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The door the group entered led down a hall with a red carpet covering the floor. Suits of armor lined the walls, but they were covered in dust. At the end of the hall, there was another door. Tafel walked up to a suit of armor and kicked it over, making sure nothing was inside before walking past it.
“Huh?” Alice looked down and frowned at her hands. “Did we lose Diamant’s defense boost?”
Tafel, Alice, and Mr. Skelly turned their heads towards Vur. Three different-colored orbs of light, blue, green, and red, were floating in the air beside him. Vur stared at the group and smiled, his movements stiff. “Diamant was tired. There is no issue.”
Tafel narrowed her eyes at Vur. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Perfect,” Vur said, nodding his head up and down like a machine. “Never been better. Why do you ask, dear wife?”
“Oh my god…,” Zilphy mumbled but not loudly enough for the group to hear.
Tafel scratched the back of her head. “I must be stressed and tired,” she said as she sighed and turned back around. She kicked over another set of armor, pointing her staff at the heap and confirmed it wasn’t moving before passing it by.
“No, Vur’s acting pretty abnormal,” Alice said and shook her head as she walked alongside the demon. A set of armor up ahead lunged at the two women before Tafel could kick it over, and Alice let out a short shriek before smashing it to bits with her shield. “God. I hate living armor.”
Tafel turned her head towards the armor walking behind them that happened to have a skeleton inside. “That’s ironic.”
“Alright, Vur,” Mr. Skelly said as he fell back from the group to match Vur’s pace. He slapped his armored hand against Vur’s back. “Tell me your troubles and I’ll give you answers.”
“I have no troubles, skeleton man,” Vur said. “None at all.”
Mr. Skelly stared at Vur. Vur wasn’t even looking at him, keeping his eyes locked on the back of Tafel and Alice as he marched after them with uniform steps.
***
“Vur…, Tafel’s going to be so mad when she finds out,” Stella said, poking her head out of Vur’s chest. He was alone, humming to himself as he walked while swinging his arms, the crossbow in his hand swishing back and forth like a pendulum. “And of all the people to not leave behind, why did Mervin have to come with us? Couldn’t you have polymorphed Mervin instead of Deedee?”
“Mervin doesn’t know me well enough like Deedee does,” Vur said. “He wouldn’t be able to fool them. And Mervin can’t go inside of Deedee, so it only makes sense for him to come with us.”
The genie king sitting on Vur’s shoulder beamed at Stella, who gave him a dirty look before retreating back into Vur’s chest. The poor genie was temporarily banned from entering Stella’s room, which she declared to be all of Vur. Mervin looked around once Stella disappeared. “Your wife said that splitting up in a white-ranked dungeon was like the start of a horror story, what did she mean by that?”
Vur ignored the skulls hanging from the ceiling that projected lights out of their eyes and mouth like creepy chandeliers. The ground let out a little wail every time he stepped on it, and ghostly hands would wrap around his ankles, coming out of the carpet that seemed to be made of furless skin. Of course, the ghostly hands snapped when Vur kept walking, acting as if he hadn’t noticed them at all. He frowned and rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure. Horror stories make no sense to me,’ he said and shook his head after thinking for a while. “In most of the stories, a group goes into an isolated environment, a little like this dungeon, and the beginning starts all happy. Then one of them hears a noise when it’s dark, and the group splits up. The person who goes to check on the noise never comes back, and the remaining group splits up again to find them. Then when everyone’s alone, it turns out some monster was attacking those people.”
“Mm, that does sound a little scary,” Mervin said. “Why doesn’t it make sense to you?”
“Because they don’t beat up the monster,” Vur said and snorted. There was an earth-shaking roar as the wall next to Vur cracked open, revealing a massive bloody paw with sharp claws the size of Vur’s face. Vur held his hand out and grabbed one of the digits on the paw before tugging on it with a slight bend of his elbow. A confused cry rang out as a bloody bear was dragged through the wall and into the hallway that Vur was walking along. With one punch, the bloody bear’s head exploded, and the creature collapsed into a heap. Vur furrowed his brow. “What was I saying? Right, no one in the stories ever beats up the monster. They only run. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Mervin stared at the fallen bear and swallowed. Another bear poked its head out of the hole the first one had left behind. It took one look at Vur, whose face was splattered with blood, and let out a human-like scream before running away. “Vur…,” Mervin said. “Tafel was right. This is like a horror story.”
Vur tilted his head. “How?”
“You’re the monster,” Mervin said and nodded. “This dungeon is these bloody things’ home, right? They heard a noise, you, and came to check it out. And the first person who came alone died! The second person to check it out saw you and ran instead of attacking. Quick, you have to catch that bear before it alerts the rest of the group so they keep splitting up.”
Vur’s eyes lit up. “So the monster attacking the people in horror stories were dragons in disguise. I think I understand now.” A second later, his eyes dimmed as he knit his brow. “But dragons don’t bother with humans. They taste bad and their meat-to-effort ratio is too low.” Vur walked past the hole that the bear had left behind but stopped and poked his head inside. It wasn’t very deep, and he could see the end. It was like a cave, and a bear was busy digging a hole in the ground to bury itself. “Bears on the other hand…. But I can’t eat these.” His gaze landed on the fallen bear’s corpse. “Or can I?”