Chapter 98: Chapter 92 – Alleviating More Boredom

After returning from our little excursion, I went out again with the second group.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

To be honest, it wasn't very interesting. The rooms were pretty mundane and there wasn't any real dangers to look out for.

Despite all the fighting from the night before, there was surprisingly little damage done to this basement. The walls were thick and everything was sturdy, like an amateur architect overcompensating for an initial failed design that ended up being far too fragile to support its own weight properly.

Maybe there was more truth to that grain than first meets the eye, but it didn't really matter and I didn't have any way to find out anyways.

It was the tenth group which a problem occurred.

Or to be exact, it was an issue with the first room I was escorting them to.

There were enough rooms filled with stored materials or gathering spaces that it took nine groups to finish exploring the halls to the left of our room.

But the first room on the right, when I opened it, I immediately closed.

"Sorry. I think I saw something dangerous, so we're going to skip this room."

It was a poor, flimsy excuse, but the women I was with didn't put up much of a fight and we quickly moved on to the next room.

Because, I wasn't 100% sure, but I thought I saw a part of a human skull on the floor through the crack in the door before I closed it. That, and a strong scent of blood.

[Claret, can you go into that room and check it out for me?]

"Yes Master!"

My spirit familiar released her grip on my shoulders with one last rub of her cheek against mine and floated through the wall and into the room while the rest of us crossed the hall and moved on to the next.

"Master!"

As we were checking out the second room, Claret came back.

[What did you find?]

"Bodies. Lots of bodies and bones. It looked like that was a room where they stored peoples' bodies and removed the meat from their bones."

[...]

That was bad. Really bad.

Even though I knew it was impossible, it felt like was I drenched with a cold sweat.

[Check the other rooms and find out which ones also have bodies in them.]

"Yes Master!"

I needed to confirm it for myself, but until then I needed to know which rooms I needed to avoid.

The rest of the little exploration finished without incident and I continued to take groups out one after the next, avoiding the rooms that Claret found bodies in.

Late on the second day, with the last group, the seventeenth, I ran out of rooms in the basement to explore. While I considered just reexploring room that others had, instead I tried letting them check out one of the rooms in the first floor.

"Umm...do you want me to carry you?"

I reached out a hand to one of the people I was escorting.

"No! I'm fine. I just need...to take it slowly."

"...Alright."

We were climbing the stairs to the first floor.

In this group there was one woman who was heavily pregnant. She looked like she was near term. Though she wasn't the only one that was so close, she was the first I made climb stairs.

She hadn't gotten even a quarter of the way up, but she was already struggling, one hand on the wall and another under her belly as she strained for each step.

I had forgotten to take the extra burden into consideration.

(No, that's not right.)

My eyes scanned across the rest of the group. As this was the last group there were only eight members, but while the others had progressed much further up the stairs, they were all struggling. The short distance from the room and half a floor up had made their breathing quite laboured. Even the best off looked a bit flush in the cheeks and her breathing had quickened.

I didn't consider how weak their bodies had gotten.

(Were the rest all like this too?)

It dawned on me that I hadn't payed nearly enough attention to everyone's condition as we explored the mansion.

This group seemed to have been comprised of prisoners here longer than most and were most nervous about stepping out of the room they spent almost all their time in. Apparently while they did almost everything in that one room, the only time they were allowed out was when that bastard was trying to impregnate them.

While I didn't know if it applied to all of them, it made sense that some of these women had developed negative feelings towards leaving their sanctuary. I just hoped that when the time came, they wouldn't resist leaving this place for good.

That aside, their physical strength, or lack thereof, was the real issue.

I didn't consider just how much their bodies had deteriorated since being imprisoned.

(Was it the same for all the others?)

No, rather, that didn't matter. It was clear that this group had suffered significant levels of atrophy and the trip back will be extremely difficult on them. Even if only this group was this badly off, I was limited in what I could do to actually help them back to their homes.

While I was plenty strong enough to carry them, geometry simply made it so that carrying more than one or two of them was just plain not possible. Magic could fix that, but I'd be in the presence of quite a lot of people when the reinforcements arrive. Anything more than simple little spells were probably not an option.

No, not just that, but it would be a problem if they continued to be reliant on me. These people needed to grow to be able to stand on their own feet as soon as possible. I didn't know what sort of economy their village relied on, but if their bodies were too weak, there was no way they could do any work in the first place.

Even if it took a bit more time, I had to do what I could to promote as much regrowth as possible before the reinforcements came.

The obvious bits was some sort of exercise regime along with lots of good food.

Fundamentally strength growth was the damaging, followed by repair and reinforcement of muscles.

In theory healing everyone's bodies with magic after they pushed themselves could do the trick, but I didn't know the fundamental mechanics of healing magic in the first place. If it simply accelerated the healing process hundreds of times over, then that would do the trick.

But my personal experience with my healing spell suggested that it cooped the entire healing process and magically repaired and replaced damaged tissue instead. If that was the case, there was a good chance that it would negate the effects of muscle training rather than bolster it.

I'd have to do some experimenting to find out, but there wasn't time for such a meticulous thing at this point.

More traditional therapy would have to do instead.

For the meantime though, I helped the struggling woman up the rest of the stairs.

What we came to was a long hallway. The wall on one side was cracked badly and there were even holes here and there as well. Debris was strewn on occasion.

While I didn't see this hallway from this angle before, it was quite obvious where we had ended up.

This was right beside the large room where I killed that bastard.

I didn't really want to continue this exploration, but one glance told me that everyone in the group was eager to have a look at some of the rooms here. To see something other than the mostly empty room they had lived in until then.

Also stopping this mini expedition wouldn't be fair in the first place. Even though they all clearly had to push themselves just to get this far, cancelling it before they had a chance to explore a bit was only going to bring trouble.

That said, it wasn't like we found anything interesting.

Well, aside from the rooms we avoided, but nobody else knew that there was something of import in them. For that matter, they just thought that those rooms were already explored, even though in reality Claret was the only one who actually saw what was inside.

I couldn't come up with a good enough reason to avoid this room, so we made our way to the large double doors.

A quick survey suggested that the damage to this section of the building wasn't bad enough that the doors couldn't be used. The floor wasn't badly damaged either from what I remembered, though the crumbled ceiling and walls would pose a bit of a danger, it wouldn't be so much that I couldn't protect my charge if the worse came to happen.

"This room is probably the one where I fought him."

At the mere mention of that bastard, the group quickly burst into murmurs and whispers. The most heavily pregnant one tightly held her belly, like she was trying to curse the baby within. The sight gave me a bad feeling, but this didn't seem like the best time to talk about such a thing.

"The walls were damaged in the fight, so please avoid getting close to them. If you can't promise me that, then we'll just go to a different room."

With everyone's agreement, I put a hand on the heavy doors and opened it.

Only to scowl and step away.

"Is something wrong?"

"Ah, umm...it's just really bright."

As if I was trying to avoid damaging my eyes, I looked away and into the deep shadows far along the hallway, all the candles along the walls having long since burnt out.

Obviously curious of my words, the group all huddled around the partially opened door and peered through. And as expected, they vocalized what they saw.

"It's the sky!"

"The sun's shining through!"

"It's so light here!"

It was all good words that oozed the excitement and joy they had at seeing something that had mostly been denied them for who knows how long.

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They did have some small windows, but considering how many people there were, it was impossible for any of them to have a good look through them on any regular basis. And even worse was that they were facing north so the sun never shone through them even once.

That said, as a vampire, even if it was indirect, the light of the sun was simply something harsh and painful for me. The room was made of nothing but stone, so there wasn't even any dark coloured objects to help soothe the harsh light reflecting off of every surface it touched.

But while my own reaction wasn't very positive, these women glowed at the mere sight of the sky from through the narrow opening I had created.

Letting out a heaving sigh, I forced the heavy stone door open all the way, extinguishing the now unneeded little light of mine.

As if a minor blessing, at least the area around the door was protected by a heavy shadow, but the moment I made way to the side, all the women I was with made their way through, their bodies trembling with excitement.

Rather than explore the room like all the others did, the group simply basked in the sunlight, sitting on the broken stone slabs and admiring the blue sky or the light reflecting off of their pale skin.

The sight of it could only make me sigh as I turned away, the image of their glowing skin in the sunlight only making my eyes hurt.

[To think that something like this could make them so happy...]

I couldn't understand it at all. I just wanted to get away from here rather. My sense or responsibility being the only thing keeping me from retreating somewhere the painful light couldn't reach.

[Sunlight really is bright, isn't it Scarlet?]

[It's just plain harsh if you ask me.]

I closed my eyes in an attempt to let them rest a bit. Anywhere else I could just look at the dark green grass or cover my eyes with my outfit, but not here. I was pretty tempted in just pulling out my robes to block out most of the reflecting light.

Letting out another sigh, I glanced back at those women as they enjoyed the feeling of the sun on their bare skin.

But the harsh glare of it all forced me to turn away again after only a few moments.

(Just how could they enjoy such a terrible thing like sunlight?)

I stood there for a good few moments until I realized just what I had thought.

(It's only been a few years, but maybe I'm really forgetting what it's like to be human.)

A thought like that was really more of a parody than anything that belonged in some comedy than actual thoughts made by a person, but not only my vampire body had turned that joke into a reality but it had embedded itself into my thoughts as well.

[Alicia, what do you think of sunlight anyways?]

[Mmmm...it hurts? Its a bit painful when you look at things the sun lights up really well.]

[I see.]

It seemed like the little girl had adopted the same thoughts as well. Unfortunately, she had never experienced vision before entering my vampiric body, so her experiences were even more quickly dyed than my own.

Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was much more difficult to understand.

If her new body were to be one of a pure vampire's then the fact that she had already accepted such a perception of something as dangerous as the sun was nothing but good. But if she were to get one that was only half, or even 0% vampire, then such a preconception would be nothing but a hindrance to her future life.

But that even being said, as thing stood, it looked like the fastest and easiest way for her to get her own body was to for me to bear a baby myself and somehow insert Alicia's soul into its body. But for that, I needed to figure out how to do exactly that.

(No, even before that, there was the obstacle of even getting pregnant. Even though it's for Alicia's sake, the thought of it still makes me a bit hesitant. How would I even raise her in the first place?)

There were so many questions already. Raising Alicia as my own child in itself wasn't really a problem. That was pretty close to our relationship from the beginning as it was, despite my initial protests. But all the way from a newborn? I couldn't say I was fond of babies in the first place after all.

But as it seemed like the only viable choice, it was probably best for me to just suck it up. No other option seemed workable and had way more potential problems.

(But even still...having some random guy stick it in me...)

I shuddered at the very thought.

"Master, are you feeling fine?"

[Ah, umm, yea. I'm fine. Nothing to worry about.]

"Is that so?"

[I don't think you're feeling sick, but are you sure Scarlet?]

[Yea, don't worry. I don't think vampires like me can get sick in the first place.]

"I hadn't heard of it either, but if you're not feeling well..."

[I'm fine! There's nothing wrong with my body!]

Only with my constant insistence that the two of them stopped prodding.

With another sigh, my eyes turned back to the figures of the naked women sunbathing on large slabs of broken stone. Despite being forced to squint at the sight, a gentle smile came to my lips. Despite how difficult it was for me, I was glad to have brought these girls here so they could enjoy the day's rays.

(I should bring the others here as well.)

After a few minutes of enjoying the scenery, the thoughts again from before rose up to my mind, and begged another question.

(Now that I think about it, I'm looking at a group of nude women.)

Not only just then and there, but for the last day I had been doing just that. Nobody was wearing clothes of any sort, yet it felt like things were strangely normal. My body wasn't particularly reacting in the way I would have expected as a former man.

Well, it wasn't really possible for my body to react in such a way, as I didn't have the anatomical bits to make it happen in such an obvious fashion. I did enjoy the sight, but it felt like my body wasn't responding how it should have been.

(No, not just now, but any time I saw a naked woman, I didn't get the same urges.)

It was as if there was a driving force that had existed all my life, but now something about it had changed.

I'd never been good at understanding my emotions, but the differences now were even harder for me to understand.

I wanted to figure things out for myself, but Alicia was inside my head. It was impossible for me to get any privacy to confirm such a thing and there was no way I was going to expose the little girl to such an embarrassing thing so early in her life.

No, I would just have to suck it up for as long as I could. Some things she would be forced to learn before she should, but something like touching myself was something that I would do everything I can to stop her from experiencing until she was old enough for it.

(But then what was...?)

My mind drifted to the strange reaction my body was having back when I first came to this room. It was nothing like anything I had experience before.

It was almost like I was put under a spell from some fairy tale or something.

(Was it because of what he was?)

That day was the first time I had met another vampire, and it had just happened to be a man. Was my body reacting to the fact that he was a vampire, or that because he was a male vampire?

It was unfortunate, but I had no way to confirm it as he was now dead.

No, it wasn't really unfortunate at all. In fact, the thought of my body reacting like that was a bit scary. It was if my own body was betraying my thoughts and acting on its own, regardless of my will. Even if in the end no harm actually came from it, and maybe there were some benefits instead, the fact that it happened was a bit terrifying.

Scientific curiosity made me want to learn more, but the rest of my mind feared what sort of outcome would come across if I were to get into such a situation once again.

I didn't like it.

I definitely didn't like it.

The idea of losing control over myself because my body reacts so strongly to the presence of another vampire was scary, and if possible, I wanted to avoid such an encounter as much as possible.

Alicia would be the sole exception to that. She was so cute and endearing, I instead looked forward to being able to pet her again, to rub cheeks with her, to carry her in my arms instead of my head.

Most likely, the first time I get to see her face again, all those same feelings I had the day before would come pouring out again. It didn't matter if my body was reacting that way to the presence of another vampire, those feelings would come anyways, and I welcomed them whole heartedly.

Familial love was only a few degrees off from romantic love after all. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to redirect those feelings in a more positive way. Though I couldn't say I really understood such a thing too well, there wasn't anything I could think of that refuted that theory.

Or rather, I had no choice but hope that either those strange feelings that welled up were either something I could turn into something better or that it was related directly to the difference in sex.

Either way, I wished that the day it would happen would come sooner, but I had to endure. Patience was the name of the game, and I would need lots of it no matter how things turned out.

It wasn't long after I finished that line of thought that I decided this group had had enough time to enjoy themselves.

They resisted returning to the room quite strongly but I continued to push since it wouldn't be fair to the others if I let this group stay out longer than the others.

It took me to promise that I'd increase the group sizes so that their turn comes again sooner before they agreed to return.

Well, as long as all they wanted to do was sunbathe, I couldn't really see much of a problem for them to come in larger groups. In fact, there were still a few people who hadn't had a turn coming. The handful of people who hardly responded to any stimuli didn't show any interest when prodded about going out of the room.

The lack of any sort of response was worrying.

Mental illnesses probably weren't well recognized in this world, and I doubted the means to treat them even existed. There didn't seem to be much welfare either, so if they didn't show signs of improving, it was likely that no matter what I did, these women would be abandoned and left for dead pretty quickly.

Taking them with me to take care of them wasn't a very realistic scenario either. When I got back home, I'd be busy raising my level while working out the details of Alicia's resurrection. Caring for a group of invalids didn't feel very realistic at all to me.

It wasn't like I knew any of them, nor did I owe them a single thing. It was one thing to help people when it was convenient, but another entirely to shoulder the burden of their lives for an unspecified amount of time.

I was a nice person. Probably a bit too nice of one. But I did charity because it was a great way to spend my free time. Not because I desired to be charitable or anything.

If I had real responsibilities and had to earn a living like in my previous life, I doubted that I could do much charitable things in the first place.

Or rather, my previous life proved that aside from the occasional handouts, I didn't do much that was charitable at all.

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