We zoomed through the floor, taking turn after turn at random. Once we made a decent amount of distance from the fountain room, I disengaged [Materialize] and grew out my wings before taking flight, and making even more distance at an even faster pace.
I furiously flapped my wings, barely avoiding colliding with the surrounding trees as I stayed below the tree line. My home dungeon had countermeasures if you tried to go outside of the designated areas. Often it was nothing more than tough walls that made it almost impossible to bore through before it regenerates, but when such obstacles weren't possible, the dungeon found more creative solutions.
Back on the fields floor, if I strayed from the grassy path and entered the tall grass, large numbers of loam wolves would spawn and attack. If it wasn't for my high level, I'd have been a goner in almost an instant, as fighting dozens of wolves that easily hid in the tall grass was next to impossible for anyone who was even close to the appropriate level for that dungeon.
With that in mind, it was a risk I didn't want to take to fly above the foliage. Even more so when I had Claret struggling against my grip.
"Master, please! She needs to die!"
When I quickly glance at the dark spirit in my arms, the sight of tears pouring down relentlessly. Rather than that unbridled rage I expected, there was nothing but desperation enveloping her entire being. No, not just desperation, but fear. At least some corner of my mind thought that there was also fear under it.
Either way, trying to cheat the floor wasn't viable when I was forced to worry about taking time to find my way back to a path when I really needed to get things figured out soon.
That woman seemed to have a way to track me, even if it wasn't very reliable.
Eventually, I found a convenient spot without any monsters and landed, pushing Claret onto the ground and pinning her as she continued to struggle against me.
"Claret, I need you to calm down!"
"But Master! That, that monster, she needs to die! She HAS to die!"
I was a bit disturbed at just how hard she was insisting on this. In fact, just minutes before, she had continued to try to kill that woman against my direct order. The dark spirit in my hands was so loyal and fond of me that the thought of her trying to betray me was difficult to wrap my mind around.
"Why does she need to die, in your opinion?"
"She's a threat, Master! She's weak right now, but what if she grows strong? What if she tries to do something or ambushes you?"
"That's hardly a reason to kill her. If we find out why she tried to kill me, then maybe we can convince her otherwise."
"But what if she can't be convinced? What if she tries to use that opportunity to strike at you?"
"I'm pretty strong. I already stopped her surprise attack once already."
(Though it wasn't a very good one.)
"But, there's the chance. The possibility that you'll...I can't, I can't bear the thought of losing you again, Master! Waaaaaahhhh~~~!"
With the damn breaking, Claret stopped resisting at all and cried with her entire being.
I couldn't condemn her for that. I couldn't say that she was doing good trying to kill that woman, but I also couldn't condemn her for that. Instead, I got off her the dark spirit and pulled her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her.
"Not again Master...don't die..."
Claret's tears soaked through my clothes and the feeling of wetness spread from my chest, but ignoring it, I simply stroked her hair as gently as I could.
The minutes passed by as we stayed there unmoving beyond the trembling of the dark spirit any my hand on her head. Wary of the armoured woman, I kept close watch on [Sense Presence]. So far, the only presences I could detect were obviously monsters who were wandering around the corridors further along in both directions.
"Don't leave me alone again Master..."
This girl had been traumatized by the death of her original master, the previous Scarlet. She hadn't really spoken much about the time since her death and meeting me, but it made me wonder. She definitely hadn't gotten over her master's death, so was it possible that she spent the entire time mourning? She was unable to move on so she could only tread water until she found me, her replacement?
On one hand I wanted to know, but on another, it would be pretty insensitive to ask. Though considering Claret, she'd probably tell me every detail without any hesitation if I did. I was lacking in some social graces...or awareness...or knowledge...but I was aware of at least that much. I at least understood enough to know what it was Claret wanted most.
"Don't worry. I won't ever leave you while you need me Claret."
"You don't know that! You can't know that!"
But my words didn't have the effect I wanted. Claret's face jumped up as she furiously stared into my eyes while her face was in ruins.
"Master, you can't ever know for sure! Anything can happen! Every risk you take is a chance that something will go wrong! If we don't get rid of every risk we can, who knows what'll happen!"
Claret balled her fists as she pulled on my robes, as if she was trying to bring her face closer to mine.
"Claret, you can't go through life without risk. Just going outside brings risk."
"No, maybe not, but..."
The dark spirit's eyes turned away as she thought, but when they returned to mine, it felt like there was a tinge of madness in them.
"We can go home then! If we go into the dungeon connected to the town we used to live in, we could build a nice place to live in one of the deeper safe zones! I can go out for you and bring you food every day, and we can live our lives there together! I can bear all the risk and you can stay safe inside, with nothing to worry about! Forever!"
That sounded more like a prison than anything to me.
"Claret, that's not living. A life like that is hardly any different than death."
"But, but it's not death! You'll be alive, and you'll have me to do everything you need! I can get you everything you want, whenever you want!"
This time I lightly smacked the dark spirit in the head to emphasize my point.
"Like I said, that's not being alive at all. What you're suggesting is to simply idle away for eternity. It sounds a bit nice as a vacation, but after a few months, maybe a few years, it's simply not possible. We'd go insane before long."
"But..."
"No buts. We're not doing it. I'm all for reducing risk, but not when it compromises my wishes or morals."
"Then that monster that's trying to kill you has to die."
"Not now. It goes against my morals to simply kill her after she tried to kill me. Not when we're so much stronger than she is."
"But..."
"But first, let's try talking to her. We'll kill her if we have no choice, but until then, killing her is off the table, alright?"
"Yes Master..."
Claret was obviously not satisfied with that, not by far, but at least she was convinced that we could try something else first. At the minimum, she probably accepted it because I had proposed to confront this danger directly, rather than ignore it and let it stew in the background where it could bite us in the ass at the worst moment.
But happy with her answer, I pulled her in and went back to stroking her hair.
<Ah, Alicia? Sorry for ignoring you. How are you feeling?>
<It's okay. It was more important to calm Claret down. I'm feeling alright now, but that thing you did earlier hurt a lot.>
<Sorry. It was the only thing I could think of at the time.>
<What was it?>
<One of the vampire weaknesses. While I can use [Light Magic], the backlash of using it causes harm to me.>
<Wow.>
<Yea, exactly.>
I raised my hand and looked at my palm, feeling it out while opening and closing my fist. It had completely returned to the small and soft looking hand that it always was. No trace of the deep burns caused by using [Light Magic] was left.
With my mind preoccupied between escaping that crazy lady and Claret's frenzy, I didn't notice at the time, but most likely it had healed while I was flying, the light of the dungeon's artificial sun landed on my exposed wings, automatically healing the injury I had self-inflicted.
<I knew it from before, but both [Light Magic] and sunlight is a vampires weakness, right?>
<That's right. Just touching either can be really painful. Even lamps that use [Light Magic] to light up hurt my eyes to look at.>
<Vampires are powerful and live a long time, but their weaknesses are pretty severe huh? Experiencing it is even worse than what people say it is.>
<I kinda figured, but it's a well known weakness huh? Well, that makes the fact that I both can and am willing to use [Light Magic] that much more important, as people generally wouldn't expect a vampire to use [Light Magic]>
<I suppose so. Though it really hurt.>
<Sorry. I guess I'm a bit more used to experiencing pain than I thought.>
<It's okay. It's important to use the tools you have when you need to use them.>
<I'll still try to keep it in moderation though.>
At the very least, I wanted to avoid Alicia having painful experiences where possible. It meant that when I faced strong opponents, I'd have to be more careful than ever, but taking extra time to beat monsters wasn't a big deal compared to ensuring Alicia's mental health.
"Okay, so let's get this going then."
We stayed there comforting Claret for a while longer, but eventually I decided that we needed to do something or else risk the dark spirit from getting enamoured too much regarding being held by me and deciding that holing up in some dungeon really was for the best. Or at least try to convince me of that fact if it really was too late on that front.
"So, what do you two think of that woman?"
"She's a bitch and needs to die."
Now that she had a chance to recover and relax, it seemed like Claret was dominated by hatred at this point.
"Okay...anything to add Alicia?"
<There's quite a lot of things strange about her. I mentioned how she had a ton of skills, right?>
"Yea, triple digit skills. It's kinda hard to imagine anyone with a skill list like that."
<I think so too. The strangest bit is that so many of them are still rank one. You'd think that when you get a bunch of related skills, that some of them would've gone up a rank or two by the time you learned them all, right?>
"That's true."
<But I can't figure out how such a thing would be possible.>
"..."
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