The Two Brides(1)

After burning an entire family and blowing a hole through the seemingly endless tunnel, Vanoss walked with no real destination in mind, the fierce shrieking of the bugs growing more and more distant as the Owl man walked further and further away.

"Hm? Weird, is that the exit?" Vanoss asked himself as he stared at the exit of the tunnel, after hours of staying in this underground environment, Vanoss might feel a bit of excitement of feeling the fresh air outside.

Finally making it out, Vanoss was met with the luminating moonlight. It was unexpected, to have been able to make it out so easily. The outside had a creepy ominous feel about it, like wandering a graveyard at the dead of night, but something about it didn't feel right. Though he has only been here for about more than a month, Vanoss already had thorough knowledge of the magic of this world. 

And one of the basic aspect is knowing how to differentiate between 'mana' and 'magic'.

Mana is the fundamental aspect that makes up the world. Everything contains mana within it, from the trees on land, to the deep ocean  from the untouchable sky to even the people it encloses. There are those who call it "life force", monks refer to it as "chi" and magicians address it as 'mana'. It embodies many names, but its main form is that it exists within all things.

And from mana, magic is born. Without mana, magic cannot exist. Mana used to simply be a means of giving things life, but humans and demihumans took it and used it to give birth to chaos and death. The use of magic, magic items, and waging wars.

How much mana a person possesses determines how much magic they control. Which in turns determines how much destruction and/or creation they are capable of.

This is one of the most basic things to understand when studying the hierarchy of magic.

And as Vanoss looked around, felt around...

For the first time since he came into this world, a sweat gland dripped down his forehead as the feeling of nervousness embodied him.

The reason for that, is the simple fact that what Vanoss could sense was magic rather than mana. To put it in simple terms, the trees on the land, the deep oceans and the untouchable sky. All of it all, didn't come about as natural means...

They had no mana.

As if they were artificially made, not by technological means, but by something magical.

By something.

By someone.

Or a being with enough power to create a world. Such an existence would be considered no less than a god.

"Jesus, no one told me there is a new level of the Backrooms." Remarked Vanoss, just ignore what that dumb narrator says something in his thoughts, which was a total lie in fact, and he has absolutely no clue even the basics about these so-called mana or magic or whatever.

Walking towards an enormous wooden bridge he noticed it from deeper into the forest. As Vanoss got closer, a gust of wind brushed over him, and with it, a strong putrid smell. This smell alone would be enough to make a person lose their meal and make their eyes water, but it had no effect on Vanoss. 

The reason wasn't something as arbitrary as to do with his power, it was something more simple and direct, it was a smell Vanoss has gotten used to now.

The smell of death.

Arriving at the bridge, Vanoss took note of how badly in shape it was. The ropes holding it up looked like they were on the verge of breaking, the boards below are rotten and the majority of the planks have completely fallen off, leaving an empty space where they should have been.

But Vanoss was no longer looking at the bridge, he was looking beyond that, down below.

"...Jesus, who threw their leftover Happy Meals down there?" Vanoss says as he makes a disgusted face. 

Below the bridge lay countless corpses. They were still in the process of decaying, thus it was impossible to even tell who was who or which part of a corpse was even its limbs. The countless corpses had been reduced to mush as most of their skin, bodily organs, and even clothes had rotten off their bodies and mixed up together with the other corpses and they were all so mashed up together that one couldn't even hope to differentiate them.

As if the scene wasn't bad enough, the badly mixed smell of decay was so bad it could probably kill a person.

Vanoss scowled and pinched his nose in disgust. Based on the size of the pile, he estimated it likely contained the corpses of at least ten thousand people, maybe even higher. Ten thousand, a nostalgic number...

"God, what the fuck is this place...?" Vanoss asked out to no one in particular.

"This is..."

"Hm?"

But he was met with a response.

"...the feeding pit of the late Vampire Goddess."

Darted his head back to meet the blood red eyes of the speaker.

"How long have you guys been standing there?" Vanoss asked the two women, who were obviously not human, but it was one of those things where you had to look hard to be able to tell. 

Apart from their abnormal blood red eyes, everything about them looked pretty human. They both also had pale skin, their skin was even paler than Michael Jackson, almost as pale as the pure white dress they wore.

'Are those the twins from that movie The Shining?' Vanoss thought in curiosity, "Who are you?" he asked.

"We are the Vampire Brides..." 

"..on this floor's sections amongst the many."

The two vampires spoke in a monotone way. not exactly robotic, more like devoid of emotions, as if every word they spoke was being read out of a book.

And based on their appearance and intelligence, they are vampires, more specifically, greater vampires, the highest class ones.

"Uh so... What is this place exactly? And how do I get out of here?"

"...this is the F-rank dungeon 'Moonlight Nightmare' in one of the many dungeons in the 100th floor of the Tower of Catastrophe..."

The second sister added, "...escaping this won't be possible in your current level, as we will devour your flesh and-"

"Suck my blood, I know." Vanoss boredly added, not feeling threatened by these sisters as they made no attempt to move, but somewhere the air felt different. It felt heavier.

"Anyway, if you're so horny that you want to suck me dry that badly, then come at me and suck on these!" he shouted, pointing his fingers directly at the area between his legs.

———————————————————————

Several hours have passed, pretty much our four lost main characters have traveled deep within the dungeon alongside four female adventurers. Right now, they are setting up camp for a day.

The one with the cyan hair color calls herself Rossweisse. The one who is taller, about 190cm and has long green hair calls herself Yara. The white hair one and dark skin is Isabella, and lastly with the dark ponytail one is Waverly.

"So you're saying you could tame a beast whenever they are in a weakened state?" The cyan-haired woman named Rossweisse said to Moo with a smirk.

"True, this one behind me is called a Warden and is one of the beasts I tamed."

"I am impressed. You know, compared to other men we've met, you're the most attractive one. I hope you're more delicious than the rest of them~" Yara said, leaning her face just close to Moo's.

Sweating bullets, Moo tries to speak but he sometimes stutters, "Oh come on, I already have a daughter you see, secondly we barely knew each other."

"What about we gonna learn each other for a while, friends first~"

"You seriously liked a man you barely knew, huh?"

Meanwhile to Nogla and Vinx', Nogla was whistling while Vinx was dealing with some artifacts in the table she created.

"Hm, never knew Moo could get a harem soon. What a lucky guy." Nogla remarked as he lay his eyes on the scene.

"Yeah, boys be boys. Hey, can you give me the screwencher over there?" Vinx extended her hand at Nogla.

"The what?"

"The screwencher! Right beside you, dumby!"

Looking at several objects in front of him, Nogla has no clue what the hell is a screwhencher, so with no choice he chose something random.

"By the gods are you that dumb? The screwhencher is the most basic tool, how you didn't know what a Screwhencher was?"

"I just have no clue what it is.?

"This is why you should keep learning something in any academy! Did you drop out when you were five!?"

"...Maybe."

"Gods, you are so hopeless. The world is a very dangerous place, without any knowledge, you will die from these unforeseen consequences."

"Understand, understand." Nogla nodded repeatedly.

"Also, where the hell is your mask friend at? I hadn't seen him for the past thirty minutes."

Bam!

Putting down a blue crate beside him and opening it, cold air came out of it.

Delirious reached in and pulled out a can and threw one down to Moo who smiled excitedly.

"So who wants drinks, everyone!?"

"Fuck yeah!" Nogla yelled out.

"Hold up!" Vinx cuts in and points at the cooler filled with drinks, "These are my drinks! Where did you get them?"

"In your big metal tent." Delirious simply answered.

"You just entered my tent without my permission? You have no rights of trespassing on someone's property!"

"Who said someone would trespass your tent? You're not the boss, Vinx!"

"At least I'm the smartest person here!"

"While the smartest person failed with her security." Moo stated as he began to drink.

"Ohhhhh!" Delirious and Nogla screamed.

"Oh fuck you, guys!"

"Well, enough with that little fight. You guys need to try this wine I just bought."

Taking out a yellow glass bottle from his inventory, Delirious shows it to everyone, which surprises the dwarf girl what it was.

"No way, that's a Shateau Alamau Vochta, it costs hundreds of trillions of Euros due to its special effects of ignoring the absolute immunity to poisons, even undead and vampires can easily drink those, regardless of their level! How did you afford the rarest Champagne!? Only people could afford an entire Empire could buy such drinks!"

"For your question, little girl, you can buy that in the black market."

"Wait, there's a Black Market in here?" Moo asked in interest.

"Oh, that makes sense. In Orazvil, there are hidden locations where the authorities couldn't find and where normal citizens shouldn't enter, it's where the black market was, many valuable items from magical items to god-class weapons had been stored there."

"But that doesn't leave the question about how he could afford it."

"In the black market, there are several games, games where the winner will receive a tremendous amount of money from fighting to the death. I think Delirious won."

"Ohhh, so is that the reason why he looks like he's been in Ohio for years?" Nogla grinned, pointed his fingers at Delirious who's hair seemed to be a complete mess.

"That's correct, nearly died there thrice. But that doesn't matter right now, we can take a drink out of this shi-"

Thud! Shattered!

"O-o"

Stumbled by something, the champagne dropped within Delirious and shattered, the liquid was immediately absorbed by the puddles in the ground, letting the soils and blood mix with it, which made things worse.

"NOOOOOOOO! WHAT THE FUCK! I WASTED MOST OF MY MONEY FOR THIS SHIT! THIS IS THE LAST ONE IN THE MARKET! GOD DAMN @#:/!? #$√&:!)? £™£"!(':?(?!!!!??!?"

While Delirious begins cursing nonsensical words, Brock notices the ground is flat, there is nothing anywhere to trip Delirious. But then, that's where he spotted something, he squinted his eyes and discovered something shocking...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

...he found a tiny Dancing Desk Engineer just near Delirious' feet.

"What the hell?"

By the time he blinked, the tiny engineer was gone.

'Am I seeing things?'

"Don't need to worry, Delirious." Waverly said in a low tone, patting the crying Delirious in the head, "I also have one as well, I am a royalty and my parents afford one just a few months ago. We can share if you want to." she brings out a similar bottle and shows it to 

"Thank you Q_Q"

———————————————————————

Ting!

"Ah, drinking with many people is sure to be a great experience." Rossweisse sighed as she sat on the log and began to drink.

"You said it."

Currently everyone is having a drinking party, they were about to drink the expensive champagne thanks to Waverly. They're all having fun.

As for Delirious, he was like a zombie by drinking too much before everyone got started to drink, already drunk and told everyone he will be right back to his tent to sleep.

Near the campfire, Moo and the four female Adventurers were having a conversation for a certain time now, when both of them began to know each other more.

"That one time in hide and seek, I was right in the corner while my friends were stepping back for my owl friend being trapped in the small space corner. Then the next second, he just immediately ran and tried to escape to the side, by the time he did that, he hit me! Resulting in him getting caught."

The girls laugh. A few minutes later, Yara went towards Moo and whispered to him before leaving, hearing her words made him shiver and another peculiar feeling.

'Why the hell did she mean that? And why do I feel like I need to protect my innocence?'

Meanwhile back to Nogla and Vinx's place, the duo sat at the same bench, drinking their drinks.

"Hey, Mr. Nogla." She called him out.

"Call me David."

"Right, David. What are you drinking?" Vinx asked, pointing to the blue can he was holding.

"This? It's Pepsi, it's very good, wanna try some?"

Receiving the strange drink she had never seen, Vinx took a sip, a few moments later she gave out a cringe look.

"Not my taste, I prefer the Vochta."

"Suit yourself, *sip* *sip* *sip*"

After emptying his drinks, he then notices her expression.

"Are you alright?"

"Nah, nothing."

Looking at where she looked, Nogla noticed the dwarf was looking at the four girls talking to Moo.

"Is it something about Moo? Do you have a thing about him?"

"Dumbass, I don't have time for romance bullcrap. And secondly, I'm lesbian."

"Oh..."

"It's about these girls."

"Hmm... I get it, you're jealous because they have greater body development than yours."

"What?? Do that's not what I mean! I'm a dwarf, we naturally look like tha-"

"I get it. Having a very slow body growth of your age is dissatisfied for most people like you. But don't worry, there is a way to have a great body development and grow taller is to take good care of yourself. Eating well, exercising regularly, and getting plenty of rest is the best way to stay healthy and help your body reach its natural potential. There's no magic pill for increasing height. In fact, your genes are the major determinant of how tall you'll be. Eat some food like Beans, Chicken, Almonds, Leafy greens, Yogurt, Quinoa, Eggs, and most best of all... SWEET potatoes." Nogla said with saliva dripping from his mouth when mentioning the last part.

"..."

"Hm? What is it?" 

"Holy shit, that's the smartest thing I heard from you. I first thought you were the dumbest person in the group Draila was interested in. But knowing you more, I guess I'm wrong. I guess I just underestimate your little human intelligence."

"*Snort!*"

By the time she opened her eyes, she noticed Nogla, sleeping and snoring like a giant mammoth.

"Hm, well goodnight Mr. David. Thanks for that lecture."

As the dwarf girl stood up, she began to feel weird.

"What the?"

Her mind felt fuzzy as her muscles started to get weak the more time has passed."

"Brock, are you feeling-..."

Turning to Moo's direction, she noticed he also got knocked out.

A person with a very large IQ like Vinx who is part dwarf will already realize the situation.

"The drinks."

Turning her gaze to the female adventurers, her expression could not help to enrage them.

"What did you put the drinks in!?"

"Just a lovely juice we love to give you guys with~"

Before Vinx blacked out, the last thing she sees is the four girls smiling in a perfect sync, their smiles continuing to curve more to the point it reached something that a normal human couldn't.

"What the fu-"

Cutting her sentence is when her vision turns dark.