Chapter 4: Chapter 03 – The Nature of Things

After a short break, I got back up and started to loot the bodies.

These goblins were even poorer than the first I found. All I got was two spears, an axe, and three exceedingly dirty loin clothes. They smelled just as bad as the first one I found, so I tied them to the end of one spear and slung both spears over my left shoulder while I carried the axe in hand.

I considered grabbing my broken spear and dropped stone, but I was just about at my limit as to what I could carry by hand.

Instead, I went back and retrieved the rabbit pelt and my last loin cloth, and tied both to the end of my carrying spear before continuing my trip.

As I continued to walk north, I noticed that the ground was slowly sloping upwards. It seemed like I was climbing a gentle hill or something, but the trees blocked my line of sight too much to get a good picture.

(If this keeps sloping upwards, it's probably not the way to civilization, is it?)

I hadn't really thought about trying to find any cities, but practically speaking, that would've been the right thing to aspire to as my first goal, aside from just surviving. But now at this point, I started to wonder how good that would be before I got my bearings.

Just minutes earlier, I lost control over myself. Drinking blood really was a powerful urge. Surrounded by people, I wondered how well I could control that urge if someone got cut near me.

Maybe choosing to be a vampire wasn't such a great idea? Maybe a beast person would've been better? I saw a few of those on the list. But vampires were practically unaging in almost every media. That was pretty hard to resist. Maybe an elf? Some have them also being unaging.

Then again, if I could control this urge, then living in a city wouldn't be a problem. I needed to get practice doing such a thing. Even if I ended up not living around other people like my previous life, not being able to control my blood lust would be a serious detriment.

(But it really was tasty...)

Before I realized it, I was licking my lips again.

(No! No! Bad vampire!)

I hit myself in the head, admonishing myself for getting so caught up in those feelings.

This might be harder than I thought.

That aside, when I was drinking those goblins' blood, I heard some words in my head. I dismissed them at the time because I was so engrossed in feeding, but they sounded important.

The first one, thinking back, sounded like 'You have reached level two!'

The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that's what the voice said. I gained a level, like in a game.

A smile crept up onto my face.

(A level. It wasn't just skills!)

I didn't particularly feel any stronger, but that could just be because the feeling of having my first real meal overwhelmed me.

(But there were more words after that)

After that first announcement, I heard one more while drinking from the second goblin, and then again from the third goblin.

Thinking back, the pretty-sounding woman's congratulatory voice said 'You have gained the [Breeding 1] skill!' and 'You have gained the [Spear Technique 1] skill!'

(Ugh, how terrible)

One sounded good, but the other sounded pretty nasty.

From what I remembered, the [Blood Sucking] skill not only let me drink a creature's blood, but let me absorb their essence as well. I thought that it meant that it allowed me to digest the blood as food, but maybe that wasn't what it meant.

The level I gained could've come from the skill, or from the fact that I killed four goblins already. The [Spear Technique] skill likewise could've come from the fact that I killed two goblins with a spear, aside from the fact that my spear was broken while I used it on the second one. But that nasty sounding [Breeding] skill couldn't have come from anything I did myself. I was a virgin in both lives, so strictly speaking, nothing I've done should've allowed me to earn such a skill in the normal way.

That left only one possibility: I can gain skills by drinking the blood of my targets.

(Wow, just wow!)

I didn't know how hard it was to get skills normally, but this gave me a massive edge! Being able to gain skills I haven't even practised, possibly even raising skills I already had, the extremely high value of blood kept going up inside of my mind.

(This...is going to make it hard to live an ordinary life)

Not like I intended to in the first place. I was going to live how I wanted after all, not conforming to what people expected from me.

But if I was going to gain a lot of skills this way, it was going to be difficult to manage if I couldn't view them when I wanted. Not only that, but it was important to be able to know what the skills did.

While I was in that other space, I was able to touch the skills to get a description. If I could somehow do that here as well, then I wouldn't have to worry about my skills doing things I couldn't predict.

That said, the staple of these game-like worlds was some sort of menu or character sheet opening up through one technique or another.

With that thought in mind, I tried every permutation of opening a way to see my skills and information on my own I could think of.

(Menu. Open Menu. Select Menu. Main Menu...)

Rather than go through the most likely commands first, I tried to keep my trials organized to prevent repeats as much as possible. It wasn't like I was in much of a hurry, no matter how much the thought excited me.

(...Status...oh!)

In the end it didn't take long, and a transparent screen opened in front of my eyes.

The screen was filled with my personal information, as expected.

(Hmm...[Name:]...it's blank)

Not like I really expected much from that field. It wasn't a priority, so I left it for later.

([Species: Vampire], [Sex: Female]...)

I've already been reminded of those two facts more than I liked today.

Below that, I started to find actually useful information.

------------------------------------
State: Normal
Level: 2
XP: 8/12

HP: 32/32
MP: 20/20
STR: 6
CON: 9
AGI: 12
DEX: 11
INT: 10
ANI: 8

Skills:
Default Skills:
Local Language
Racial Skills:
Blood Sucking 1 (Vampire)
Natural Weapons 1 (Vampire)
Breeding 1
Primary Skills:
Spear Technique 1
------------------------------------

I could clearly see my information put into quantified values. When I touched each part, I was able to get a tool-tip filled with the selected item's description, just like in that other space.

Level: The collective strength of a person's base abilities. Raised by gaining XP.
XP: The representation of spiritual growth when slaying foes or through actions of intense labour or creativity.

It looked like I could gain levels though means not just by killing monsters, but the description was a bit vague. I'd have to experiment with it. Not only that, but looking at the values themselves, I was probably one or two goblin kills away from reaching level 3.

I wondered if I also got XP from sucking their blood?

[HP]: Hit Points. The amount of injury one can sustain before perishing.
[MP]: Mana Points. The amount of mana available within one's body to be used.
[STR]: Strength. One's ability to exert physical force upon the world.
[CON]: Constitution. One's ability to resist injury.
[DEX]: Dexterity. One's ability to move accurately and precisely.
[AGI]: Agility. One's ability to move quickly.
[INT]: Intelligence. One's ability to manipulate mana to create a phenomena.
[ANI]: Anima. One's ability to resist unwanted magical manipulation.

The attributes were pretty straightforward, and pretty much as expected. Though it was notable how low my [STR] was, without something to compare against, the numbers themselves didn't mean much to me.

[Breeding 1]: Allows one to breed with other creatures, regardless of compatibility. Offspring will always be of the parent with the higher [Breeding] skill.
[Spear Technique 1]: Increases one's ability to use spears and spear-like weapons.

Well, that answers my question on the [Breeding] skill. The effect was a bit depressing, but not really surprising. Goblins were often depicted as a monosexual species that captured females to propagate. This looked like proof that they were also like that in this world.

It was a depressing skill to have, but I just had to avoid using it.

(Did I just decide to become an eternal virgin?)

Actually, looking a bit closer, the skill was greyed out. There was the fact that it was classified as a racial skill. Maybe because I wasn't a goblin, the skill didn't work for me? I hoped that was the case, but I couldn't help but worry that if someone saw I had this skill, they'd label me as a slut or something.

On the other hand, the [Spear Technique] was pretty nice. I hoped that I could figure out how to make my own spears or get my hands on a quality one to take proper advantage of this skill.

As I was thinking about my skills, a new sound entered my ears. It was faint, but it was the distinct sound of water.

Despite some problems, I couldn't help but feel that my first day's been pretty fortunate so far.

I was slowly, but steadily getting stronger, gaining useful equipment, even if they were exceedingly primitive, found a good way to feed myself, and now I found a water source. I was still naked and I hadn't found a single hint of real civilization yet, but considering I basically started with nothing, I felt like my progress was pretty good.

And being naked wasn't as bad as I feared. It was still embarrassing, and frankly I was glad I hadn't found anyone yet due to that, but this area was sufficiently temperate. I hadn't felt cold even once since arriving.

For once in my life, luck was really on my side.

Even if I had to die for that to happen.

My steps hurried. While I wasn't thirsty, I felt dirty. Touching those goblins so much made my body grimy and the feeling was disgusting.

 

I burst out from around a large bush.

What greeted my sight was a small river flowing roughly from the northwest to the southeast. There weren't any signs of any creatures nearby aside from some animal tracks. It looked like it was a popular watering hole, but despite that, it was currently deserted.

Not minding such a detail, I hurried to the water's edge and put my things down before quickly wading into the knee-high water.

As I was about to bathe, I noticed my reflection in the water.

I haven't had a chance to actually get a look at my new body yet, so I was quite curious as to how I looked.

Though the rippling water, I could more or less see my own face. Starting from the top, my hair was an elegant, shiny silver, long and straight, coming down below my hips. My eyes were large and round, appearing to be half-filled with wonder-lust and curiosity, and half-filled with penetrating intelligence. Below that was a small, bit of a button nose, with slightly pouty lips, all framed by a small chin and round cheeks.

The reflection was like a cute girl that was still halfway into becoming a beautiful woman.

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The unsteady reflection made it hard to see clearly, but she looked like she'd grow up to become a top-tier woman.

If I met her in my previous life, I wouldn't have hesitated to tap that ass.

That's a lie. If I had actually met her and she tried to talk to me, I would've been completely intimidated by her. Not only were her eyes pretty striking, but the thought of interacting with a girl who was leagues out of my range would've instead made me break out in a cold sweat.

And that girl was now me.

I was never a popular guy in my last life, rather I was mostly a loner in general. I had no idea how to act with a face like then when the time came to actually talk to someone in this world.

Frankly, the thought alone was a bit scary.

I shook my head.

There was no point in worrying about something that might not crop up in a while.

I pulled back a lock of hair that fell into the water when my fingers touched my ear, but the shape wasn't familiar. It was pointed, like an elf's from fantasy tropes, but it wasn't too long. The point only stuck a couple of centimetres further than human ears.

Vampires often had pointed ears like this, but a lot of the time their stories were on Earth, so it had nothing to do with any other species. It made me wonder how they compared the elves of this world however. Would people who saw them think I was an elf? Or maybe a half-elf? Were halves even possible? If such a thing was on the species list, I didn't see it. but the list was insanely long, so I could've easily just missed the entry.

Turning my mind back to present matters, I tried drinking some of the water. Despite being cool, it tasted extremely stale to me and difficult to swallow. It made me pretty sure that vampires didn't need to drink water. Blood was probably enough hydration.

Finally, I got down and sunk my body into the river.

The cold water ran over my skin, but the feeling of it taking away the dirt and oil from my skin as I wiped my body with my hands was invigorating.

I paid acute attention to every little unfamiliar curve of my new body as I explored it for the first time while I washed. It was ironic that the first woman I got to intimately touch in years ended up being my own body.

Taking my time, I made sure to remove every trace of the muck from those goblins off of my body.

When I was done, I lay on the riverbed, enjoying the feeling of the water flowing over my skin.

I didn't notice it before, now that I was paying attention to it, my skin felt more sensitive. While I wiped my body, I could feel every detail of my fingers on my body, and now I could feel the tiny whirlpools of water as the river flow broke against it. I wondered if it was because it was a new body, or it had something to do with being a vampire, or if it was something else.

Not like it mattered. It was a nice feeling.

After a few minutes of rest, I got back up and wiped the excess water off of my body.

Strangely, while my body had chilled a little, I didn't feel particularly cold. Was the water warmer than I thought, or did it have to do with my new race?

Packing that thought to the back of my mind, I went over and grabbed the pelt and loincloths I was carrying around and dumped them into the river water to wash.

Almost immediately a black haze drifted from the scraps of leather I got from the goblins and flowed away with the water.

I hoped that it was just dirt, not something dangerous for anyone who decided to drink down river.

Taking my mind off of my unfounded worry, I thoroughly washed the rabbit pelt. No matter what I did though, the inside stayed wet and sticky, and pieces continued to peel off. It was feeling like a lot of work I didn't know about was still left to be done if I was to actually use it.

Next I started on the dirty leather left by the goblins. These were a much bigger ordeal, but it was still in the realm of my knowledge.

I rubbed the black sheets against each other and against the sand in the river bed, and plumes of black fog erupted and were washed down. The sight was a bit unnerving, but I took it as proof that the leather was getting clean.

After what felt like hours, but was most likely less than 30 minutes, all four loincloths had become a light brown colour. With a careful sniff, I confirmed that almost none of the stink remained.

Happy with the result, I tossed all the clean hides to the side and I scrubbed my hands with the sand on the riverbed, removing all trace of that goblin stink.

Once I was finally finished that too, I sat down under a tree beside the river to rest. My hands were red and my arms sore. Even my back hurt, after being hunched over for so long. But at the very least, the looted leather was now in a usable form. It wasn't ideal, but I didn't have to worry about getting some sort of strange infection from them anymore.

I leaned back against the tree and looked up at the sky.

For some reason, it had started to grow even brighter than before. The sky to the east had grown to a bright red.

(Was there a fourth sun in this world?)

It was the only explanation I could think of, and frankly, it wouldn't have surprised me.

As the sky grew brighter, rays from the fourth sun started to peak through the breaks in the canopy. The river was quickly engulfed with light so bright it reminded me of when I'd focus sunlight with a magnifying glass to make a newspaper catch fire.

It was a bit difficult to look at, even when squinting, so I turned my head away while I waited for my eyes to adjust.

What greeted my sight were more points of bright lights that fell through the smaller gaps between the leaves as they slowly moved while the sun rose.

As one such point slowly made it's way closer to me, I amused myself with the image of a giant with a magnifying glass trying to burn things using the sunlight.

But against my expectation, a sudden pain flared on my arm!

It was like someone was scraping the point of a red hot iron rod against my skin!

It wasn't just the feeling, but I could smell the scent of burning meat as well!

In a panic, I roll over and get away from the spot I was at, and hid my body on the other side of the tree I was leaning against.

I looked at my arm, trying to figure out what just happened.

To my surprise, my right arm and a part of my torso was had black burn marks on it, complete with smoke rising from it. The shape was like if someone unsteadily tried to draw a line across the side of my body.

I thought I was attacked, but the burn marks looked drastically different from any sort of attack that I could've come against, unless if someone tried to use a laser against me.

The thought was stupid, as everything so far suggested that this world was most likely more primitive compared to Earth. At the very least, goblins wielding stone weapons most likely wouldn't exist if the technology to create a portable laser weapon existed.

I tried to wrap my my mind around what happened when I noticed that there were quite a lot of those bright spots moving around in the forest.

They weren't as bright as the ones before, as my eyes had mostly gotten used to the light, but those spots were obviously just the light of the fourth sun passing through the gaps in the foliage.

But something suddenly felt off in my mind as I thought that.

(Why is the fourth sun so much brighter than the other three combined?)

It wasn't just that, but things that I just passed off as different because this wasn't Earth and was governed by rules that I didn't understand, might not have been as different as I thought.

It was weird to see stars in the sky during midday. It was weird that one sun would be so much brighter than three others. It was weird that I could stare at any sun without suffering from bright spots at the very least.

And, why could vampires walk around in broad daylight without any consequences?

The answer, they couldn't.

I made a fundamental presumption that was entirely wrong.

I arrived in this world, not during the day, but the night.

Vampires were creatures of the night, so it was a given that they'd have superior night vision compared to humans. It was a given that they'd primarily operate during the night and hide during the day like any other nocturnal creature. And, as with the common lore of vampires, it was given that their biggest weakness was sunlight.

My burns didn't come from someone with some sort of mysterious weapon out to take my life or something, it was the effect of being under direct sunlight.

Suddenly those bright spots moving around started to look much more threatening than they did mere seconds ago.

Here I was, under the flimsy and unpredictable shade of a forest, and dawn had come.

I didn't have a moment to lose.

Without any real options, I turned around and started to stab at the soil in between the roots of the tree I was hiding under with my claws. The canopy didn't offer reliable protection against the deadly sunlight, and if the wind blew, the movement of the rays would be completely beyond my ability to predict.

I needed solid cover, and the only thing that could give me that right now was the ground itself.

Not worrying about the fact that I was scraping away the skin on my hands, I desperately dug, flinging soil behind me.

My heart pounded in my chest more than it ever had. I could smell blood as my hands bled from the reckless digging, but rather than stimulate my appetite, all it did was remind me of my mortality.

Quickly, as fast as I could.

As the minutes passed on, as the brighter the surrounding world became, the more I was pressed into a corner, both figuratively and literally. I started to push my body into the small hole as I dug it. I was desperate for the small, tangible safety from the greatest threat to my life.

I didn't know how long it took. Possibly mere minutes, but it felt like hours. But I managed to dig a hole big enough to fit my entire body inside of awkwardly, lying on my back, my legs folded above me, I covered all but a small hole to both breathe through, as well as to see, even if the world outside was inverted from my position.

Even still, I was careful about it. The hole was small and level to the ground. But just in case sunlight poured through it unexpectedly, I held onto some loose dirt to fill it in, even if I risked suffocating because of it.

I bared my fangs as I glared at the world that was so bright it almost hurt my eyes.

(Damnit! How could you? How could you take away half the world from me?!)

Hate filled my heart as I stared at the moving bright spots created by my nemesis.

In my head, I understood that the hate and anger was completely unjustified, that it wasn't a malicious attack by someone out to get me or something. But emotionally, I couldn't accept it. I had known when I chose to become a vampire that I most likely wouldn't be able to walk around during the day. I knew, but I didn't realize how different it was to know when compared to understanding.

Now, squeezing my body into a tiny, dirty hole, the feelings that welled from within were as dark and dirty as the dirt around me. I couldn't accept the fact that I was being denied the daytime, even though almost all living creatures on Earth, including myself, were forced to give up between a third to half a day just to sleep.

Such logic couldn't temper my thoughts as I just stared and loathed.

The fact that my wounds wouldn't stop throbbing didn't help in the matter.

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