“Now, let’s see what we have here…” Aurora thought, gingerly opening the velvet-lined box containing the flower, which seemed to be made from ice. Aurora gently set the open box on the floor, and slowly drew her sword.

 

As the tip of her blade approached the flower, the essence of the flower overlapping it almost seemed to tremble. Making contact with the edge of the flower, Aurora felt herself instinctively pull from the flower with her sword. And now that she wasn’t immediately trying to regurgitate those energies, the essence of the flower flowed into her, almost like when the Void Horror with the sea-lamprey-like mouth fed.

 

As the essence of the flower flowed into Aurora, she felt it surge through her body, bits and pieces breaking off, flowing into areas Aurora couldn’t quite perceive. Despite a significant chunk of whatever Aurora just absorbed going off to other parts of her being, about half of the remaining energies flooded her mana pools. As they did, Aurora’s mana was refined, condensed further than it ever had been before, as her mana pools deepened further.

 

Closing her eyes to bask in the sensation of fullness she received for just a brief moment, Aurora inhaled deeply; the air that flowed into her body slowly dissolving. Despite the compulsions she received being almost nothing compared to the basilisk; Aurora’s spirit radiated a sense of contentment as it finally got to feast. 

 

When Aurora opened her eyes, a floating white box greeted her.

 

[*ding!* Level up! Level 1 -> Level 4!]

 

“I gained levels from that? Nice! Wait, does that mean I can get more levels than normal from killing something?” Aurora thought, moving her feet out of the small indentations that formed in the ground again. Looking down at the flower, it was surprisingly still intact. She could even see its essence, but she no longer felt any hunger to consume it. Looking at the flower for another moment, she noticed it had stopped generating any mist to surround it, and its petals wilted, drooping lower than they had before.

 

And its essence, while still there at first glance, was a far brighter shade of blue than it used to be, as though someone oversaturated a photo, a lot. It also felt… hollow, in a way that Aurora couldn’t quite describe, but she had confidence in that description. Aurora poked the stem of the flower with a finger. The remaining essence seemed to fracture, shattering into pieces after a brief pause. With its essence gone, the flower lost all color, and crumbled into dust.

 

Gripping two of her tails and rubbing them, Aurora thought “Hollow… definitely seems like a good description. On people… ugh.” Shuddering at the thought of that happening to a person, Aurora looked at the door on the other side of the ritual hall. She could see Skadi’s essence glimmering, although significantly less distinct than before, Somehow, though, it seemed…. less appetizing, on top of her spirit feeling partially sated, and less ravenous. “I should probably get her to take me where there will be less people, just in case… I hope nobody recognizes that I’m a Void Horror, that might be a little tricky to explain.” 

 

“Skadi, I’m done.” Aurora said as she stood at the door, holding the edges of the velvet-lined box with the tips of her fingers.

 

“Great!” Skadi said, her voice muffled by the door that opened just a moment later, where Aurora handed Skadi the box, still containing the dust from the flower. Skadi’s grin fell when she took a quick glance inside the box, before coming back swiftly after, though not reaching her eyes. “Was it worth it?” She whispered.

 

Aurora’s tails slowed down a lot with Skadi’s words. “Yes, I think it was.” she said, reaching her hand out to pat her shoulder, then recoiling right before she touched Skadi’s fancy silver dress. “It helped me learn something rather important, so I would say it went to good use. Also, your world does still have people interested in monster parts, right? If so, we can probably get you a new one, unless they don't sell well anymore.”

 

“Why wouldn’t people want to purchase monster parts?” Skadi asked, utterly baffled. “Are there worlds where people don’t know how to use them? What do they use as materials for most of their weapons and armor?”

 

“I mean, a few worlds essentially conquer their own planet, and for most of their tools they use various metals and materials from other planets, or low grade domesticated monster parts; they’ve usually hunted down any potential threats long before that point. Anyways, by the time we are done with the dungeon we can buy something similar; I’m sure we’ll find stuff that could sell for a bit in there.”

 

“Thank you for your reassurances, Lady Aurora.” Skadi said, giving another bow. “I still find it hard to imagine any of our emperors butchering all the other powerhouses in the world, though. Does that really happen?”

 

“My pa– I’ve been told it does, though usually it’s more along the lines of the sentient races conquer the non sentient races, rather than one overlord conquerors the planet. So, how did you plan on leaving the city for your training?”

 

“I mean, I thought you, Lady Aurora, and I could just walk out the front gate and be on our way; I would normally take a carriage, but there aren’t any roads that lead close to the dungeon, and, well, I spent pretty much all my money on this ritual.” Skadi responded, waving her hands around at the room they were standing in the doorway to. “I don’t have enough to rent any form of aerial craft, unfortunately.”

 

“That’s a relief.” Aurora said, wiping a hand over her forehead.

 

“Why? Are you not a fan of heights, Lady Aurora?” 

 

“Well, uh, I guess that’s one way you could put it. Also, is there a way we could go without seeing too many people in the city?” 

 

“Uhh, I mean, probably? Why do you not want to be around others?” She asked, before realization dawned on her face. “Oh, are you worried about the human supremacists, Lady Aurora?”

 

“Human supremacists? Is that her race, or another? Either way, human supremacists or not, being near less people who might recognize me or have an analyzing skill sounds lovely.” Aurora thought, before asking “Are you a human?”

 

Startled, Skadi stepped back a bit, surprised. “Umm, yeah? Did you not know that? Umm, Lady Aurora.”

 

“Nope, never seen a human before. Wait, do some humans think they are the best race, or something?”

 

“Um, yeah, pretty much Lady Aurora.” Skadi responded, picking at her fingernail as she bit down on her lip.

 

“What about, you know, literally every single race where every member is born with at least one combat affinity, like fire elementals?”

 

“Lady Aurora, they always come up with some excuse to justify themselves; in the case of fire elementals, personally I’ve heard them just say ‘we can have mages with water and ice affinities’.”

 

“That's just stupid.” Aurora said. “And they don’t even have fluffy tails they can use for shadow puppets.”

 

“Shadow puppets?” Skadi asked, literally tilting her head sideways, hair falling to cover her eyes.

 

Coughing as she looked away from Skadi, Aurora said “F-Forget about that bit.” If she still had blood in her body, Aurora’s face would’ve turned beet red. Blessedly, her face remained the same shade of gray. “Ahem, where would we go to leave the… city? We are in a city, right?”

 

“Ah, yes we are, Lady Aurora.” Skadi responded with a decent bit of haste, reopening the door. “We can just walk straight out the front and leave from there.”

 

“Is there anything you need to take care of? Supplies to buy? Or are you all set?” Aurora asked, looking around the room for any bags Skadi may have brought. “Also, you can just call me Aurora.”

 

“I will then do so Lad–... Aurora, I just left my supplies just outside this room so they wouldn’t diminish this room in your eyes, L–... Aurora.”

 

As the two of them strode out of the room, with Skadi grabbing a rather large backpack that, while she said it would be packed with various essentials, didn’t seem to be super big. As they strode down the center hallway, various doors like the one they just exited lining the walls, Aurora fiddled with the hilt of her katana, thinking “Please let anyone here not know what a Void Horror is supposed to look or feel like… do I feel weird to various other senses now? I’ll need to find someone to ask about that later.”

 

Upon leaving the long hallway, the two of them walked through a large, gold plated archway, with a statue depicting what appeared to be some sort of chimera-griffon on each side. They entered a large reception room, of which the hallway they just came from was on the left side of several reception desks, with another on the right. Glancing over to the desks and the people in line, Aurora let out a sigh of relief and dropped her hand from her katana upon noticing that the hunger she felt, even from all the people combined, wasn’t even half of what she felt from the finely dressed penguin who was creating their inner realm. Even more relieving was the fact that nobody looked scared, or confused to see her. Aurora did start drooling a little bit though.

 

“Is everything okay?” Skadi asked, a worried look on her face.

 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Aurora responded, as they walked out from the building. Its gold and marble exterior stood out among the stone streets and buildings, with people bustling around. There were even some carriages driving down the middle of the cobblestone roads. The amount of matter eaten away by each of Aurora’s footsteps luckily left no traces visible to the naked eye. The crowd of people put a bit more… strain on Aurora, but between her hunger being partially sated from the meal she had earlier, along with the fact that all these people still didn’t match even the one penguin, they kept walking. Though Aurora did grip one of her tails again.

 

Rather than proceed down the main street, Skadi gestured for Aurora to follow her, turning off into a cramped, dirty alley. They continued down that one, with filth and garbage smeared against the walls; there was even a beggar sleeping in a box of sorts. And then, in the middle of the alley, Skadi suddenly stopped. Bending down, she took some sort of small crystal out of her backpack, holding it as she placed her hand on the stone, where Aurora then noticed a very faint outline of a circle, about the size of a manhole.

 

“What is that?” Aurora asked, leaning closer to observe the glowing brown and green runes that began forming, streaked with light blue.

 

When no more runes were forming as the existing ones began rotating, Skadi removed her hand. The circle began shaking, and then slowly lifted into the air, along with a chunk of earth below it. “My family slandered me, they didn’t disown me. I still have access to things like this, a tunnel network for the more wealthy families.” Skadi said, placing her feet on the slightly rusted ladder that was revealed by the chunk of earth now levitating in midair, and she began climbing down. After a brief bit of hesitation, Aurora followed.

 

They both climbed down the ladder for quite some time before they finally reached the bottom, the sound of their limbs slapping against the rungs echoing down the narrow shaft. It quickly opened up into a pretty sizable hallway though, with lit torches lining the walls, shadows flickering dimly against the sandstone coloration under the flames.

 

“Huh, I guess someone else is down here.” Skadi said, her voice echoing slightly. “Well, I don’t have to light these this time then!” Footsteps resounding down the corridor, both of them strode down the passageway, which had quite a few twists and turns, but tended to go in the same general direction.

 

 “La–... Aurora, it should only be a few minutes before we get there; this will lead us right out of the city.” Skadi said, as they rounded another corner, continuing walking. As they turned another corner, no different from the previous one, they immediately locked eyes with a bedraggled man, who was panting heavily. He stood over the corpse of someone in full-body black cloth, who had been split in half across the waist. The dead person still clutched a dagger in their blood-stained glove.

 

The man standing over the corpse had his beard singed off in places, with cuts and burn marks decorating his body. He held a giant broadsword with both hands, leveled towards the both of them. The upper half of the sword had been melted into slag, dangling off to the side awkwardly. The man’s essence appeared to Aurora like a quivering mass of condensed force, whereas the corpse’s essence was like the last embers from a burnt out fire, and was barely even noticeable.

 

“Nothin personal, lasses,” the man said said gruffly, “but imma need them swords ye got there, before more o’ em come ‘ere.”