher developed society?"

"We mostly had electricity for that."

Eclaire questions me, "What is this el-ectrishidy?"

Doesn't sound like the word was smoothly translated into Deteoh's language. So does that mean past Lost Ones kept it completely a secret? What for? The people here have magic, shouldn't it at least in theory be able to do everything? That should include substituting electricity as well. At least I'm pretty sure that someone smarter than me should be able to figure out how to get there from the sparks generated by rank 0 lightning magic, can't be that hard.

Karen interjects, "I think I read something about that in some myths about past Lost Ones. They led some research into how their original technology would interact with our magic and magitek, and they concluded it was, uh, utterly incompatible. They wrote something about magic innately releasing... what did they call it again? Uh, an EMP-adjacent wave, something like that, but there were no notes on what that is supposed to mean."

Now I wish I had the memories and knowledge of a physicist. I can only draw on the nonsense pop culture taught to some people, and there usually most things are exaggerated until the final result has nothing to do with the actual thing anymore. Just imagine if even half of that stuff was true, every time a mage sneezes every electronic device in a five-mile radius would go up in smokes and half the people would suffer from cognitive blackout. Yeah, that's clearly not true.

Karen adds, "He, uh, also complained about his 'Yfohn' exploding when his assistant had a sneezing fit. Also no documentation on what that was."

So much for that...

Darius slams the table, "Can we please leave the fairytales on ele-whatever aside?" He points at Iris, "What is with her? I thought Iris wasn't human anymore but rather part spider monster. So how can this be?"

The accursed girl giggles and partially transforms back, "You mean this? Jared blessed me with a Hybrid class and the [Human Form] skill. I'm now free to switch between human and my true form as I please."

Therese is shocked, "He did what?"

Way to blow my cover, Iris. I wanted to break it to them slowly...

While I curse inwardly, Iris once again assumes a fully human form.

Karen scratches her rabbit ears, "Uh, Therese, we already knew that he was a potential cause for this, remember? Everyone that got the Hybris class is a familiar of his, the only ones that haven't got it were included in their clan before a certain point where his status got even weirder than before. It isn't that much of a stretch."

"And it isn't exactly like I wanted that to happen..."

Mostly. I have to admit I did desire more power, still do - to survive, to live, to figure out what the hell is going on on this planet, but not like this.

Therese gives up, "Yeah, yeah. So what now? Do we have to resign our fates to him yet again? I'm already uneasy with living under the rule of undead, but getting transformed into whatever Hybrids are goes too far for me. Even if current circumstances may make it appear safe, or at least safer than without."

"As much as it pains me, I'll have to agree with Therese. I don't see the point either. Specifically what it has to do with the health concerns. As you said, the spirits seem to be fine even without the questionable class. So what's the connection there?"

Karen begins to explain, "So this is just mere speculation but from what we've gathered it is all your fault. Kinda."

"Great, I just woke up, almost drowned in solid ground and now we're already playing the blame game-"

Cough Cough

Damn coughing interrupted my trail of thoughts again...

Karen takes this chance to interrupt me, "No, no, let me finish! So to be honest, we have no idea. But we suspect that it has got something to do with the link we as your familiars have to you, similar to how your summoned spirits are connected to you. Let's not mince words here, the air, everything, is contaminated with glitches, or something similar, right? Breathing that stuff is not healthy in the slightest. Well, simple exposure isn't any better. Normally, lungs can't process that without accumulating more and more damage or glitch infections. But a sizeable portion of that infection seems to be absorbed through the familiar link, so we're spared the worst, for now. It is a really fascinating topic, really. We researched a lot these last couple of weeks. I could give you a presentation sometime."

"Let's not. So how does this relate to Lucia? If all this pollution gets absorbed through a link and ends at me, shouldn't her [Unholy Matrimony] skill achieve the same? By my understanding, that one is an even stronger connection, so I don't really get it."

Karen explains, "It doesn't seem to work that way but I can't really tell. Divine skills like that are usually hidden from [Appraisal] making them even harder to research. I only know of it because she revealed it to me, otherwise, my research would've gone down a totally wrong path for a long while. Not that I'm even sure, I'm on the correct one now."

Right, there was that restriction. I always forget that [Appraisal] is basically the one cheat-like advantage I have...

"Okay, so, in summary, my body acts as a garbage disposal for a huge chunk of the glitchioactive waste that plagues my familiars and spirits, and Lucia, who as my wife should have a closer connection with me, doesn't. But the whole thing makes no sense to me. I mean, if that was the case shouldn't I be a living Glitch Zone by now? I wouldn't just have a slight coughing, I would look much worse than Lucia does. No offense, dear. I would've absorbed the partial radiation several hundred people were exposed to, wouldn't I?"

Oh, shit, I do have one Glitch Core within my soul. Are we just feeding it? Would it then grow into a full-blown Glitch Zone and engulf the whole world? Or, uh, whatever isn't utterly ruined by then.

Therese sighs, "If you want to know, out of the nearly twenty-five thousand inhabitants of this fortress only about eight thousand survived, so you have that many familiars right now plus some animals. To put it bluntly, a lot of people didn't take too well to the transformation and ended themselves, others were not reached in time before the dungeon-induced sleep deprivation got to them, and then there are people that were changed into forms that are not capable of living in this environment, like sea-dwelling creatures. Not to mention some... 'accidents' of hybridized people appearing too monster-like and people ended up fighting against them. You can guess the outcome."

She takes a moment to breathe before continuing, "There was also a growing group of rebels that went against their orders to recruit as many people as possible as familiars, instead, they slaughtered several hundred non-familiars. They have currently barricaded themselves and we don't know how to approach them without risking even more casualties. For some reason, the law enforcement system doesn't operate in dungeons. Also-"

I interrupt her, "Wait, wait, timeout! Let me first process that info dump!"

Two-thirds are dead just like that, and all because the dungeon gave me an unsolvable boss fight. This is outrageous, unfair!! I demand a do-over!