I headed to the next floor of the dungeon, but I found nothing worthy of mention. The skeletons were getting a bit stronger, but a single attack on their back was good enough to destroy them. I decided to Berserk a bit as well and soon noticed the difference… my skin got redder and my muscles bulged. It wasn’t that impressive since my body was still pretty scrawny. I could only think that vampire physiology was allergic to muscles or something similar. Then again, I was only fourteen.

‘Ah, the still and not so fresh air of a labyrinth… can’t say that I have missed it. Hm?’

I heard the sound of footsteps in the distance and soon confirmed that they were heading in my direction. I dashed to the previous dead end that I found and then used camouflage. Before long, I saw a group of three ogres heading to the exit of the dungeon.

The Ogres were massive, hulking guys, standing around twelve feet tall, with muscles that bulge beneath rough, thick skin. Their skin had a sickly green, muddy brown, or even grayish hue, often covered in scars. It’s hard to look at an ogre and not feel the sheer weight of their strength and resilience.

Their faces were something to behold. They have low, sloping foreheads and wide, flattened noses, with sharp, jagged teeth that jut out like tusks. Their eyes are dark and small, set deep in their skulls, giving them a look that’s as menacing as it is animalistic.

They were wrapped in rough hides and animal furs, held together with leather straps, and decorated with bones of their hunts. They wielded massive clubs and axes, crudely crafted or made from tree trunks or rocks lashed to sticks. Everything about an ogre screams raw strength and survival. They are wild, powerful beings, as wild as the world they come from.

‘Three alone, huh? Their strength and endurance is over the roof… they probably start with a lot more than seven.’

I should have asked things like that when I had the chance with Zyra. The knowledge that I had came from the perspective of a human, after all. It was severely lacking… In any case, I waited for them to go away for a while before resuming my journey.

When I reached the fourth floor, and saw that only one skeleton showed up, I realized that this labyrinth could be a bit annoying. Even the ogres had some recent scars in their bodies, so perhaps I will have to change back to my bow.

‘My strength is pretty high, so perhaps I should try fighting with my fists too… the more options I have, the more I can surprise the enemies, after all.’

I had never imagined doing that. It seemed quite weird to fight with fists in a world of magic. I still had my gloves, so perhaps fighting with them would be a better option and I can also add the mana drain effect this time.

Attacking the enemy and then getting their mana only to run away with Shadow Step seemed kind of fun, but that would decrease my strength. It was still hard to come up with a clear fighting style… the next option would be to mix all of them, but mastering that would be close to impossible.

I need an instructor or a master, but it would be too much of a pain to find such a person and convince them to teach me… the best option was to be self taught.

‘My fighting style should be like this: kill the target from a distance or cripple them enough to make the fight at close range incredibly easy… that won’t be very fulfilling, though.’

“Hah…”

I let out a sigh. I was starting to become the king of depression. I wouldn’t have minded just snipping all the enemies if I could, but now the idea felt weird since I couldn’t enjoy the fight at close range. It was because of those guys…

It has been over a year and a half. Even if we were allies for a while, I should get over their deaths. Thinking all the time about it only to get depressed won’t help me or anyone.

In any case, I resumed my exploration of the labyrinth and focused on doing it as fast as possible.

… …

A large fleet was crossing the ocean in the middle of the night. The wind was helping them move without any resistance toward their destination. It was already midnight, but a certain black-haired person was still looking ahead through the darkness of the night, imagining what would be waiting for him at his destination.

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His name is Ulric Dawnshield, currently seventeen years old. After graduating from the knights academy, he worked for two years as the squire of a commander in the eastern border, but now he received the chance to participate on a certain mission.

“Hah… I can’t believe that I am really going to do this.”

It has been over eight years since he had last seen Regulus and since then, his problem with confidence made some progress, but it always returns at full force at big moments like this. It wasn’t like he was weak for his age, he was strong and skilled, but always worrying about the family’s name and the fact that he looked a lot like his father didn’t help him ease his worries.

Whenever he would see a person looking at him and whispering, he imagined that he was being compared to his father. Soon enough, he will be at the age where his father started to make his name, and he was certain that this will only make things worse.

“Hah…”

“Stop sighing all the damn time!”

A slightly older knight kicked Ulric in the back and almost made him fall in the ocean. They were being escorted, but that didn’t make the dark night sea any less scary.

Ulric looked at his older brother, Remi. While he sounded harsh, he had an amused look on his face. His red hair grew a lot in the last few years. While not many knights kept it long or even tied up in a ponytail, it somehow suited him. Unlike his younger brother, Remi looked pretty relaxed.

Although Remi spent the last three years just relaxing and showing his skill with the spear in some tournaments, he still was invited to join this very peculiar job. He readily accepted since he could make a name for himself even faster than with simple tournaments and by defeating people of a similar age. Ulric just looked away, since he knew that sharing his worries with this brother was a waste of time.

“I will truly throw you in the ocean, you know.”

Remi raised Ulric by the back of his armor, but soon dropped him when he didn’t see any reaction. It was only fun when that meek brother of his reacted.

“Relax, with me here, you don’t have to worry about screwing up. I will get all the attention, so you can focus on gaining some merits. If you ask, I can send some half dead enemies in your direction too.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Yes, because if a confidence looked like a person, it would look exactly like you. It would look a lot more like our Lord Father, but I guess it would look a lot like you by default as well.”

Remi shrugged, since Ulric let out another sigh. The shadow of their father was too big… even if they went to the other side of the world, it would follow them. They couldn’t say that they traveled all around the world until now, but it felt like whenever they went, someone knew about him.

“Our awesome, super amazing, very talkative father isn’t participating here, so they won’t have anything to compare with you. Besides, you have the chance to impress some mermaids, so why are you so depressed about it? Hehehe.”

“... You know how much our father had to work for that misstep of his, and you want to take your chances too? You should start using your head, the right head, to think.”

“It will be fine, as long as nothing happens. I know how to control myself.”

Ulric wanted to say that was bullshit… he faced a lot of problems in the knights academy because his brother didn’t know how to control himself. He asked out most of the sisters of their fellow trainees. It was hard to say how far he went with them, but he ended up dueling with a lot of their brothers and those guys clearly tried to claim his head. Ulric wouldn’t be surprised if some day his insane brother ends up attacked on his back by an ally.

Remi was the third son. The chances of him taking the family control were low, so he only wanted to get famous enough to just like his father get a lot of women. Ulric wondered how come their father didn’t beat the crap out of him yet.

“Speaking of that misstep, have you heard anything about him?”

“No… Father never talks about it, but even now, it is clear that he is looking for information about him.”

Remi’s smile disappeared when he heard that… It was hard to believe that a kid managed to escape their search for so long. Even if he had been captured, their family would have heard something about it, but it looked like their youngest brother was still missing and living somewhere.

Regulus had always been an odd kid from their perspective, but he didn’t look particularly smart. He was clever with a sword, but that cleverness would have only worked against kids.

“Maybe he found a way to reach the land of the vampires… the Nocturath. Someone like him, who only lived in the shadows of our home, would find a fitting place with the other disgusting bloodsuckers.”

“I think Father would have headed there somehow if that is indeed the truth…”

“Jacques, his mother and the Holy Knight would have followed him with the entire Holy Order to level their land if that were to happen. Besides, he won’t do anything like that since it will put his loyalty to the test once more. Regardless, we have to succeed here and clean his name a bit as well, since we benefited from his fame.”

Remi smiled and waved when he saw a mermaid approaching the ship. Ulric sighed… They were heading to the Skarnash Tribelands in order to make them suffer a bit more for the war that happened years ago. It looked like in the last two years, humans and aquarians become allies again… and Regulus had no idea what had made that possible or that had happened. He would soon learn anyway…