Chapter 29: Chapter 27 – Saint

"Ahem"

After a few moments of silence, the guild master coughed into his fist.

"Anyways, so your name is Scarlet huh?"

"...It is"

Why did that matter?

"I've been thinking, but were you named after the saint?"

"Saint?"

Alicia never called her that.

"Ah, erm, maybe you haven't heard this version of the story? A long time ago, there was a lone stranger who travelled from place to place, helping people out"

"That sounds like the person I was named after"

I nodded. Actually, it really wasn't a surprise that people would call her a saint for what she had done.

"Anyways, a lot of people consider her a saint, though the church never ordained her as one"

"Really?"

(Rotten bastards)

"Was it because she was a vampire?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"I...uh, the person who gave me the name. She believed that Scarlet was a vampire"

The way the old man had a fierce look in his eyes when he asked that put me on the back foot.

"It's better you don't talk about that bit. Some people are pretty sensitive when it comes to vampires"

"How come?"

"You really don't know much about vampires huh?"

(Aside from being one)

"Well, there are a lot of people who believe that she was a vampire, but if that was true, then she was quite an exceptions. It was true that apparently she covered herself quite heavily as if she was afraid of the sun, but people often explained it as her hiding her excessive beauty. There were plenty of stories of her getting into trouble with powerful people because they fell in love with her at first sight"

(That...really sounds troublesome)

"Now that I think about it, you're dressed up quite a lot like she was in the stories huh? Maybe you're secretly a vampire?"

"I uh, I'm...I just have a skin condition that makes me have to cover up all the time"

(A skin condition called sunlight weakness that is)

"A skin condition? I've never heard of such a thing"

"It's pretty rare from what I know. My skin turns red and painful under sunlight"

I quickly shuffled towards an open window and pulled back my sleeve, exposing my forearm. Gritting my teeth, I lit up the skin under the sunlight streaming inside. In an instant, my arm turned red as a searing heat forced it's way through my nerves. I held back my tears from the pain as I let the guild master see what was going on before quickly retreating from the self-inflicted torture.

"See?"

It was hard, but I managed to squeeze out that one word without it shaking much.

"I did. I've never even heard of such a thing. And if you really were a vampire, then that arm would've turned into ash. Sorry about that. I only meant it as a joke"

I felt like punching myself from ten seconds ago. If I had realized what he meant, I wouldn't have had to go through such an experience.

"So..."

My breathing had stabilized for the most part as the pain faded from my arm, but my heart was still pounding hard in my chest.

"Yea, sorry. So anyways, most people believe she was an elf. The stories mentioned that she always appeared to be a very young and exceptionally beautiful woman, but there were too many stories from too many places to suggest that it only happened over a decade or two. She most likely spent over a century travelling around, which discounts anything but an elf. That, and there was a couple of anecdotes that mentioned her pointed ears

"There are people who are adamant that she was a vampire, and it's not like the stories contradict that either. In fact, quite a few stories take place during the night, and as far as I know, she never lowered her hood anywhere the sun shone. All the stories about her troubles with nobility and rich merchants happened at night"

I nodded. If she really was a vampire, then she'd be extremely careful when it came to lowering her hood during the day.

"Anyways, if she was a vampire, then she's probably the only known example of one helping mankind"

"Really?"

"You really don't know much about them, do you?"

I shook my head.

"Vampires are creatures that come out of nowhere. They drink the blood of the living and take in the strengths of those they consume. Pretty much every vampire that's left their name in history had walked a path of carnage as they wiped out entire villages and town draining everyone dry of their blood. They'd create large armies of underlings and wage war of a great scale"

I grimaced.

(Certainly, I'd go pretty far to drink good blood, but to wipe out entire towns for that sake? Were humans that tasty?)

My mind went back to when I drank Alicia's blood. The thought that she was delicious made me fall to my knees as I covered my mouth with my hands. I was disgusted with myself. To even consider enjoying drinking Alicia's blood. A knot folded on itself in the pit of my stomach as my mind wanted me to hurl, but my body refused with all it's might.

"Hey, are you alright? Do you need help?"

I shook my head as I unsteadily got back to my feet.

"I'm...fine...it's just...going to war for the sake of drinking blood?"

"I know. It's pretty unimaginable"

(No, the problem is that it's way too imaginable. If I didn't abhor killing innocent people so much, I might've done the same)

"Were there...any good vampires...?"

"Aside from maybe Scarlet? Not really. At least there's no records of them. On the other hand, there are records of a few dozen evil vampires over the last five hundred years or so of the guild's history. Then again, we only bother keeping records of major subjugation targets. If there were any other vampires out there, if they didn't do anything as notable as Scarlet, there wouldn't be many records anywhere"

That sucked. I was hoping that vampires had a good reputation, or at least a neutral one, but there was no way people would accept me as is unless if I made a reputation for myself. But that's just a huge pain in the ass. I wasn't some sort of messiah or hero. I didn't want something like that for myself. Going to big cities and checking out the other races might not have been such a good idea.

"I suppose that means people hate vampires then?"

I voiced my last bit of hope. Well, it wasn't like I couldn't pretend to be something else. Apparently elves have ears similar to mine? And I could always just run if things got bad. My running speed was pretty good, and I could always use [Spirit Form]. This guy hasn't even noticed the fluffballs performing Tom and Jerry in 29 parts simultaneously just to my left.

"Hmm...overall I guess people are scared of them? But they're pretty rare. I've never even heard of a vampire settlement, but for all I know, there's a vampire kingdom somewhere in unexplored areas and the vampires we see are just the outcasts"

The old man laughed to himself, obviously unconvinced of his own theory.

If such a thing did exist, it would be nice, but I didn't want to get my hopes up.

"I'm a bit surprised you're so interested in such things though"

"Ah, umm, I was just wanted to know more about my namesake, even if it isn't confirmed that she was a vampire"

"Hmmm..."

The guild master hummed as he stared at me. He didn't look too convinced. I fought my instinct to take a step back.

"Well, it's not bad to be curious. The more knowledge you have, the better you can deal with unexpected situations. Knowledge is power for adventurers after all"

(It is for pretty much everyone, in my opinion)

"Well, by the way. How come the church never ordained her as a saint?"

"Oh, well, that's simple. She never joined the church"

"You need to be a part of the church for them to recognize you as a saint?"

"Pretty much. They won't give the title to anyone that isn't a member no matter what their accomplishments are"

(They really are rotten)

"Well, the church considers her a heretic anyways, if for nothing more than for not joining despite how much she helped others. On the other hand, if she really was a vampire, then she wouldn't have been able to join anyways"

"How come?"

"The church uses a ton of light magic in their ceremonies, and vampires are weak to light magic. Even healing spells using light magic harms vampires"

"There's healing spells in light magic?!"

I slammed my hands down on the counter, staring into the guild master's eyes.

"Ah, there are. Aside from banishing evil and providing light to an area, light magic is best known for healing"

The strength evaporated from my body as I slumped down on the ground.

(If only I knew. If only I thought to try it out. Alicia might still be alive)

Tears welled up in my eyes as I balled my fists. I'd been so focused in trying to come up with a solution using my admin authority and my previous life knowledge that I hadn't even considered that there might've already been a cure that was within reach.

It was my fault she had to suffer. If only I wasn't so stupid.

"Hey hey hey, are you alright? What's wrong"

"My...my little sister. She was sick. I accepted that there wasn't anything I could do, but I never considered that light magic might be able to heal. If I had, she might not have lost her life"

Tears fell freely onto my lap as I sobbed.

"You can use light magic"

I nodded.

"But then you should've been taught how to heal with it then"

But I shook my head.

"I'm self taught"

"That's extraordinary. In that case, it's not your fault at all. There was no way you could've known"

"But I didn't try. If I thought to try it, then I might've come up with something"

"But if you came up with the wrong thing, then it would've made things worse. I don't know much about light magic, but there are stories of the church's healers trying to cure illnesses with light magic only for the illness to take a turn for the worse and killed the person immediately. I'd say it's naive to think that if you just thought about it, you could've saved your sister's life"

Thinking about it, if all the magic did was stimulate repair and growth, then it would've made Alicia's symptoms worse. If that had happened, then I wouldn't have had the time to create [Soul Siphon] and I would've lost her forever.

The realization helped to calm me down.

"Thanks. You're right. Healing without enough knowledge is incredibly dangerous and could've easily made things worse"

"That's right. Don't blame yourself. Fate was just being cruel to your family"

"Not fate. I don't believe in fate. If it did exist, then what meaning would my actions have?"

I gave him a weak grin. Rather than that, if fate was a real thing, then I couldn't see myself being able to put serious effort in anything, as everything would be inevitable. It was because I believed fate didn't exist that I was able to put my all into the things I cared about, since nothing else would give me what I wanted.

"Haha, you're a strong girl. That's right. Fate would deprive us of the meaning of our actions, wouldn't it? Hey, where are you from if you didn't even know these things about the church?"

"Umm, the forest"

"I've never heard of a settlement in the forest before"

"There isn't one. It was just me and my sister"

"That's quite an accomplishment. Maybe you do have what it takes to become an adventurer"

"Maybe"

I scratched my cheek, unsure about what to do with the unexpected compliment.

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"Well, I hope you live up to your namesake, but don't push yourself. It's a quick way to get hurt, and it's better that you don't get any scars on that pretty face of yours"

"ahahaaa..."

This guy was quick to get on my nerves.

"Give me a minute and I'll get you what I owe you"

With that, he took the meat I left on the counter and went through a door to a back room.

A minute later, the guild master returned with a closed fist and a something that looked a bit like paper, but curved and harder.

"Alright, here you go. The meat was in excellent condition, so they were four copper plates each. Ten of them makes four silver coins, but take off the ten copper coins and it comes to three silver coins, and nine copper plates. Please confirm the amount"

He opened his fist and poured the contents onto the counter. I clearly saw three dull grey coins about four centimetres in diameter and nine sheets of heavily tarnished copper that were roughly four by six centimetres. The old man mentioned that registration was ten copper coins, so most likely, ten copper coins made one copper plate, and ten copper plates made one silver coin. Though these things didn't really look like they were made of copper and silver, it was probably just because they were old.

"I've confirmed it"

With my nod, he pushed the coins to me.

"Now, here's the other thing I promised. A letter of introduction. If you show this at the adventurer's guild over in Linsington City a five days east of here, they'll let you take a qualification exam to raise your rank to something more appropriate for your ability. Just remember, the highest the exam will let you become is rank D, but D is extremely good for someone your age. The typical adventurer is either rank D or C, and anyone above that are talented enough for songs to be sung about them"

That...was something I could do without. It would be embarrassing for someone to compose a song about me.

The letter was written on what looked like a thin piece of soft bark. There was the guild's seal branded on it to go with the writing.

"Thanks"

I put it all into my bag for safe keeping and turn around.

"Not going to take any requests?"

"Isn't it bad to pay an outsider more than you have to?"

Everything I've seen so far in this town suggested that everyone was pretty hard up. If I take their jobs and their money, they'd conversely be in that worse of a situation in the long run.

"I suppose that's true. But if you feel that way, why don't you go to Mint's store a few doors down and buy something?"

"Maybe I will"

Now that I had money, there was the chance that I'd find something I liked and could afford.

"Just don't spend all your money. Linsington City has an entrance tax of ten copper coins"

With a nod, I head to the door.

The little fluffballs were still playing around, so I gave a short whistle to get their attention then motioned them to follow me with a quick jerk of the head. All of them stopped what they were doing and chased after me as I exited the guild building.

I looked around and found Mint's General Store. With a few quick strides, I arrived and entered the store.

The inside of the store was...surprisingly barren. It wasn't like it was empty though. There were wooden boxes lined across the side walls and a simple table was decorating the centre of the room. At the back, there was a long counter made from what looked like more boxes offset from the wall. Behind it, there were shelves on the wall filled with various trinkets and items. But in terms of products, that was the only place that had any. It felt like the table and boxes were supposed to have things for sale on them, but there weren't and only served as crude decorations instead.

"Ummm...hello?"

I tried calling out, but there wasn't any sign of anyone in the room. [Sense Presence] detected something past an open door at the back, but it didn't move when I called out.

"Excuse me? Anyone here?"

This time I tried a little louder.

There was a soft bang from the next room, then the sound of shuffling feet.

"Yea, yea, I got it. Who is it? Huh?"

A young man lazily came out through the back door while scratching the back of his head, but froze when he saw me.

"Oh, sorry about that. I thought it was one of the village kids. How can I help you?"

Even if I was one, that wasn't any way to treat a potential customer.

"Umm...I was just came for a look"

"Oh, I see. Are you a traveller? Well, we might not have much, but we do offer good prices and my dad always brings in more stuff from the nearby cities"

The guy leaned over the counter to look up into my hood. In response, I lowered my face a bit to block him with the lip of my hat.

(Why do people keep trying to look at my face so closely?)

"Uh, so what do you have?"

I turned to look at the things furthest away from the merchant.

"Oh, well, we've got a variety of food, from pickled vegetables to dried meats. Plenty of options for someone on the road or in need of variety"

"I, I'm good on food"

Since I couldn't eat any of it anyways.

"Oh, in that case, a water skin? We have brand new ones made from a variety of different animals. I'm sure you know how bad the water from an old skin can be, so it's important to get new ones all the time"

"I'm good on that too"

I didn't drink water either.

"Then how about filling up? We do carry ale and beer"

"I'm fine. I have more than enough food and drink"

Turning my body, I pointed at the plush backpack on my back.

"Oh, is that a magic bag? What a nice thing to have. How much does it carry?"

"I don't know"

"Oh wow, then I bet it's got quite the capacity then. You're really lucky to have that. If only we had one too. It would make life so much easier"

I could understand that sentiment. I've been relying on this bag for quite a long time now, so it's hard to imagine going without it now.

"Hmm...would you...no. I never mind"

"Huh?"

"Ah, I was wondering if you'd sell it to me, but there's no way we could afford a magic bag that nice. I presume it can hold more than that box, right?"

He pointed at one of the boxes lining the walls like a decoration.

"Yea, a lot more"

"I figured. Most people would hit the limit pretty quickly if it was less than that. Be careful of it cutie, that thing's worth quite a bit"

(These guys. Would they quit it with giving these stupid nicknames to people they only just met?)

"Well, what sort of thing are you looking for? If you don't need supplies, then I'm not sure what else I can offer. We cater mostly to adventurers that use this village as a base to enter the forest after all"

That would explain why he mostly only offered food and drinks.

As I scanned through his shelves, something caught my eye.

"You sell knives?"

"Oh yea, we have a few. You interested?"

I nodded.

"Here, let me show you our selection"

With those words, the merchant gathered knives from several shelves and placed them on the wooden counter. The knives varied in size and shapes, and looked like they served a variety of purposes.

"What sort of knives are you interested in?"

"Ummm..."

What sort indeed. I haven't touched a knife since my last life, and that was a kitchen knife. Anything where a knife would come in handy, I just used my claws instead, so I didn't really need a knife. But it would be strange if people found out I didn't have one, so it was best to carry at least something.

"I'm looking for something general purpose. Something that can handle most things I need from it on a daily basis"

"Hmmm, in that case these three would do quite well"

He separated the group put together three knives and unsheathing them. One was big, almost as long as my forearm. I'd almost call it a machete with it's wide, thick blade, but it came to a tapered point. The second was smaller than the first, and single bladed, but it had a gentle curve from the middle onward. It was about half as long as the first. The third was even smaller, at two thirds the length of the second. This one had a narrow, double-sided blade that came to a sharp point. It looked a bit thicker than the second blade, but really was small.

"I think I'll take the second one"

The first was just too big for me to use, and the third too small. It made me feel like Goldilocks, but the one in the middle really looked the easiest to use.

"That's a good choice. The big one's the most popular among adventurers, but it felt a bit too big for you. The small one was apparently owned by a noble, so I thought the design would suit you, but it really isn't that useful as a knife"

I supposed it made sense. The big one would've been useful for more than just cutting little things or preparing meals, and could even be effective as an emergency weapon. The small one on the other hand was an elegantly carved handle, though I questioned how he thought such a dainty looking blade suited me.

"The knife is normally two silver coins and five copper plates, but I can let it off for only two silver coins if..."

"If?"

That was quite a discount coming from nowhere. His condition peaked my interest.

"If you let me have a good look at your face"

I immediately opened my bag and slammed down the full amount.

"Thank you very much!"

(What the hell was he thinking, asking me something like that?)

My face grew hot from the embarrassment, and I had to hold myself back from baring my fangs at him.

"Awww. Well, is there anything else you want? Oh, here's don't forget the sheathe for the knife too"

He meekly placed the leather sheathe in front of me before taking the money and putting the rest of the knives back on the shelf. The disappointment was clear on his face.

"Some bags. I want a few small bags or pouches"

As I thought about where to put the knife, the realization that I was putting everything into my backpack was a problem. It might've been convenient to be able to carry whatever I wanted in it, but it wasn't convenient for anything I'd need quickly.

The knife I could loop onto my belt, but I now had money. Going for my bag for every coin wasn't exactly quick. Not only that, but not having all my money and other small, loose items gathered up was inconvenient as well.

"Oh, in that case we have quite a few items like that"

Instead of going for a shelf, the young merchant went for an open box on the floor and gathered a few things from it before dropping them onto the counter with a smile. He was quite fast at recovering.

"We have a lot of each kind, so take your pick"

There were both cloth and leather pouches of varying sizes. The material looked pretty cheap, but the make looked decent.

"How much are they?"

"They vary between six to ten copper coins, depending on the size"

I had no idea how good of a price that was, but it was cheap enough I could afford a few. Since that was the case, I grabbed a pair of small leather pouch and three cloth bags, all of differing sizes.

"That'll be four copper plates. Though I can lower..."

Before he could finish his pitch, I put the money on the counter and grabbed my things, strapping the pouch on my belt and putting the bags into my backpack.

"I think that's everything I need"

Also, I've gone through most of my money already. I've only got a quarter of the money I earned from selling the meat earlier.

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