4. Wake up you useless woman, we have items to obtain, knowledge to gain, and people to slay!

‘What is wrong with me?’

Damien casually glanced at the pale-faced woman on the cold bathroom floor, two small holes dribbled with scarlet blood that flowed down her exposed neck, forming a small pool on the white tiled floor. She was taking small and shallow breaths, her face was so pale that Damien was genuinely surprised she was still alive.

‘After healing my hand, I felt hungry again, and when she leaned over to replace the bathwater… this happened.’

“The primal urges of this vampire body and the traits hard-coded into this body's DNA is no joke…”

Damien ran his finger along his inch-long fangs that were still dripping blood while pondering his new body's desires.

‘I have the old Damien's memories, traits, impulses, and fears. Instead of taking the body over, it's almost like my memories were transplanted and merged with the old Damien. I feel like I'm a vampire and that I have lived in this world this entire time. This body feels even more comfortable than my previous one.’

“Right, let's go over the death flags…” Damien sighed while enjoying the feeling of the fresh bathwater.

In my first playthrough I died on the second day in my sleep, murdered with a silver-coated weapon by this woman over here… so just kill her right?

Oh boy, I was wrong with that idea. In the second playthrough, I killed her the second the game started. This time I made it to day three before my body became incredibly weak, and I could barely move.

Since it was just a game, I couldn’t feel the hunger that my character felt. But from the multiple debuffs like [Hungry] [Fatigued] [Blood Deficiency] I could tell I needed to feed on blood.

But where to obtain blood when my blood slave had been brutally killed a few nights ago? Damien has almost no money at that point in the game, so buying a high-quality slave was impossible.

I tried buying some cheap beastman slaves in the second playthrough, but they barely decreased the vampire's hunger. As it was just a game I assumed beastman blood was lacking mana or something, but now that I inhabit this body the very idea of drinking blood from those filthy creatures makes me want to gag.

It's like instead of drinking fresh cow's milk which would be the blood from a virgin human female, a beastman's blood would be like rotting milk and eggs mixed together into some cursed soup.

I know since the old Damien had drunk the blood of a random beastman while travelling to this city to sate his endless hunger. Just the memory makes me shudder.

Anyways, in the second playthrough, Damien didn’t seem to like the taste of beastman blood, so I was forced to kidnap random women from the street to feed as human female slaves are way too expensive.

Everything was fine for another week, that was until the city guard became alert after many human females went missing. People go missing all the time in medieval times, but when a specific group was going missing every day for a week straight, that raised some alarm amongst the populace, and people started to spread rumors that the nobles of the city were capturing female commoners to have fun with.

After another week, the commoners rallied together and forced the city guard to commence a search of the nobles' estates. Let's just say when the guards entered a house that was supposed to be owned by a Baroness but instead found a vampire with many women tied up in the basement, blood dripping from their delicate necks, and many headless corpses scattered around… it was not the best look.

Now this country is called Kassinki and is ruled over by the Greentail family. The current king Edward Greentail is a big advocate of anti-discrimination and has both a human and elf wife.

Are vampires included in this? Not really… if someone knew I was a vampire I wouldn't be killed on sight, but everyone would avoid me like the plague, so it's best to keep it a secret.

Let's just say no amount of anti-discrimination was going to save me when I was literally caught red-handed… blood was dripping from my fangs, after all…

I was immediately arrested, dragged to the city square, and publicly executed with a silver-coated sword by Edward Greentail himself.

So if I don’t kill the girl I get murdered in my sleep, if I do kill the girl I have no way to satisfy my vampire urges and I either starve to death or get killed by the city guard.

Fight back against the guard? Not a chance. I tried before with other characters, but just like the guards in Skyrim, they are stupidly over-leveled for no reason.

Despite this being a rather small country on the edge of the continent and considered a ‘starting’ zone, the guards all have at least one skill like [Swordsmanship] at [C] grade or higher.

Damien already sold all the items that were left in the mansion to bribe the dean of the university to get him a job. Why?

Well to answer that question we have to talk about the third playthrough. This time I locked Fay in a cage and only fed her and let her out under my supervision. This way I had food and never got hunted down by the city guards. Perfect!

This time I survived a full 2 months into the game. But Damien has one massive death flag always looming over his head.

Nightshade isn't any normal family name, he's a [Noble Vampire] for a reason. Damien Nightshade is the 3rd in line for the throne of the Vampires, and let's just say his brother who is first in line for the throne sees his existence as an eyesore.

Why allow his little brother to gather influence when he can just kill him now when nobody cares? Damien is seen as a worthless Prince by the population, he would have already died if he didn’t escape to the human realm. Therefore, in the third playthrough, I was assassinated in this very room by the first Prince’s men. In the fight, I used my [Pyrokinesis] and managed to kill one of the 5 assassins, but since I only managed to upgrade it to [D] rank, I could only do this much. At the cost of my entire arm too! I tried to use [Pyrokinesis] with my other arm but my aim was horrible and just burned part of the wall. With both arms hanging at my sides as charred messes, I was rather defenseless and was quickly beheaded with silver-coated daggers.

Damien knew of this threat and decided the only place with enough security was the mage tower inside the university. If he could get the position of head professor, he would get his own bedroom and office inside the tower. The security of the tower was almost perfect, as it contained many state secrets and important figures to national security.

But due to Damien's poor credentials and teaching ability, he was never promoted and had to stay off-campus, ultimately leading to his death.

While deep in thought, Damien had been manipulating the pocket watch in midair with Psychokinesis [D] when suddenly he felt a change wash over him. His control over the watch increased, and he felt it was far easier to command it.

“What happened?”

Damien beckoned the watch to fly closer, and he inspected it all over, “It's the exact same… how can it feel lighter all of a sudden?”

He snapped it open and looked in the mirror

Psychokinesis [D] → [C]

Damien snapped the pocket watch shut and with newfound motivation, he quickly rose from the bath and kicked the women on the floor.

“Wake up you useless woman, we have items to obtain, knowledge to gain, and people to slay! Also, I have no idea how to wear these fancy clothes! Dress me already!”

“W-what?” The barely conscious woman stuttered while trying to stand with shaky legs. Why was her master so aggressive with everything today? Usually, he just slept the days away and occasionally woke up to feed.

Damien smiled, his situation might be a bit fucked up, but that just makes it all the more interesting, right?