Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Clearly, this is an ancient ruin unearthed by the Vigilantes. Within the ruins lie objects or information related to vampires and of great importance to them. Due to some reason (most likely a vampire traitor within the Vigilantes), this information was leaked. Thus, the vampires, who had long maintained secrecy, unleashed their immense power, launching a thunderous attack on the Vigilantes' headquarters and seizing this ancient ruin hidden in the dark mountains.

The old tale of good versus evil, light versus darkness, is nothing new.

[And this has nothing to do with me, an ordinary traveler.]

She crumpled the cloth map into pieces and quickly found the mechanism to open the entrance to the ruins, opening a heavy iron gate that blocked the way between the inside and outside—though she could probably cut right through it. But she thought it would be better to explore in a gentler way for the time being.

After all, she was a traveler, or at least she considered herself one. In the past four months, some had called her a hero, some a dragonborn, some a lord, some a champion… many titles, but she didn't care. She always felt she was just a passerby in this world. And passersby should behave politely, not disturb the flowers and plants, and crushing annoying insects was fine, but everything else should be done as if she were a passerby.

Yes, that's what she thinks.

The partition door opened with a mechanical creak, and through the flowing air, she gleaned valuable information—the scent of fresh human blood. It must have been the lingering traces of survivors or prisoners among the vigilantes when they were finally killed. She heard low, rhythmic thuds and roars; the vampires had likely disturbed the ghouls and frost spiders within the ruins, and were now engaged in battle, soon to be victorious. She sensed about a hundred different rhythmic footsteps, roughly the number of vampires in the ruins. She didn't think many of them were capable of withstanding more than two of her sword strikes—the real deal.

She took two steps forward, intending to quickly finish the cleaning and continue her aimless journey. However, as she took her third step, she could hear the sound of carriage wheels rolling in the night wind behind her.

Someone has arrived. There are two people, a man and a woman, two outsiders. And these two are definitely not the kind of weaklings who can be killed with a sword or two, like the group of vampires below.

[The leaked information is too scarce; it doesn't seem like they're vampire reinforcements. Hmm... Could it be some righteous hero trying to steal my business, also eyeing these vampires?]

Ah... I can't let someone else steal the commission I need to complete.

She thought to herself, and quickened her pace slightly. Before the two strangers approached the Dark Cave, she disappeared into the deep darkness.

A soft sound escaped her throat in the darkness.

—"FeimZiiGron" [Dragon Shout: Phantom Spirit Hollowfication]

....................................

“We’re too late. This place has already been cleared out.” Zheng Zha surveyed the surroundings and easily spotted the vampires who had been killed with a single sword strike. Then his attention shifted, and he was slightly surprised to find that there were no signs of any fighting in the area.

All vampires are killed in a single blow. Whether they are newborns, elders, ancient species, or master-level vampires, they all meet the same fate. It doesn't matter if they wear light armor, heavy armor, or activated mage armor; their ultimate end is always the same.

Vampires met the same fate, as did everything else that could move within this underground ruin. Whether it was the undead, the wights unique to Skyrim, wielding the power of frost, or the more general skeletal warriors; or the frost spiders common in ancient tombs, or the hellhounds tamed by vampires, capable of releasing an aura of death that was incredibly effective against living beings—their fates were all the same.

A single, fatal blow; a single sword strike to the throat. In one half-excavated tomb, Zheng Zha and Xilin even witnessed dozens of vampires and ghouls locked in combat being slain simultaneously. And in their dying moments, none of them sensed the attack on their companions.

The further they went, the more frequent these scenes became. The two reincarnators' apprehension towards the creature charging ahead of them grew stronger. What were initially easy prey to deal with, the natives, quickly became formidable opponents requiring considerable effort. When they arrived at an ancient Nord burial hall, witnessing the entire hall filled with undead creatures who had perished almost simultaneously, Zheng Zha, who had been relentlessly pursuing the trail, finally stopped for the first time.

“This guy is strong. He’s a formidable opponent compared to us in this state.” Zheng Zha raised his hand, gesturing to Xilin, who was about five meters behind him, looking around the ancient Nord tomb while he was searching for traces, and she also stopped. “And she noticed us. She knows we’re following her.”

Xilin affirmed this.

“It’s obvious,” she said, observing the ancient murals on the wall. “Leaving aside the speed of her killing, we’ve followed her from the entrance of this cave all the way here, a distance of about four kilometers. And along the way, she only left a few footprints on the very outer edge at the beginning. Other than that, she left no trace, no aura. No body odor, no dissipating energy bearing her personal mark. She was like a shadow moving through the void, easily killing all the undead here without any hesitation.”

“Without hesitation, without stopping.” Zheng Zha nodded. “We’ve encountered at least fifteen forks in the road along the way, and whenever there are undead in a fork, she has to eliminate them. If she doesn’t have some kind of precognitive ability… I mean, something like that, then it can only mean that her insight is terrifyingly high. She won’t miss any clues.”

Sirin continued looking at the mural on the wall. She roughly judged its content, which seemed to tell the story of an ancient hero who fought hard and became a star in the sky—she suddenly tilted her head and asked, "Third-order limit?"

“Yes, the third-tier limit or some equivalent realm,” Zheng Zha replied, then added, “And the opponent also possesses enhanced attributes that exceed the AA level of the main god's rating, even reaching around S level. At the same time, her combat experience is also very rich, and her vigilance… or rather, her intuition is extremely strong. So strong that I almost thought it was an acquaintance here.”

“That must be someone who gives you a real headache… So what do we do? Keep following her?” Sirin’s little head tilted back again, as if there was something on the mural that really attracted her. “Personally, I don’t recommend that we keep following her. There aren’t many creatures with this kind of combat power on this planet. We can basically confirm that she is the dragonborn we’re looking for. Since we’ve identified the right target, there’s no need to rush.”

"After all, we arrived too late, and she noticed us first. If we were to approach her by pretending to be enemies of those already dead vampires, it would likely backfire. Judging from her previous behavior, she seems to be someone who doesn't like to cause trouble or involve unrelated people. If possible, we'd better offer her some help when she, the destined protagonist, gets into other trouble."

"So you want her to owe us a favor at a crucial moment?" Zheng Zha understood and nodded after a moment's thought. "Indeed, she discovered us but didn't leave a warning or meet with us. Instead, she simply accelerated her progress to achieve her goal. People with this habit certainly fit the characteristics of disliking social interaction and not liking to owe others. Therefore, adopting Miss Xilin's strategy is indeed the right thing to do."

“Well then,” he said, extending his foot and lightly stomping on the ground. The entire chaotic hall quickly became tidy under the invisible tremor—the other person disliked social interaction, and chasing after him directly here, even if it expressed goodwill, might provoke resentment. Since he didn't intend to be hostile to the Dragonborn, waiting might be a better strategy.

So, after a clean area was cleared out of the tomb's main hall, the reincarnators chose to stay at this temporary resting place, waiting until a certain inevitable event would unfold.

....................................

They didn't chase after us, nor did they leave... They didn't seem hostile. Had they achieved their goal, or did they have other objectives?

Alice looked at her hand. Just moments ago, in this place deep within the underground ruins, which resembled an altar, she had killed the last living vampire she sensed. Then, while examining the altar, a spike suddenly sprang from its center, aiming to pierce her palm.

Clearly, the thorn wouldn't pierce her. But it allowed her to realize that the mechanism beneath the altar required blood as a medium to activate. After much deliberation, she spilled a drop of her own blood, and immediately afterward, a massive tremor of magical energy rippled through the earth's veins. As the magical energy dissipated, a sealed stone coffin emerged from the ground, appearing before her.

Her blood was in the sarcophagus, and her blood awakened a sleeping being—she could clearly sense this, even though the sarcophagus door had not yet been opened.

She glanced behind her.

The two unknown, powerful individuals, a man and a woman, were watching her from a stone chamber about a kilometer away. Although separated by at least fifteen layers of five-meter-high stone walls, she could still sense their gazes.

Should we pay them any attention?

Should we just ignore them?

Doubts and thoughts swirled in Alice's mind, but she ultimately didn't turn back. She simply reached out and touched the sealed sarcophagus. She knew the sarcophagus would open when she touched it, and it did indeed open as she expected.

She wasn't sure if it was just her imagination. As the sarcophagus door began to slide, she suddenly felt that lying inside was a girl of a different race, dressed in a black and white maid's outfit, with long wine-red hair and wings that she couldn't tell if she was a vampire or a demon.

She realized she was probably mistaken.

Chapter 42 The Familiar Unintentional One

[It was indeed a mistake.]

After the sarcophagus opened, Alice saw a weak, thin vampire woman with short black hair and golden eyes. Compared to the ugly, severely afflicted vampires in Skyrim who were less like vampires and more like sufferers of vampire disease, this woman possessed a beauty and figure that would be considered exceptional even in the court of a human empire. A delicate scroll was strapped to her back, and even a simple opening of her eyes and rising revealed the elegant demeanor unique to noblewomen. Undoubtedly, she was not the same kind of vampire Alice had encountered before.

But she is still a vampire. Despite her elegance and nobility, she is still a vampire.

Alice vaguely remembered the request made to her by the ghost of the girl who should have been completely destroyed when she accepted the commission.

"Big sister, please go and get rid of those vampires. Kill all the vampires who hurt Mom and Dad, Uncle and Aunt, and my little Bambi. Eliminate them along with their accomplices...please."

Alice didn't recognize the girl. She felt nothing for her burned-down home, her murdered family and friends, or her pets. She wasn't a fox, and therefore didn't feel sorrow for the loss of her kind. The girl's ghostly gaze and pleading tone meant nothing to her. She simply appeared there, saw the spirit, and then accepted the commission.

"Okay." That was her answer at the time.

Then, for the next week, she relentlessly tracked down and killed the vampires in Morsal. After completing this task, she also uncovered other clues related to the vampires in Morsal's vampire lair.

How many vampires had she killed? She couldn't quite remember. After all, most of them were killed by her before she even realized what was happening, like swatting a mosquito while walking, without her noticing at all—she spent a lot of time on this, so much so that by the time she killed the last vampire in Morsal, her reputation had already spread to Morning Star with caravans and refugees.

If her calculations were correct, this cavern she named Ghost Void was the final destination of the vampires from Morsal City. In other words, once all the vampires in this cave were wiped out, her unpaid commission would be complete.

Therefore, the vampire that appears before us should be the last one.

Yes, even if this vampire before me has slumbered in this sarcophagus for hundreds, even thousands of years, she is still one of the last remnants of the remaining vampire species in this ghostly cave. Even if she probably doesn't recognize them, or even belongs to the same species, it's still the same.

and so……

Alice swung her ebony blade swiftly. The moment the unknown vampire woman looked up at her with a questioning gaze, Alice severed her head. Just as the woman's hand was about to rise, seemingly to unleash some magic, Alice cut off her arm. As the woman's self-healing abilities activated, attempting to reconnect the severed flesh, Alice used the black ebony blade to pierce through all the energy nodes!

Clean, efficient, calm, and decisive. Beneath Alice's emotionless, indifferent face, the vampire woman, who had just been resurrected by drawing her blood from the sarcophagus, was shattered into approximately thirty or forty pieces. The flesh and blood, constantly dissipating energy, crashed to the ground and returned to dust.

The vampire woman is dead. Her soul has vanished, her flesh turned to ash. According to the common understanding of the world, she should be completely dead.

And so Alice's promised request was fulfilled.

..........................................

"Do you know how painful that is! How can you do this... like this, cutting someone into dozens of pieces on the very first meeting! If I weren't special, I would be completely dead by now!"

The timeline jumped forward by about a minute. Just as Alice concluded that the vampire woman was truly dead and her commission was complete, the pile of shattered, decaying blood seemed to rewind time, leaping up, converging, and reforming in mid-air along with the red and black women's clothing made of a special material. The withered muscles regained their fullness, and dark fluid surged from the dried blood vessels. The decaying skin regained its elasticity and healthy appearance, and the withered hair and eyes returned to their healthy state.

It wasn't time reversal, nor a miracle bestowed by the Holy Spirit. What befell the vampire woman was undoubtedly a curse from a demon god, originating from extraordinary power—a demon god had cursed her, rendering her neither alive nor dead. Thus, she lived on in this vampire form. And perhaps, in the eyes of her kind, this was a blessing?

Alice neither knew nor was interested. Sensing that the power reconstructing the woman's body stemmed from a curse and demonic power was the limit of her attention on the woman before her. She knew perfectly well that she had just killed this vampire. And since she had killed it once, the one resurrected would be a completely different individual. She had fulfilled her commission; there was no need to do anything further.

So she turned around, intending to leave, but hesitated slightly. She could still sense the man and woman about a kilometer away. And those two people with unclear intentions didn't seem to have any intention of leaving.

Contacting them seems like it'll get me into trouble... I hate trouble that I can't resolve with a single sword strike or even a few.

With a change of heart, she turned back, intending to venture deeper into the ruins. Based on her considerable experience exploring ancient tombs over the past few months, she knew that the deepest tombs of these ancient Nord ruins seemed to contain secret passages leading to the outside—the ancient Nords apparently believed that the slumbering figures within the tombs could awaken at any moment and rejoin the battles. Therefore, they constructed hidden passages in each tomb, one accessible from the outside and one from the inside. However, these passages were mostly unusable.

After all, none of the ancient Nord heroes ever awoke. Instead, most of them transformed into powerful ghoul tyrants guarding their tombs. Ghouls have no reason; they only protect their territory and slumber when no outsiders visit. And as long as the tomb's owner is successfully suppressed, 'travelers' like Alice can leave laden with abundant wealth.

Alice doesn't need wealth, but she needs to get out of here. The ghoul tyrant deep within the tomb might be a problem, but it's one that can be quickly resolved with a sword, without needing to use her tongue—and she prefers a sword.

So she took a step forward, and as she did, the female vampire who had been chattering away ever since her resurrection lunged at the spot where she had been standing and missed!

With a 'splat—', the vampire, who looked quite well-mannered and was clearly a noble lady, fell straight down on the ground. The comical feeling was somewhat similar to that of a certain cute creature that liked to act dignified. However, such a thought only flashed through Alice's mind before quickly sinking into the sea of ​​consciousness.

"You bastard! You killed me and then just left me there!"

A noisy voice came from behind Alice, which made her frown slightly. She frowned not because of the noise, but because the words struck her as somewhat out of place.

This woman doesn't seem to have this kind of personality. She should be more composed and calm... Why do I think this way?

Another strange thought flashed through her mind, and this time she caught it precisely. Then she let it dissipate from her thoughts at will. Once abnormal mental states and frequent confusion became permanent visitors to her consciousness, it became insignificant to devote too much attention to them.

She hadn't intended to stop, but because of that fleeting frown, just as she was about to continue forward, she discovered that some guy lying on the ground had grabbed her leg!

“You’re alive again,” Alice said calmly, her beautiful brows furrowing, but her delicate face remained expressionless. There was no joy, no anger, no disgust, no impatience. She simply stared at the woman clinging to her leg, like a granite slab staring at a pebble. “Please let go of my hand.”

"You killed me once!" the woman yelled, and Alice's sense of unease grew even stronger. She suddenly felt that the woman before her should be an elegant woman who, even if she shattered the person she was supposed to protect with an ice spike spell, would deliberately pretend nothing happened. Not like this... nonsensical woman.

“I did kill you once,” Alice replied, then asked seriously, “So you expect me to kill you again? Or do you want me to kill you until you can’t be resurrected?”

"You—!" The woman was speechless with anger. She took several deep breaths before barely regaining her composure. She seemed to be forcing herself to her feet, suppressing some destructive urge, her hand still tightly gripping Alice's skirt. "Is this how you take responsibility? This is my first time dying, couldn't you be a little more gentlemanly...more ladylike!?"

Alice tilted her head slightly to the side at a 45-degree angle and looked at her, her pale blue eyes clearly showing an emotion: "???"

“I can take responsibility for killing you,” Alice replied, her tone serious and earnest. Her hand, gripping the sword hilt, twitched with anticipation.

"My God, is killing people your way of being in charge? How did you ever deal with people before? Or is this just how things are these days..." The woman glanced around and noticed several very 'fresh' vampires lying dead at the edge of the altar where she stood. Besides the vampires, there were many not-so-old corpses below the altar—these were probably the offerings the vampires had used to try and awaken her.

"Is this really the current trend?" She instinctively shrank back, but her hand was still clutching the hem of Alice's skirt.

“First, you’re not human. Second, this is how I deal with people. Third, this isn’t how things are these days. I’m the only one who acts this way.” Alice answered her questions one by one, without the slightest impatience or desire to show off. “If you don’t want me to kill you again, then please let go of my hand.”

"Is your world... just about killing and being killed like a wild beast?"

Alice's visions began to blur once more. The dark altar transformed into a fortress bathed in the setting sun. The vampire woman before her seemed to have transformed into an intelligent young woman with beautiful, pale purple hair. And it seemed that at some point in time, that young woman had spoken similar words to another version of herself in a similar tone.

—'Alice, in your world… is there only domination and subjugation, like puppets?'

The images of the purple-haired girl and the vampire woman subtly overlapped. This illusion was even more incomprehensible than what she had seen when she opened the sarcophagus. She shook her head, then returned once more to the dark underground altar.

“No, there’s nothing in my world,” Alice replied. She felt a strange shift in her heart. It was as if a cold wind had rushed into an empty room with a missing barrier. It wasn’t freezing, but it made her bones tremble. And this strange feeling, like many of the previous inconsistencies and hallucinations, vanished in an instant.

"...Then why did you kill me?" The vampire woman seemed not to sense anything unusual.

"Because someone commissioned me to kill all the vampires in a city. And you are the last one connected to them. I killed you once, and the commission was over. So there's no need to kill you a second time. Unless someone commissions me to kill you here again."

"Anyone will do? As long as someone commissions them?"

"Anyone is fine, as long as someone makes a request and I decide to accept it." — Just like when an exclamation mark appears on the quest panel, players will almost always choose to accept it at some point.

"What if someone commissioned you to kill yourself, or to do something bad to you?"

“I will kill it,” Alice replied calmly, “and then kill everything related to it, living or dead.” — Just as NPCs who attempt to insult the player's dignity in a role-playing game often meet a swift and violent end once it is confirmed that they have no special protection.

“I see, I think I understand what kind of person you are now.” — Without realizing it, the woman who had been throwing a tantrum in front of her not long ago had suddenly transformed into a quiet and elegant woman, just as Alice had initially judged her. Her somewhat dirty clothes had become neat, and her face and tone of voice had become dignified.

"I would like to ask you to take me home, to the northwest coast of Skyrim, to the northwest coast of Solitude. Would you accept this request?"