Chapter 139: Believed in Science Last Life, Specializes in Divination This One
Ross waited. Alucard never reached out.
He wasn't particularly surprised. As the half-blood son of a vampire count and a human woman, Alucard had never been the type to fit in anywhere, and beyond everything else, that face alone, capable of stopping men and women, young and old, dead in their tracks, was more than enough to let him get by in the vast majority of places in this world without any effort at all.
A face without strength behind it would be a disaster. But Alucard was not that kind of person, and he knew it.
Ross was still quietly mocking Alucard in his head, wondering if the man had gone off to find a wealthy patron, when a text message arrived on his phone.
[Send me the Castlevania address.]
Not exactly polite. Fine.
Ross didn't bother verifying whether it was actually Alucard. Castlevania had already become the economic engine of a small local ecosystem at this point, hardly a secret. He sent it.
He waited a little longer, got nothing else from Alucard, and headed straight back into the Castlevania III Secret Realm to use the daily reset and keep going.
He felt genuinely sorry for the pirate Grant, but Ross chose Sypha second. Elemental magic was simply more useful than wall-climbing.
No real suspense. Ross cleared Castlevania III a second time without much trouble.
[Detected: you have cleared the Castlevania III Secret Realm stage while partnered with Sypha.]
[Your available permanent mappings for Castlevania III have expanded. Currently selectable characters: Trevor C. Belmont, Alucard, Sypha Belnades (new).]
[When you select Sypha Belnades as your permanent mapping, you will gain the following abilities: Transmutation Affinity (Grade A), Elemental Magic: Ice, Fire, Lightning (Grade C), Staff Combat (Grade E).]
[Sypha Belnades will arrive in the current world through a natural sequence of events, retaining her own memories as well as memories of her adventure alongside you.]
Ice! Fire! Lightning!
As someone who had sunk over five thousand hours combined into both Dota 1 and Dota 2, the moment Ross saw Sypha's elemental magic attributes, what immediately surfaced in his mind was that particular hero who always had three balls orbiting his head: the Invoker.
Sypha's spellcasting was nowhere near that level yet, of course. Ice, fire, and lightning were all separate and the effects were fairly limited at this stage. But it was a solid foundation. If Ross wanted to push in that direction, combining all three elements the way Invoker did was an entirely viable long-term goal.
Then there was Staff Combat. Standard operating procedure for magic-users under Gandalf's general influence.
For a spellcaster of that era, magical energy was always limited and couldn't be thrown around carelessly. So staves were typically made from the most durable materials available and used as melee weapons in close combat.
In the game, Sypha's attack range was shorter than Trevor's, but her attack speed was higher. Rapid light tapping with the staff had surprisingly solid kill efficiency.
Ross reviewed his current lineup of mappable characters.
Sonic, Kunio, Gilgamesh, Torajirou, Trevor, Alucard, Sypha.
A solid range of types and directions at this point. What remained was deciding priorities: which characters needed experience grinding and which could be set aside for now. His attention was limited, and he still had Spirit Wave Style training running in parallel. Full mastery across every character and every technique was a later-stage problem.
Unlocking two new characters apparently put him in an unusually good mood. Far from feeling tired after back-to-back Castlevania clears, Ross felt more energized than before, senses sharpening noticeably.
He recognized the state and didn't rest. He went straight into Tower of Druaga and ran back-to-back challenges on both the surface tower and the inner tower.
Surface tower: 48 minutes, 18 seconds. Full-collection speedrun cleared.
Inner tower: 40 minutes, 1 second. Full-collection speedrun cleared.
Tower of Druaga. Creator Authority... GET!
[You have obtained the highest level of authority over the Tower of Druaga Secret Realm stage: Creator Authority.]
[You may now permanently map Gilgamesh and gain all of his abilities.]
[The Tower of Druaga will appear as an open-air ruins site in a randomly selected location on the human continent, manifesting as a real-world Secret Realm.]
[Note: this Secret Realm differs in nature from Castlevania. Its fundamental purpose is closer to the vow and restriction the player accepts as the price for receiving the Creator template and Gilgamesh's permanent mapping.
The Tower of Druaga will continuously generate monster units internally. Monsters that overflow from the tower will spread into the surrounding region. The player or others must personally visit the tower and defeat the Demon King Druaga on the top floor to complete the final seal.]
So that was how it worked.
Ross had teleported back to his room and drained two liters of mineral water before sitting down to work through the post-clear notification at a comfortable pace.
Compared to Castlevania, which had stayed essentially contained, not expanding outward at all and in fact becoming the operational core of a small local economy, the Tower of Druaga was closer to a pure dungeon, a monster tower, a mob-spawning structure. No obvious surface-level benefit, and in fact actively requiring someone to go deal with it.
As the notifications explained, it was the price Ross paid for the advantage he had gained. A vow. Part of the burden was absorbed by the world itself, but not all of it.
If he had any conscience about it, he would go handle the seal himself. If he didn't, he could find a way to tip off Satotz.
Ging's attention was currently fully absorbed by Castlevania. Without Castlevania's pull, he would probably have followed the trail and finished off the remaining Troupe members already. Which also meant he almost certainly wasn't going to spare any focus for the Tower. He couldn't split himself in two.
Ross himself was inclined to go back to Spirit Wave Style training. Which left Satotz, a Ruins Hunter by specialty, as the most sensible person to nudge toward it.
On that thought, Ross found himself genuinely curious what kind of Nen ability someone with no visible mouth like Satotz actually had. The author had never bothered to draw it out.
With the short-term plan settled, Ross set the Tower of Druaga's Secret Realm entrance directly inside his wardrobe.
Walk into a wardrobe and step through into another world. That was straight out of Nadia. No, The Chronicles of Narnia.
Cartridge out.
He entered the Secret Realm, appeared at the tower's ground-floor entrance, then stepped back out immediately and swapped to Castlevania III in Secret Realm Mode. He appeared at the Grand Cemetery entrance, now collapsed ruins with no monster spawns.
This time he walked straight toward the entrance. A transition effect like a Dark Souls fog gate, and Ross emerged in the back courtyard of the Spirit Wave Style dojo.
He snapped his fingers. The physical Little Tyrant console back at the Sky Arena immediately ended its run and dissolved into aura, dispersing completely.
Fast travel. Success.
Before he could even smile about it, a Spirit Gun hit him and sent him flying.
"Oh, it's you. I thought some half-blind burglar had wandered in."
Genkai, left hand still holding the game controller, right hand having just fired the Spirit Gun, squinted at her smoke-covered senior disciple.
*
"Please give me your kidney."
Meanwhile, somewhere in V5, Nanika, eyes and mouth gone solid black like two voids, extended a pair of small chubby hands and made a request that was completely adorable in delivery and completely horrifying in content.
Faced with that innocent and merciless demand, Dracula's hand moved, and a fresh kidney appeared in his palm.
His own.
Sorry, wrong one. Let me get the other hand.
"Lisa. I'm here."
Completely unbothered by the loss of the kidney, Dracula looked out toward a heavily secured residential compound not far away.
This was the base of operations of the Nostrad crime family.