Going up the stairs, one step at a time, Quinn could feel his heart racing. Looking at the dark sky he knew he was in the right place. Not quite belonging here but at the same time, something just seemed a little familiar to him. He didn’t know if it was just in his head, or perhaps it was the vampire side calling out to him, but he didn’t feel out of place or scared.
As he reached the top, he had finally pressed his foot on solid ground and it looked like he had finally reached outside. When turning around to look at what he had come out from he could see the staircase with the slanted door going slightly underground, looking like a bunker.
As for where he was, he had no idea. There was a forest with dark grey leaves and the sky, from which his direction he could only see a single moon out.
“Is this the vampire world?” Quinn asked.
“It certainly looks like it.” The system replied.
“What do you mean?” Quinn said. “I thought you said the vampires originally lived on earth?”
“I did, and what I said was the truth, but we had established our own separate place. Designed for us and the trees you see here, were something that could only be found in that special place. I’m starting to wonder how they managed to move everything over.”
Only knowing that he was in the forest, Quinn decided to see if he could try to get up high to some vantage point. Looking at the trees around him, he went and tried to find the biggest and tallest tree. Most of them were the same size, but if he got to the top, he should be able to see quite far, especially with his vision.
It didn’t take long, and scaling the tree with his strong hands was quite easy. Jumping from branch to branch, making his footsteps as light as possible, like a monkey, he had finally reached the top and could look outward. Behind him there was a large mountain that looked to be a couple of miles away, then on the other side he could finally see it.
The large castle that stood in the middle and the several other castles that surrounded it. The Vampire settlement.
“It’s a lot bigger than I thought.” Quinn said.
For some reason Quinn had in his head that the vampires were a sort of selective small group. Maybe there were only thirteen households of families, but looking at this, it was an entire large city. Before Quinn had asked the system questions about this, but truthfully the system said it didn’t know and didn’t want to give an unrealistic expectation.
“This is…” The system seemed to mumble quietly. “It’s the same. It’s exactly the same as it was when I remembered it before, but how is that possible.”
“If you don’t know, how do you think I’m meant to know?” Quinn replied.
Now, seeing how large and grand the city was, Quinn thought perhaps the best thing to do wasn’t to go straight to the city. Using one of his masks, he decided he would send out a message to the others to see if they would reply, but after waiting a while there was nothing.
Closing his eyes, he could feel the connection with Layla and it seemed she was safe. As for Peter, for some reason, even though they were on the same planet, he could feel nothing. But he wouldn’t let that dishearten him. The system had reassured him that if he was put into the cells, then they would purposely try to block the connection. This way nobody would know where he was and attempt the very thing they were trying to do.
“We still have time then.” Quinn said.
Looking around, still at the top, he decided to see if he could do something else. Perhaps there were some type of beasts he could kill to gain exp. Before going to the city and doing anything, he would have liked to at least have been at the vampire noble level, and his level up was now extremely close.
There was the mountain, but it seemed to be in the opposite direction of the city and he didn’t want to stray too far, especially if he thought the others were in trouble and he could feel something happening to Layla.
When looking around he spotted an area that seemed to have fewer trees than normal. Listening carefully, he could also hear the sound of running water not too far. All living things, even beasts, needed water to live. So most likely there would be beasts around that area.
Quickly, jumping from tree branch to tree branch he made his way to the running water, until eventually he had reached his destination. It looked like a river and it was clear blue like regular water, there was nothing strange about it, and the water seemed to be coming downstream from somewhere.
Still, he carefully waited in the trees to see if there was anything he could spot. Eventually soon there appeared what looked like a little white bunny with a horn on top of its head. It hopped over to the water and slowly looked around to see if there was anything there.
Then it popped its mouth into the water and started to lick the water away.
���Well, it might not give much exp, but at least it’s something.’ Quinn thought, but before doing anything, Quinn decided to wait a little. After all, there was a chance a bigger prey might come for the bunny.
That’s when he started to notice unusual movements in the water, but it was a little too late as then a loud snapping sound was heard, and black blood splattered in the beast’s mouth.
The little rabbit was unable to react and all Quinn could now see out of the water was a strange crocodile, snake looking creature. It had the normal body of a crocodile while the neck of the snake, then when it came to the head part, it returned to that of a crocodile with its powerful jaws but with the tongue of a snake.
It was certainly an odd-looking creature that he had never seen before.
‘Now that should give me some good exp!’ Quinn thought.
The snake crocodile had gone back into the river, and that left Quinn with thinking of the best way to lure the beasts out of the water and killing them. While thinking about it, he saw another horned rabbit appear.
“Perfect.”
However, there wasn’t just one horned rabbit, soon after another appeared from the trees and another. Eventually, it seemed like there was a whole army of them. Then finally, behind the twenty or so rabbits a single black horned rabbit appeared although it looked different compared to the rest.
A black type of smoke appeared around its body, and its eyes were red. A spiral pattern could be seen across its feet going up towards its neck and its body was roughly double the size of the others.
The black rabbit started to make a few squeals and the other rabbits started to move in towards the river. It was clear just from watching this that the black rabbit was the leader of the other rabbits.
The white rabbits then stood just at the edge, waiting while the black rabbit stood slightly behind them, and was bent over on its fours with its horn pointed outward.
Then, the movements in the water could be seen once again. Finding the whole thing interesting, Quinn decided to continue to watch the development. Just what exactly were the strange rabbits doing? It was rare to see beasts have some sort of intelligence unless they were ones of the high level, or the humanoid type like the king tier beast before.
Then, the beast had snapped up once again, and this time the rabbits were ready. Jumping backwards at the right time, the beast’s head had bitten nothing but thin air. Once avoiding the strike all the rabbits had jumped on the beast’s neck, pinning its head on the ground while part of its body remained in the water.
Suddenly, the horn on top of the black rabbit’s head started to trickle slightly, as it lit up in a blue color. Little sparks started to come off the horn, as if it was charging up. Its red eyes started to glow.
Out from the Black rabbits mouth a squeal was heard and the white rabbits reacted once again, letting go of the beast’s head. It flung up in the air and at the precise moment, a single bolt from the black rabbit’s horn came shooting out, piercing a large hole in the crocodile beast’s head.
It stood no chance from the attack and immediately fell into the water, drifting down the river dead.
‘Wait, why did the rabbits kill the beast, was it just for revenge on the first rabbit? If that’s the case, then these rabbits are really clever beasts, especially the black one.”
Looking at the black rabbit, Quinn used his inspect skill.
[Inspect]
[Black horned rabbit]
[Class: Familiar]
[New quest received, defeat the rabbit for an instant level up]
This was the second time he had seen a familiar like creature, and it was the level up reward he needed.
*****
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