[Chapter 67] Current Situation

Dreag lunges over to the edge, trying to grab Winter before he falls, just to see Winter crawling down the wall, as if he is on a casual walk.

Dreag glares at the slime that is sliding down the wall and sighs, "You damn slime." Which gets him a hiss in response as Winter continues to climb down, not even looking behind him.

Dreag's hands become large silver claws as he slowly climbs down the rocky hole, it's depths threatening to swallow him hole.

...

....

.....

"How deep is this hole?!" Dreag yells out of frustration. He has been crawling down for what feels like hours. Suddenly, he hears a "Meow!" And as he looks down, he sees Winter sitting on a rock on the ground, looking at Dreag like a king looks at a peasant. Dreag glares at the slime before jumping off of the wall, landing on the ground with a light thud.

"I can't see anything." Dreag tells himself when his arm suddenly starts to glow, then the light slowly travels through is torso, and to the rest of his body, like ripples in the water. He now glows a yellow light as he stands there. The slime jumps off the rock and lands in front of him, and begins walking off into a random direction.

Dreag follows the slime while looking around. "You can't even see the light from above, is this a cavern? It's so impres-" he gets cut off by a sudden smack into a cold surface

Dreag rubs his forehead as he looks at what he just bumped into. He looks up just to see nothing but a gleaming metal surface, covered with a few scratches and dents. "What the hell is this?" He says when suddenly, he feels a strong pressure on his arm. He looks down to see a tendril from Winter connected to his forearm.

"What is it that you want slime?" He says in a very irritated voice. He suddenly gets yanked towards what looks like a square with a bunch of squares with weird runes on it. "What? This thing? What does it even do?"

Winter makes another tendril if slime and presses one of the symols. Suddenly, a sound can be heard when he hits one of the symbols. But nothing else happens.

Dreag looks at the slime with an enraged face, giving him a horrifying look. "Damn slime! That could of killed us both!" Winter just stares at him as he continues to press random squares. But even after being so malicious, nothing happens. Nothing except the rocks dropping.

Dreag breaths a sigh of relief as he stares at the box in front of him. "Maybe....wouldn't hurt to try." He says as he places his hand on the metal.

"What the hell.....come on...." he starts to sweat profusely as the metal starts to become softer, like milk. It starts to quiver as suddenly, it begins to part, as if it has a mind of its own.

Suddenly, the metal stops moving. Dreag is now sweating profusely, making him look as if he just came from a swim. As he is gasping for air, he looks at what he just did. There is a hole barely large enough for Dreag to fit in if he walks sideways.

The slime jumps up and goes to jump in. "No!" Dreag says as he goes to grab onto the retracting tendril. But he misses, and Winter disappears into the wall. "Son of a....." he says as he enters the unknown.

As he enters, he is suddenly bathed by a blue light. "Woah, what is this? They aren't even using crystals?" He says as he seems to be his regular self again, although quite sweaty.

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Somewhere else in the cube…

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I follow the woman silently as I study her. 'So she is a hybrid, I wonder if I could beat her in a fight....'

"We are heading to my living quarters, I hope you don't mind. They are one of the most soundproof places here, seeing as I manage sector A of the cube." I snap out of my thoughts as she says that, reminding me I don't know how the system works here.

"Speaking of sectors and sector managers, how is this place run exactly and how does it function?" I ask with a curious look, 'I may not like her but I still need some powerful allies, and I don't plan on showing my true feelings until I can guarantee that I can win against her.

She rubs her chin as she thinks for a moment before she wipes the hair from the side of her head and clears her throat, beginning to speak. "The cube is so large that we need 12 districts, 12 district managers, 6 alphas, and a cube executive. Each manager is chosen through a tournament and will usually become a hereditary trait seeing how our strength is in our genetics. If a district manager can beat an alpha, they become an alpha and a new district manager is chosen. The same routine happens with the executive. But the executive usually stays hereditary because of their bloodline's immense strength."

I nod as this makes sense, before a two new questions pop up in my mind. "Was this system in place at the beginning of your arrival here?" She laughs, making it seem as if the answer is obvious. After calming down, she answers.

"Yes, we are one of humanities last ditch efforts of survival which decently worked. We are called project homeworld. We were cryopoded and when the cube landed, we were released to begin working."

I don't relent and tell her the other question I had. "And is Winter going to be the next executive?"

She pauses for a moment, seemingly frozen by something, before thawing and continue to walk again, but with a grim look on her face. "Sadly, my daughter will not, she gained the runt genetics and will not be able to take over my position. Most of the time, hybrids are able to almost always pass on their genetics, even her father is a hybrid, but she gained neither hybrid combination, she became a werewolf runt."

She squeezes her hands tightly, as if she is trying to kill the air. 'Doesn't even say her name, just calls her daughter. This women is very cold.'

I think as I continue to walk behind her. We finally arrive in front of a set of doors with a blue plaque on the front saying district manager. I enter to see a living room to my right, a kitchen to my left, and a hallway leading down to multiple doors.

I look in the living room with it's red couch and chair, and it holographic screen hovering in the corner. On the couch is a girl with white wolf ears and a white wolf tail, sitting down on the couch, her face puffy slightly from what I can assume to be tears.

I watch as the mother glances at her daughter before she enters the kitchen which doesn't look out of the ordinary, except the metal cupboards. "Please sit down, I'll join you in the living room in a moment."

'Does nothing to comfort her daughter, this mother is cold. How did she survive this long?" I think as I sit down and look over at the passed out wolf girl that is passed out on the couch. I tap her shoulder which gets a quick response of, "I wasn't sleeping." And a skyrocketing werewolf. She takes a moment before seeing me as I calmly wave. "Hi." And she smiles slightly before a wave of shock floods over her face. This wave of shock then suddenly turns her slightly puffy face turn red and she gets up and walks into the hallway, entering what I assume to be her room.

'What was that about?'