Chapter 124 – Midnight Snack (1/2)

A little while after I cleared things up with Orphne, she ended up leaving after touching my belly a bit more.

The way she did it was quite cute, little a child touching her mother's belly checking for the baby inside.

I was able to finish my work without any further interruptions. Well, outside interruptions. I caught myself touching my belly more than once while working.

I confirmed the materials I had requested were properly stored in boxes for delivery and the request forms stuck on top. A casual survey confirmed that everything was accounted for and properly signed. Taking the boxes and putting them into my bag, I signed the receipt for each and handed them to the night watch sitting bored behind the guild's counter.

Once I waved goodbye to the last few subordinates still at the guild, I went to go back home.

But before I could do that, there was a small gathering in front of the guild building. Quite a few fairies had come together, many were drinking and enjoying various treats.

”Oh! Scarlet! I had heard the news from Orphne!”

The first one to notice me exiting the building was Aurae.

”Heard what?”

”The baby! I was not even aware vampires could even have babies! It is such wonderful news!”

The other fairies gathered around me once they heard the elder fairy's words and gave me their own congratulations.

Looking closer, all of the fairies around were ones I had known to some degree or another. Aurae, some of the other elders, Orphne was there along with her subordinates, Anthousai, and many others I had interacted with over the course of the last few months.

”Can, can I touch it?”

”Sure.”

As expected, Aurae asked the same thing Orphne asked when she first found out.

”This is incredible! You are having six babies then?”

(Is every fairy going to make that joke?)

”No, just one. You're feeling my abs. The baby bump isn't big enough to be felt yet.”

”Oooh. I see. Even still, this is quite the joyous occasion!”

”It is! It is!”

”Yea! Yea!”

The other fairies made quite the noise expressing how happily they took the news. It was to the degree that a few people came to have a look, but ended up returning to their original business once they realized it was the fairies responsible for it all.

Two or three at a time, they fluttered over to feel for the baby. Even when we all knew that it wasn't possible yet, they still wanted to try it for themselves. And I couldn't stop them. Most likely, a part of me was hoping that one of them might notice something which all the rest of us had missed. That they could tell me what I needed to do to feel the bump for myself.

But of course, the embryo had barely been implanted. I knew in my head that there was no way there would be a detectable bump for at least two or three months.

That was true. It was entirely true. But just because it was true and that there was no chance that any of them would detect a bump, the warm feeling of them trying wouldn't stop coming. So I let the fairies keep coming.

”Do you think it's fine for me to keep having long baths like this?”

”I don't know Master.”

Claret looked up at me as she was lean into my chest while we enjoyed our nightly soaks in the bath.

To be frank, I had no idea what sort of things were good or bad for Alicia's new body.

The fairies didn't really know, as they seemed to deal with pregnancies amongst themselves without much thought. I needed to talk to someone who knew more.

”Well, I guess it's better safe than sorry for now.”

We had already been soaking for a little while as I relaxed before the thought came to me, so I should endeavour to be more careful from here on. At least until I got a proper okay from someone who knew better.

Getting out of the bath, I quickly dried myself and got dressed in my usual attire before heading to the fountain.

”Let's go get something to eat.”

”Yes Master!”

Putting a hand onto my shoulder, my ever loyal companion teleported along with me to the hundred first floor fountain room. Now in a dusty room with nothing but footprints on the floor, we headed off to the dungeon proper to see what the next floor was like while I hoped that the inhabitants were the sort to provide some delicious blood.

The floor itself was a mountain type. The entrance of the floor had a rocky path that climbed up a craggy mountain with high walls on either side, like a valley carved in the face of the cliff side. Even from here I could see how the path meandered around, split and joined, and even disappeared. If experience from similar floors were telling, then those terminated as dead ends or caverns which lead to other points along the way.

As floors like this tended to use the all sides of the mountain surface, even being able to see a bit of the path ahead meant very little, and the distance made it almost impossible to distinguish the rock face from a path wedged in the crevice of a rock formation higher up.

Giving up on any attempt at trying to figure the path out, I took off, eager to see what sort of food I could find on this floor. Floors like this tended to be pretty good when it came to good prey, but they also had a decent chance of harbouring golems. It would be annoying if that was all I could find, but hopefully that wasn't the case.

Probably the two most annoying things about floors like this was the constant positive grade of the slope the path took along with the narrowness of the fighting space.

The rocky path, while reasonably smooth and mostly free of large debris, was only as wide as three people with their arms apart. It might sound like it's actually pretty wide, but it was hardly any better than a cave and floors like this tended to have larger monsters, making the space more of an enemy than a friend for agility style fighters like myself.

And the skies wasn't my friend here either.

When I looked up at the painfully blue ceiling, it was easy to see all those winged creatures that soared above. If I tried to get above the outer wall to either skip parts of the path or to avoid a monster's attack, I'd probably be mobbed by those things above.

That was a risk I absolutely didn't want to take.

(Especially right now.)

My hand casually touched my belly once again.

Somehow, now that I was certain of a physical part where Alicia's soul now resided, the fear of injury had somehow grown.

Before getting injured really wasn't too big of a deal. At worst it was a loss of combat capability for a short while. Actually, the worst was the fact that Alicia was forced to experience pain.

But now, Alicia wasn't likely to experience any pain until she was born, which all signs suggesting that she was asleep and would stay that way for the time being. On the other hand, if I was injured in the wrong way, she would die.

Alicia in her current state was entirely helpless.

The fact that I was here on this floor was already a bit risky, with the monsters being mostly unknowns so far.

(If what shows up turns out to be bad news, I'm gonna run for it.)

Having highly nutritious meals was important for Alicia's proper growth, but if it was at the risk of her life, it wouldn't be worth it in the slightest.

But as long as the monsters here wasn't too bad, it would be worth using this as my new farming spot. Good meals and a decent level meant that I would be killing two birds with one stone. Levelling up in the end was still something important, and going most of a year without doing that was just plain a bad idea.

Even worse, once Alicia was born, it was likely that it would be very difficult to make time to gain any more levels until she becomes capable of at least avoiding enemy attacks.

(Or just not needing to stay by my side all the time, actually.)

As things stood, staying away from Alicia to clear dungeon floors wouldn't be an option until she could feed without my help, or at least go for a significant amount of time without feeding.

(So basically no levelling until her teeth grow in huh? Isn't that like a year or something? It's not two, is it?)

For that matter, I had no idea how long human babies took before they could survive on solid food, or even just mushy baby food. And even if I knew that, there was no telling the same applied to vampires.

The fact that I spawned as an adult was really causing some unexpected problems. If I at least had parents, I could ask them. Or at least rely on the memories of my early life in this world.

(Well, as long as nothing bad happens before then. Hopefully there won't be any major problems for a few more years. Then I could...)

”Master!”

”Wha...?!”

Suddenly there was a strong tug on my neck, causing me to lose my balance as my body was pulled backwards quite violently.

But before I could complain about the rough treatment, there was a sudden burst of light and heat across my face as a stream of flames ran past my eyes.

I hit the ground with my favourite familiar using her own body as a cushion, but I was hardly in a situation to worry about that. Looking down between my huge valley, there was a huge reptile with dark red scales taking up most of the valley beyond.

The body was similar to a most typical household lizards, except it had a bit of a long neck and narrow head, ending in a sharp, pointed mouth. Aside from its size, the other unique feature of the overgrown lizard was the fact that it had a pair of wings on its back, held open but pointed downwards. Most likely it was some sort of threatening posture, like a cat curling its spine to make itself look bigger.

I checked my lower left corner of my vision, but there wasn't anything there but rough stone in the shade.

(Damnit!)

It was my first battle since Alicia went to sleep and I messed things up twice already.

I pushed off the ground and rolled to the side before slamming my palm into the rock to lift my body up to my feet again. The monster took a step towards me, its attention focused on me rather than Claret who was on the ground, and probably mostly invisible to the creature at this point.

The monster took in a large breath and opened its jaws wide, as if it wanted to show off its shiny white rows of sharp teeth.

I kicked off the ground, creating even more distance between Claret and myself right as, together with a loud roar, another burst of flames rushed past, as if a carbon copy of those world war flame throwers.

The blast only lasted a second, but it was clear how much power was behind the bright yellow flames.

Without slowing down, I rushed towards the creature, throwing up a large ball of ice towards it, obscuring my figure behind it. From the edge of the projectile I could see the reptile raise a claw, and in an instant the flying iceberg was sliced into four pieces.

But I never expected the attack to do any real damage in the first place, so with a snap of my fingers, the still cold fragments of ice exploded, engulfing the monster in a chilly mist. Thanks to the mist being especially dense, I could no longer see my target, but that didn't matter.

I fired off a wide spray of water from one hand while a super cooled gale soared from the other. The water instantly froze and became sharp fragments of hail that bombarded the overgrown lizard, breaking up and some of it clinging to the crevices between its scales.

A burst of flames shot out as I circled around the monster, but it quickly stopped, much faster than before.

I continued to let out the relentless barrage like some sort of insane snow machine until the surrounding ground was covered in a fine layer of sleet and the air above was filled with diamond dust.

Feeling out the reptilian monster with my aura, I roughly gauged its shape within the still persistent icy haze. Its movements had dramatically slowed, though I wasn't sure if it was because the creature was cold blooded or because it the temperature drop simply made it difficult for anything to move in general.

But that didn't matter to me. I was easily able to pinpoint its head and I leaped up into the air.

With my claws extended, I jabbed all of them into the monster's ribs in between its shoulder blades.

The lizard roared out in pain, but instead of relenting, I closed my fingers, causing the claws made from my own mana to cut through more flesh and more securely hold me in place.

The creature reared its body and shook its shoulders, swinging its wings wildly as it tried to dislodge me. Of course such weak and slow attempts at bucking me off didn't stand a chance at working if I didn't allow it to.

Instead, I moved even closer until I sank my fangs into its neck.

The rich taste of dark chocolate and chili peppers filled my mouth as I closed my eyes in bliss. The sweet bitterness and spice of the two separate tastes melded so incredibly well in my mouth I almost moaned. But if I did, then the rich flavour of this blood would stop, so I held on the best I could until the taste ended on its own.

I was reluctant, but had no choice but to let go. No matter how much I tried to suck, nothing else came from the monster.