Apex predator. Top of the food chain—that was what I had told myself when I teleported out of the manor and arrived by the rooftop once more.

However, now I felt incredibly silly... silly, an emotion I thought I wouldn't feel as I scanned the immediate surroundings for something to hunt down, a deer or something similar.

It was a good way to distract myself from thinking about what the princess said about the afterlife—or my previous life... past life was the word that I was looking for.

"My past life... in a—" I quickly leapt towards the forest and then felt the entanglements of thorns, vines and other dangerous flora as I landed into the Labyrinth of Thorns and realized my mistake.

I thought that Rose was complaining and being lazy for not wanting to hunt for food... but I had made her collect water by letting her traverse into this terrain that was meant to neutralize and hurt anybody who dared enter the place.

"...she had come back without even a single word of complaint that I didn't realize that she did come here." My brows knitted together as I looked around the complete darkness, noticed how the trees seemed to intersect with one another, brambles and vines connected with one another into traps and other dangerous, man-killing things. "There was not one scratch on her. She didn't even bring it up... did my powers grow that weak or—"

A small breeze flew past me and I frowned.

"The wind? Did it help her navigate this treacherous place."

I didn't think that the Sylphs would have liked her this much to combat what might have been an S-rank kind of open dungeon.

You could almost classify it as a dungeon... or maybe I had overestimated it?

It was after all easy to deal with in a way if you thought about it.

"You can cut down trees, make a path—dispel the illusions and shadows, and regardless of what you see, just cut through the straight line. There's a measly seven Ghouls here, which can be defeated by even bronze rank adventurers. I didn't exactly make a grand creation with those things so if there's anything else to be afraid of..."

Squeaks of terror suddenly sounded to what turned out to be a forest creature.

A rabbit that leapt past me, its white fur visible in my eyes until it suddenly 'blinked' out of existence and appeared at the bush beyond me.

Behind it was a red fox, except for the fact that it had thorns and other things stuck to its fur—penetrated deep down it as it rabidly chased down after the animal.

At the last minute, I grabbed the tail of the fox and looked it in the eye.

The creature was without fear and snarled at me, spit flying all over my face as it attempted to bite me down.

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"Change the forest and the plants and you also change the animals," I muttered.

Upon further inspection of the red fox, which involved me trying to get rid of the brambles stuck on it—the plant moved and attempted to pierce me down.

I soon realized that the thorns that I thought were merely stuck to its fur were actually implanted all over its body, and once I removed the one stuck to its head, the fox's attitude changed from feral to fearful.

It whimpered and even actually tried to play dead within my hands.

"Parasitic plants that infect animals... and that rabbit from earlier had the ability to teleport through the darkness of some sort," I clicked my tongue. "How could she have not said a word all this time?"

I realized what I said.

I wasn't supposed to care about anyone else except for me—well, that was a good lie.

It may have been strange to think that someone like a Vampire could actually feel something, much less be concerned about anyone other than themselves...

But the annoyance that Rose never said a word or reminded me about the fact that Rose Labyrinth had been activated and she went in and put herself in danger?

It was upsetting.

When I had met House Hawthorne and House Reinhart, our relationships weren't immediately sweet and caring, on the contrary, as the Blackwell had been at a terrible point.

It felt like I had been nothing more than an object to be used and discarded and I had been—it took a decent amount of time before we all came to an unspoken agreement that we saw each other as family.

Some kind of found family.

So the fact that I was beginning to grow fond of and be concerned of Rose in such a short amount of time was worrying—deeply concerning because it could be used as a weakness.

Some people may have probably grown stronger for the sake of friendship and all of that bull crap, but a Vampire was supposed to be a vile fiend as Rose liked to call me.

This was unacceptable.

And yet as I released the fox and watched it go, once again in disbelief that I hadn't killed it for its pelt... no matter how bad it might have been, I was perplexed but also confronted with the thought that I have been battling with.

Whatever I had seen in that dream—before I had woken up and escaped from the coffin, it was weakening me and turning me all soft and mushy like some kind of banana. I didn't want to be a banana. This was nuts.

I rubbed my face and looked around the dreary dark forest—as the one who created it, I could tell where the right place to go was, but that didn't solve my problems.

Until I caught the glimmer of the rabbit's white fur in the forest. An idea presented itself in my mind.

"What better way to avoid terrible thoughts by distracting myself with something completely mundane?" I said aloud. That was a brilliant plan.

Which explained why I spent the next fifteen minutes chasing down after the rabbit—and watching it become a pain in the ass as it evolved like freaking _____.

At first, the rabbit could only teleport, but then it could create some kind of shadow clone?

Yes, that was one way of explaining things as I seized the rabbit and was welcomed with a cloud of smoke.

Was it below and unbecoming of my status to do something like this?

Yes, yes it was.

No self-respecting Vampire Lord would act in such a demeaning way as to chase a rabbit like some kind of animal.

I could catch it with my eyes closed and without even moving a single inch.

...however, wasn't it kind of fun to do this?

The longer I did this, the longer I could choose not to head back into the manor.

More importantly, I suddenly felt a disturbance in the air that didn't come from the forest.

Luckily, the rabbit also moved in that direction—which made everything work out.