Chapter 34 – Hard to See Dangers Even with Night Vision v2 (1/2)

You know, if you don't love yourself for who you are, it's difficult for others to love you as well”

”...”

Just as I pushed the door open, Philia gave me those parting words. But after a slight pause, I simply left the orphanage, put my hat on and pulled my hood back up.

I wasn't quite sure what prompted such words from her, but I packed them to the back of my mind. Maybe I'd figure out what she meant by them later on.

The sounds of surprise and excitement reached my ears through the orphanage's walls, but rather than investigate, I simply increased the space between myself and it. While I was proud of what I had done, I didn't want to deal with the fallout.

My feet speedily took me from the orphanage, and rather than head to the main street, I turned away from it and deeper into the narrow streets. Usually people would want to see the stores and main attractions of a city they visit, but the light of the sun had mostly faded already. No such thing would still be open, and I had to find a way to kill quite a few hours until they were.

Most people would say that it was risky and stupid, but conversely, when it became so dark that most normal people would have trouble seeing anything, even most criminals would be asleep. At least, that was my presumption. It was still bright enough for me to see everything without issue, so all I could do was imagine how hard it was for the other races to see things.

Also, my presumption might've been vastly wrong, and even in this supposed oppressive darkness I was forced to imagine, they were still operating at full and I was an idiot for presuming otherwise.

If that was the case, then I would have to rely on my skills and stats, but unlike Earth, things like skills and stats were a part of your own abilities, so it was foolish to not rely on them.

I wandered around aimlessly, occasionally throwing a mana treat around or playing with the little fluffballs as they energetically flew around.

The cityscape quickly became pretty boring to look at. While the architecture was pretty different from what I was used to, seeing one wooden framed, stone and plaster walled building after the next lost it's appeal despite the small differences between each.

It wasn't like the city was that big either. My own that I grew up in had tens of millions of inhabitants. While most of it wasn't as dense as this city, some of the older parts were, and this city didn't have amazing marvels such as sky scrapers or street after street of brightly lit LED and neon lights. Though if I saw such a thing here, the sight would make me pause for a different reason.

My mind instead drifted back to a few days ago. I had preserved Alicia's soul and data inside of me. Checking the storage tank of [Soul Siphon] confirmed that there were no obvious issues as well. Her [Memory] and [Core] seemed fine, and were active, though at a reduce pace than before I extracted her from her body. If there was any deterioration to her, I couldn't tell.

But even if she was perfectly preserved, I didn't want to keep her locked up inside of me longer than I had to. If there was a way for me to give her life again, I wanted to do that as soon as I could.

Thinking about it, I had essentially three ways to do it. The first was to put her inside of a new body. Whether that was the body of someone who had already died, but with a repairable body, or the body of a non-living thing.

I didn't really like that idea, and as if to reinforce that thought, my chest felt cold, like I was physically rejecting it.

That would be a last resort. No matter what, I'd try everything else before that. The cold, heavy feeling took it's time to go away, but eventually it did.

Second, was the option of creating a brand new body for her. This was the ideal, but most likely the hardest. If possible, I preferred making her body the same as her old one, aside from maybe fixing her blindness. The thought that it would be like having her back whole made my chest feel warm and naturally brought a smile to my face. But a problem quickly came to me: I had cremated her body. There wasn't anything left to use as a base. That said, her new body didn't have the be the same as her old one.

But all I knew about making new bodies was from the little bits of scrap about the cloned sheep I had heard on the news years ago along with random bits from sci-fi movies. It wasn't even enough to use as a starting point. The alternative was to create a homunculus like in fantasy stories, but I had even less of an idea how to do that, as it wasn't based on anything in reality, and any technique of that sort that worked here would be something entirely original.

I wouldn't be able to start working on this without getting some more information first.

The third option was one I was a bit hesitant on, but less so than the first. That was to find a way for Alicia regain consciousness without the normal definition of a body. Whether that was straight up as is, or maybe with an artificially made incorporeal body like a spirit. In theory, I might have been able to get it to work with nothing but just creating a new skill, but it wasn't a real revival. Despite my personal reservations, my chest felt warm at the though.

(Maybe I'm not as against the idea as I originally thought?)

It was possible that my reservations on this idea wasn't as strong as I was making them out to be, and emotionally I was fully fine with it. It wouldn't have been a true revival, but Alicia would be able to interact with the world again, and maybe even quickly. Not only that, but I wouldn't have to encroach on potentially taboo subjects.

”Hey missy, you lost?”

(Should I prioritize on this one? It'll probably be faster than the second option and it's still much nicer than the first)

”Or, maybe you wanna have some fun?”

(But she wouldn't have a physical body. Would Alicia be happy with that?)

”Hey! I'm talking to you!”

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my arm and pushed me against a stone wall, disorienting me for a moment.

Two men were standing in front of me. From their outfits, they were obviously thugs. It looked like my presumption that even criminals wouldn't work when it was so dark was completely off.

(Or maybe it's just not as dark as I thought? Having such good natural night vision has it's own pitfalls)

”Hey! Are you deaf, or just plain stupid?”

Bang!

”!!!”

The man holding my arm closed in on me, slamming his other hand onto the wall beside my head.

(He's huge!)

Distracted by my own thoughts, I didn't realize just how big these two men were until one of them towered over me. I was standing with my back straight, yet I was forced to look almost straight up to see his face even though he was leaning down so he could see my face.

”Heh, now we've finally got a response. So missy, maybe you were wandering around here looking for company?”

”Ah, no. I'm fine. I've already got company”

”Oh? Well, I don't see any. Maybe they ran off and left you all alone?”

(They probably won't believe me if I mention that the fluffballs are here and looking angry)

”Ah, umm, no. I'm really fine...”

”Oh, of course you're fine now, since we're here. How about you come back to our place and spend the night? It's already dark, so it'll be hard to find your way back”

The two men further invaded my personal space. I wanted out. I wanted out really bad.

”Ah, umm...I...”

It may have been the first time someone had been so aggressive with me in this way, but I recognized it. Despite such an event not being possible in my previous life, it wasn't like I couldn't recognize this sort of thing from this angle.

He put his arm on my shoulder. The oppressive feeling the two gave off intensified. The nervousness I was feeling grew stronger, more primal.

Rather, it felt like it was threatening to turn into something else.

I didn't like this. I didn't like it at all.

Tension filled my body as the thugs' actions left me incredibly agitated.

Raising my hands to my chest, I briefly considered just shoving the two away. Only briefly, as the thought of what might came next stopped me whole. Yet my instincts were screaming at me to do something.

Fight or flight. To pick one and go at it.

And my long experiences in the dungeon was pushing me towards the former. But if I did that, I could already see the blood and pulped flesh on the walls while I was forced to hold back my hunger as the scent of fresh blood stimulated it to no end.

But for the first time I was finally around people. A lot of people. I even had some that were depending on me. And unlike before, if I were to accidentally kill them, or even worse, someone managed to make the connection that I was a vampire. And then the orphanage were suspected of being connected to me...

They couldn't resist, they couldn't run. If I did something, there was a chance that they'd suffer the consequences.

As I came to realize that, my brain managed to make the synaptic connections and it became obvious that if I let my instincts loose, things would turn out bad.

No matter how things went, there was little doubt that things would go badly for these two, but it was likely that things wouldn't end there and the damage would go further, both physically and temporally.

I was stuck. The urge to force my way out was starting to win over my ability to find a peaceful way out. The fact that the end of that road was filled with blood, potentially the blood of many if things went really badly was growing less and less important compared to the desire to use brute force.

But quickly, a blue light entered my vision. Then a green one, and a yellow one. A whole bunch of soft, glowing lights circled around my legs. The spirits that were following me were trying to encourage me.

As I raised my face, I could see more spirits trying to ram the two men in anger. Of course they were simply passing right through, but the very sight of their defiance helped to clear my mind. My chest warmed up and I was able to gather my thoughts.

”I'm fine!”

I stood my ground and glared back at the first man in the eyes.

”Huh? What the hell are you talking about? It's too late for that now.”

”In fact, you'll get a slice of heaven if you come with us.”

Goosebumps crawled up my arms and down my back.

”I'm not interested”

”You ain't got no choice!”

I generated a ball of compressed air between us, careful to avoid it from being too powerful. Then I released it, allowing the air to expand naturally. The winds that ensued from the rapidly released ball knocked the two men around, the closest being sent two meters away and falling onto his butt while the other barely managed to regain his balance after a few steps.

As I feared, the spell had a greater effect than I wanted, but it was too late to worry about that.

”Now you've done it!”

The still standing man tried to grab for me, but his movements were slow. Incredibly slow now that I was properly focusing my attention. I had no trouble whatsoever to simply weave in between his outstretched hands and get to his backs.

The other man had hardly even started to get back to his feet by this time.

I turned and ran at a moderate pace, slow for my perception, but still way faster than those thugs. I quickly made the first turn and activated [Spirit Form] before stopping my feet halfway down the street. Turning around, I saw both men looking all around with puzzled expressions. Before long, they turned and left, leaving me alone with the little spirits in the narrow street.

Now that they were gone, I sat down beside a wall and pulled my legs in and wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my head on them.

I let out the breath I hadn't realized I had been holding.

(I was so stupid...)

As I buried my face into my knees, I reaffirmed the thought that having high levels and stats didn't mean immunity. In fact, they could make things even more difficult. If I had put in too much power into that air ball, those men could have died. If there were any witnesses, I'd be a wanted person.

I came to realize I wasn't prepared. I simply wasn't prepared to handle these sorts of trouble.

It was naive of me to not even consider these sorts of trouble. But I had very little knowledge about these sorts of things, so I could only worry about them happening again. Fiction only prepares you so far. Not everything goes as planned.

Expecting the unexpected is just a child's dream after all.

As I huddled by myself next to the wall, something soft and warm touched my cheek.

I raised my head and saw the fluffballs all surrounding me in worry, then one by one, they rubbed their bodies against mine. Their soft bodies were each a little different. Some were warm, some were especially soft, some were cool, some felt weighty and others were almost imperceptible. There were even ones that felt hot against my skin like scalding water, but I didn't let that sensation bother me. I could feel all their intentions, and something that little wasn't enough to detract from how my chest was feeling all warm.

”Thanks you guys. What would I do without you?”

I smiled and produced tons of mana treats, throwing them up into the air. Each of the little spirits rushed out to catch them before coming back to join the huddling.

We stayed like this until the sky started to light up again with the sun.

As the sky above lit up, I finally rose to my feet. Taking out my brush, I fixed my hair and clothes then undid [Spirit Form] after confirming that there weren't any presences that could see me aside from the little fluffballs.

I quickly made my way back through to the main street. What greeted me was the sound of morning commerce. Wagons being pulled through the streets by horses or other large animals, stores opening up and welcoming customers, people exiting the narrow side streets forming a slow trickle making their way to whatever business they had.

Even though the sun wasn't visible over the tall walls surrounding me, people had already long woken up and were on their way through the day.

Looking at the gradient of the sky, it looked like I came out on the north/south main street. A quick glance confirmed that the central plaza was towards my left, suggesting that I was on the southern side of the city.