The Distinguished Mr. Rose Chapter 144: Chapter 142: In the Castle of Decadence

Read chapter 144 of The Distinguished Mr. Rose by QuiteTheSlacker on NovelPedia.

Chapter 142: In the Castle of Decadence Lucius’s fellows stared at the shriveled corpse, their expressions twisted into a horrified wince. It was the musician, Mili, who spoke first, saying, “This world is seriously messed up. What kinda wacko strings a dude up like that for everyone to see?” Their new companion, Miss Martínez, uttered a bitter laugh in response. She wasn’t disturbed by the grim sight as much as the others. “Your first round must’ve been nice, Mili. Back where I came from, you couldn’t go one day without seeing a poor chico like this.” “What’re you saying, Grace?” Mister Bernardi said, his voice filled with concern. “You mean it was even worse for you?” She nodded. “The system called it the ‘World of Nocturne’, a Romanian-like place ruled by bloodsucking monsters and the undead. Funny that, huh? I used to think vampire movies were too cheesy to be scary, but when you’re actually dropped into one it’s a lot more terrifying than you’d think. Humans were hunted like cattle there.” Grace’s eyes subtly glazed over as she delved into her memories, each one uncovered only causing her to dull ever more in expression. “Growing up, I thought I was a tough woman, you know? Had to be if I wanted to survive in a much bigger world. It wasn’t so bad after you found and took me in, Marco, but the stigma of being an orphan, an abandoned one at that, doesn’t leave easily. So I thought there was nothing that'd bother me after enduring all I had to get to where I was as CEO. “But then one morning while I’m heading to the office, the sky suddenly kidnaps me and enforces this insane set of rules, calling it a game. And wouldn’t you know it? Danny and Clara were part of my team. Hadn’t seen them much ever since they got married and became astronauts. It was nice at first, but, after the orientation and tutorial, I realized just how powerless I was. My class wasn’t all that great in the beginning, too: turns out being a Business Mogul doesn’t help much against monsters. All I could do was watch as everyone else did the work. By some miracle we all survived and entered the first world, but that’s where it all went to shit.” Lucius tutted. “Language, my dear.” “Sorry. It’s just… we weren’t prepared. Ended up in this old church with the residents worshiping us as vampire slayers, and that got to our heads. We were cocky and tried to cleanse the town of the blood-suckers, only for half of us to end up becoming their food. The others either ran away or were turned into a thrall.” Grace suddenly laughed and threw her head back. “Clara was lucky in a morbid sense! She got bit and became a high ranking vampire—completely changed her personality. I had to drag poor Danny away to prevent him from joining her, but he never could move on. It was like he was a shell of himself.” As she continued, Marco struggled to remain calm, especially when hearing about what happened to his former kids. He had raised them, after all. They were no different than his own children, so to learn that their fate concluded so cruelly was gut-wrenching. “We spent a whole year after that getting stronger with the other players. We hid like rats in the sewers, ate them too, and occasionally raided their cities. My skills really started to shine then, and I became the de-facto leader of our resistance. Honestly, if it weren’t for wanting to find you, Marco, and the others, I think I would’ve broken down long ago. But I stayed strong. Lord knows I had to stay strong in that place. “After almost two years, finally, we attacked their main base and the final boss: Vlad the Impaler. Out of the hundreds of us left, I think only about twenty survived. Danny died putting Clara to rest. Meanwhile I held on with the other players until daybreak, where we dragged Vlad under the sun and watched that parasite turn to dust.” A wave of catharsis washed over Grace, and she smiled triumphantly, proud of her accomplishment. She had to be or else it’d be replaced by grief. “That’s my sad