Chương 41

"You said chopping off their heads killed them!" Kiki accused. She sat on the floor next to the vampire body, her helmet in her lap. She rotated her attention between glaring at Oliver and using a metal tool on her mask in an attempt to repair damage.

"For normal vampires, yes." Oliver rummaged through the dead body's things, searching for worthwhile loot.

"There are different tiers of bloodsuckers and they become tougher to kill at each tier. Vampire spawn are the lowest, they're freshly converted from a thrall. Usually spawn are under level 35. Normal vampires are between 35 and 55. Elites, like the one we just fought, are between 55 and 80. Above that is only the Vampire Lord."

"So, in the courtyard I only fought normal vampires and spawn?"

"I don't know, I wasn't there. But if beheading worked, then that's a safe assumption. Most likely, any actual powerful vampires were up in a spire watching and placing bets on you while you fought."

"You could have informed me before we came here."

"I suppose." Oliver turned over Veronica's body. Her neck oozed a black liquid. At least this corpse didn't turn to dust after death, like weaker vampires.

"Elites are rare. I've only seen a few in my life. And never even considered trying to fight one before today."

"Did you at least level from stealing my kill?"

"No. I just leveled during the fight with the flesh amalgamation earlier, but I'm probably pretty close again now." Kiki sighed.

"Well, I suppose you pulled your weight in both fights. You deserved the experience."" A compliment from Kiki about someone else in a fight?

"Ben chimed in." Has our [Neon Samurai] been replaced by a doppelgänger? I never thought I'd see the day."

"Oliver is competent," Kiki said begrudgingly.

"What was the artifact you used on her to make her face change?" Oliver lifted the Face of Carter for her to see.

"A quest reward. It changes your appearance to look like this man." Kiki looked up from the helmet in her lap to peer at the mask. Her lips pursed as she studied it.

"You'd be better off with your current face." Oliver rolled his eyes and stashed the mask in his bag.

"I wasn't planning to use it to pull girls at a club."

"Good call." Oliver wondered what would have happened if the mask had still been latched onto Veronica's face when he killed her. He hadn't been concerned at the time, but it very well might have destroyed the artifact. Actual shapeshifting quest rewards like the ring and mask were extremely rare. He'd only seen one other in his entire time in the biome. It was strange to get two so soon after one another.

"Do quest rewards get better as you level?" Oliver asked Ben." Usually, yes."

"I leveled up to 30 before I finally started finding useful equipment for my armor's base," Kiki added.

"My old outfit nearly got me killed dozens of times over." Oliver hummed, filing that information away for future use. It made sense. More difficult quests for more experienced fighters. The difficulty curve had just been so gradual these last five years he'd never noticed it. Veronica had just over 800 Mel on her, a small fortune that nearly made up for all the resources Oliver spent getting here.

He reluctantly offered to split the spoils with Kiki but the [Neon Samurai] waved away his offer, not caring about the money. Oliver nodded his thanks to Kiki and continued his looting. An Appraisal revealed the whip to be a weapon known as Endless Misery. Apparently, those who died while within its bondage were immediately raised as loyal undead thralls of the killer. From what Oliver understood, the undead sub type reflected the killer's species.

So, if Veronica killed him with it, he'd have become a vampire spawn enamored by her for eternity. If he killed someone with it, they'd be thralls as well, but probably just human undead zombies. He supposed that could be useful, but undead minions really wasn't his style. They were clumsy and loud. Maybe he could store some in his Summon Sanctuary and use them as a distraction. But that seemed like a lot of work and planning that he couldn't be arsed with.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Still, the whip was worth another 1500 Mel, even with his terrible Speech score weighing down that Appraisal figure. He wasn't about to toss such a valuable weapon. He coiled it up and stored it in his pack. The vampire's dress was decently valuable as well, coming in at another 700 Mel and enchanted to increase the wearer's Speech and movement, which explained how Veronica attacked him so quickly.

But Oliver was obviously not willing to wear a dress. Perhaps it was prideful, but no amount of enchantments was getting that thing on him. Unfortunately, it took up too much space as well, so he couldn't realistically carry it with him. Ripping it into strands of cloth would destroy the enchantment, the same as when his jacket had a hole blasted into it. So, he ended up leaving the dress on her headless body. Finally there were the natural resources provided by Veronica's corpse.

He bent down and reached into her severed head's mouth. With a crack, he wrenched his hand back, a long canine between his fingers.

"What are you doing?" Kiki asked. She had finished fiddling with her helmet and held it under an arm.

"Vampire fangs are worth a ton of Mel," Oliver explained while he reached down to pull out another tooth.

"If I can get this to an alchemist, there are dozens of rare potions that could be brewed using it as a component. Any potions will be like ten times as potent from a Vampire Elite." Kiki scowled.

"You could have mentioned it before. I've killed nearly twenty vampires now and just left their corpses alone."

"Half the time the mundane vampires collapse into dust upon their death anyway. I also wanted to get through here killing as few vampires as possible, so looting them wasn't on my mind when I first explained things to you." Kiki muttered something Oliver didn't catch as she placed her helmet back over her head. The pink eye slits lit up again.

"Able to get that door open?" Oliver asked. There were technically more body parts that could be scavenged from a dead vampire, but he didn't feel like going through the trouble of gathering up the black ichor or chopping off the corpse's fingernails.

"Yeah. Just give me a minute." Oliver stayed alert, on guard as Kiki resumed slicing through the metal door. Whatever it was made of, it put up a lot of resistance as the [Neon Samurai] put her back into the task. Her sword, which supposedly could cut through anything, struggled greatly against the metal protection. None of the other Vampire Elites followed Veronica down into the tunnel.

Oliver suspected that they believed her to be able to handle the two of them alone and likely assumed the [Blood Enslaver] was wasting time entertaining herself with new pets.

"I wonder if they even realize what's down here," Oliver mused out loud." Likely not," Ben answered.

"If anything, they might actively be incentivized to stay away through the chips in their brains. The servers are not a place that anyone other than administrators are supposed to have access to. That one encounter was an anomalous event."

"Are the administrators the ones performing this experiment?" Oliver wondered if any of those sadists were walking among them down in this hellscape. Could he trap one and force them to release them from the experiment? That certainly held great appeal. His heart quickened when he thought of what he could subject them to in his home biome." Not quite. Those in charge do certainly have administrator access, but they are stationed far above that rank. The actual administrators are minions down here with us.

Usually the most powerful sapient creature in the biome. An artificial creature with far greater sapience than the average biome resident. Though, I should amend that it's not always as simple as one individual. The administrator I killed in Neon Nova was technically a collective of bald humans floating in a vat. They were placed as the head of the city's peace officers." Oliver let out an exasperated sigh.

"So, mine is the Vampire Lord."" Most likely, yes. He will have knowledge of the experiment and will do his best to keep you contained. Needless to say, it is best we avoid confrontation with all administrators." A clang interrupted their discussion. Oliver whirled around, shovel raised and ready for another battle. Kiki stood on one foot, the other posed in the air, having just kicked in a triangular hole in the metal door.

"Time to hook [Technomancer] up to the Nightmare Biome's servers," Kiki said.

"After that, we can discuss strategy on how, exactly, to kill this administrator of yours."