Transmigrated As A Stepdad In A Fantasy Doujin World

Chapter 23: 23. The Red Oni

Kael looked over the scattered corpses.

Stonehide Hounds, Sporeling Crawlers, and Ironbeak Raptors lay broken across the damp tunnel floor.

Black-green fluid and darker blood mixed in shallow pools under the blue crystal light.

He knelt beside the nearest hound and drove his short sword into the chest just left of center.

A quick twist and pull brought out a small, dull gray core the size of a thumbnail. The surface was rough and only faintly warm.

Every beast from the lowest E-rank up to the highest known tiers carried a core inside its heart.

These cores were the foundation of daily life across the continent. Blacksmiths used them to forge weapons that could channel mana.

Runesmiths crushed them into powder for inscription work. City engineers set larger cores into barricades and walls to power defensive arrays.

Even the soft night lights that illuminated every town and city after sunset ran on refined low-tier cores placed inside crystal lamps.

The higher the beast’s tier the denser and more valuable the core became.

An E-rank core like the one in Kael’s hand sold for only a few bronze.

A D-rank core could bring silver. Anything above that entered the realm of gold and platinum.

Kael moved from body to body without hurry, cutting out each core and dropping them into a small cloth pouch at his belt. The work was simple and familiar to any porter.

Eira knelt beside him and began helping without being asked.

Her small fingers carefully pulled a core free from a Sporeling Crawler and held it out. Under the Ring of Veil her hair showed only pure black. Her crimson-tinted black eyes stayed fixed on the task.

Kael shook his head gently.

"It is my job as a porter. You do not have to do this."

Eira still placed the core into his open palm and continued to the next body in silence. Kael did not stop her again.

Seraphine stood a short distance away cleaning her blood-forged dagger, crimson gaze half-lidded and uninterested in the collection.

Tina counted the kills from farther up the tunnel. Brianna checked the side passages for stragglers. Dean and Ryn kept watch in opposite directions.

Kael pulled the last Sporeling core free and closed the pouch.

Twenty-three low-grade E-rank cores in total.

Enough for a modest night’s pay if sold at the guild, and a reminder that even the weakest beasts still fed the entire continent’s need for light, steel, and protection.

He stood and wiped his blade clean on a dead hound’s hide.

"We move," Tina said.

The group advanced deeper into the dungeon.

The blue crystal light along the walls began to shift. The steady pale glow slowly took on a colder white tint. The damp air grew sharper. A thin mist started to drift along the floor, pale and dry like the first breath of winter.

Kael felt the temperature drop against his skin. He pulled Eira closer against his side, one arm resting protectively around her narrow shoulders. The girl did not resist. Her pure black hair brushed his chest as she stayed pressed to him.

Seraphine moved nearer without comment. Her transparent dress stirred in the sudden chill. Crimson eyes scanned the changing walls and the thickening mist.

Brianna slowed and touched the stone with her free hand.

"This is not normal for a D-rank."

Tina’s bow remained half-raised.

"The reports said standard layout and standard climate. No mention of cold mist."

Dean’s voice rumbled from the front.

"Temperature is still dropping."

Ryn tightened his grip on the oversized sword.

Kael kept Eira close and looked at the pale mist curling around their boots.

"Any chance the dungeon is overlapping with something else?"

Seraphine’s voice was low and sharp.

"If it is an overlap we should already be seeing higher-rank signs. This feels deliberate."

The mist continued to thicken. The crystal light grew colder and whiter with every step they took.

Suddenly something shot through the mist.

An enhanced metal shackle flew forward at insane speed, chains trailing behind it in a tight spiral. The air cracked around its path.

Seraphine’s crimson eyes widened. She reacted on pure instinct, raising the blood-forged dagger to intercept.

The blade met the shackle with a sharp metallic ring.

It was not enough.

The force behind the throw overpowered her stance in an instant. The impact slammed into her guard and hurled her body backward through the cold air. She tumbled across the stone floor for a full fifteen steps before digging her free hand and the tip of her dagger into the ground to stabilize herself.

A thin line of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Her transparent dress was torn at the shoulder. Crimson eyes locked onto the direction the shackle had come from, already burning with cold anger.

The mist swirled heavier around the group.

A figure stepped out of the pale fog.

A red-skinned demon with a single thick horn rising from the center of his forehead. Pure black eyes without pupils stared forward. His arms and hands were completely hairless. Long heavy shackles wrapped both arms from wrist to elbow, the same metal that had just struck Seraphine still faintly glowing with residual force.

The demon rolled his shoulders once and spoke in a rough, almost casual voice.

"I wanted to take her out with that first move. Guess I failed."

Eira shivered hard against Kael’s side. Her small body tensed and her crimson-tinted black eyes fixed on the red-skinned figure with clear fear.

Brianna’s green face twisted with horror and anger. She raised her staff at once, vines already starting to form around the tip.

"What the hell is an Oni doing inside a human-town dungeon? This is not your territory. What are you planning here?"

She stepped forward ready to attack.

Tina’s hand shot out and caught Brianna’s wrist. Dean moved in from the other side and blocked her path with his bulk. Ryn raised his sword but kept it horizontal, stopping her from charging.

"Hold it," Tina said, voice tight. "We do not know his rank. Rushing in blind is how people die."

Brianna’s staff still glowed with unfinished magic, but she held her ground under the combined restraint of her teammates.

Seraphine walked forward through the cold mist, blood-forged dagger already glowing a deep, angry red.

Thin threads of blood magic coiled around the blade.

Her transparent dress was torn at the shoulder and a thin line of blood still marked the corner of her mouth, yet her voice carried the same sharp, bratty edge as always.

"Typical. Always the cowardly ones. Hiding in the mist and throwing cheap tricks because you cannot win face to face. You only caught me off guard because I was stuck watching the weaklings behind me. Try that again when I am looking at you and I will cut that ugly horn clean off your head."

She spun the glowing dagger once between her fingers and settled into a low stance, crimson eyes locked on the Oni with open contempt.

His pure black eyes moved over Seraphine and a faint interest entered his tone.

"Oh. A vampire. Quite a feisty one too. I don’t mind tasting one after so many years."

The red demon’s pure black eyes shifted away from her and settled on Kael instead.

The gaze was slow and appraising, as if measuring something only he could see.

A faint smile stretched across his red face.

Then he spoke again, voice still casual but heavier.

"Humans are the real beasts of this continent. They take everything, ruin everything, and still call themselves the rightful owners of the land. They don’t deserve to live in this world. Cleaning them out is just duty."

Kael’s grip on Eira tightened. Inside his mind the panic spilled out without filter.

’Why the fuck am I always getting into these situations?’

’And why the fuck is that red bastard looking at me smiling like a creep.’

Outwardly he kept his expression steady and pulled Eira closer against his side. His thoughts turned cold and practical beneath the fear.

’I need to get stronger early. Strong enough to put this bastard down in one move before he even finishes smiling so that his mouth couldn’t even spill a word about my step-daughters even if he wanted to.’

The cold mist continued to drift between the two sides while the glowing red dagger in Seraphine’s hand cast a thin crimson light across the white fog.

Tina’s bowstring creaked softly as she drew it halfway.

Dean’s fists clenched at his sides.

Ryn’s mana-lit sword hummed with low tension.

Brianna’s vines twitched at the edge of her staff, ready but held back.

Eira’s small fingers dug into Kael’s shirt. Her breathing was shallow and quick against his side.

Seraphine took one more step forward, dagger pointed straight at the Oni’s chest.

"Well? Are you going to keep standing there looking stupid or are you actually going to fight?"

The red-skinned demon’s smile widened just a fraction. The heavy shackles around his arms clinked once as he shifted his weight.

The temperature in the tunnel kept dropping.

Whatever this Oni wanted inside a D-rank dungeon, it was no longer a simple beast hunt.

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