[Item drop: Potion of vampire blood]

Yuki double tapped on the item to open its information chart.

[Rank: E]

[Attack: 0]

[Description: Power: pouring the potion on an injury causes instant physical body healing however this item does not recover HP. The gift of immortality is something which everyone desires. God once gave this gift to a group of humans, however with everything good, there’s also evil. In exchange for the ability to live forever, the gifted humans had to eat other humans. These gifted humans became known as “vampires”. The vampires quickly became outnumbered and slaughtered. In fear, the vampires began to hide and only attack at night in which the human forces were weakened. The life force (blood) gained from killing the vampires was used as medicine to heal the ones that needed it most.]

Yuki and Meurig both walked to the next gate way together which took them about 2 hours. The stages were getting bigger as they went on. This wasn’t surprising as the dungeons were designed to take a long time to clear. For an average person who was casually trying to level up, it would take them at least a year to clear one dungeon. Since Yuki was trying to avoid having to waste time, he wanted to spend no more than 2 weeks in the dungeon, however it was getting eerily close to that time frame since he had entered the dungeon.

“Even if I take longer than 2 weeks, I still have an advantage over the rest of the world since only a few people should be lucky enough to find a dungeon,” Yuki thought to himself.

[Stage seven: Complete]

[Save point reached]

[If you would like to move to the 8th stage of the dungeon, please step forward]

[Stage 8 difficulty: level 4-5]

“Want to take a break here?” Meurig asked.

“Sure. I don’t want to use my remaining potions here. I want to save them until the last stage or at least the stage before that,” Yuki replied.

“I can’t continue to rely on these potions, all they do is cover my weaknesses. Just because they can help me now, doesn’t mean that those weaknesses don’t exist, they just become invisible for a short period of time,” Yuki thought to himself.

“Sorry to ask but what should I address you as? I’ve just met you and we haven’t had a chance to talk so I wanted to take the opportunity to get to know you if you’re okay with that,” Meurig said.

“I don’t mind at all. You can just refer to me as Yuki.”

“Now that I answered you, I want you to answer my questions,” Yuki proposed.

“I’ll try my best,” Meurig replied.

Yuki: You must know by now that each monster here gives a special item. That item has a special power to it, however, what I’m interested in is the stories behind them. I didn’t kill you which means I never received your item, in turn not learning your story. Who are you?

Meurig: I am Meurig. I used to have a family which consisted of my mom, dad, and younger sister. I never really spent time with them, I was more of the distant type. Before I realized it, I was spending most of my days alone.

Yuki: How did you get here?

Meurig: To be honest, I don’t know. I went to sleep one day and woke up here the next.

Yuki: How long has it been since you came here.

Meurig: The place I was in never had a day cycle. The sun was always up which made it hard to tell when the day had passed. It felt like I had spent years or even decades there.

Yuki: Wait! I want to try something.

Yuki: Do you see a small gear at the top right corner of your line of vision?

Meurig: Yes. I was wondering what that was. No matter where I go, it always seems to be there.

Yuki: Good. Try tapping it

Meurig: Okay.

Meurig: A giant screen popped up in front of me. There are so many options here.

Yuki: Don’t worry. Now, do you see something that says “Profile”? If so click on it.

Meurig: Okay. I see some other things now.

Yuki: Do you see something that says “Age:”

Meurig: Yes I do! It says 16.

Yuki’s heart skipped a beat.

“I figured so,” Yuki said out loud.

“You were probably right. You probably spent eons in that stage. The problem wasn’t you, it was Zero. He isn’t confined by the laws of space and time which allows him to augment anything within this reality. How scary! If he only has a fragment of the power I once had, I wonder what kind of creature I was previously?” Yuki was saying his own thoughts.

“Yuki I don’t get it. You keep talking about all this nonsense, is something wrong?” Meurig asked with concern.

“Don’t worry about it. I was just thinking out loud. There are only 3 stages left in this dungeon and we can finally leave this place! Aren’t you excited?” Yuki asked with a big smile on his face.

“Of course I am!”

“More importantly though, sorry for holding you back earlier. I shouldn’t have let my guard down,” Meurig apologized.

“Hey, don’t worry about it! We got out of there and that’s all that matters!” Yuki replied.

“You’re pretty strong you know. Anyone would be jealous to have that power. You have that insane power and also have an ability slot on top of that! You should be more happy and proud. I’ll need your help in the future, don’t let me down!” Yuki tried to cheer Meurig up.

Yuki and Meurig laid down on the stone wall which was part of the gateway leading to the next stage. The gateway was about 10 meters long, 4 meters wide and 5 meters high. There were deep engravings all across the hallway. The engravings lit up light blue, they seemed to calm the mind. Yuki and Meurig began to get sleepy. They talked through the night until they finally fell asleep.