VIP Chapter 382 Interlude: Shuna Undergoing Assessment (3k)
“It’s just an advertisement for adventurers, and you want to revive a lost goddess? Please contact xxx, and we’ll split the money fifty-fifty after it’s done—you’ve seen plenty of these, right?”
Shuna smiled naturally, spreading her hands, not showing a trace of guilt.
Thanks to Will, she could now “act” with great naturalness, hiding her true emotions and performing flawlessly.
Will and she were certainly not fools.
The chance of such an overt communication being discovered was too high. The best method was through magical encryption.
To different people, if not decrypted, it would appear as something different—a concept Will had discovered through the witch’s research while attending school. When it came to bizarre magic, witches had the most.
“Oh, it does seem there are many such advertisements lately. I agree that these advertisements are too inefficient for both deceiving people and making money. In that case… this note should just be discarded, after all, you wouldn’t like anything from the Adventurer’s Guild.”
Qishi suddenly leaned close to Shuna and, before Shuna’s reaction nerves could even register, snatched the letter from her hand.
“?!”
*Riiiip.*
Shuna’s lowered hand materialized her shadow-made knife, which rapidly elongated and pressed directly against Qishi’s neck.
The wind kicked up by her drawing the knife caused the black hair by her ear to flutter slightly. The shadow of the knife and strands of her hair even merged together.
It became the most “sharp” part of her.
It even cut off a few strands of Qishi’s golden hair, turning the formerly artfully disheveled look into a neat line.
It was a pity, though. Shuna had dodged, otherwise, her desired outcome would have been to knock off Qishi’s eye patch and get a good look at the eyes she “hid.”
“Right, I forgot to remind you, don’t joke about sweethearts.”
She looked at this senior, her gaze sharp, appearing like she had been stepped on and was fiercely retaliating.
“You know I’m here for revenge. I… my heart has no room for anyone else. Take back what you just said.”
Shuna spoke unrelated words, clutching the letter in her hand, preserving her correspondence with Will this way.
Even with a knife at her throat, Qishi seemed unfazed. Her head, covered by the eye patch, didn’t flinch, and her “eyes” beneath the patch seemed to be “staring” at her.
It was as if she had believed from the start that Shuna would never kill her—or perhaps, that Shuna was incapable of killing her.
Shuna had tested her many times. After all, in the Death Hall, her most important tasks were not only to uncover her background but also to investigate the monsters within the Death Hall, their weaknesses, and their distribution for Will.
Her aura of mystery was always accompanied by composure, as if she saw through everything and remained unperturbed.
“I apologize. It was indeed inappropriate to joke about emotions.”
“You just need to know that ‘Qing Yao Qiang Yin San Ming Si Jiu Qi San’ (四).”
Shuna lowered her knife, deliberately exposing her profile so her bangs could obscure part of her face, making her appear exceptionally gloomy.
“You really need to change this habit of yours, don’t always get lost in the past. But it’s okay, maybe staying here as a ‘monster’ for a while will help you move on. Hmm… perhaps you might even become a more formidable monster then?”
“Impossible.”
She was like that lover forever lost in the past, unable to accept his departure, so she could only sink deeper step by step, allowing no one to touch upon this matter. She continued to stand here, her only remaining meaning in life being revenge.
Oh.
Of course.
She was acting.
Even cutting her hair on one side, which always allowed her to put on a gloomy expression and demeanor in front of others, was deliberate.
In the Death Hall, she had to maintain this “persona” so that her purpose there wouldn’t seem too suspicious.
In the Death Hall, the newcomer named Pouxin’s persona was that her lover died due to the Adventurer’s Guild’s inaction, and she wanted to become a member of the “Dungeon” to take revenge on the Adventurer’s Guild.
As a revenge-obsessed person who had lost her lover, Shuna tried her best to appear “ruthless,” “cold,” and “emotionally unstable.”
Especially…
She had to use this personality to hide the fact that she knew Carver and the Death Hall were working hand-in-hand.
This made her appear as just a reckless fool, madly in love, indifferent to everything else.
This way, the surrounding “monsters” would lower their guard against her, who had originally entered from the outside as an “ex-adventurer,” thus creating better opportunities for her to gather information.
Qishi sighed, seemingly believing Shuna’s temporary explanation.
But… Shuna couldn’t see her eyes and couldn’t read her emotions or information from them.
She still remained vigilant.
“Just say what you need to say. You’re here to assess my promotion exam, aren’t you?”
Shuna leaned against a coffin, crossing her arms.
“As your mentor, it’s normal for me to care, you’re too sensitive. So, as a BOSS on the 60th floor, what is your report?”
Shuna was currently an elite BOSS on the 60th floor of the Death Hall.
At first, she thought being made an elite BOSS directly was a bit too fast. Later, she found that with the ability to control many low-level monsters, she could handle the elite BOSS position with ease.
“…You can see for yourself.”
Shuna made some space. Behind her, leaning against the coffins, were not one, but six.
Six coffins arranged in a hexagon, lying quietly there.
Coffins were the least lacking thing in the Death Hall.
*Snap.*
With a snap of her fingers, the six coffins behind Shuna slowly slid open to the sides.
Lying inside the coffins were adventurers, pale from excessive blood loss, in a stupor from shadow corrosion, or simply knocked unconscious by blunt force trauma.
“The entire Vampire Hunter team is here. Not a single one is dead, but all have lost their ability to fight. My defensive battle went very well. At the same time, I sold them a weakness.”
Shuna said, pointing a finger at the black chandelier above her head.
Candles were lit on the chandelier. On the 60th floor, the general style was themed around “darkness,” “gray,” and “graves.”
The lit chandelier became the sole light source.
For Shuna, who was dressed in black and wielded a “shadow” as her weapon, such a “light source” directly above her head was the most fitting weakness—something that “might kill her if knocked down.”
“Hmm… let me recall the mission Miss Daisianwei assigned you…”
As she spoke, she conjured a black letter from the air. The letter, no matter how one looked at it, resembled an invitation to a “funeral.”
“This time, the target for clearing the 60th floor is an S1-class adventurer group named ‘Vampire Hunter.’ Your promotion requirement is to prevent them from completing the clear while also giving them the confidence for a future attempt.”
Daisianwei.
The “Empress” of the Death Hall, a vampire by race, but it was clear that by this point, her abilities were no longer limited to just being a “vampire.”
She was currently acting as her “Empress” in the area around the 200th floor. As for how the Death Hall could reach two hundred floors—it was by constantly exploiting other dungeons.
Only dungeons that obeyed the Death Hall could obtain resources for cooperation with the Adventurer’s Guild, and only by obtaining those resources could they continue to mine deeper into the dungeons.
For the creatures of the dungeon, moving downwards was a momentum; their target was the deepest part of the dungeon.
But…
This “energy that allows dungeons to develop downwards” was, by some means unknown to Shuna, transferred to the Death Hall. They shared it with other weaker dungeons, seven to three.
…It was only now that Shuna understood what it meant to be a “dog of the Death Hall.”
The current 200th floor of the Death Hall was formed by frantically developing downwards by draining the Adventurer’s Guild.
“Alright, well done. This letter is for you. In about a week, you can become a monster from floor 100 onwards, though I haven’t decided on a specific position yet.”
She held the letter and opened it. On the letter, every word was personally written by Daisianwei in her blood.
This was the first time Shuna had received such a letter from her boss, and she was quite surprised. Although she was just a recent graduate, she had heard that bosses would write personal letters to their employees to express their intentions, but she had never heard of a boss writing a personal letter with their own blood.
However…
Shuna raised her eyes and glanced at the sixtieth floor of the Death Hall where she was currently located.
Dilapidated, desolate, dark, and eerie.
The ground was covered with coffins and urns, with piles of bones laid out on the floor. From the ceiling hung rows upon rows of blood bats.
In the Death Hall, the style of ruin everywhere, as if constantly on the border between the underworld and the living world, was very common.
“…After this promotion, will I be able to meet Daisianwei?”
“Don’t be so impatient. Because your performance has been too outstanding, you’ve also attracted some resentment from other colleagues in the Death Hall.”
If Shuna remembered correctly, Qishi’s position in the Death Hall was quite high. She was arguably the second person after Empress Daisianwei, considered the second-in-command of the Death Hall. As for why the second-in-command was mentoring a newcomer like her…
In the Death Hall, seniors mentoring newcomers always had a direct relationship without further hierarchy—Will described it as “flattened,” and Shuna thought about it for a long time, deciding the word was indeed fitting, though not commonly used.
“So troublesome. I came here to oppose the Adventurer’s Guild, but they won’t let me kill anyone.”
Facing Shuna’s somewhat over-the-top acting, Qishi calmly explained—
“Miss Daisianwei has encountered a ‘bottleneck.’ The Death Hall has not had enough energy to open the next floor for a long time. Perhaps… she needs someone like you right now. The next time she comes out of seclusion, she will likely want to see you.”
“…”
—Seclusion? Bottleneck?
Hearing this important piece of news, Shuna merely nodded.
