The inner castle connected to the outer walls.
As we stepped through the entrance, a corridor shrouded in darkness and filled with a classic, antique atmosphere came into view.
Columns lined up everywhere.
Since it wasn’t an area where we could drive through, I had Lee Yong-su enter the subspace.
Kim Sol, my younger sister, who had a barrier ability, took the lead, with my older sister in the middle, and I followed behind.
Thus, the three of us, each holding a portable searchlight, slowly made our way through the darkness.
Inside, it was eerily silent.
The corridor stretching ahead didn’t seem too deep, but at the end, another hallway connected, branching off to the left and right.
In short, it was a forked path, but…
It wasn’t time to decide just yet.
“Ah!”
Kim Sol, who was leading the way, grabbed the back of her neck.
And then…
Rustle!
A moving shadow was caught in sight.
However, no matter how much we swung our searchlights around, there was nothing to be found in the corridor surrounded by thick columns, only darkness and silence.
When my older sister shone the light on the back of Kim Sol’s neck, two clear bite marks were revealed.
Kim Sol flared up in anger.
“What the hell? Did something bite me?”
“Hold on a second.”
As my older sister placed her hand on the wound, a soft light glowed, and the injury quickly healed.
“Ah… it’s itchy.”
Kim Sol scratched her neck, making a frustrated face as if she was enduring a hot summer day.
Rustle!
Another sound of something moving reached us, so without hesitation, I shipped out an item.
It was the studio lighting I had mounted on the Korando.
Fwoosh!
The dark, damp corridor was now flooded with bright sunlight.
And then…
Along with the shadows cast by the slanted columns in the distance, the figures of the creatures came into view.
Sharp fangs and bat wings.
I couldn’t help but think of a classic race often depicted in fantasy worlds.
“…Vampires?”
.
.
.
“Ah, why is it so itchy?”
“Endure it for a moment, my dear child.”
Fortunately, Kim Sol didn’t follow the typical vampire clichés—like her eye color changing or suddenly craving blood.
Thanks to my older sister’s healing ability, even the faint remnants of the wound had completely disappeared.
The real issue lay elsewhere.
Rustle!
Rustle, rustle!
Rustle!
The problem was that there wasn’t just one of them.
Dozens of vampires were perched on the columns throughout the corridor.
Rustle!
Rustle!
One would fly in to catch our attention, and then another would approach to aim for the nape.
When we tried to grab the one that approached, another suddenly appeared and left bite marks on our forearms before disappearing.
Thanks to my older sister’s healing, it wasn’t overly threatening.
But even so, the lost blood couldn’t be regenerated, and soon dizziness started to take over.
Rustle, rustle!
Rustle!
They moved with unbelievable speed.
It was almost impossible to find a chance to counterattack.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!
I pulled out a rifle and fired, but most shots missed, and even when a few hit, they didn’t seem to have any more effect than when we had fought the skeleton knights earlier.
It was clear these vampires were a higher tier than the bats outside.
If I used a bowling ball +1 with a [Penetration] option, it might have some effect, but no matter how fast it tracked automatically at 150 km/h, it couldn’t keep up with their speed.
The result was just…
Boom!
The only thing getting hit was the innocent column of the corridor.
By now, one thing had become clear.
Kim Sol, our youngest sister, was the tastiest one among us.
Rustle!
A vampire lunged at her, and…
Thwack!
Kim Sol chased it off with a punch cloaked in a barrier.
Rustle!
Bang!
It was like a game of catch between them, creating a strange ecosystem.
And the vampires…
Buuuu-whoooosh-flap!
Whenever we were about to forget, the eerie flapping of wings would send chills down our spines.
“Ah, seriously, this is so fucking annoying!?”
Kim Sol swung her fist in the air.
A woman throwing punches at mosquitoes.
That was my sister.
She grumbled, as if deeply wronged.
“Why do they keep biting just me?”
“Maybe it’s because you smell of sweat?”
“You’re dead, Kim Jeong-gyeom.”
The stuffy, humid sensation began to creep in.
The corridor felt impregnable.
For now, there was no solution.
If we couldn’t catch them, we had no choice but to avoid them.
I set up a portal, like a mosquito net, and we immediately returned to the subspace.
Ting! Ting!
The vampires hovered around the portal like mosquitoes caught in a net, their dirty wings flapping noisily.
“This is tough…”
We hadn’t even found a proper exit yet.
It was obvious how exhausting our journey would become if we were continually exposed to the vampires’ attacks.
After a moment of thought, I made a decision.
I decided to use the Enhancement Stone I got from defeating the second skeleton knight.
At first, I considered enhancing the rifle.
But the rifle was merely a tool for firing bullets; it wasn’t the object that directly hit the enemy.
Even if I added a [Penetration] option to the rifle, it was uncertain whether that effect would extend to the bullets.
Besides…
“…it feels weird using it on bullets.”
A rifle works by striking the primer of the cartridge, causing a small explosion to launch the bullet. If the [Electric Shock] option were to activate during this process, I might be the first to die from the unprecedented disaster of electrocuting myself while holding the gun.
This was the same reason why, in the past, I’d used a fire-attribute Enhancement Stone with a [Ignition] option on a bowling ball instead of the rifle.
So, what did I choose this time?
This place was the simulated virtual space of the laboratory.
PAX displayed the hologram of the item I had ordered in the air.
[Electric Insect Mosquito Repellent Extra-Large IA-ic200, Price: 59,000 won.]
Buzzzzz-
It was a mystical object wrapped in a soft blue light.
A tower-shaped bug zapper with rounded edges.
“It looks pretty decent.”
It was an item I carefully selected.
Given that it was nearly impossible to strike the vampires with anything at 150 km/h, no matter what I used, it was a sensible choice.
They say the best offense is a good defense, but defense itself is also the best offense.
That might not make much sense, but anyway, that’s how it is.
I was reminded of last summer—the Aedes mosquitoes and Tinker Bell-like friends that kept invading through the windows.
Zap! Zzzap!
That thrilling device had spiced up our summer by turning those flying pests into sizzled remnants.
I planned to use the Enhancement Stone I obtained yesterday on that device.
[Enhancement Stone (D)]
Attribute: [Electricity]
Option: [Penetration], [Electric Shock]
This one also came with a [Penetration] option, just like the stone I used before.
It would surely be a sufficient threat to the vampires, who weren’t affected by the rifle.
I planned to use this bug zapper like a shield or barrier as we made our way through the corridor.
PAX asked.
[Would you like to apply the Enhancement Stone to this item?]
“Yes, apply it.”
[Understood.]
[You have used one Enhancement Stone.]
[Enhancement in progress…]
[Enhancement complete.]
Bzzt-bzzt!
Zap!
A menacing sound came from the bug zapper.
I couldn’t even imagine what would happen if someone touched it with the tip of their finger.
But the truly interesting part was something else.
It was the item description displayed by the system window.
—-
[Electric Insect Mosquito Repellent Extra-Large IA-ic200 +1]
Grade: [Rare]
Description: [Failed to retrieve information. You can manually input a description.]
Attribute: [Electricity]
Options: [Penetration], [Electric Shock], [Taunt]
—-
Originally, the Enhancement Stone only had the [Penetration] and [Electric Shock] options.
But something new had been added.
“…Taunt?”
Normally, that refers to an ability that attracts the enemy’s aggression.
It could lure them to a better striking position, or trick them into a trap.
In other words…
“Isn’t that exactly the role of a bug zapper…?”
The enhanced mosquito repellent continued to emit its soft blue light.
A mesmerizing glow designed to lure in flying insects.
This feature was tied to the enhanced options.
“So, in other words…”
There was no need to go through the trouble of using the bug zapper as a shield, nor the hassle of “shipping” it toward the vampires.
It wasn’t an item meant to be used that way in the first place.
In short…
All I had to do was leave it out there.
Zap!
Sizzle!
The sound of something frying under the electric light echoed from beyond the portal.
The [Taunt] option attached to the device was clearly working on the vampires.
Bzzzzzt! Zapzapzapzapzap!
“Oh, looks like we caught one good.”
It was a bug zapper that I had painstakingly connected dozens of them by manipulating the hologram of the .
Each was connected to a large-capacity power bank, like something you’d use for camping.
And then…
“These bastards are all dead.”
Kim Sol had stepped out, wielding a club.
It was a weapon I’d crafted for her using the Laboratory.
—-
[Electric Insect Mosquito Repellent Extra-Large IA-ic200 + Wooden Baseball Bat]
Grade: [Semi-Rare]
Description: [Failed to retrieve information. You can manually input a description.]
Attribute: [Electricity]
Options: [Penetration (-1)], [Electric Shock (-1)], [Taunt (-1)]
—-
The wooden baseball bat, wrapped with a blue circular coil, had a design that was somewhere between a fusion-punk-style lightsaber and a savage tribal chieftain’s club—modern yet anachronistic.
But truthfully…
‘…It’s just an electric fly swatter.’
Compared to the enhanced bug zapper, its performance was lower.
The +1 marker had disappeared, its grade had been downgraded to Semi-Rare, and even the options had a minus attached.
It seemed that combining the enhanced item with another object had weakened its original power.
But even so, it still had [Penetration].
In other words…
Whack!
Thwack!
Kim Sol was more than equipped to beat the flying vampires out of the air.
A series of home runs followed.
However, the durability of the “Bug Zapper Bat” couldn’t quite withstand the vampires’ toughness, and it broke with every hit.
Kim Sol didn’t care.
Calmly tossing the broken bat aside, she simply held out her hand to me.
I promptly shipped her a new “Bug Zapper Bat” from the registered items.
Whack!
Smack!
And just like that, our time in the corridor came to a victorious end.
A grand triumph for humankind.
.
.
.
The corpses of vampires, roasted by the electric zapper, were still faintly steaming.
Unfortunately, no Enhancement Stones dropped, but I did manage to collect a few Mana Stones.
In that moment, we felt the presence of something unfamiliar.
It wasn’t a vampire.
If it were, it wouldn’t have been able to resist charging at the soft blue light.
My older sister spoke quietly.
“…A ghost?”
A pale, faint figure was moving between the columns of the corridor.
Three… four… there were quite a few of them.
However, something much larger was happening.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The stone walls, the columns, and the entire structure of the corridor began to shake.
As if it were a living creature.
The arched hallway resembled the throat of a massive beast, and most notably, the stairs within the inner castle began to spill out like jagged teeth from above and below.
Thud thud thud thud thud!
The ground trembled violently, shaking like loose gravel.
The stairs, emerging from both the top and bottom, collided with each other and rushed toward us.
The sight was like…
‘…Teeth?’
The castle’s structure was as if it was ready to devour us at any moment, ferociously.
It felt like we had been thrown into the den of starving beasts that hadn’t eaten in days.
Of course, there was no need to be consumed.
Using Item Retrieval, I took both sisters and pulled us into the portal.
Then, from the safety of the portal, which had become a window, we slowly observed the situation outside.
Grind grind grind grind!
Is this what you’d see if you entered a shredder with metal teeth meshing together?
But since the Subspace Portal couldn’t be destroyed by any shock or impact, we just watched the piles of stones clash and scatter in real-time.
However, one thing was certain.
We were being moved somewhere.
At that moment, I saw the corpse of one of the dead vampires floating along with the debris of stones in the shifting landscape.
A bizarre fortress that used stairs like teeth.
If its purpose was to devour everything…
Our destination would likely be at the end of its digestive process.
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