NOVPUBUpon reaching the top in record time thanks to her agile body, Luna scanned the rooftop looking for a way inside the building which ended up being unnecessary as her first step caused her to fall down to the upper floor. The rooftop seemed the be finished, but due to the lack of support beams it crumbled in a domino effect leaving Luna covered in dust and debris.
Thankfully, she was an ascended hunter and was able to withstand it without suffering any injuries, though the same couldn't be said about her clothes that were covered in a layer of fine cement dust, not that she cared too much. After all, due to her being a werewolf she went through clothes like Medusa did through cheeky chicken cups.
Keeping a straight face despite her blunder, Luna went down the staircase that led to the third floor wishing in earnest that she didn't fall this time as the staircase creaked whenever she took a step. It was a matter of pride since she prided on being the lightest hunter in the Dungeon Raiders company.
She was supposed to walk light as a feather and ungracefully falling through the ceiling would have turned her into the company's laughing stock, or so she thought.
In truth, while most girls in the company did worry about their weight and they even competed against each other, few if any envied Luna's weight due to her short stature. Not that anyone would say that to her face.
For some strange reason the flashlight wasn't working and Luna pointed it at her face while patting it a couple times until it stopped flickering, cursing inwardly at Medusa who was supposed to choose the best gear since she was an engineer.
"Oh!" She exclaimed as the light blinded her for a second at the same time a shadowy creature emerged from the darkness and shrieked loudly.
"A ghost!" Nika crossed herself and backed a few steps at the sight of Luna covered in dust and pointing the light directly at her bare face.
"Idiot, you're an idiot." Luna sighed.
"Luna! Don't scare me like that!" Nika complained.
"And do you call yourself a... uhmm... hunter? What if it was a cryptid instead of me?" Her plain tone only made the poison in her words more hurtful, but Nika easily shrugged it off.
"I'm not afraid of cryptids, only of supernatural stuff like zombies, skeletons, ghosts, witches, the boogeyman..." The list went on and on as they explored the floor together while Medusa still racked up her brain to figure out a way inside the building.
"Do you realize that most of those things are real? There's even a witch in our company now." Luna asked with honest curiosity. After spending so much time with Nika, Luna felt comfortable in her company, but there were still many things she couldn't understand about her.
"First, I know they're real. Why would I be afraid of things that don't exist? Second, Bella doesn't wear a pointy hat so she doesn't count." Speaking casually inside an abandoned spoke volumes of how much they trusted in their strength.
Nika's trait allowed her to fight almost anything in close combat without getting so much as a scratch while Luna could shapeshift into a powerful werewolf with a presence so mighty it could bring nightmares to cryptids.
But things changed once they walked down to the next floor and found what looked like the climax scene from the most grotesque gore movie ever made. Entrails and blood painted the walls, putrid body parts carpeted the ground, but the worst part was that nothing made sense.
"Uhm..." Luna pondered as she fumbled some words Nika couldn't hear.
"Did a cryptid do this?" Nika asked more curious than worried for as long as their flashlights remained on it meant that cryptids weren't nearby.
"Unlikely, we're investigating the reason why the Dolminico family cut communications with the brothel. This might answer all the questions, maybe the dryad's boyfriend killed these people and was sentenced for this crime." Luna explained as she examined the remains. Needless to say, there was little information she could draw from the bodies.
She couldn't even tell how many people died nor what was the cause of death. The only thing she was certain of was that there weren't any strange organs or body parts which greatly disappointed her.
"What's the matter? Did you know this people?" Asked Nika in an attempt to read her feelings.
"No, it's just that, uhm... If this belongs to the Dolminicos it would be safe to assume that they were hybrids, but I can't find anything inhuman in the remains.
This either means that the victims were human or that hybrid anatomy doesn't differ from that of humans." Luna explained, omitting to mention that the reason why she was so interested in hybrid remains was to figure out what made her different from other hybrids.
A loud noise coming from downstairs brought Luna to stop her intellectual endeavor and Nika to stop playing with the shadows cast by her flashlight.
"She did it." Nika said with a prideful look.
"Yes, let's meet with her. Our mission is over." Luna nodded.
Each step they took sounded like a thud due to the disgusting liquids that oozed through the walls and down to the floor which would have been enough to drive any human to the verge of insanity, but hunters were accustomed to seeing and doing far worse.
Finding the staircase to go down to the ground floor was supposed to be an easy feat since there weren't any furnishings or decorations, but for some strange reason they couldn't find it. Not just that, they couldn't even find the way back to where they came from and they soon realized there was something strange going on.
"I didn't smell it," Luna said, then sniffed the air. "Why didn't I smell it from the outside?"
"Maybe because the stench was trapped inside and..." Nika's words were cut off when something grabbed her from beneath and pulled her leg with so much force her chin hit the ground. Luna moved in fast like an arrow and cut off the vine that clasped Nika, though even after being slashed the tip remained its firm grasp on her ankle.
"It's a sprain." Luna said after examining Nika's swollen ankle.
"Forget that, our flashlights are still on, this was no cryptid! We're getting ambushed by the Dolminicos, what a bunch of ungrateful bastards!" Nika voiced out her fears finding no other explanation to what just happened to her. Not only the Dolminicos owned that building, there were also some hybrids in their midst that were capable of manipulating the vegetation like that.
They waved their flashlights all over the place trying to find the enemy, but failing to spot anything out of the ordinary.
"I can't smell them." Luna informed which prompted Nika to roll up her sleeves.
"Hang on, I'll focus on my butt." She declared with a straight face, mostly because she wasn't joking. Nika developed her mystical sense a long time ago without realizing it. It was a known fact that even before the arrival some people were able to tell whenever someone was looking at them and some women even knew when men stared at their bodies and Nika mistook this with her mystical sense.
What brought up this confusion was the fact that due to her shapely rear she always drew a lot of attention which became even worse after she became a heavenly rank. This, amounted to the hatred those from the Mapple corp. held to Nika triggered her mystical sense whenever she turned her back on them.
Separating those two feelings was now impossible for Nika, no matter how much Uriel tried to help her get rid of that habit by attempting to teach her his own version of the mystical sense.
"Nothing." Nika gasped causing Luna to become worried. It wasn't just that she couldn't feel the enemy, she also couldn't feel Medusa or even Luna by her side.
"Go to her, I'll be fine on my own." Luna said, realizing that the sound they just heard might not be the door falling but the start of a fight.
"I don't think she'll have her flashlight on." In spites of Nika's trait that allowed her to move through the shadows, navigating through them was confusing to say the least and Nika always risked getting lost.
It explained why she only used it whenever there were light sources nearby since they acted like landmarks, though she had no clue that right beneath them Medusa had just turned on her flashlight.
"Uhm... then..." Luna took off one of her claw gauntlets and grabbed Nika's hand prompting Nika to clench her jaw and brace herself to be thrown at a random direction. Nika was aware of Luna's antics, though she did not expect that instead of throwing her in the air what Luna did was cut a hole in the floor with the orichalcum claw that remained in her hand.
