Mario stood next to Blade in front of an apartment building, craning his neck to count the floors one by one. Just another ordinary high-rise in Manhattan.
"2803? You sure these bloodsuckers are living on the 28th floor? Shouldn't they be hiding in dark basements or abandoned warehouses?"
The fact that these monsters had better living conditions than he did left a bitter taste in Mario's mouth. Here he was, sleeping on cobblestone slabs in an underground cave, while vampires were living in luxury apartments with city views.
Blade caught the resentment in Mario's voice, though he wasn't sure where all that anger was coming from. He nodded slightly.
"You can follow behind me and observe first."
With that, he strode confidently into the building. Mario hurried after him, grabbing Blade's arm.
"No, no, let me handle this!"
There weren't any security guards in the lobby, so the two easily made their way to the elevator bank. Clearly, Blade had already done his reconnaissance beforehand.
"Just wait by the door when we get up there," Mario said as they stepped into the elevator. "I can take down a few vampires myself."
Blade said nothing, simply reaching out and pressing the button for the 28th floor. The elevator hummed quietly as it began its ascent, the floor numbers climbing steadily on the digital display.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open onto the 28th floor hallway. Before Blade could even step out, Mario rushed past him, scanning the corridor until he locked onto apartment 2803.
Blade frowned slightly at Mario's impatience but didn't comment. He'd seen plenty of hunters get overeager on their first real mission.
Mario stared at the closed door, then turned back to Blade and put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. Suddenly, a stone pickaxe materialized in his hand from thin air. The sight made Blade's expression grow serious, that kind of ability wasn't normal, even by his standards.
He wanted to ask about Mario's strange powers, but now clearly wasn't the time. Instead, he stood at a distance and watched as Mario crouched down and began tapping the reinforced security door with his pickaxe.
Thunk... thunk...
With each strike, hairline cracks began spreading across the door's surface like a spider web. Then, with a sharp crystalline sound, the heavy steel door simply vanished into thin air.
At the same moment, Blade noticed Mario's entire demeanor change. The face that usually carried an easy smile was now cold and merciless, like a switch had been flipped. Without hesitation, Mario stepped through the doorway. Blade quickly followed, drawing a silver katana from beneath his leather coat.
Using his vampire sense ability, Mario could immediately detect where the bloodsuckers were hiding inside the apartment.
Only four. Kind of disappointing.
The apartment was shrouded in darkness, thick blackout curtains blocking any trace of sunlight. Thanks to the light spilling in from the now-open doorway, he could make out the living room's layout. To his surprise, the place was clean and organized, apparently these vampires didn't like living in squalor either.
He walked over to the windows and yanked the heavy curtains open. Warm, piercing sunlight flooded into the living space that probably hadn't seen daylight in months.
The vampires had definitely been alerted to their presence. In Mario's vision, he could see two of them standing just behind the bedroom door, whispering urgently to each other about what to do.
He ignored them for the moment. Gripping his stone pickaxe tightly, he began collecting every piece of furniture and appliance in the living room, watching each item vanish into his inventory with satisfying pops.
"Free furniture," he muttered to himself. "Christmas came early."
When the living room was completely bare, Mario put away the pickaxe and switched to his combat loadout, stone axe in his right hand, wooden stake in his left. Step by step, he approached the bedroom door.
BANG.
He kicked the door with enough force to send it flying off its hinges. The flimsy wood couldn't withstand the impact and instantly gave way, crushing the vampire who'd been hiding behind it against the wall.
Inside the bedroom stood a man and a woman. The male was pinned behind the destroyed door, while the female glared at Mario with furious red eyes.
"Who the fuck are you?" she snarled.
It was obvious the pair had been resting. The woman wore nothing but black lace lingerie, her pale skin almost glowing in the sudden light.
Mario raised his stone axe and grinned coldly. "I'm your worst nightmare, sweetheart."
He took a step forward and leaped lightly into the air, showing no mercy just because his target was female. After all, this wasn't the first female vampire he had killed, and it wouldn't be the last. The stone axe in his hand slashed toward her torso.
She reacted quickly, baring fangs with a threatening hiss and retreating just enough to avoid his strike. Then she lunged forward, claws extended toward his throat.
Mario flipped his grip and swung the axe upward, the blade driving deep into her thigh. She screamed as she was sent flying backward, and her attack was completely disrupted.
Following up immediately, Mario stepped forward and jammed the wooden stake in his left hand straight into her open mouth.
"Choke on this!"
He raised the axe again and brought it down on her skull.
It all happened in the span of three seconds. The male vampire pinned behind the door finally reacted, struggling free from the debris and charging at his enemy.
Mario sidestepped the desperate attack. Following the principle of focusing fire on one target, he continued his assault on the female vampire, hacking at her relentlessly. Each blow chipped away at her health bar until it dropped below the fifteen percent threshold.
The wooden stake in his hand pierced deep into the female vampire's back, straight through to her heart. Because her throat had already been damaged, she couldn't even scream, just twisted before her body dissolved into ash.
The male vampire was clearly more than just a roommate, probably her lover, judging by his reaction.
"I'll tear you apart!"
His fury made him faster than before, but also more reckless. Mario stayed calm and composed, dodging the head-on assault and striking during the brief window when his opponent was committed to the attack.
The reason he favored the wooden stake was simple: fast attack speed, compact size, and most importantly, its ability to trigger the knockback effect with every hit. He couldn't afford to get bogged down, the two vampires from the other bedroom had already burst out and were charging toward them.
BANG.
The male vampire's body slammed uncontrollably into the wall. Mario jumped and brought his axe down hard, triggering a critical hit. In Minecraft, criticals were easy to achieve, just jump and strike before landing for 1.5x damage.
"Don't worry," he taunted. "I'll send you to join her real soon."
Using both weapons in rapid succession, he ignored the normal attack cooldowns entirely. The male vampire could do nothing but rage helplessly as he was pinned against the wall by the assault. Every time he tried to step forward, an invisible force slammed him back into place.
At that moment, two more male vampires came running into the bedroom from the adjacent room, both barefoot and naked except for their underwear.
Mario's wooden stake went through the pinned vampire's skull, finishing him off. He turned toward the newcomers charging into the room.
Roars and the clash of weapons echoed through the space as Mario found himself in a more challenging fight. These two vampires had better coordination than the first pair, their teamwork was impressive enough that they actually managed to land a hit on Mario, dealing 6 points of damage.
Considering he only had 20 hit points total, he realized he could only take three more hits before going down.
Need to be more careful.
Before the two vampires could launch another coordinated attack, Mario took the initiative and charged forward. This time he didn't jump, being airborne without any way to change direction would have been suicide.
"Need some backup?" Blade's voice came from the doorway.
His expression was puzzled as he watched Mario struggle in the fight. From his perspective, the force behind Mario's stone axe swings should have been enough to crush a vampire's skull in one blow. But in reality, even after taking direct hits, the vampires were still bouncing around like nothing had happened. The visible damage didn't match the momentum at all.
It made him question everything about Mario's abilities, from that "door-opening" trick earlier to his current combat performance.
"I need to kill them myself!" Mario replied without pausing his attacks.
Because he was focused on fighting, he didn't elaborate. But the moment the vampires spotted Blade, fear immediately flashed across their faces. Among vampires, Blade's reputation was absolutely terrifying.
Mario's stone axe crashed into one vampire's head. While there wasn't any "weak point" bonus damage, the blow still left the creature dazed for a moment.
With Blade's presence intimidating the enemies, he managed to finish off both vampires while only taking one more hit. He collected the loot they dropped, three vials of Vampire Blood from four kills, plus some loose jewelry, then put away his weapons and let out a sigh of relief.
Finally! Time to level up!
Luck had been on his side. Adding the two vials already in his inventory, he now had exactly what he needed to reach Level 1.
He turned toward Blade, who was still standing in the doorway.
"Uh... give me a minute to clean up the scene. Just wait there."
Blade was about to remind him that the police would be arriving soon, but then he watched Mario take the same stone axe he'd just used to fight vampires and start destroying every piece of furniture in the bedroom. In the blink of an eye, everything disappeared.
Blade's mouth fell open. When he'd first entered the apartment, he'd wondered why the living room looked so empty. Now he finally understood.
Looking at the various furniture items stored in his inventory, Mario walked over to the doorway and grinned at Blade.
"Alright, let's go. You got any other vampire intel? Since I've got time today, I can work pro bono..."
Even for someone as experienced as Blade, after everything he'd witnessed, hearing those words while looking at the now completely empty apartment made him shake his head.
This guy's got some serious balls.
"I don't have any new vampire intel right now," he said. "Usually, as soon as I get information on them, I go straight there and eliminate them."
For Blade, the principle was simple: eliminate vampires completely. The only good vampire was a dead vampire. Mario wasn't surprised or disappointed by this response. He simply nodded and glanced at the bright sunshine streaming through the window.
"Could you give me your phone number? I'd like to stay in touch."
"Sure."
Blade agreed without hesitation. He didn't dislike Mario, they shared the same goal, after all, and he was curious about Mario's unusual abilities. Still, they'd only just met, so he didn't press for answers. Everyone had their secrets.
After Blade recited his number, Mario committed it to memory. Once he'd reinstalled the security door using, the two men left the apartment building.
Just as they stepped onto the sidewalk, a police car with sirens blaring pulled up in front of the building. Clearly, the noise from their battle upstairs had attracted the neighbors' attention.
Walking beside Blade, Mario chuckled. "Good thing this is America. Back in Italy, with all that racket, people would've been crowding to see what was happening."
Blade paused. "You're Italian?"
Mario nodded, nothing to hide there. "Born and raised Sicilian."
"Anyway, Eric, I need to head home first. Can't stick with you right now. After I have a new phone tonight, I'll give you a call. We can stay in touch that way."
Right now, all he wanted was to level up his Hunter class and organize the chaos in his inventory, he was completely out of storage space.
He pulled out a loaf of bread and took a bite. "Want some? Fresh baked this morning."
"No thanks."
Mario's hunger bar had taken a serious hit during the fight. That was just how Minecraft mechanics worked: the more active you were, the faster your hunger depleted.
He ate two pieces of bread to restore his hunger to maximum.
Spotting a taxi approaching, Mario waved it down. "Alright, I'm heading out. Catch you tonight!"
---
Twenty minutes later, Mario was back in his underground base, eagerly unloading his haul. The first thing he did was pull all the random items from his inventory and organize everything properly.
"Holy shit, these guys were loaded!"
He stared wide-eyed at the thick wad of cash he'd found in one of the nightstands. At least seven or eight thousand dollars in bills. Considering how Americans usually relied on credit cards instead of carrying cash, finding that much money was like hitting the lottery.
There were also jewelry pieces scattered throughout the bedroom furniture. After sorting through everything, Mario frowned at the piles of clothes, bed sheets, and personal items now cluttering his base.
"If only I had some lava, I could just toss all this junk in and be done with it. Or at least an iron ingot, I could craft flint and steel and burn it all."
Speaking of burning, Mario's eyes drifted toward his furnace. Suddenly, he remembered the steel I-beam in his inventory.
"If this can't be converted directly, maybe I can smelt it down into iron nuggets or ingots?"
The thought made him genuinely excited. If it worked, he'd never have to worry about iron supplies again.
He walked over to the furnace and opened its interface, nervously placing the steel I-beam into the input slot. When the burning symbol appeared and the smelting process began, he actually jumped with joy.
"It works! It actually works!"
"With this, I can forge a complete set of iron equipment. My combat effectiveness is about to go through the roof!"