*Bam*

The head of the shark monster caved in. Alex retrieved the axe-hammer and made the monster float.

Eating it while exploring the floor, Alex was pleasantly surprised to discover that the shark did not taste that bad. He obtained the skill 'Hide Presence from it. Licking his lips, he vowed to hunt every single monster on this floor before advancing to the next one.

He travelled around the floor, collecting the different types of rocks and ores. One was particularly useful for him.

(Flamrock: A glossy black mineral. When heated, it melts into tar. It melts at 50 degrees Celsius, and catches fire at 100 degrees Celsius. When it burns, it can reach temperatures of up to 3000 degrees Celsius. The length it burns depends on the quantity of tar.)

----------------------------------------

Alex flew back and his head hit a rock. His head felt dizzy while his body was paralyzed. The three moth monsters closed up on him and surrounded him.

'Damn they're tough.'

They bared the sharp teeth hidden in their torso. Such a cute appearance ruined by that savage look.

'Shit, I'll have to use the ambrosia after all'

"Raaaargh!"

Alex pushed his mana to his limits as he forcefully got rid of the paralysis, albeit half-successfully. His strength exploded to the limit as he punched one of the monsters just above its mouth. It leaned back but the wings on its back immediately buzzed and it regained its balance.

That time was enough for Alex to consume a vial of ambrosia. Finally free from the annoying paralysis, he took out his revolvers. He imbued magic in them both and shot four bullets within a moment. All of them found their mark on the same spot, the inside of its open mouth. Even the durable monster couldn't do anything as the bullets found their mark one after another. They exited from the back of its head, splattering brain matter here and there.

The moth monster buzzed loudly for one last time before collapsing down.

Alex wiped the sweat on his forehead and jumped out of the way. A few scales impacting the ground he was standing on before.

'Shit, not again.'

His body felt heavy again while he reached onto his thigh and removed the piece of stuck scale from the monster's wings.

"I have to end this fast."

He squinted his eyes and blocked one of the incoming monsters with the floating axe while his hands blurred and he slashed the other one with the gale claw. The slimy skin of the moth caved in for a second before springing back up and sending the force backwards. Using the rebound force, he spun around and gave a heavy roundhouse kick.

The monster bent down from the impact shoving its face straight into the barrel of the revolver.

*Bang*

Alex drunk another ambrosia to fight the paralysis and turned around looking at the last moth being held back by the axe. His eyes looked ferocious and a ferocious grin found its way on his face.

"You're the last one eh!"

As such, the last one was also dealt with quickly.

Alex panted heavily as he sat down on the ground. His body was a little numb. Those monsters were such a pain. But the stronger the better. Even though they looked disgusting, they must give him some good talent right.

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"Huh! That was floor 40? The moth monsters were sure such a pain."

As Alex continued in the dungeon, he had lost all sense of time. He knew even though the time clearing a floor increased as he progressed, it was still very fast.

Looking at the prompt, Alex sat down on the pathway to the 41st floor and decided to open his reward. He had also saved up the two mystery chests from his first quest.

"Open all the chests."

<… Healing Potion(B)>

<… Standard Sniper Blueprint(C)>

<… Body Strengthening Potion(C)>

<… Treant Wood(A)>

His eyes twitched looking at the toothbrush but other things were not bad. Especially the sniper blueprint, it wasn't of a certain model but simple design of the main components of it. The wood was useless to him though. He couldn't transmute it, and even if he had been able to, he couldn't use it to make guns since it would be susceptible to fire.

He first took out the body-strengthening potion and swallowed it down. It hadn't hurt as he had expected. Some of his muscles shrunk down while some got buffer and his body got a lot proportionate. There wasn't much change besides that. He figured he would need a better potion to bolster his monstrous body.

"I should be able to make a good gun now."

He studied the blueprint for a while then came up with a viable design. Taking out the shiny cube of meteoric iron, he immediately got to work

***

Standing in front of the majestic double doors, Alex had to admit they looked very impressive. The craftsmanship of the doors was stunning and there was a complex magic circle carved into a tiny hollow in each of them.

He placed his hand on the door and tried transmuting it, and as expected, his hand got zapped away.

"Uooooooooooh!" A deep roar reverberated through the room a second later.

Alex backpedalled away and a new gun floated up to him. The two-meter long barrel was made of silver-white meteoric iron. The fifty-centimeter grip was black because of the taur stone.

All put together, the rifle provided an exquisite and intimidating side to it. He had named it 'Blitzen'. He had to admit his naming style was influenced by Hajime. The bullets used in it were 30cm long coated in meteoric iron.

While he was concentrating on making the difficult rifle, he had unlocked yet another sub-skill of transmute. It was 'Duplicate Transmutation'. It literally allowed him to make duplicated of anything transmuted and even everything classified as ore. They did not just pop out of thin air and it was hard to replicate some things like the meteoric iron in question, but it was a broken skill nonetheless.

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Of course, it was equally as hard to unlock such sub-skills of any talent. He was only able to grow so much because of the constant pressure in the dungeon and his potential…

Alex looked at both the Cyclops that almost broke out of the walls held them. He shot the revolver with his other hand and the eye of one of the Cyclops was destroyed.

The other one roared even louder at the death of its comrade and rushed towards him after breaking free. Its skin was shining brightly indicating that its skill was activated. He knew it was a very powerful defensive skill.

Alex put away the revolver and held Blitzen with both hands. Grinning widely, he aimed just above its undefended eye straight to its head and pulled the trigger.

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Alex placed the magic cores on the two tiny indents on the door. Red gouts of mana spread poured out of them and the mana started diffusing through the room. The room was filled with bright light.

Alex pushed open the doors to the room completely. Light entered the pitch-black room through the wide-open doors.

The interior of the room was composed of marbles and two rows of thick pillars extended all the way to the end of the room. In the center of the room stood a cubical slab of rock with a glossy surface that shone with reflected light coming from the outside.

In the center of the rock's front face was something jutting out.

'It's her!'

Alex walked into the room with his bag, Blitzen, and the axe floating behind him. He slowly walked closer to the center of the room when a voice entered his ears.

"…Who goes there?" It was the faint and hoarse voice of a woman.

The something in the rock was a girl. The girl was buried in the rock from the neck down, and her golden-blonde hair dangled limply in front of her face. Eyes as red as blood peeked out from between the gaps in her hair. Despite her haggard appearance and her hair covering the better part of her face, it was still clear she was quite beautiful.

He continued walking and stopped a little distance from the cube. He looked at the blood-red eyes of the girl as she stared back in astonishment. After a while, seemingly coming out of her stupor, she pleaded with desperation.

"P-Please…! Help me…"

Alex stood unmoving as he looked at her with a deadpan face.

He had a complicated feeling he could not describe. He knew he would meet her down here in the abyss but it was still shocking to finally see someone other than monsters. It felt so long yet so short a time since he fell down here.

On the other hand, the girl, the vampire princess in front of him desperately moved her neck and raised her face to look at Alex.

"P-Please…"

"Why?"

"Please… I'll do anything… Just… Save me… Help me."

He did want to help her, but he held himself back. He had to confirm if everything was the same as it was in the novel. He also had something he wanted to say to her.

'No… I have to stop referring to this world as mere fantasy. It is real, so is she, and so is everyone else. They are not characters from some novel.'

Correcting himself, he asked her.

"Why should I save you?"

"I *Cough*… I was betrayed… by my people."

Alex clenched his fist and continued asking. "You say you were betrayed. But then why are you trapped here in this rock."

"I am one of the original, atavistic vampires... because of the extraordinary power I was gifted with... I worked hard for the sake of my country and my people. But then... one day... my retainers all... said I wasn't needed anymore... My uncle... said that he would be king in my place... I...was fine with that... but because I had so much power everyone was afraid of me, they thought I was dangerous... They couldn't kill me... so they decided to seal me here instead... That's why..."

She spoke haltingly, her parched throat making speech difficult. The feelings within Alex grew more complicated. His gaze softened as he took out a water bottle and went close to her. He held her chin softly and raised her head, pushing the bottle in her mouth. He wasn't forceful and let her drink slowly. After a few sips, he stepped back and continued asking.

"Then, why did they not kill you?" She stared at him and didn't say anything still surprised by his kind gesture before.

"Tell me."

She finally spoke at his reminder, "...I heal automatically. No matter what kind of injury it is, it'll just heal by itself. Even if you cut my head off I'll regenerate eventually."

"You can infinitely regenerate?" Alex asked in a fake surprised tone.

She shook her head with hardship, "As long as I have mana, I can regenerate from any injury."

That was one hell of an ability. As long as she had mana she could never die. As long as she had mana, that is;

"Then why did they not just wait for your mana to run out before killing you?"

Exactly! Her uncle had sealed her down here for a reason. Though he did not like that uncle of hers one bit; after all, she had to live in pain and betrayal sealed inside the dungeon for almost three centuries. But he also could not come to hate him for it.

Her past and betrayal had been a huge knot in her heart that was not solved until a long time later when she finally had to confront it. That is for later though.

Upon hearing the words of Alex, the girl in front of him had a confused expression on her face as if to say 'they can't kill me so of course, they sealed me.' But her eyes widened as she realized something she hadn't dared to think about before.

Alex sighed in his mind. He just wanted to put the thought in her head and did not want her to ponder it for now. He did not want her to break down, after all.

He hesitated for a second before putting his head on her head and gently stroking her head.

"You've had it hard huh!... It's okay now." She certainly had a cruel fate. She was strong but her heart was very fragile.

The vampire girl instinctively felt at ease feeling the hand on her head and a few tears flowed down her fair face. She held her head down at the warmth that felt a little unfamiliar after so many decades.

But Alex did not give her much time to think and put his other hand on the cube holding her. His deep crimson mana flowed out of him trying to force the cube to transmute.

The girl looked at him in shock as he directly manipulated his mana. He poured out enough mana that would have taken six verses to gush out. He increased the output as it reached seven verses, eight, nine then finally stopped at ten verses worth.

He shouted out as he controlled the massive amount of mana to melt the rock surrounding her. If he lost control of it right now, the mana would go berserk and would probably blast away half his body.

At some point, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. What if the path he had been walking was wrong? He didn't know why he had such a thought at this moment.

But the doubt was immediately squashed away by his fierce will and determination that seemed to laugh at him for doubting himself over such puny problems.

'That's right… Whichever path I take is the right one. If it is wrong, then I will make it right. There's no way I will regret it.'

"Let's do this!" He burned through his mana as the portion of the cube holding her slowly melted like hot butter and dribbled on the ground.

As the rock slowly fell away, her breasts were fully visible. Next came her waist, then her hands, her thighs, and finally the cube melted away entirely and she was free. She slumped to the ground in an exhausted heap as soon as her body was fully free. It seemed she wasn't strong enough to stand.

Alex sat down in front of her. He was panting heavily. He had used almost all of his mana. He chugged down an ambrosia vial because he knew a fight was coming.

His hand on the ground was grabbed by the girl on his side. Her small, slender and frail hand trembled as it entwined with his own. He glanced at her and was immediately put in a trance. Her long and beautiful golden-blonde hair contrasted perfectly with her pale skin and crimson red eyes that resembled the blood moon. It was very enchanting. Her eyes seemed to suck him in as he felt the depth of emotions surging in them.

"Thank you" Her trembling, but powerful voice of sincere gratitude pulled him out of his stupor. Her face was still emotionless.

Alex couldn't express the emotion he felt at those words. But he knew that the heart he thought he'd discarded had started beating again.

He sat there with his hand in hers. Being trapped in the darkness alone, suffering; spending enough time in this solitary cell that she could not even change the expression on her face now. It was a wonder she had not gone insane. If it was because of her healing ability, then she must've been tormented by it not even being able to sink into madness nor embrace death.

He squeezed her hand a little harder. She jumped slightly but tightened her own grip.

"…What's your name?" she whispered to Alex. He smiled awkwardly and replied quickly.

"Alex. That's my name… What about you?" she muttered his name a few times seemingly to engrave it in her heart. After she finished repeating it she opened her mouth to answer his question, before hesitating for a moment and thinking better of it.

"… Give me one." He smiled wryly at the all too familiar response.

He didn't like it. Already knowing everything about the world and everyone he comes across. He hated it.

He knew the experience in the abyss had made him shed most of his emotions.

But still, he wanted to explore the feelings and emotions of others himself. He did not want to be an emotionless machine that only lives for survival. But he still won't abandon the principles carved into his bone in the abyss. He would kill everyone who opposes him, no matter what.

It was a difficult problem indeed.x

Looking at her he lamented silently. He wanted to get to know others gradually himself. He didn't want to make someone's experience his own…

'I don't want to give her the name I already know about… It's a beautiful name bu… Wait! What was her name? Now that I think about it, I never once recalled her name. Why!?'

He looked at her eyes waiting in anticipation and decided to throw his worries to the back of his mind.

Her blonde hair and those mesmerizing red eyes. He thought of a perfect name. Nothing would suit her better than that. Her features reminiscent of the moon, he whispered her name…

"Yue."