Chapter Twenty-Two #3
Deal an additional stacking 1% Damage per hit when attacking the same target, stacking up to 100 times. Dealing Damage to any other target will remove all stacks.
Generate significantly increased aggro on enemies you attack first.
[A new Skill has been acquired for becoming a Duelist.]
//Challenge
//Type: Martial (Duelist | Active)
//Stat: Dexterity
//Cooldown: 180 seconds
//Challenge your opponent to a duel, forcing them into combat with you for 10 seconds.
Neither of you will be able to attack any other targets during this time, and nobody else will be able to interfere with your duel.
Whoever deals more Damage during the duel will receive the Duel Victor buff for 20 seconds, granting them increased Damage scaling with your Dexterity. Current Bonus: 55%.
I was ashamed for forgetting to mention that Lupa could totally count as an off-tank with her build.
Plenty of players on Earth built Duelist to be a parry tank in the first place.
Even if tanking wasn’t our intention with her build, she’d still be able to do it if she ever needed to take the heat off Rosie for a little bit.
“Master,” Lupa said, standing in front of me and Rosie. “Praise me.”
“Good girl, Lupa,” I said, reaching around Rosie who was still hugging me to pet the top of Lupa’s head. “And congratulations on your first class.”
Lupa’s tail wagged as she came around to hug my side.
Of course, the girls around us whispered absurd nonsense about how crazy it was that I was letting not just one, but two girls hug me in public, how I was hugging back, petting a canid’s head, so on and so on.
I was getting pretty good at tuning their whispers out. Even if it was nice to feel like a piece of meat to every girl around at first, the only ones I had any interest in being eaten by were ones I already called mine.
Not to say that I wouldn’t call more girls mine in the future, but I wasn’t looking to expand the party anytime soon.
Probably.
“Alright, your turn!” Rosie said, breaking off the hug and taking Lupa with her. “Though, I can’t say I have the best feeling about you doing this around so many people… but it’s never going to get better.”
“Thankfully,” I said, “no matter what the class’s reputation might be, I have a feeling most girls around will be happy to tolerate it.” Anyone who was worried could probably be relaxed just by winking at them, after all.
Anyways, I walked up to the orb and placed my hand on it.
Yep.
That was a lot of classes.
And surely enough, the Hero class was up there.
As far as I could tell, the status screen only showed everyone around the selected class once it was chosen, not before, so I opened it up to look at it.
//Hero
//Class Type: Base
//Main Attribute: Vitality
//Secondary Attribute: Luck
//A legendary Hero, favored by the goddesses, destined to one day defeat the world’s most dangerous dungeons and to defeat its gravest threats. Only those of truly remarkable skill may ever hope to become a Hero, for a Hero must be unstoppable in the face of evil.
Gain an additional 5 Vitality, 3 Luck, and 1 Intelligence, Strength, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Charisma per level.
All Skills have significantly improved scaling.
Once per day, when your Health reaches 1, you will recover all of your Health, gain immunity to all sources of Damage, deal 100% increased Damage, and have 50% increased Critical Chance for 30 seconds.
You and all Party Members will gain 25% increased Experience from all sources.
All Party Members will receive 50% increased Health and deal 25% more Damage.
Receive a 75% discount with all merchants who recognize you as a Hero.
Increase the rate at which you develop bonds with companions by 200%.
All enemies drop 50% more loot with a higher chance of dropping rarer items.
Treasure chests will always have at least one Epic-quality item.
The Fairy Queen, Titania Ul, destined companion of the Hero, may be recruited in the Fae Lands. This unique companion may accompany the Party without occupying a slot.
Yep. It was just as disgustingly overpowered as it was in the game.
However, seeing that bit about the increased bond rate… how would that work in a real world? In the game, increasing bond with companions basically meant taking them into dungeons with you. That was how romance got unlocked.
But I already “romanced” Stella and Jeanne without ever stepping into a dungeon with them.
I had to assume that, instead, the class would simply make girls develop romantic feelings even faster than normal… which was even more fucked up than me having forbidden knowledge about them.
I hesitated to move away from that class, though.
If that “Thor” didn’t already choose a class, then he was probably going to pick Hero, if he was even eligible for it. If he did, that would put me at a serious disadvantage against him if he turned out to be a problem somehow.
But the fun of clearing dungeons would be permanently lost if I chose Hero. Simply becoming a vampire already made me stronger than I would have liked without feeling like I earned it. Stacking Hero on top of that would make me far too powerful and make this world a peace of cake.
As far as I was concerned, Hero was the worst class in the game specifically because it was the strongest class in the game outside of extreme cheese builds.
But then there was Titania. Unfortunately, she was an exclusive companion to the Hero class since it was a tradition for heroic protagonists to have fairy sidekicks in RPGs.
If I didn’t accept the class, then it was possible I’d never get to recruit her if I ever wanted to.
However, if I didn’t… then, well, considering that her first interaction with the player in the game involved her getting upset from being woken up from a dream and then dueling to prove his worth while getting revenge from being woken up, I was pretty sure she’d be happy to be left alone.
I sighed, closed the Hero description, and chose the class I came here for.
[Class Acquired: Vampire]
//Vampire
//Class Type: Base
//Main Attribute: Dexterity
//Secondary Attribute: Charisma
//The Vampire, predator of the night, a threat to all with blood, who excels in fighting with their body and magic alike. Their thirst for blood is unquenchable, and their fighting makes sure to extract as much blood as possible from their foes.
Gain an additional 2 Dexterity and 1 Charisma per level.
Martial Skills that scale using Dexterity and Magic Skills that scale using Charisma have improved scaling.
You heal for 5% of Damage dealt whenever you attack an enemy suffering from any form of Bleeding. If your Health is full, it will instead restore Mana, and Mana gained this way may temporarily go over the maximum amount.
You may turn any living monster into your thrall by dominating it in battle. Thralls are monsters forced into servitude who will loyally serve you in combat and match your level, but you may only have one.
[A new Skill has been acquired for becoming a Vampire.]
//Rose Transfusion
//Type: Magic (Vampire | Active)
//Stat: Charisma
//Cooldown: 60 seconds
//Inflicts Rose Transfusion on the target for 12 seconds, converting 10% of Damage dealt into Health restored to the attacker.
There it was.
Using the weapon I had in mind, I basically guaranteed healing with every single attack I’d be making for a while, and I’d also help out with some party-wide healing utility.
I also knew exactly what kind of monster I was going to turn into my thrall for maximum coolness.
As long as it was a living monster, meaning anything but an undead, it would work.
Even things that didn’t really make sense to be thralls since I felt like there was sort of an…
implication that something needed blood for it to work.
And so began the gossiping.
“A Vampire?! How?! Didn’t they get hunted to extinction?!”
“A guy… and a Vampire? What… what are the chances of that happening? How is it even possible?”
“I want him to suck my blood while I suck his dick.”
Yep.
There was always something horny.
That wasn’t all, though.
Those same nuns, who had no interest in me before, whispered to one another quietly enough I couldn’t hear, but their expressions were clearly displeased.
Seeing as how their religion was responsible for hunting vampires to almost extinction, I wasn’t surprised.
They had no reaction in the game, probably because Seth didn’t want to deal with writing that sort of interaction, but it wasn’t the game anymore.
Because he never wrote that the church was alright with more vampires around, I had to assume they defaulted to a more realistic option: detesting me.
I made sure to wink and wave at some of the whispering nuns just for fun. They ran away.
Between them apparently already having a man and me being a vampire, and now a Vampire—a Vampire vampire, even, that must have been enough to scare women away from me for once.
But that was alright.
I had more than enough girls in my life already.
“That class looked way better than you made it sound!” Rosie cheered, clinging to me with excited eyes. “And it’s going to help me with tanking so much! Ah, finally, I won’t have to chug so many potions…”
“Just wait until I get some proper healing skills,” I replied.
“Master, cool class,” Lupa said.
“A cool pet needs a cool owner, right?”
“Mm. Master is cooler. Always the coolest.”
“I don’t know about that. Anyways, let’s get home and figure out what dungeon to go hit up.”
The girls nodded, so we went on our way. I also pulled out my phone so I could send Stella a text letting her know that I officially became a Vampire… which got me thinking that I needed to get Jeanne a phone. I couldn’t leave her being the only one of us without a phone now.