Chapter 115: Ch. B0 – Static

Before I can enter my house, I feel a shiver run down my spine as if someone was staring at me from behind.

I look around but there's nobody here besides Iris and me. And it certainly wasn't Justo, his presence always felt different than this. His is less burning all-consuming hatred and more cold indifference.

Maybe I just imagined that?

...or maybe not.

While hanging my head in frustration, I notice footprints on the ground, pretty steep ones. They come from the round and make a U-turn quite a bit before me. Strangely enough, they even extend unto the road. Seems like I'm not the only one that has a problem with the solidity of the swamp-like street.

Hmm, now that I look at it, neither Iris nor I have left footprints on the pathway despite the soft ground. Weird. I mean, I know that the physics around here are strange but... seriously, how heavy must that person be that the sum of a massive arachne with me on her back is magnitudes less?

I doubt these footprints belong to the stalker, if their size is anything to go by, we should have heard some stomps or felt the earth shaking. But who else could they belong to? I don't really have any knowledge about interpreting footprints or anything, I have to admit, I make a lousy tracker. So much for vampires being apex predators.

"Found anything interesting?", Iris asks me, finally growing impatient from my looking around aimlessly.

"Footprints."

"Eh, so what?"

"Not sure. But it is a fact that we two didn't leave any, just see for yourself. I wonder how someone that massive could go unnoticed. But more importantly, I have a hard time imagining someone can leave deep footprints like that if even the sum of us two doesn't make the ground budge. Look over there, ", I point towards the main road, "they even deformed the allegedly solid road, there must be something else to it, I just can't make heads or tails of it."

She shakes her head, "I don't think that is important right now, we have more pressing issues, don't you think? Let's go, the others should be waiting for us."

"Yeah, you're right."

Scratching my head, I finally enter my home.

"Hello, anyone home?", I shout in the main hall of my house.

Weird, not even Justo, the house itself, answers. Did the general weirdness get to him as well? Going by the amount of black dots in the air, that is a very certain probably. Either that or the Lord's Mansions simply don't work in a dungeon, which we are supposedly in right now. Considering how even some basic biological functions like sleep are misbehaving in a dungeon-like environment, that wouldn't surprise me either. Please, let it be that, we already have enough serious problems. Or rather, too many.

Iris guesses, "They are probably in the usual meeting room."

Cough Cough

Damn it!

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"Yeah, seems like it. Let's go there as well."

Knock Knock

I knock on the door of the meeting room, not expecting any immediate reply, but to my surprise, Eclaire opens the door quite quickly, "Huh, I didn't expect you to be here so soon, Jared. Didn't I tell you to take it slow and rest a bit first?"

"Not needing to sleep due to [Sleepless] cuts both ways, and we could talk enough on the way here, not that Iris could tell me much after she was trapped down there for the majority of the time. So, can we come in?"

She forces a smile, "Oh, yes, sure. ...Wait, 'we'? Who did you bring with you?"

Iris finally stops looking around the main hall and hurries next to me, then waves hello, "Yeah, I'm here as well."

Eclaire grimaces, "Oh, my... that's... Well, come in and show yourself to the others."

That didn't sound as happy as expected, rather the opposite. Do they know something about this whole Hybrid ordeal that I should know?

We enter the meeting and look around.

Aside from Eclaire, Lucia, Therese, Karen and Darius are present. No sign of any of our other summons here either.

Eclaire guides me to my chair and reads me like an open book, "If you're looking for Maria and Lydia, well, Maria is on an errand and Lydia is playing with the kids at the church's orphanage, they'll be back later."

It is quite suspicious that she left out Elly. Should I be worried, or is this a secret I shouldn't ask about in public? I'll ask about that later but I shouldn't really worry; she is one of my summoned spirits, at worst she died and is waiting to respawn in a week, right?

...damn, now that I thought about it, I can already feel how Murphy is getting into gear, shit!!

While Eclaire returns to her seat directly next to the door, I ask "What was the meeting about anyway?"

"Nothing special, just a daily checkup on the current crisis, progress of countermeasures - or failure thereof - basic management stuff", she explains.

While she does so, I quickly check the status of my guests. Therese, Karen and Darius have the three usual familiar skills, but not a Hybrid class, guess they were familiarized early enough. Nothing else about them has changed, though they look a bit under the weather.

Lucia... has certainly seen better days. She has no weird class or status, but she looks sick and weak as if she were about to collapse. Shouldn't the recovery from [Sleepless], or the [Undead] state prevent that? What's going on with her?

No, her condition is even worse, every so often, her whole body flickers like a bad TV signal, as if she were about to cease to exist any moment now...

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