I'm Murphy, an Unremarkable Handsome Vampire

Lina was feeling pretty damn important right now.

She hadn't appeared before the three commanders alone. As Murphy's progeny, she'd arrived here through the Eden District's travel network a few minutes after Handsome Murphy and taken control of the Farstrider Headquarters' tracking systems. The unfortunate soul who'd been transported into the ruins two days ago had thus been granted command authority over the place.

So now Lina had a fully armed intelligent defender standing on either side of her. With all this protection surrounding her, she had the commanding presence to match her iconic ice-queen aura. She looked every bit like a competent vampire lackey.

As defenders installed in a military ruin, the two "automated combat units" protecting Lina were obviously equipped with genuine weapons of destruction, not the "security models" used in the Swamp Exclusion Zone. That made the two black-painted intelligent defenders much bulkier. The V-shaped arrays of floating red targeting lights on their helmets made them even more intimidating—and gave Lina's words a great deal more weight.

They were perfect mechanical killing machines. The only pity was that, like the defenders in the Swamp Exclusion Zone, their behavioral protocols had been locked at the factory. They could only patrol designated areas. Not even the exalted Administrator could order them into a battlefield that wasn't theirs.

But the people in front of her didn't know that. Their attention was all on Lina.

She was a Golden-tier vampire to begin with, and this dramatic entrance only made her seem more mysterious.

She'd nearly died at the hands of these dangerous mechanical hunters after a teleportation mishap had dumped her into the ruins. It was only because Mannis had relayed Murphy's orders that she hadn't pressed recklessly farther into this extraordinary place. But the sorry details of her predicament weren't