Alice began by checking every inch of the place. She had no trouble learning the structure of this floor. To her surprise, it was far simpler than she could have ever asked. 

“Just like the sun,” her eyes rolled, finding it ironic how all the pathways connected to the core room. It was as if the center was the sun, and the hallways were its many curved rays.

“What is it like, my lady?”

Alice glanced at her with a confused look, but then she realized the light of this place hadn’t burned her. She had thought it was because it was the moonlight. But what if it wasn’t?

“What illuminates this place?”

Katherine looked at what I meant, the things that looked like holes.

“Shiny ores...” she took out one of them from the wall to show the child. A rock the size of her hands together, which by itself helped illuminate the place a tad. 

This one had a yellow vein. It made her wonder what these lines were, yet they didn’t show significant information. Thus, identification seemed beyond her abilities.

She got to see the entry; it led to a long hallway with two exits, one next to the other. Both had stairs, however, one went up, and the other went down.

Thus, it seemed this wasn’t the highest floor. 

Alice told two of the vampires to keep guard for the time being. If necessary, to run back if something came their way. 

Quickly, they complied, wielding one spider leg each.

‘If only we had more fighters,’ she thought to herself, hoping more users would have joined her in this place. 

Unease crawled through her heart, as she didn’t know how long she could defend this floor without other users.

‘Can the seven of them become strong too?’ Supposedly, it felt to her they had become something more like users than villagers. But there was no way of telling if the moon would benefit them in the same manner.

One reaver, seven vampires, and twenty-three survivors.

‘Alice, if you’re feeling good, you should name more of them for more abilities.’

The girl did a light nod in accordance, despite knowing I wouldn’t be able to see. She wasn’t quite sure if her body would be able to endure naming all of them, or even if there was some sort of limitation. 

But she knew I was right. 

These vampires needed to become stronger so that the safety of this place could be guaranteed.

And fast.

‘31 versus 7 spiders and we won by luck...’ 

Merely, thanks to the changes that happened within me, it was possible to avoid the worst-case scenario. Everyone had survived, and the wounded were the vampires who managed to heal. 

It seemed they inherited Alice’s curse, but neither of us was sure if that wasn’t just the normal thing for vampires to have.

 ‘Do you think there are other species of vampires?’

‘There should be. We were also a bit different from each other as humans.’

‘Right...’ Alice realized her classmates were generally distinct from each other. This could be said for both physical and psychological differences, despite everyone being a child.

After taking her time touching various ores in the room given by Katherine. Alice arrived at the one glued to the wall, whose line connected to every other one.

“Same as the others?”

“No. This is what Theseus protected the most, even prioritized above our lives.”

After savoring Katherine’s words as if they tasted like a bitter grape, her mouth opened with clear confusion.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, my lady. We were mere servants.”

Her words felt to me like they didn’t ask questions to the guardian and if they did, he hadn’t told them much.

But I, who heard their conversation whenever Katherine spoke close enough, thought that there could be a reason for that to be like that.

Maybe it could be related to secret quests.

‘How curious,’ bit by bit we gained interest in this world, despite how peculiar and dangerous it was.

We were both getting used to living in it, in our own unique ways.

Alice took a deep breath, feeling the tension surrounding her brain as if a tiny spider was walking on top of it.

“Here goes something,” tenderly, her fingertips touched the wall bump.

 

Floor five core unidentified.

 

It was a peculiar piece of information. Could this have been related in any way to Theseus’ blessing?

She felt her hand shivering and the core color turn slightly brighter.

Her eyes gazed down at the turbulence, as she was not the one shaking in fear or anything of the sort.

“What’s happening?”

To her surprise, the crystallization of experience seemed to resonate with whatever that was.

As she was about to ask me for an opinion, she shook her head to the sides. Surely, I would agree with trying out new things. Only then would something in this world change.

After all, that’s how Alice had gotten me a new ability. 

With some luck, such an event would trigger again, or so she hoped, reaching out the crystal to it.

“Is it okay?”

“The mountain was entrusted to you, my lady,” we could feel a hint of sorrow in her words, for the guardian had been with Katherine ever since she had been born.

To have given his life for another when he never cared that much for any of them was hurtful. But at the same time, it made her believe in a greater purpose: Alice’s existence.

“I’ll give it a try,” she figured there was nothing worth losing since she hadn’t been able to find a way to use her experience to level up.

Unlike everything she had seen before, the ore’s center opened. 

“What a strange hole,” it looked weird, like the living insides of something without skin.

She felt so creeped out by it that her hand didn’t reach near it, leaving only the experience close enough for her to be able to drop it in a way that it would fall inside of it.

And despite the grotesque aspect of it, she deliberately stretched her fingers, allowing the crystal to hit the entrance and then slide by itself toward the black hole.

It closed, but she could still hear the sounds of the material hitting the many walls as if it was going down the tubes of a sewer. 

As time passed, the sound became whimsical to the point of it growing completely silent.