Chapter 03 – The Nature of Things (1/2)
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: NormalLevel: 2XP: 8/12
HP: 32/32MP: 20/20STR: 6CON: 9AGI: 12DEX: 11INT: 10ANI: 8
Skills:Default Skills:Local LanguageRacial Skills:Blood Sucking 1 (Vampire)Natural Weapons 1 (Vampire)Breeding 1Primary 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.