Chapter Nineteen #3
Rosie’s cheeks looked pretty rosy as she thought it over. “It—it does sound really cool, but… I think I might understand now why Sev says that he’s got to fix his personality to match the aesthetic…”
I gave Rosie’s shoulder a gentle slap and said, “We’ll worry about that later. So, now we’ve got the Rose Judge, Saint of Roses, Rosen Blade, and Crimson Rampart. The little edgelord in my heart is overflowing with happiness.”
“Master,” Lupa said. “You said you chose a weapon. What weapon?”
“Two weapons, actually. You’ll see the next time we go to a dungeon. I’ll have to stop by Tab’s to put in an order for the one, though. I wonder if I can get her number so I can text her for orders.”
Rosie looked concerned upon hearing that. “Sev… you can’t just ask for a shop owner’s number to text them whenever you want for business.”
“Why not? Isn’t that more convenient for the both of us?”
“It just—you know, isn’t really… professional. Or standard.”
“Is this something I’m too stuck-in-bed-for-most-of-my-life to understand?”
“I think so.”
“Well, there’s no harm in trying. I should also get Marissa’s number.”
“You… might also want to consider how it’ll look if you go around asking for the phone numbers of a bunch of halfling girls. Halfcon.”
“… you’ve got a point.” Then, after hearing an owl in the distance, I looked up and saw the moon hanging over us. “Jeanne, is the moon high enough?”
Jeanne looked up toward the moon. “That it is. So long as we are bathed in moonlight, I may grant you the curse—no, the gift that will allow us to stay together and fulfill our promises to one another.”
“Hang on,” Rosie interjected. “Is this safe? I mean—what should we expect? What’s going to happen to him?” Lupa nodded along, clinging to my arm.
“I will bite him just as I did earlier, but not to partake of his blood. Rather, I will inject mine into his. In the best case, he will wake after three days. In the worst, it will take several weeks. But once he recovers—once his blood has finished adapting to mine, he will wake as a vampire.”
“Weeks?! He might be unconscious for weeks?!”
Jeanne nodded and looked at me. “You knew that, did you not?”
“I did,” I answered. “I also know that it’s going be the exact opposite of how the earlier bite felt.”
Jeanne reached up to place her hand against her neck. “The pain you are to feel will likely never be forgotten. I can still easily recall it even after centuries.”
“But it’s not lethal, right?”
“It is not. Even the weakest who took the longest to adapt survived.”
Rosie’s held onto my arm that Lupa wasn’t clinging to and asked, “Are you sure about this? This—this isn’t something that can ever be undone, right?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Even if the sun will be a little problematic, it won’t stop me from taking you to the beach and seeing you in a bikini.”
Rosie let go of me and took a step back. “Yeah, I know you’ll be fine if you’re making stupid jokes like that.”
“Bold of you to assume it was a joke.”
“Nobody wants to see a fat body like mine in a bikini.”
“One, you’re insane. Two, even if you gained weight anywhere other than your chest, I’d still want to see you in one.”
Rosie’s cheeks reddened as she looked away with a slight pout. “Fi-fine. Then… you better wake up. You won’t get to see anything if you don’t.”
“You just gave me stronger motivation than ever for waking up.”
“Mm, Master,” Lupa said. “Me, too. I’ll wear a bikini for you.”
Once again, it was impossible not to pet her. “You’re so cute, Lupa.”
Lupa nuzzled her head up against my patting hand and closed her eyes.
“Alright,” I said, looking at Jeanne. “I—”
Jeanne interrupted me to say, while holding her hand to her chest and looking at me with a charming gaze, “I am quite confident I would look nice in such swimwear.”
“… we’ll have to go to the beach at night since I want to see that. Anyways, I’m ready.” I nodded to Lupa, signaling her to let go of me. I tilted my head to expose my neck once she was off me. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Jeanne took a deep breath and closed the distance between us. “I have never done this before, so I apologize if I inflict more pain than necessary.”
“It’s alright. I’m getting into this whole ‘being bitten’ thing.”
“What a strange man.” Jeanne reached forward to grab my chin, her grip gentle but firm as she held my head in place.
“But no matter how strange you may be, you are the one I have pledged myself to, and I would not have it any other way. With the transmission of my blood, witnessed by the moon’s light, I shall make you of my kin and grant you life unending. ”
Jeanne slipped her hand from my chin to the back of my head as she wrapped her other arm around my back, her lips inching closer to my neck.
There was no warning before biting me.
Her fangs pierced my skin just as deep as they did before, but I did not feel that pleasure from earlier. Instead… I felt like I was on fire. What started as a slight burning in my neck rapidly spread through my body. It was like every vein in me was on fire.
I felt like I was going to die.
It didn’t take long to pass out from shock.
I opened my eyes when I felt a warm, heavy weight shift around on top of me.
It was Lupa, of course, though my mind did immediately jump to thinking I was about to see Frolin on top of me after the last time something like this happened.
Lupa was curled up between my legs with her upper half sprawled across my abdomen as she slept.
I had no idea how much time passed, but I knew that becoming a vampire was successful. It was pretty hard to not know that thanks to the system message floating above me.
[Your Race has changed from Human to Vampire (3rd Generation)]
[Health: 190 -> 340]
[Mana: 38 -> 138]
[Dexterity: 42 -> 82]
[Charisma: 0 -> 40]
[A new Skill has been acquired for becoming a 3rd Generation Vampire.]
//Vampiric Blood (3rd Generation)
//Type: Racial (General | Passive)
//Being a third generation of those who feast on blood grants you the following traits:
+12.5 Health Regeneration per second but suffer 20 Damage per second in direct sunlight.
When exposed to moonlight, the Health Regeneration effect is doubled and all Attributes are increased by 25%.
You can see in the dark, but you have worsened vision in sunlight.
You can detect all bleeding wounds within 1 mile.
You gain resistance to Necromantic Damage, but you are critically weak to Fire Damage.
You require fresh blood to sate your hunger. Not consuming blood for more than three days will result in weakening Attributes. Consuming the blood of particularly powerful victims will grant a temporary boost to Attributes.
You may no longer have children, but you may turn a mortal into a Vampire (4th Generation) once per year. Cannot be used during the first year.
You no longer age and cannot die from natural causes but may still be killed.
You may select the Vampire Class.
[A new Skill has been acquired for investing 60 points into Dexterity.]
[A new Skill has been acquired for investing 80 points into Dexterity.]
[A new Skill has been acquired for investing 20 points into Charisma.]
[A new Skill has been acquired for investing 40 points into Charisma.]
//Dual Attack
//Type: Martial (General | Active)
//Stat: Dexterity
//Cooldown: 60 seconds
//Activating this will allow you to use the next Damage-dealing Martial skill twice in quick succession regardless of its cooldown time.
//Double Jump
//Type: Martial (General | Passive)
//Stat: Dexterity
//Somehow, you’re now dexterous enough to perform a double jump by jumping after having already jumped before landing.
//Self-Motivation
//Type: Magic (General | Active | Scaling)
//Stat: Charisma
//Cost: 10 MP
//Cooldown: 60 seconds
//Inspire yourself to increase the Critical Chance of your next Skill by 10%.
//Partygoer
//Type: Magic (General | Passive)
//Stat: Charisma
//Your presence encourages everyone in the party, increasing the highest Attribute of each other party member by 5%.
That… was a lot of text to read right after waking up.
But it was all related to Custom Dungeon World, so it could have been a thousand times longer than that and I would have gladly read every last word three times over.
I wasn’t some filthy plebian who skimmed or skipped any text no matter what.
Though, story skippers, and people who skipped over dialogue and worldbuilding only to then complain about not understanding things, were the absolute worst.
Anyways, most of that was new.
In the game, becoming a vampire was mostly flavor text.
Yeah, there was the health regeneration boost, but that was only meaningful at the beginning of the game.
The real reason to become a vampire was to become the Vampire class.
Becoming a vampire was seen as nothing more than pointless flavor text otherwise.
There weren’t any stat boosts which made me feel like…
either Seth knew I was going to become a vampire and decided to buff me, or…
he wanted vampires to be even more of a threat than they were in the game.
Getting to turn others into a vampire was a thing as well, but that was mainly just to justify letting any other character choose the Vampire class. There also definitely wasn’t a once-per-year limit on it.
And what was that about boosting stats by consuming the blood of powerful victims? That sounded like something that could be pretty important and wasn’t in the game.
I was excited to investigate the conditions for that.
But the most possibly overpowered thing there was that insane stat boost when exposed to moonlight.
Every attribute got 25% stronger when in moonlight.
That was an insane buff that didn’t exist in the game.
If that existed, then nobody would have ever chosen to not become a vampire.
Sure, most dungeons were still indoors, and the dungeons that took place outdoors were almost always explored during the day, but that was still a huge buff in the appropriate conditions.
It made me worried, though.