"A Nosferatu?" said Five as a screen displaying the information of the monster appeared.Nosferatus were essentially vampires. Just like the harpies had different clans, the vampires were also divided into clans and the Nosferatu clan was considered as one of the weaker ones. Although they were weak among their race, for Five"s dungeon, they were still powerful. When summoned, there was the option to summon them at level 20 and allow them to grow or to fix their level at 28.
Alice"s eyes sparkled as she looked at the handsome man being displayed on the screen. "Haha, I told you, master! You cannot take back my reward! I want him as my servant."
"Sigh..." Five was lost for words. He never expected Alice to really pull out a decent monster. While it was not really a loss for the dungeon for Alice to take the Nosferatu as her servant, it was still an awkward situation. "Sure, I don"t go back on my words. You can summon him at any time but choose the option that allows him to level up."
"Great!" excitedly exclaimed Alice as she used the dungeon core to summon the free Nosferatu.
A few seconds later, a summoning circle appeared in the middle of the room as everyone expectantly watched the slim figure materialize. Alice was already grinning at the idea of having a handsome servant. However, the second the summoning circle disappeared, revealing the features of the Nosferatu, Alice"s face froze.
"My prince... Where is my charming prince? I want a refund!" exclaimed Alice. Looking at the Nosferatu, she felt let down.
The summoning had actually been successful and a Nosferatu was motionless standing in the middle of the room. It was just that the man in front of Alice was nowhere close to the one displayed on the screen in terms of appearance. The screen showed a handsome man that could easily receive the t.i.tle of the nation"s husband but just like it was done for advertising in real life, the actual product rarely resembled the one in the photo!
The vampire in front of them had an extremely pale skin, giving him a sickly look. He was rather skinny and his overall features could only be considered average. The most distinctive feature of his face would definitely be the exaggerated black circles under his eyes.
"Alice, don"t judge people by their appearance! It is rude," commented Ariel from behind.
Before the harpy could answer, the immobile Nosferatu suddenly opened his eyes and stared at Five. "A human? So I was summoned by a human?" As he spoke, the Nosferatu did not even try to hide his expression of contempt. In his eyes, humans were inferior to vampires; there was no reason for him to show any respect. Even if Five was a dungeon master, the Nosferatu felt that he did not deserve that t.i.tle. After all, although he had just been summoned, the Nosferatu was still 5 levels above Five"s, it was unacceptable for him to serve someone weaker than himself.
Five immediately squinted his eyes but before he could react, Dreidus had already moved.
"Bang"
Without showing any mercy, the lich had already smacked the Nosferatu with his staff. The latter could not react in time and fell on the floor. "Who are you? How dare you attack me!?" angrily declared the Nosferatu.
"Hmmp, show some respect to master! You have just been summoned and are already that unruly. Although it would be a loss for us, it is better to get rid of possible sources of trouble!" slowly said Dreidus as he pointed his staff at the Nosferatu. He sounded calm and composed but his words carried a clear threat.
"Glup..." The Nosferatu quietly looked at Dreidus, not daring to move. He simply could not understand why someone stronger than him would agree to serve such a weak dungeon master. In his mind, the role of the leader was attributed to the strongest one. As long as one was strong, one could have anything but things were completely different in this dungeon; the weakest one of all was the leader. It simply did not make sense.
"Master! I don"t want him! Let me summon another one!" said Alice as she examined the Nosferatu. Not only was he not attractive in term of appearance, his character and behavior were also questionable. There was no way she would want such a servant.
"A woman? And a virgin on top of that?" said the Nosferatu as he suddenly noticed the harpies. His eyes lit up as he completely ignored Dreidus who was angrily glaring at him. He shamelessly let his gaze roam over the harpies bodies before being smacked again by Dreidus.
"Hmmp, how dare he look at us like that? Master, I don"t want this pervert near me!"
"mmm" Five had been silently observing the situation. It was clear that the Nosferatu"s character did not fit in the current mindset of the monsters. However, it would truly be a waste to have to get rid of him. Also, he could not really judge someone after just one minute of interaction. Being unruly and shameless did not necessarily mean to be incompetent; in the past, Five had met several persons like the Nosferatu but they all turned out to be really talented in their own fields.
"If you don"t want him, then you won"t have any servant? Only the one you summoned is yours. As for you Nosferatu, I don"t care about your background but I expect you to respect me and all the other monsters too. I am just level 15 but I can deal with you by myself!" At the same time, Five sneakily activated the [Frenzy] skill, emitting a threatening aura.
The Nosferatu immediately felt the change and instinctively tried to move away from Five. It was not just him that felt threatened, even Dreidus, Lyra and the harpies felt uncomfortable. It was the same as the last time he tested the skill. While it was not mentioned, it appeared that [Frenzy] also caused the dungeon monsters to naturally fear him while the skill was active. Unfortunately, this effect only worked on the monsters belonging to the dungeon or else, he would have already used it during the trial.
"Good, I hope you understand. Don"t cause too much trouble. Although I am the dungeon master, your mistress will be Alice, you will have to obey her orders!" said Five as he deactivated [Frenzy].
As soon as the heavy aura disappeared, the monsters felt relieved. "But I don"t want her as my mistress... Can I change to that one?" asked the Nosferatu as he pointed toward Angela. As he was no longer threatened by Five, he quickly returned to his normal character but still kept himself in check to some extent.
As she heard the request, Alice was naturally angered; she quickly moved and put herself between the Nosferatu and Angela to hide her sister. "What? Don"t you dare have vile thoughts about Angela! Besides, what is wrong with me? Why is she better than me?"
"You... You have bad breath... I don"t want to smell that every day."
"What! If it wasn"t to summon you, I would not have had to drink that awful thing!" Alice felt wrong as she complained. It was not her fault if she had a bad breath; right now, she really wanted to attack the Nosferatu but refrained from doing so. "I should really get a weapon! Hmmp, once Angela will learn some skills, I will ask her for one, then I"ll be able to smack that guy myself"
Five internally sighed as he watched the scene; if it continued like that, he will end up with a sleepless night. "Okay, that"s enough, Alice, you are in charge of him. Give him a room, Dreidus will help you look after him! For now, just give him a name and let"s call it a day."
"A name? I have the perfect one for you, let"s call you Dumbo," said Alice as she quietly laughed.
The Nosferatu immediately wanted to complain but recalling Five"s warning and considering that Alice was 7 levels above himself, he decided to tone it down. "Dumbo? Do you think I am a pet or something? I can agree to serve under a bad-breathed woman but at least give me a proper name..."
"What? Not happy?"
"Alice... Give him a proper name, okay?" said Ariel.
Alice looked at her sister who was visibly tired and just wanted to go to bed. "Fine... In that case, I will name you after someone who gave me the same impression as you. Your name will be Ivan! You should be satisfied with that."
"Good. Your name is Ivan! You guys give him a room," said Five as he headed toward his own room. It was already very late and looking at the situation, it was likely to continue for a long time. "Well, Alice and Ivan do have similar characters but she toned herself down because of the other harpies. Maybe I should summon a few Nosferatu so that they can control each other. I wonder what kind of storm they will create..."
As he left, he heard Alice loudly exclaim, "Now, you should take the farthest room from ours. Take the one near the end of the corridor next Dreidus" room, it will be easier for him to make sure you don"t do evil things when we are sleeping!"
The Nosferatu, Ivan, felt wronged as he stood up and followed Alice who was going to show him his room. Clearly "Ivan" was a proper name but why did he feel like there was a deeper meaning to that name. Also, what did she mean by doing evil things? It was normal for him to have heated thoughts when seeing the 3 beauties but that did not mean he would go as far as raping them.
As for Dreidus, he really wanted to complain to Alice but in the end, he could not find the proper words to do so. How could he tell the harpies that even if he was an undead, he wanted to have some quality time for himself with Lyra? He could not push the Nosferatu away just for that.
...
Back in his room, Five immediately jumped on his bed and rearranged his thoughts. There was a lot of work to do, especially when it came to the barbarians. Something was clearly happening there and he did not like being in the dark. "Finding a way to contact them or to gather information should be the next step."
Before sleeping, Five quickly browsed through the forum and found an extremely long post describing all the changes caused by the update. With a quick look, he found out that the harpies did effectively get a minor update; their wisdom was lowered by 1. As for the skeletons, they had their vitality lowered by 1 while the zombies had their strength increased by 1.
Aside from the balances changes, there were also quality of life changes to the dungeon shop. The most notable one was that monsters were now cla.s.sified in terms of Race, Type, and Attribute. The harpies, for example, would be cla.s.sified as Race: Harpy, Type: Bird and Attribute: Wind. Someone like Dreidus would be cla.s.sified as Race: Lich, Type: Undead and Attribute: Darkness.