"What do you mean?"

Krenocia says "I mean that my energy that is keeping you alive just dropped by a large amount!"

"The new organs probably absorbed it to allow them to integrate with my body. How long do I have?"

Krenocia says "Right now, about six months. How are you so calm about this?"

"Because you already gave me the answer. I can just absorb life force to extend my time. I will just be a vampire."

Krenocia says "Each time you absorb life force it is extending your time by a day or two. You would have to drain thousands of creatures to regain what you just lost. I suggest you undo whatever you just did."

"What I just did was give myself the ability to use mana again. I don't want to give that up. Besides, if I drain stronger creatures I should get more time from them, right?"

Krenocia says "Yes, time is relative to the amount of life force. So the younger your target the more life force. Old creatures will have weaker life force because they have spent it."

"So my best bet is hunting kids?"

Myria says "That doesn't sound good. What is going on, Ash?"

"Krenocia is telling me I did something stupid as usual."

Krenocia says "If you don't want to listen to me, that's fine. You can ask me anytime and I will tell you how much time you have left."

With that her presence disappears, it would seem I might have pissed her off a little bit. That is par for the course, but I don't really have time to worry about it right now. Putting my armor back on I stand up, I am thinking of hunting more spiders, but Myria is glaring at me.

"What?"

Myria says "Explain, now!"

"My experiment shortened my time, but I can gain time by eating life force. Krenocia was trying to convince me to undo the experiment but I said no. Now Krenocia is mad at me and you are wasting time that could be spent hunting."

Myria looks like she wants to argue but can't figure out what she should say. After a minute of silence from her I get up, pile up the bodies, and set them on fire. Since Myria still hasn't said anything I head off looking for more spiders.

The others follow, but none of them look happy, especially Myria, she is fuming. Hopefully she will take out her anger on the spiders, if not I am in for it later. The next group I spot is a mixed one, two warrior spiders and a dozen driders.

Deciding to be a little ambitious I charge in and grab both spiders, using pure strength to pin them down. I completely ignore the driders as I focus on pulling the life force out of both spiders. This time I don't try anything fancy and just pull their life forces into my hands.

*DING*

New ability created! Drain Touch!

Drain Touch

Drains the life force out of the touched target!

Only works on living targets. Rate of drain based on target.

'Well, that is handy!'

Once I gain the ability the process of draining the spiders goes faster, even draining two at once. By the time the two spiders are dead the driders have been wiped out by the others. We quickly deal with the bodies and move on looking for more spiders to kill.

We wipe out several more groups before I finally find the cavern where I first came down from the city. Same as before, the cavern is crawling with worker spiders moving in multiple directions. I quickly tell the others to kill as many as they can but not to leave the cavern.

Even before I can grab two spiders Kechara and Asuna barrel past me into the cavern. Kechara targets a group and lets loose with her lightning breath wiping out dozens. What surprises me is Asuna, she also attacks a group with a breath weapon.

She breathes out a cone of freezing cold air that turns the spiders hit into ice sculptures. At the same time she is throwing icicles with each of her tails at any spider. As I am draining two spiders I realize that Kechara and Asuna are competing for kills.

Even Myria, who was rushing in, stops and stares as the two of them go on a rampage. From the look on her face I am guessing Myria was underestimating my kids. Come to think of it, maybe I have been as well, I didn't even know Asuna had a breath weapon.

Then again from the expression on her face it might just be the first time she has used it. In fact after using it she stops and stares at the dead spiders, letting Kechara get ahead on kills. After that Asuna tries to catch up but unfortunately for her the spiders have mostly fled.

The only reason they were able to kill so many is because the spiders froze for a few seconds before scattering. I am starting to think they freeze like that while they get new orders from the controller. Whatever the case may be, it makes killing them really easy.

If only all the spiders reacted like that, not just the workers, we could probably wipe them out on our own. As we gather up the bodies to destroy them I am surprised to find that the two of them killed over fifty of the spiders. That is a lot more than I was expecting considering that the spiders only stopped for a couple of seconds before fleeing.

When we leave the cavern we are following the tunnel that the workers carrying loads used. If I am right this will lead to the controller, so I am a lot more cautious as I advance. I want to get a look at her to gauge her strength, I don't want to fight her just yet.

The tunnel soon opens into a small cavern, one packed with driders all standing still. It almost looks like they are standing at attention, at least until they notice us. Then the fight begins, and the first two driders to reach us are grabbed by me.

As the others rush into the fight I quickly turn the two driders into dried husks. Once they are dead I drop them and look for more, and there are plenty more to be had. A rough guess puts the number of driders in the cavern at a hundred or more.

There is only one other exit from the cavern, on the opposite side from where we entered. It makes this small cavern seem more like a guard room than anything else. During the fight I manage to drain the life force out of a dozen driders before they are all dead.

"Kechara, Asuna, I want you to wait here and kill anything that comes from the tunnel we used to enter."

Kechara says "Okay, dad."

Asuna says "Aw, why can't we go with you?"

"We are just going to scout things out, and you two aren't very sneaky."

Myria mumbles "Oh, and you are?"

"What did you say?"

Myria says "Nothing. Let's go."

Leaving Kechara and Asuna to guard our backs Myria and I move slowly into the other tunnel. Neither one of us makes a sound, taking our time to place each foot carefully. It takes us several minutes to reach the other end of the tunnel which opens into a huge cavern.