binnovel Chapter 257: Liquor
Chapter 257: Liquor
Taking a quick sweep of the room, Pandora immediately figured out what this place was.
“...A bar?”
“The Heartwood Bar,” the attendant offered softly, standing off to the side. “A place for the Master Demon Hunters to unwind, chat, and entertain themselves during their downtime.”
Pandora nodded. “Makes sense.” Her tone was flat. “Master Demon Hunters are human too. They need to blow off steam.”
The attendant smiled, neither confirming nor denying it. She simply gave a slight bow, then walked over to a nearby ring-shaped bar counter, forged from a mix of dark hardwood and metal. Suspended above the bar were a few uniquely shaped lamps, casting a soft, unobtrusive glow over the polished surface.
Stepping behind the counter, she effortlessly picked up two pre-prepared drinks. Served in clear glass tumblers, the liquid was a pale pink, gleaming softly under the lights—it looked highly refreshing.
“Just mixed. Try it,” the attendant offered, sliding the glasses toward Pandora and Elsa. “While the vast majority of our liquor is exclusive to Rank-4 and above Master Demon Hunters—far too potent for an Apprentice’s body to handle—this one belongs to the very select few that Apprentices can drink safely.”
Pandora took it without changing her expression. She didn’t drink right away. Elsa took the other, naturally taking a delicate sip.
Seeing this, the attendant chuckled softly. Her gaze fell on Pandora’s face, a teasing lilt in her voice. “Don’t worry, it’s non-alcoholic. Even minors can drink it.”
Pandora raised an eyebrow. For the Demon Hunter Academy—which didn’t rigidly differentiate between ‘adults’ and ‘minors,’ treating everyone equally the moment they became Apprentices—this was obviously just a joke.
Still, seemingly taking her at her word, Pandora lowered her head and took a small sip.
Instantly! A searing, scorching sensation detonated on the tip of her tongue! It felt as if she hadn’t swallowed a liquid, but... liquid magma!
Even though she’d mentally prepared herself—knowing nothing meant for Master Demon Hunters would be that simple—Pandora almost lost her composure. Her pupils dilated sharply, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the glass. She barely managed to keep her face straight and forced the mouthful of “magma” down her throat.
Then, on the attendant’s face—which maintained that perfectly polite smile—she caught a lightning-fast, suppressed smirk.
Well. At least she confirmed that.
Once the liquor hit her throat, it rapidly dissolved. The scorching nature underwent a magical shift, transforming from boiling magma into a warm, floral spring. A fragrance, as if blended from a myriad of flowers, slowly rose from the depths of her throat, bringing a long, lingering aftertaste. Pandora felt as if she’d been plunged into a pale pink, warm dreamscape—comfortable and relaxing—while the finish carried a hint of... a blissful, tipsy buzz.
“Delicious, right?” the attendant’s voice drifted over, laced with amusement. “I didn’t lie to you. It really is non-alcoholic.”
Pandora snapped out of it, glanced at the remaining pale pink liquid in the glass, and then threw her head back, downing the rest in one go. An even clearer transition from magma to floral spring; an even richer blissful aftertaste. Her body felt pleasantly feverish, every pore relaxing in sheer comfort!
Pandora nodded slowly. “No wonder it’s a drink exclusively for Master Demon Hunters.” Even if an Apprentice could drink it, the effects were still a wild ride.
Setting the empty glass gently on the ring-shaped bar, Pandora’s gaze swept across the expansive space of the “Heartwood Bar” once more. Then, fixing her eyes on the attendant, she spoke slowly: “But then again... why is it so empty?”
Yes, ever since she came down here, a question had been nagging at her. Namely—there was no one here. No one in the Deep Forest Oxygen Bar upstairs. No one in the Heartwood Bar down here, either. Judging by the scale, the decor, and the obvious signs of frequent use on the bar counter, this place should be pretty popular on campus. So why... was there not a single soul?
The attendant, however, shook her head. “It’s not that there’s no one.” She paused, and before Pandora could react, continued, “Look.”
The moment the words left her mouth, as if to validate her point, the sound of voices reached them—from three different directions of the bar simultaneously.
“Sigh, it’s only once every half-month, and it suddenly ends just like that.”
“Yeah, I spent forever tweaking this new variant, and now I can’t even get any real combat data for it.”
“I figured if it passed the test this time, I could drop it into the Cultivation Zone. Now I’ve gotta wait for the next cycle...”
Appearing right behind the voices were the figures of Master Demon Hunters, one after another. They emerged from three spiral staircases hidden in the shadows of the foliage, strolling upward. Men and women, dressed in all sorts of gear. But without exception, they all carried an indescribable aura—a certain quality that naturally settled into you after dealing with death, corpses, plagues, and all manner of supernatural phenomena for a living.
They immediately noticed the two “uninvited guests” in the bar, but they only spared them a single glance before going right back to their own conversations, utterly ignoring the two Apprentices who were clearly out of place.
“See? It’s not empty. They were just down below. Now that the event is over, they’ve come up,” the attendant’s voice rang out beside her, still as mild and polite as ever.
Is... that so? Pandora’s gaze tracked the Master Demon Hunters, watching as they headed to the bar, claimed seats in the corner, or made a beeline for the elevator heading topside. It really did look like a group activity had just wrapped up.
“I see,” Pandora replied casually, pulling her gaze from the Hunters and fixing it back on the attendant. “The soundproofing here is... really something else.”
The attendant maintained that flawless, elegant smile. “Yes. Perhaps.” She gave a vague, noncommittal answer.
Pandora didn’t press it. She tilted her head slightly, casting her eyes toward the spiral staircase the Hunters had just ascended. The stairs extended downward, with a faint glow bleeding up from below.
“By the way,” Pandora spoke up, sounding casually curious, “what kind of event was going on down there? Can I go take a look?”
The attendant gave a slight bow. “I’m afraid the event has already concluded. However...” she paused, her smile unwavering. “If you just want to take a look, of course you may.”
No hesitation. Since she was already here, she might as well satisfy her curiosity. Pandora turned and made a beeline for the nearest spiral staircase. Elsa followed closely behind.
Moving against the stragglers still coming up, they descended the stairs step by step. The staircase was built from metal and dark wood. The incline wasn’t steep, but it was deep. It took about half a minute of walking before they reached the bottom.
Down below was a space far more expansive than the bar. The ceiling was at least three stories high, and the floor plan was easily twice the size of the Heartwood Bar. Aside from the open spiral staircase she had just taken, there were two identical structures on the opposite side.
In the dead center of the space was a massive, hemispherical transparent dome. Over twenty meters in diameter and ten meters tall, it looked like a colossal, upside-down glass bowl.
At the moment, the inside of the dome was empty...
No, it couldn’t be called completely empty. Because both the inner walls of the transparent dome and the floor within were splattered with massive dark-red splotches of half-coagulated blood, along with blurry, unidentifiable chunks of meat and gore. Some of the stains were incredibly fresh, while others had dried to a crusty black.
Without even having to think about it, Pandora’s mind pulled up the matching concept—An arena. Or rather, a testing ground.
Coupled with the snippets of conversation she’d overhead from the Master Demon Hunters upstairs, it wasn’t hard to deduce that this was the “testing” site they were talking about. A place to field-test all sorts of newly cultivated mutant zombie prototypes. At the same time, since it only happened once a fortnight, this event clearly doubled as a communal way for the Hunters to relax, entertain themselves, and probably run a few betting pools—a real “spectator sport.”
Pandora approached the massive transparent dome. She reached out and pressed her fingertip hard against its surface. The texture was bizarre. It wasn’t absolutely rigid; instead, it had a strange “tensile resilience” to it. Even with her current Rank-3 strength, pushing with all her might only resulted in an infinitesimal amount of deformation on the dome’s surface. And the second she lifted her finger, it snapped right back into place as if nothing had happened.
Extreme toughness. Even for her, shattering this seemingly simple glass cover would probably take a significant amount of effort.
Interestingly, she noticed that the smears of gore clinging to the dome were fading and vanishing at a rate visible to the naked eye, as if being “absorbed” or “digested” by the dome itself. In other words, this transparent protective shield wasn’t an inanimate object.
“Though, rather than saying this dome is here to protect the spectators outside...” Pandora’s gaze swept over the pristine, tidy floor surrounding it, entirely devoid of any battle scars. “It’s probably more accurate to say it’s to keep the nasty guts and debris of the test subjects from splattering everywhere,” she murmured to herself.
Pandora didn’t turn around, simply asking the air, “Do all the mutant zombies outside come from here?” She knew the attendant had to be hovering right behind her.
Sure enough, that mild voice drifted over her shoulder: “The vast majority of them, yes. Relying purely on natural mutations can’t achieve the level of complexity seen outside. It can’t form such a varied ecosystem, nor can it achieve the... cultivation outcomes that the Academy desires.”
Pandora nodded. Evidently, the seemingly chaotic and dangerous mutant zombie ecosystem of the Dead City outside was actually manually modulated, released, and guided by the Master Demon Hunters. At its core, that place was still a training ground for Demon Hunter Apprentices. What the Hunters referred to as the “Cultivation Zone.” She had figured that out a long time ago. The testing ground before her simply made it all much more intuitive, much more... bare.
Turning back around, Pandora looked again at the attendant standing quietly behind her.
“Alright. I think I’ve seen enough of the sights down here.” Pandora’s tone was flat, her face giving nothing away. “What I want to know now is...” Her gaze locked onto the attendant. “Where is the Master Demon Hunter I’m looking for?”
She had zero interest in exploring these “secrets” that fell entirely within her reasonable expectations. Right now, she just wanted to find the “Amanda Adam” from the calling card.
The attendant smiled. In that smile, there seemed to be a hint of... something else.
“Of course.” She tilted her head slightly, carrying a subtle, almost imperceptible nuance, and asked softly: “But before I take you to her, where do you think she is right now?”
Pandora stared at her. In the depths of her pupils, a microscopic glint seemed to flash.
“The test is over. The Master Demon Hunters are all upstairs now, so she shouldn’t be an exception.” Pandora spoke slowly. “But if I answered like that, it would be far too boring.”
The attendant nodded gently, a smile in her eyes, seemingly unsurprised by the answer.
“So...”