Chapter 3: The Nature Of Things
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: Normal
Level: 2
XP: 8/12
HP: 32/32
MP: 20/20
STR: 6
CON: 9
AGI: 12
DEX: 11
INT: 10
ANI: 8
Skills:
Default Skills:
Local Language
Racial Skills:
Blood Sucking 1 (Vampire)
Natural Weapons 1 (Vampire)
Breeding 1
Primary 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.
The unsteady reflection made it hard to see clearly, but she looked like she'd grow up to become a top-tier woman.
If I met her in my previous life, I wouldn't have hesitated to tap that ass.
That's a lie. If I had actually met her and she tried to talk to me, I would've been completely intimidated by her. Not only were her eyes pretty striking, but the thought of interacting with a girl who was leagues out of my range would've instead made me break out in a cold sweat.
And that girl was now me.
I was never a popular guy in my last life, rather I was mostly a loner in general. I had no idea how to act with a face like then when the time came to actually talk to someone in this world.
Frankly, the thought alone was a bit scary.
I shook my head.
There was no point in worrying about something that might not crop up in a while.
I pulled back a lock of hair that fell into the water when my fingers touched my ear, but the shape wasn't familiar. It was pointed, like an elf's from fantasy tropes, but it wasn't too long. The point only stuck a couple of centimetres further than human ears.
Vampires often had pointed ears like this, but a lot of the time their stories were on Earth, so it had nothing to do with any other species. It made me wonder how they compared the elves of this world however. Would people who saw them think I was an elf? Or maybe a half-elf? Were halves even possible? If such a thing was on the species list, I didn't see it. but the list was insanely long, so I could've easily just missed the entry.
Turning my mind back to present matters, I tried drinking some of the water. Despite being cool, it tasted extremely stale to me and difficult to swallow. It made me pretty sure that vampires didn't need to drink water. Blood was probably enough hydration.
Finally, I got down and sunk my body into the river.
The cold water ran over my skin, but the feeling of it taking away the dirt and oil from my skin as I wiped my body with my hands was invigorating.
I paid acute attention to every little unfamiliar curve of my new body as I explored it for the first time while I washed. It was ironic that the first woman I got to intimately touch in years ended up being my own body.
Taking my time, I made sure to remove every trace of the muck from those goblins off of my body.
When I was done, I lay on the riverbed, enjoying the feeling of the water flowing over my skin.
I didn't notice it before, now that I was paying attention to it, my skin felt more sensitive. While I wiped my body, I could feel every detail of my fingers on my body, and now I could feel the tiny whirlpools of water as the river flow broke against it. I wondered if it was because it was a new body, or it had something to do with being a vampire, or if it was something else.
Not like it mattered. It was a nice feeling.
After a few minutes of rest, I got back up and wiped the excess water off of my body.
Strangely, while my body had chilled a little, I didn't feel particularly cold. Was the water warmer than I thought, or did it have to do with my new race?
Packing that thought to the back of my mind, I went over and grabbed the pelt and loincloths I was carrying around and dumped them into the river water to wash.
Almost immediately a black haze drifted from the scraps of leather I got from the goblins and flowed away with the water.
I hoped that it was just dirt, not something dangerous for anyone who decided to drink down river.
Taking my mind off of my unfounded worry, I thoroughly washed the rabbit pelt. No matter what I did though, the inside stayed wet and sticky, and pieces continued to peel off. It was feeling like a lot of work I didn't know about was still left to be done if I was to actually use it.
Next I started on the dirty leather left by the goblins. These were a much bigger ordeal, but it was still in the realm of my knowledge.
I rubbed the black sheets against each other and against the sand in the river bed, and plumes of black fog erupted and were washed down. The sight was a bit unnerving, but I took it as proof that the leather was getting clean.
After what felt like hours, but was most likely less than 30 minutes, all four loincloths had become a light brown colour. With a careful sniff, I confirmed that almost none of the stink remained.
Happy with the result, I tossed all the clean hides to the side and I scrubbed my hands with the sand on the riverbed, removing all trace of that goblin stink.
Once I was finally finished that too, I sat down under a tree beside the river to rest. My hands were red and my arms sore. Even my back hurt, after being hunched over for so long. But at the very least, the looted leather was now in a usable form. It wasn't ideal, but I didn't have to worry about getting some sort of strange infection from them anymore.
I leaned back against the tree and looked up at the sky.
For some reason, it had started to grow even brighter than before. The sky to the east had grown to a bright red.
(Was there a fourth sun in this world?)
It was the only explanation I could think of, and frankly, it wouldn't have surprised me.
As the sky grew brighter, rays from the fourth sun started to peak through the breaks in the canopy. The river was quickly engulfed with light so bright it reminded me of when I'd focus sunlight with a magnifying glass to make a newspaper catch fire.
It was a bit difficult to look at, even when squinting, so I turned my head away while I waited for my eyes to adjust.
What greeted my sight were more points of bright lights that fell through the smaller gaps between the leaves as they slowly moved while the sun rose.
As one such point slowly made it's way closer to me, I amused myself with the image of a giant with a magnifying glass trying to burn things using the sunlight.
But against my expectation, a sudden pain flared on my arm!
It was like someone was scraping the point of a red hot iron rod against my skin!
It wasn't just the feeling, but I could smell the scent of burning meat as well!
In a panic, I roll over and get away from the spot I was at, and hid my body on the other side of the tree I was leaning against.
I looked at my arm, trying to figure out what just happened.
To my surprise, my right arm and a part of my torso was had black burn marks on it, complete with smoke rising from it. The shape was like if someone unsteadily tried to draw a line across the side of my body.
I thought I was attacked, but the burn marks looked drastically different from any sort of attack that I could've come against, unless if someone tried to use a laser against me.
The thought was stupid, as everything so far suggested that this world was most likely more primitive compared to Earth. At the very least, goblins wielding stone weapons most likely wouldn't exist if the technology to create a portable laser weapon existed.
I tried to wrap my my mind around what happened when I noticed that there were quite a lot of those bright spots moving around in the forest.
They weren't as bright as the ones before, as my eyes had mostly gotten used to the light, but those spots were obviously just the light of the fourth sun passing through the gaps in the foliage.
But something suddenly felt off in my mind as I thought that.
(Why is the fourth sun so much brighter than the other three combined?)
It wasn't just that, but things that I just passed off as different because this wasn't Earth and was governed by rules that I didn't understand, might not have been as different as I thought.
It was weird to see stars in the sky during midday. It was weird that one sun would be so much brighter than three others. It was weird that I could stare at any sun without suffering from bright spots at the very least.
And, why could vampires walk around in broad daylight without any consequences?
The answer, they couldn't.
I made a fundamental presumption that was entirely wrong.
I arrived in this world, not during the day, but the night.
Vampires were creatures of the night, so it was a given that they'd have superior night vision compared to humans. It was a given that they'd primarily operate during the night and hide during the day like any other nocturnal creature. And, as with the common lore of vampires, it was given that their biggest weakness was sunlight.
My burns didn't come from someone with some sort of mysterious weapon out to take my life or something, it was the effect of being under direct sunlight.
Suddenly those bright spots moving around started to look much more threatening than they did mere seconds ago.
Here I was, under the flimsy and unpredictable shade of a forest, and dawn had come.
I didn't have a moment to lose.
Without any real options, I turned around and started to stab at the soil in between the roots of the tree I was hiding under with my claws. The canopy didn't offer reliable protection against the deadly sunlight, and if the wind blew, the movement of the rays would be completely beyond my ability to predict.
I needed solid cover, and the only thing that could give me that right now was the ground itself.
Not worrying about the fact that I was scraping away the skin on my hands, I desperately dug, flinging soil behind me.
My heart pounded in my chest more than it ever had. I could smell blood as my hands bled from the reckless digging, but rather than stimulate my appetite, all it did was remind me of my mortality.
Quickly, as fast as I could.
As the minutes passed on, as the brighter the surrounding world became, the more I was pressed into a corner, both figuratively and literally. I started to push my body into the small hole as I dug it. I was desperate for the small, tangible safety from the greatest threat to my life.
I didn't know how long it took. Possibly mere minutes, but it felt like hours. But I managed to dig a hole big enough to fit my entire body inside of awkwardly, lying on my back, my legs folded above me, I covered all but a small hole to both breathe through, as well as to see, even if the world outside was inverted from my position.
Even still, I was careful about it. The hole was small and level to the ground. But just in case sunlight poured through it unexpectedly, I held onto some loose dirt to fill it in, even if I risked suffocating because of it.
I bared my fangs as I glared at the world that was so bright it almost hurt my eyes.
(Damnit! How could you? How could you take away half the world from me?!)
Hate filled my heart as I stared at the moving bright spots created by my nemesis.
In my head, I understood that the hate and anger was completely unjustified, that it wasn't a malicious attack by someone out to get me or something. But emotionally, I couldn't accept it. I had known when I chose to become a vampire that I most likely wouldn't be able to walk around during the day. I knew, but I didn't realize how different it was to know when compared to understanding.
Now, squeezing my body into a tiny, dirty hole, the feelings that welled from within were as dark and dirty as the dirt around me. I couldn't accept the fact that I was being denied the daytime, even though almost all living creatures on Earth, including myself, were forced to give up between a third to half a day just to sleep.
Such logic couldn't temper my thoughts as I just stared and loathed.
The fact that my wounds wouldn't stop throbbing didn't help in the matter.
Chapter 4: Dungeon Discovery
No matter how terrible it was, the sun eventually went away.
On the other hand, I didn't manage to get a wink of sleep the entire time. The sun just continued to overbearingly pressure me the entire time.
Once I was sure that it was gone, I opened up the entrance to my dugout.
I poked my head out and looked left, right, and up, making sure there weren't any traces of the sun.
With a sigh of relief, I pulled myself out.
(So much for my bath. I immediately got covered in dirt and blood again)
I looked down at my hands. Just last night they looked so soft and smooth, but now they were ragged and bloody. If I didn't find a way to properly protect myself during the day, my maxed initial appearance settings were going to go down the drain.
(Gah, another thing to hate the sun for!)
Before I realized it, pain was shooting up from my hands, and I unclenched them.
The need to make progress had gotten much stronger, so I hurried to the river bank.
There, I found the things I left behind yesterday...most of it.
The rabbit pelt was gone.
It seemed like some animal took it since everything else was still there. While it was annoying, for me it was actually the least important bit.
Without further ado, I quickly rinsed myself in the river, then put in some work to modify the goblin loincloths.
Using my claws, I made some quick snips here and there and tied other parts together. What resulted was a leather bikini. The absolute most I could do with my skills and available materials.
It was pretty embarrassing to wear, but it was better than being naked. Barely.
Unfortunately the top did nothing to support me, and only acted as covering. If I was more skilled, I probably could've gotten a bit of support out of it, but the thought only lowered my mood even further.
There wasn't anything more I could do, so I picked up my weapons. Even just holding my weapons hurt my hands, but I grit my teeth and bore with it. While they weren't much, they did increase my survival chances. Bearing with the pain, I crossed the river, and continued towards the mountain I could occasionally see.
It didn't take long before I found a pair of goblins. One armed with a stone axe, the other a spear.
They were lazily walking together. It looked like they were sleepy, as one of them yawned.
My stomach started to complain to me that it was empty. I didn't have any reason to refuse it.
With that, I threw one of my spears at the pair and went into a mad dash, a spear in one hand, axe in the other.
The thrown spear didn't quite hit it's mark, but it did graze the spear wielding goblin, making it flinch long enough for me to close the gap and stab it through the eye with my second spear.
I let go of it and turned to the second goblin, who was still in the middle of recovering from it's surprise.
Without waiting for it, I closed the extra step in between us and swung down my axe, leaving a large gash through it's right shoulder.
It stumbled a step back as it lost it's balance, but I closed the difference in an instant, and without any hesitation, I bit into it's neck, loudly slurping it's blood. Once it was drained, I pounced on the first goblin and emptied it as well.
Only when there wasn't a drop left for me to drink did I come up for air again, and with the cool air entering my lungs, did my mind clear enough for me to think again.
Once again I had lost myself to my blood lust. It was definitely going to be difficult to handle, but absolutely necessary to be able fit into any society I find...unless if it's a vampire society.
As I reached out to pick up my weapons, I noticed that there wasn't any pain from my hands anymore.
I looked down, and realized that they had healed up completely. There wasn't any trace of the tears from the digging. I touched the skin on my palms and fingers and marvelled how they was just as perfect as when I first arrived in this world.
The only conclusion I could come up with was that drinking blood also healed me.
The fact wasn't too much of surprise, but how quickly I healed due to it was.
I also touched the burn marks on my arm, and while they were still there, it didn't hurt as much as before. A few more goblins and even that would disappear without a trace.
In terms of consolation, this was a pretty decent one, I thought. It made me wonder just how much I could heal this way, but I wasn't eager to do any experimenting.
With a bit of a skip in my step, I picked up a pair of spears and an axe, and continued on my way.
As I walked, I confirmed my status again.
I had gained another level, and learned the [Axe Technique] skill. All my stats had risen a little thanks to the level as well.
Some more good things to happen to me since coming here.
But that aside, I had noticed that the slope I was climbing had been growing a bit steeper. I hoped that it meant that I'd find a cave soon, as no shelter would be as good as that for me. If not, then I'd have to dig myself a hole again, though this time I knew to prepare it earlier.
A few more hours of climbing, and I had reached a dead end.
Rather, the ground grew more rocky and the slop had suddenly increased to the point where it wouldn't be called hiking, but rather something closer to rock climbing.
For a second, I considered climbing the steep slope to get a view of my surroundings when I noticed an odd feature on the mountainside. There was a break in a particularly rocky part of the cliff.
With my curiosity piqued, I tried having a look at the only distinct feature I could see.
The break revealed itself to be a small cave, just big enough for two people to comfortably walk side by side through.
I sniffed the air and listened carefully, but couldn't detect anything in particular. It seemed like the cave was vacant. If that was the case, it would make a perfect base for me.
A bit eager, I stepped inside, lightly tracing the walls with a finger. The stone was smooth and dry, though highly irregular. The cave itself wound back and forth lazily, but despite not being able to see outside anymore, I could still see just barely. There was a faint light from further in that provided just enough light for me to not walk into one of the walls.
Suddenly, the cave opened up into a large room.
It was an almost perfect dome about as big as half of a basketball court. The floor was even and flat, and the walls were smoothly carved from the rock face. The room was empty, save for a stone structure sitting off to one side.
It was an elegantly carved stone fountain. The circular rim had a nice, wavy pattern on the outside, and the flat lip was both high and wide enough to comfortably sit on. The water was clear, and it looked like it was properly drained through small holes at the water's edge on the rim. In the middle, there was a large, cylindrical pedestal. Water was shooting out of a ring of holes from the pedestal's sides, projecting outwards only a little and making a crisscrossing curtain of water that splashed down.
The waist high pedestal itself was large enough for an an adult to stand on comfortably, but was empty for some reason.
I leaned my weapons against a wall and brushed my hand against the fountain's edge. Quite a bit of dust had accumulated on it, suggesting that it hadn't been used in a long time.
It felt like a good place for me to make my base. It was a nice sized room that came with it's own water source. I didn't need it to drink, but it would be great to be able to not worry about water for cleaning and washing. Prey seemed to be plentiful outside, and best of all, the short but twisting corridor that lead to this room blocked the damnable sun. If I could make a sturdy door, then I didn't even have to worry about animals or monsters wandering in and attacking me.
That said, I wanted furniture. Or at least the equipment to make some furniture, like a bed, or a bed, but especially a bed.
I hadn't slept at all in the last two days.
(Huh?)
I chalked it up to the stress earlier, but now that I was more relaxed, I noticed that I wasn't feeling sleepy at all. I've been going on for more than 24 hours already, yet there wasn't a hint of being sleepy.
Did my body now work on a completely different circadian rhythm? Or was it simply just better able to deal with sleep deprivation that much better?
It was apparent that I had a ton to figure out about my new body.
I splashed the water from the fountain onto the rim and started to scrub all the dust off of it. Then I moved on and washed the pillar itself before cleaning myself.
When I climbed back onto the fountain ledge, I saw that the water had gotten cloudy. I hoped that I didn't mess the fountain up, and that it would be able to refresh the water on it's own.
Now that it was clean, I climbed on top of the pedestal, put my hands on my hips, thrust out my chest, and yelled in the best, deep and booming voice I could let out.
"Bow down pathetic mortals! For now, I.Am.Your.GOD!"
...
Despite my best efforts, the voice that bounced around the hard walls was still light and girly.
But even still, I didn't regret it in the slightest. A pedestal like that existed for someone to use to look down on others, even if I was the only person in the room.
Satisfied with my foolishness, I lay down on the fountain lip to rest a bit, but a surprising sight greeted me instead.
The ceiling was covered in little glowing dots, like it was trying to be a recreation of the stars outside.
I had forgotten, but it was strange that I could see in this room so clearly. Without that glowing ceiling, the cave should've been pitch dark after the first few bends, but instead was probably brighter than the outside.
This clinched it. This was going to be my new home for the foreseeable future. It would've been a shame for something this nice to be left abandoned.
After a short break, I noticed that there was another entrance on the other side of the fountain. Thinking about it, it was pretty obvious, but I had gotten completely distracted by the strange sight of a fountain inside of a cave.
Piqued, I tried exploring this path.
Just like the other path, the cave winded back and forth gently for a short while before light from the other side started to reach me. But unlike the first time, the light on this side was much brighter, making it difficult for me to see. I put a hand on one wall as I followed the path, blinded by the strong light.
Suddenly I stepped on what felt like grass. The cave floor was hard stone all the way through, so there was no way for grass to be growing anywhere.
The rock wall ended, but I took a few more steps, feeling out the grass.
My eyes finally adjusted to the brightness and I froze at the sight before me.
What greeted me was the sight of an open field. A giant plains that continued for as far as I could see, the ground covered in tall grass.
Somehow, I entered a mountain, and after walking less than 100 meters, I ended up outside again.
There was no way I had somehow gotten to the other side of the mountain so quickly, nor could it have been some sort of clearing hidden inside of the mountain or something.
I felt like I was having heart palpitations. My hands were shaking and I was hyperventilating.
This scene was absurd, and went straight beyond simply not adhering to my own brand of common sense.
This was wrong. So extremely wrong that I couldn't wrap my head around it.
I rotated my head skyward to give myself some breathing space, but instead something bright entered my eyes, forcing me to squint, right before my eyes almost shot out of their sockets.
Everything was pushed aside for a single emotion: terror.
Turning around, my feet took me back the way I came, faster than I could think. I didn't have time for that, nor the leeway.
I slammed into the cave wall, but it hardly did anything to slow me down, as I just dragged myself back to my feet and continued running, bouncing off the walls in the narrow hall like a pinball.
Soon, I ended up back in the fountain room.
Without a single thought, I dove into the fountain and hid my body behind the pedestal under the curtain of water.
I held my head in my shaking hands, tears running down my face as I desperately drew breath.
...
(How did I even get back?)
Once I had calmed down enough for my brain to reboot, the most obvious question struck me.
I had been standing under the sun for a good ten seconds before I freaked out and ran for the shade. If my previous experience proved, it took only a fraction of a second for my my skin to start incinerating like a paper airplane being shot down by a sci-fi plasma cannon.
I looked down at my hands and there weren't any burn marks on them. I stretched around and inspected my body the best I could without a mirror and couldn't find a single mar on my skin outside of the partially healed burns from the previous day.
Somehow, I had come out of that ordeal completely unharmed.
The very thought and inconsistency with my sole previous experience was so mind boggling that I thought my brain was starting to overheat as I tried to process it and simply dunk my head into the water in a desperate attempt to distract myself.
...
Once my lungs started to burn from the lack of oxygen, I surfaced and leaned against the fountain's pillar, too mentally tired to properly support my body as I tried to wrap my head around the situation.
Sunlight was deadly against vampires like me, just like in the stories. The effect was instantaneous, as I had experienced. But the sun in those plains had no effect on my body.
Either there was some sort of hidden factor that, combined with the sun, caused me to spontaneously combust, or that sun wasn't real.
It was then that I came to realize a suspicious point, and got up.
I'd been unnerved enough that I was shaking as I got out of the fountain, but if I'd regret it if I didn't check out the truth.
With unsteady steps, I made my way to the first entrance and slowly made my way outside with my body pressing against the wall. After a few gentle turns, I reached the end of the tunnel.
One glance was all it took for me to confirm it: it was still night. I could see the stars and three coloured objects in the sky, which were most likely moons, not suns. I reached out and let the light touch my skin directly to further confirm that I wasn't hallucinating or something.
Now that I had confirmed this, I went back into the cave, past the fountain, and reached the other side.
I was this time greeted by a vast, open plains. And on this side, it was day. It wasn't possible for me to have lost track of time to the degree that midnight had turned to midday in the less than hundred meters I had travelled just now.
With a shaking hand, I reached out to test the light on this side of the cave.
The tip of my claw grew light from the sun, but aside from that, nothing had happened.
But that wasn't enough proof. It was possible my claws were simply impervious to such an issue, so after I steadied my breath, I reached out a bit further, and let the light touch the tip of my finger. Then the first knuckle, and the second, then the palm of my hand.
I kept moving out further and further, before my entire body was bathing in the light of the sun, except that was impossible from my own experience.
If I was standing under sunlight without turning into ash, then the only possible answer was that I wasn't actually standing under the sun in the first place. The fact that just on the other side of the cave it was still night was proof of that. I hadn't somehow teleported to the other side of the world or something, but I was in a place that simply seemed like it was outside during the day, rather than actually be that.
A space that simulated an environment, that defied the physical limitations of location. A place perhaps bigger on the inside than the outside. In all sorts of games and stories, there was one that fit that description: the dungeon.
Especially in recent books, dungeons were a magical space that simulated various environments including outdoor ones. They endlessly spawned monsters and were either impervious to or automatically repaired any damage to the environment within. They also often automatically removed anything that wasn't alive if they weren't carried by something that was after a certain amount of time. On top of that, treasures of all sorts existed to be harvested from within. Their purposes varied from being something intentionally created by an intelligent force to draw people inside to spontaneously coming to existence as a physical phenomena that existed in the world.
There were a lot of rules I needed to figure out, but it was probably safe to assume that the fountain room was most likely a part of this dungeon. If this wasn't the only one in the world, then it was pretty likely that fountains existed at the beginning of every dungeon.
That being said, it was weird for there to be such a thing. A room that indicated the beginning of the dungeon wasn't too strange, but a fountain specifically was weird. Why water? Anything could've been used to greet people, and anyone who purposely came to a dungeon would've brought their own water source. It wasn't like the nearest river was that far in the first place.
I couldn't figure out the reason, so instead I came back from my tangent.
Frankly speaking, I was still shaking. The incident the previous day had obviously traumatized me, and just standing in this artificial sunlight really put me on edge.
But on the other hand, I had found a dungeon. Dungeons were pretty much always treasure troves in fantasy stories. Even if there weren't any literal treasure, there were monsters, which meant I had an endless supply of blood to feed off of. For me, that meant food, XP, and free skills. For a vampire, I imagined that these were more important than any kind of treasure that could be found in any chest.
Since I declared that fountain as my new home, this dungeon was my backyard. It was only natural that I'd conquer such a thing!
(But maybe tomorrow)
I was a vampire, so I operated better at night. If it was daytime inside the dungeon, then I'd simply wait until it was night here before I started any hunting.
With that thought, I turned around and walked back to my home and lay down on the fountain lip.
The stone was a bit cold for sleeping on, especially with how skimpy my outfit was, but it wasn't unbearably so.
So with that, I went to sleep for the first time since arriving in this world.
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