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"It worked!"
I screamed with all my heart as I selected the other two Talents and instantly learned them, surging with immense new power.
Ding!
[You have chosen the Talent: Huntress Queen (S).]
[You have become a Queen of Hunting. Your abilities related to hunting—senses, precision, detection, movement speed, terrain recognition, and prey-chasing—have all been enhanced tenfold.]
[When hunting monsters, you gain additional Experience, Skill Proficiency, and Huntress Points, which can be used to further strengthen your hunting abilities. Those you teach will master Hunting Arts far more quickly. All weapon mastery is enhanced, with especially powerful bonuses to Bows and Knives.]
The first Talent, Huntress Queen, sharpened all my senses. When stacked with my existing Beast Senses, my awareness of my surroundings reached an incredible new level. Nothing would ambush me so easily again.
More than that, I felt strange pathways of green-gold essence flowing through my entire body. These pathways seemed tied to the new Talent and the mysterious Huntress Points. By investing those points into the pathways, my hunting abilities would continue to grow.
Ding!
[You have chosen the Talent: Soul Spirit Forge (S).]
[Your soul has become a Soul Spirit Forge, capable of absorbing Souls and Spirits to forge powerful weapons, accessories, items, and relics. You may combine additional materials or pre-existing equipment to create even stronger results.]
[Using this Talent, you can enchant items with special effects, abilities, or skills based on the Spirits or Souls consumed. The more you forge and enchant, the larger, stronger, and more powerful your own soul will become.]
The moment I selected it, my soul flared with spiritual energy. It swirled and stirred in strange new ways. I felt deeply connected to the souls stored in my Soul Orb and even to the Spirits I had contracted. It seemed their essence could also be used for forging.
"Awesome… This is way too awesome!" I muttered, feeling raw power course through every part of me. "But how did this happen?!"
I glanced back at the screen, which slowly disintegrated into glowing pixels. "That's definitely not normal, right? I used the Scroll of the Gods for a trait before, and I didn't get anything like this."
"I seem to be at fault," Freyja admitted with a sigh. "When you asked me to let you choose a talent for Krarlak, something interfered with my internal circuits. Krarlak suffered no harm, but when you used the exact same scroll on yourself, this happened. The scroll's magical functions froze as I automatically merged it with my systems without realizing."
"Your circuits can freeze things?" I asked, surprised. "I see. Can you do that with other items I obtain?"
"It is hard to say. There may be no response at all," she replied. "It varies greatly depending on the item. I believe this only occurred because you first used the power to gift a talent to someone else, then used the exact same item on yourself."
"So it's like a special glitch I unlocked that only works in this specific sequence," I sighed. "Wow. Whoever made you probably never imagined these errors would be so overpowered."
"They are probably raging right now," Freyja sighed. "What I can do clearly violates the rules of balance. I believe my master wanted you to remain weak and die easily… but because of my errors, that has become quite difficult. Not that I want that myself! I am just saying."
"I see," I nodded. "Well, I guess we cannot count on that happening again."
"Likely not… but maybe? There is a small chance it might work again," she said. "As I mentioned, it was an exceptionally rare error. It probably succeeded because of your high level of causality-bending capabilities."
"The what?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Your Luck Stat, Brunhild!" Freyja explained. "It does not only affect critical chance, critical damage, and evasion. It also influences dungeon loot, monster encounter rarity, and increases the probability of rare events occurring. Your Luck Stat is currently over twenty thousand. Incredibly high for your tier, level, and age!"
"Huh, I guess so," I nodded. "So in this world, the Luck Stat really does affect reality like that… Maybe I should invest all my Stat Points into Luck. That way I can always hold my own fate. If I ever encounter someone with greater Luck, who knows what might happen."
"It is a scary possibility," Freyja agreed. "Or perhaps your Luck values would simply cancel each other out. For now, will you rest for the day or continue through the dungeon, Brunhild?"
"We should keep moving," I decided. "We have not done much yet, and it has been a couple of hours since breakfast. Everyone should be well rested after I evolved their tattoos and bloodlines."
Just as I expected, my father and the rest of my family were eager to continue.
"Alright, let's get going then," my father said. "Move out, family!"
With Krarlak now protected by a powerful spirit guardian riding on Fenrir, we had little to worry about. We cleared the floor and headed downstairs.
I made sure to collect all the cores from the Frost Knights and the boss. Their bodies were simple magical ice that melted away after death, leaving nothing special behind. Even their weapons vanished.
"Huh? Everything changed again…" Kara said.
"What is this? A forest? Underground?!" Ulf muttered.
"Shhh," Sigrid hushed them quickly. "Brunhild said we must be careful here. Don't make unnecessary noise."
I nodded and placed a finger to my lips, reminding my family to stay silent.
There was a very good reason we could not afford to make loud noises in this vast, snowy forest hidden underground.
The forest stretched for kilometers, far larger than the labyrinthine Floor 2.
This was Floor 3: the Silent Snow Forest.
We moved forward carefully, following the path I remembered from previous raids and my newly enhanced senses.
The ceiling was covered in faintly glowing white crystals. Below them, an underground atmosphere had formed, with clouds gathering and snow falling eternally.
We advanced in silence, step by step.
Until I heard a faint rustle in the distance.
I looked up. A pair of azure eyes stared back at me, accompanied by a devilish grin.
Several silhouettes dotted the tree canopy. They were so quiet that even my enhanced senses had failed to detect them until we drew too close.
"We're surrounded," I whispered urgently. "Shields up, now!!!"
As I shouted, a deadly rain of arrows descended upon us. We raised our shields while I conjured magical barriers overhead. Explosions erupted all around us.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Those arrows were far from ordinary. Each one was infused with ice magic and exploded into hundreds of razor-sharp ice shards on impact.
The figures emerged from the trees once the barrage ended. A tall, slender leader stared down at the group with clear anger after realizing they had survived the attack so easily.
He stood easily over three meters tall, with an incredibly thin frame, pale blue skin, long pointed ears, flowing white hair, delicate features, and a sharp nose.
The Monsters of the Silent Snow Forest.
Snow Elves.
"They're really elves?!" my sister gasped. "I can't believe it. Aren't they an ancient race of spirit folk? W-Why are they living down here and attacking us?!"
"Like the ones on the previous floor, they are merely echoes of what elves once were," I replied. "They are bloodthirsty monsters through and through. Do not hesitate. You cannot reason with them. They might be intelligent, but they use that intelligence only to hunt and kill anyone who enters the dungeon."
"Heheh… Takrakub… pleshie!" one Snow Elf hissed in a twisted, ancient dialect. "PLESHIE!!!"
With a sickening smile, he leaped down from the trees, and the rest followed.
My eyes darted in every direction, quickly calculating their numbers.
"Around thirty of them. Fuck! Stay together! Don't let them stab you with their weapons. They're poisoned!" I warned.
"They're coming!" my father roared.
The elves attacked in coordinated waves. Some stayed back to fire arrows while the others charged forward with sharp knives and swords, swinging and throwing them with incredible agility.
My mother's sword swing was easily dodged, and several knives nearly struck her. My sister quickly stepped in, smashing the blades aside before they could hit. I spotted two elves trying to sneak behind my friends and swung my broadsword in a wide arc. One dodged, but the other was not so lucky. My blade tore him apart in a single sharp slice, his two halves hitting the snow as purple guts and blood spilled across the white ground.
"They're fast but frail. Keep fighting!" I shouted.
We fought with everything we had. My brother roared as he channeled Scaly's power, tanking hits from arrows and knives before slashing through nearby elves with his claws. He used his wings to accelerate, snatch enemies off the ground, and hurl them toward my sister, who cleaved them apart with her bone sword.
My mother grew more serious. She activated her wolf tattoo, transforming into a beastly state that boosted her strength, reflexes, and speed. She dodged attacks fluidly, then grabbed one elf who had let his guard down, smashed his head into the ground, and crushed it with raw power.
Three more elves tried to attack her from behind, but I intercepted them. I manifested my Shadow Bow and used Archery to launch three magic arrows made of shadows at once. The arrows pierced their bodies and exploded, killing them instantly.
My father was surrounded by five elves attacking from all sides. Using his enhanced physique, he held them off, but they dodged and weaved like rats.
"Enough!"
With a furious roar, he intimidated one elf, grabbed its head, and tore it clean off its neck. Purple blood sprayed across the others, shocking them long enough for his axe to cleave through them in a powerful horizontal swing.
Sigrid unleashed her frost fire across a wide area, creating dozens of fiery explosions that froze the nearby elves caught off guard by her speed, durability, and raw firepower.
Kara and Ulf stayed behind the main group and fired as many flaming arrows as they could, picking off the enemy archers one by one and easing the pressure on the rest of us.
"Keep it up— Ugh!"
CLASH!
I nearly got caught off guard by their leader. A powerful Snow Elf Hunter tried to stab me in the back, but I blocked the strike with my broadsword. Unlike the others, he was a seasoned warrior—faster, stronger, and capable of launching dozens of knives with ease.
It was difficult to pin him down. He clearly wanted to lure me away from the group to weaken our formation, but I refused to fall for it.
"Tomahawk Boomerang!"
I hurled my Ice Hammer at him. He saw it coming and dodged, then rushed back toward me while throwing ten knives. I reinforced my body with scales, tanked the hits, and waited.
"Dumbass."
CRAAASH!
His head exploded as the hammer returned from behind him. He never understood that the weapon worked like a boomerang—a concept completely foreign to him.
"?!"
With their leader dead, the remaining elves panicked and tried to flee. Only five were left. I sniped two with my arrows while Kara and Ulf finished off the other three.
"Phew… alright, we're done here," I sighed in relief. "Let's take a short break before moving on… Huh?"
As we began to rest, I noticed the leader I had just killed starting to stand back up.
"Wha…?!"
My eyes widened in disbelief. A strange red energy radiated from his headless body as the blood of his fallen comrades surged and spiraled around him. His head rapidly regenerated, a sharp smile forming on his face. His eyes turned blood-red, and his grin revealed long, canine fangs.
"This is…! Blood Energy?!" I gasped. "What the fuck… a vampire?!"
"Fufufu… Hehehe!"
The elf suddenly dissolved into shadows and vanished, reappearing behind me. His long nails extended into giant claws. I intercepted the attack with Atlas, but his claws slid across the blade and slashed my wrists, drawing blood. He licked it with a long, grotesque tongue.
"What is that thing, Brunhild?!" my father shouted.
"Careful! It's a weird one!" I replied. "I had no idea… But why? This isn't normal…"
As I processed the shocking turn of events, the elf's title changed before my eyes.
[Snow Elf Hunter (Awakened Dhampir) – Tier 4 → 5+]
"Dhampir?!"
In that moment, I realized we were not the only ones in this dungeon.
♢♢♢♢
The corpses of dozens of Snow Elves littered the snow-covered ground, their purple blood staining the white expanse. A large, tall figure drank deeply from the neck of a still-struggling Snow Elf.
"Phew! Disgusting! What sort of flavor is this?!" He threw the still-living elf aside, spitting out the purple blood and clicking his tongue in distaste. His regal clothes and sharp red eyes instantly revealed his true noble origin and bloodline.
"Well, fear not, Alistair. It seems unexpected visitors have entered this dungeon—ones I did not invite."
A voice echoed from behind him. A floating orb spoke as Alistair gazed into the distance. His red eyes sharpened, and his nose caught a delicious scent.
"Hmm… You're right, Master…! Are you done with your project down there?"
"Not yet. This dungeon will soon belong to me. Until then, make sure nobody reaches Floor 4 and below! This is an order, Alistair!"
"Fine, fine~ You don't have to yell. It's fine if… I eat them all, right?"
"Do whatever the fuck you want with them."
"Heheh… thank you~ This is why you're the best master!"
Alistair smiled viciously. He raised his hands, and his power surged. The corpses of his victims rose again as Blood Thralls, roaring with thirst for fresh blood. Those that survived the initial slaughter mutated into Dhampirs, gaining new strength while retaining their intelligence.
"Shall we go pay them a visit, my darlings?"
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