Yu Deng's cheek was still pressed against the prince's palm. After saying those words, he felt that something seemed a bit off. He blinked hesitantly.
Huh? Wasn't this his first time meeting the prince? Why did it feel so natural to ask the other to protect him?
Maintaining this position, Yu Deng glanced up at the vampire prince. His gaze lingered on the man's handsome face for a few seconds before shifting to the bat wings behind him, which had yet to fold away.
The prince's wings exuded a cold texture. They were broad, with sharp, sleek lines. Unlike Yu Deng's own soft, delicate wing tips, the prince's bat wings had edges that looked razor-sharp, not just tools for flight but also formidable weapons.
It should be the first time they've met.
Yu Deng felt confused, but as he pondered, he unconsciously rubbed against the vampire prince's palm again.
[Oh my gosh, baby's being so adorable!!]
[Help! I also want to be rubbed against like this—he's like a soft little kitten!]
[Okay, this prince is pretty handsome. Fine, I'll allow him to become my wife's dog.]
[By the way, has the vampire prince appeared in any of the previous arcs?]
[As a castle enthusiast, let me tell you—nope. Not just the prince, but the werewolf leader and the butler were also just background characters before. And this little young master role is appearing for the first time too.]
The vampire prince felt the softness in his palm and, for a rare moment, was stunned. His heart involuntarily softened.
How could his little vampire be so good at acting spoiled?
The prince's actions moved faster than his thoughts. He rubbed Yu Deng's head indulgently and said, "Mm, it's okay to be timid. I'll protect you."
At this moment, the prince still regarded Yu Deng with the mindset of a guardian. There was no hidden implication in his words.
...Though that prematurely awakened consciousness within his soul fell into an indescribable silence.
Yu Deng lifted his chin and reluctantly believed him. "You said it yourself, okay?"
The little vampire's delicate brows and features were stunning. His skin, fairer than most vampires, wasn't an unhealthy pallor but a soft, luminous white.
His pink, supple lips curled slightly, and his beautiful, round eyes still bore traces of tears. The redness at the corners of his eyes was pronounced, but his gaze remained bright, giving him an air of both arrogance and fragility.
No one could resist being captivated by Yu Deng.
The prince's gaze lingered on him, trailing downward before suddenly stopping.
On the side of Yu Deng's slender, white neck was a faint set of bite marks. Near the edge of his collarbone, half-hidden by his shirt, were indistinct traces of kiss marks.
"?"
The silver-haired vampire narrowed his eyes, a subtle annoyance welling up in his heart. His hand left Yu Deng's head and pressed gently against the back of his neck.
"Baby, those marks on your neck—where did they come from?"
The prince's tone was slightly lower, yet the affectionate nickname for Yu Deng slipped out so naturally that even he paused for a moment after saying it.
However, the little vampire was a delicate darling personally turned by him, so calling him baby couldn't be more fitting.
Yu Deng frowned and tilted his head up to look at him. "Why are you suddenly so fierce?"
"I'm just a bit surprised, not being fierce with you." The prince's tone softened almost instantly. "You're my childe, so I must take responsibility for you."
"...Childe?" Yu Deng caught the unfamiliar term and tried his best to analyze it.
Truth be told, Yu Deng didn't know much about vampires.
His only understanding of them was that vampires needed to rely on blood to survive. As for things like childe or followers, he was utterly clueless.
"Mm," the prince nodded.
As the guardian of this newly-turned little vampire, in a sense, he was Yu Deng's foster father.
However, when the silver-haired vampire saw Yu Deng's dazed and confused expression, he opted to explain the term in simpler words.
"I'll guide you after your transformation, teaching you how to adapt to the specific habits of vampires."
Yu Deng thought for a moment. "Vampire habits? I don't need guidance for that."
He thoughtfully reassured the prince that there wouldn't be much work involved, completely unaware he was adding fuel to the fire. "Wen Luo already taught me."
The prince: "..."
For once, he felt the rare stirrings of irritation.
The prince locked eyes with Yu Deng and coaxed him to reveal the audacious culprit. "So, baby, these marks on your neck… were they Wen Luo's doing?"
Yu Deng earnestly thought back for a moment, then shook his head, repeating the werewolf leader's excuse. "Not Wen Luo! Maybe a mosquito bit me."
The butler had merely said he needed to disinfect the marks near his collarbone.
The silver-haired vampire looked down at Yu Deng for a long while before nodding with an unreadable expression. "I see."
Because of their bond, Yu Deng actually had a good impression of his mentor and even proactively wanted to learn more about him.
Curiously, he asked, "Have you been asleep this whole time?"
"Mm. Vampires have long lifespans and often choose to enter prolonged periods of slumber." The prince casually glossed over the length of his sleep. "This time, I woke earlier than I expected."
"Mm?"
"Because I heard your voice."
In his slumber, he'd heard the pitiful sound of the little vampire crying.
"I see..." Yu Deng replied, still confused. He scratched his cheek as another important question came to mind. "By the way, I don't think I know your name yet."
Previously, Yu Deng had assumed this prince was just a background character in the story and had never thought to get to know him, let alone learn his name.
The silver-haired man sighed lightly. For the first time in centuries, he formally introduced himself: "Ronald Vinalis."
Yu Deng clumsily repeated it twice, trying to commit it to memory.
Haha... There was no way he could remember such a long name. He had already forgotten the surnames of both the butler and the werewolf.
[Beep—Scan complete. Host, this vampire prince is also one of your special mission targets.]System 01's electronic voice announced.
Yu Deng's eyes widened in shock. "What?!"
Four special mission targets in a single dungeon? How was this any different from working four extra jobs?!
...
In the banquet hall, everyone watched the vampire prince appear and then leave with the little master in his arms. They exchanged glances but remained silent for a moment.
Fortunately, once the prince left, the overwhelming sense of oppression in the room eased slightly.
Anders watched helplessly as Yu Deng was taken away. He clenched his fists and sneered at Wen Luo. "Your vampire prince truly lives up to his reputation for ignoring everyone else, doesn't he?"
As the butler, Wen Luo politely nodded to the werewolf leader. "Patience. His Highness has always acted on a whim."
Although it seemed like he was defending the prince, his words subtly agreed with Anders' sentiment.
Not far away, Qin Jun used a tool to try and analyze the attributes and abilities of the vampire prince. However, the prince's level was too high, rendering the tool ineffective. Yu Deng's information was also impossible to detect.
The three men, each lost in their own thoughts, began plotting how to steal Yu Deng from the prince.
As for the players, they were questioning their life choices, worried that the sudden appearance of the prince would increase the dungeon's difficulty.
They couldn't help but wonder if clearing this dungeon was still possible. This cursed dungeon didn't even provide a time limit—clearly designed to push them to the brink.
Some players had tried leaving the castle to see if that would clear the dungeon, but the moment they stepped outside, the system issued a warning, reminding them they might get lost in the forest and face elimination.
No one knew when this nightmare would end.
[Dungeons over the past month have been getting increasingly incomprehensible.]
[Yes, the probability of hard-mode dungeons appearing has gone up, and their difficulty has increased significantly. They're also incredibly abstract.]
[That said, any hard-mode dungeon with Deng Deng in it already has one of the lowest mortality rates.]
There were still thirty minutes until the banquet began.
The black-haired butler instructed Lady Claudia to oversee the event and then left the hall. He found the two missing vampires in one of the prince's studies.
"Your Highness, Young Master," Wen Luo greeted them, his gaze lingering on Yu Deng. "The banquet is about to begin."
"Oh... let's go back then." Yu Deng, having calmed down for about half an hour, was no longer trembling from the earlier sight he had witnessed.
The prince tacitly agreed with Yu Deng's decision, and they returned to the banquet hall together.
The corpse of the player had already been buried in the forest outside the castle under the butler's instructions, and the traces of blood in the hall had been thoroughly cleaned up.
[Ding. Changes detected within the dungeon... Recalculating dungeon data... NPC attributes being measured...]
Upon hearing the electronic announcement, all the players became alert.
Yu Deng also jolted, a bit familiar with the sound... He had heard something similar in the last dungeon as well.
The dungeon was still processing the data.
The players nervously speculated, their eyes scanning the NPCs around them.
After the players had exposed a human through infighting, the non-human NPCs had shifted from a state of anxious aggression to one of extreme excitement.
Was the change caused by the earlier betrayal from that witch player, or by the sudden appearance of the vampire prince?
The witch's crystal ball spun, and she glanced at it in surprise before muttering in realization: "So, it reverses from this moment... Hopefully, it can rewrite the maze."
[Ding. Players, hello. Due to changes in the dungeon's NPCs, from tonight onward, the Hunter Mode will be canceled, and a special game mode will be triggered.]
[Few know that this castle itself is a massive game arena, each area hiding mysteries.]
[From now on, there will be no more ball nights. Every night after the banquet begins, players will be randomly placed into rooms in the castle. Each room will have at least one player and at most four. Players must complete the assigned task and leave the room within the specified time to finish the day's game. Failure to do so will result in elimination.]
[Other rules remain unchanged. This mode will continue until the dungeon ends, with a duration of five days.]
All the players: "?!"
What's this? A new mode? Is the dungeon going to torment them again?!
If they're unlucky and get teleported with an NPC, won't that be incredibly dangerous?
Yu Deng was teleported to a random room, wobbling slightly before steadying himself. He lifted his eyelids and began to observe his surroundings.
It was a room he hadn't been in before—perhaps one of the locked rooms. The room was a combination of a bedroom and a study, with various furniture arranged neatly, but the door was tightly shut.
The room was dark, but with his good vision, Yu Deng could make out the details.
"Baby." A voice called out from the corner behind Yu Deng.
Yu Deng quickly turned around and saw it was Qin Jun, another player. His alertness instantly relaxed.
With a player of Qin Jun's caliber, someone certified by the main system, Yu Deng felt much more at ease... Most importantly, with a big shot like him around, he probably wouldn't have to think much!
Qin Jun walked over and pulled the slender little vampire into his arms, concluding, "It looks like this room was randomly assigned to just the two of us."
"Mm..." Yu Deng stood in place, hinting for the player big shot to finish the game, "What do you plan to do next?"
Qin Jun straightforwardly told Yu Deng the task: "Leave this room. Of course, I don't know what you plan to do to me, baby."
Yu Deng: "?"
Oh, in Qin Jun's eyes, he probably still looked like an NPC and might end up doing something. As for the game in this room... it could be something like an escape room? Or maybe there's another level or task.
Yu Deng pursed his lips. "I don't want to do anything to you right now." He tried to find the right words to explain his task. "It's so dark in here, I don't like it. I want to leave."
"Okay, I'll start looking for clues to leave the room." Qin Jun, always efficient, began searching for clues right away.
Yu Deng stood by, observing for a moment, thinking he should do something too, but he didn't have much of a talent for reasoning.
Behind him was a wooden wardrobe, and Yu Deng thought, should he open it? Maybe there would be clues inside, or something specific to trigger the game.
Perhaps it was the experience from the last dungeon where nothing happened when he opened the wardrobe that encouraged Yu Deng; he wasn't as afraid of opening doors now. He remained a bit alert and pulled open the wardrobe door.
As soon as the wooden wardrobe door opened just a crack, about twenty centimeters, Yu Deng didn't even have time to look inside before his wrist was grabbed by a hard, cold bone-like hand, pulling him into the wardrobe.
The slow-reacting little vampire: "?? What's going on?"
Yu Deng froze for a few seconds and looked up, immediately meeting the gaze of the skeleton in front of him... well, not really a gaze, since the skeleton didn't have eyes.
Yu Deng's gaze met the hollow eye sockets.
So, this was a moving skeleton?! The fear multiplied, sobbing.
Yu Deng stood still for a few seconds, let out a sharp scream, and tears immediately started to roll down.
"Ugh..."
Why was there a skeleton inside the wardrobe?!
The skeleton, recognizing who it had pulled in, froze as well. The trap in the wardrobe, which had been stirring, came to a sudden halt.
Yu Deng sobbed with red eyes, trembling as he threw a freezing item at the skeleton, quickly flipping over and escaping. In the chaos, he kicked the skeleton, knocking a few bones off.
On the other side of the room, Qin Jun, who had been observing, rushed over and picked up the frightened little vampire.
"Don't be afraid."
"I... I wasn't afraid," Yu Deng retorted stubbornly, giving himself a round of applause in his heart.
He had escaped so quickly just now!
Yu Deng curled up in Qin Jun's arms, his peripheral vision catching sight of the skeleton crawling out of the wardrobe, picking up bones, and reassembling its hand parts.
It looked strangely pitiful. Yu Deng remembered the kick he had unintentionally delivered earlier and felt guilty as he said, "Sorry about that."
The skeleton immediately turned its head, the bones in its skull shifting to reveal a friendly yet eerie grin.
This appearance was still a bit too advanced for Yu Deng. He quickly buried his head deeper into Qin Jun's embrace, not daring to look.
Qin Jun coldly watched the skeleton, his free hand already drawing a short blade.
The skeleton was completely uninterested in Qin Jun, its entire bone structure making a series of unpleasant clicking sounds that made one's teeth ache. It looked like it was about to fall apart at any moment, yet it moved surprisingly nimbly, continually edging closer to Yu Deng.
Yu Deng didn't dare look again. But after a few seconds, Qin Jun still hadn't moved.
Yu Deng's eyelashes fluttered, and he cautiously asked, "Hey, Qin Jun, is it still there?"
Qin Jun remained silent for a while before responding, "It's still here, but... I can't quite describe what its situation is now."
"...?" Yu Deng hesitantly peeked out.
He saw the skeleton, which had been around for who knows how many years, freezing after making eye contact with Yu Deng. It awkwardly fiddled with the bones on its body and slowly made a heart shape with its hands.
— This pretty little beauty, it had been a bit reckless earlier.
Yu Deng was utterly confused. "?"