章 2: New Beginning

Blurry Vision, the once forgotten feeling of weakness by being under the sun, itchiness, and pain all over her body.

Victoria was greeted with these feelings as she regained consciousness.

'Eh..., I survived even that, and even in soul form wait weren't we vampires supposed to have no soul?

so, what was that darkness? why was I even there? and how did I even reach there without a soul?'

too many questions started to pop up in her head. including 'if that was really the soul form, how did she even survive the shock? Souls are considered weak to lightning or that isn't the case?'

She was still raising more questions in her mind as the vision cleared up and the darkness was nowhere to be seen

She found herself near the shadow of a huge tree and the smell of cooked meat drifted to her nose as if that wasn't enough, she had the sensation of burning originating from her body and itchiness due to sunlight touching herself

'Just how long had I been under the sun for it to be this severe', she felt worried

She was currently covered in sunlight, so even her regeneration was not working as she was losing energy rapidly.

'I need to get under the shadow fast'

She tried to get up but realized that she could not feel her legs and decided to drag herself using her arms. She moved her hands forward grabbing the grass and digging a bit into the dirt she pushed herself forward.

The feeling of her cooked body being dragged over the wet grass wasn't the best, but she endured it until she dragged herself to the tree, and grabbing it, she pushed a little further leaning on the tree.

Turning over she let her back rest on the tree trunk.

'I had no weakness left. I am the vampire queen just how? is this an illusion? Is that the reason the sun is affecting me? Did that shock bring me to this?'

Due to exhaustion sleeping looked like the best choice as even her instincts were urging her to let go. But due to her curiosity about how she got into this situation. She gritted her teeth to inspect herself.

The first thing that caught her eye was her little hands indicating she was now a child. Wondering how is this even possible. Is she reliving one of her memories? Or is it something else?

But before she could think any further about it. Her eyes caught onto something

Her hands had 3rd and 4th-degree burns and were not showing signs of regenerating which was weird but what was weirder was her arms were thinner than an inscription pen. Which almost scared her.

Determined to resolve the crisis she decided to use the final spell she had created during her last life so she could feed herself and let her regeneration take over.

[Sapid Sagine]

She fed on the new blood created by the spell as it made its way to her stomach the regeneration kicked in.

Burn marks on her hands started to fade at a rapid rate till they disappeared as if time had reversed itself.

Her nails started to regrow, giving her a bone-chilling sensation that was extremely discomforting, as if her bones were put into a glacier or were being carved out, like molding clay with a knife to make a sculpture, but in the place of the clay were her fingers.

The healing of her skin was particularly itchy,it was an itchiness that seemed to be plaguing her whole being.

Unconsciously, she crouched down as she held onto her knees in a fetal position, as a squeak came out of her mouth from the sheer terror she was feeling.

'why am I feeling scared by just this little pain? I have been in worse'

Her burnt eyebrows grew back causing utmost discomfort, as feeling the growth of her hair in a matter of seconds was an overly gross feeling, and the air that touched her brows made it even worse.

After confirming that she had fully regenerated she decided to get up and check her surroundings but

Just the moment she could feel relieved, she felt a strange sensation surge from her body. Immediately, she lost her footing and fell to the ground, holding her head while gritting her teeth. Pain, an extreme pain attacked her brain.

Suddenly she was relaxed as if she was not in any pain just a second ago, her arms dropped to the tree trunk hitting it.

But she seemed to be unfocused and her eyes looked like they were not on anything in sight as if she was caught in an illusion seeing a scenery different than the one in front of her.

It wasn't an illusion though these were the memories belonging to this new body of hers. She lived the entire life this body had lived in just a few seconds and came back to herself.

The memories cleared her confusion as this is not her body. It is someone else's, a child who was 12 years old. And her new name is C Obara WhenDoll (Ciobara Vendaul). (memory about it is still fuzzy)

'eh... what doll'

"WHAT THE HELL AT LEAST GIVE ME A GOOD NAME I DON'T WANNA BE NAMED A DOLL"

now she is mad. she decided she was going to punish those kids a bit more for they know such an embarrassing name.

Who were these kids that earned her ire? Looking into her memories she found out the following.

She found out this body is sick with an unknown disease. Causing her to hate the sun and be envious of everyone who can walk under unhindered.

Under the sun no matter if it's summer or winter she feels like burning and itches that need to be scratched and the longer she is under the sun the worse it is.

And that wasn't where her troubles ended. She was unable to eat most things and ends up throwing up or having a fever when she ate something particular.

She can only eat meat and drink milk or water but they were clearly not enough to satiate her hunger. Which had remained a mystery to the original owner to this day.

Always feeling hungry and the sight of blood making her agitated, though she would never give in to the urge and attack someone as when she did, she would be beaten really bad.

This information was enough for Victoria to know her new body is also a vampire and the reason for her malnourishment.

Looking further into the memories, she found out the reason for the original's current condition.

In this world, anyone who turns twelve can attend an academy to become a mage or other professions. Below that age body is not developed enough to handle the professions. Of course, there are exceptions to this.

As she had turned 12 this year, her mom had her affinity with magic tested. As it turned out she was a rare genius with three affinities.

Fire, Dark, and Space each of them at the higher end of the spectrum. As each time crystal glowed with high brightness, Darker in case of the dark affinity.

But it didn't seem to have ended there as when her space affinity was known crystal started glowing even brighter and blue lights started to come out but at that moment the crystal broke thinking that it was faulty, they dismissed the possibility of the fourth affinity.

It didn't last long enough for Victoria to identify the fourth affinity.

Although her dark affinity brought her curses from the village academy her mother managed to keep the situation from escalating.

Academy did not care about which affinity one had as even ones with only the dark affinity were accepted with open arms.

Their recruiter who was an old man in a blue robe with a staff in hand and a brown magic book always floating in front of him gave the letter to Ciobara himself.

On the day of her leave her mother helped her pack and her father arranged a carriage for her. They said their goodbyes and shed a lot of tears finally sending her off.

Siano Royal Academy is the most prestigious academy on the continent and it was this academy that accepted her.

It took her 10 days to reach the academy on the way carriage had been attacked twice by stray monsters but the adventurers hired as escorts took care of them without an issue.

Showing the letter on the gate she was allowed entry and even guided to where the examination was held.

The exam consisted of three parts. test of affinity, test of theory, and test of performing magic.

First and second were easy as her affinities had once again managed to break the crystal and for the second her mother had been teaching her a lot since young.

But the third was impossible as she had never performed a spell before and she passed only due to the results of the first two.

Even so, she was hailed as a genius due to having not only an unprecedented affinity but also an affinity to one of the rarest elements, the element of space.

She was assigned to the 7th class of freshmen in the magic department.

Three months had passed and although, she has an unprecedented affinity for magic since admitted she was unable to perform a single spell due to her always feeling weak and hungry.

And even worse she found herself to be unable to do inscriptions and potions as well.

Changing department wasn't a choice as she was physically weak as well due to her always feeling hungry and malnutrition.

She would not be able to perform well in other professions as well which helped her decide staying in the magic department was the best choice.

Her classmates found her to be weak and they started bullying her. It got worse every next day, they even gave her the title <Failed Prodigy>.

The same thing happened again, one of the noble children said he wanted to practice his newly learned fire spell: [Fire Ball].

As it was his newly learned spell, he was still an amateur at using it which resulted in less than desired damage

He and his friends took her to the academy city training area which they had already rented. They tied her to the wooden dummy and the practice began.

Which was in reality torture. She was struck with fireballs one after another and the bullies laughing if their friend missed the target and cheering if he hit.

But it seems that joke went a bit too far as the dummy caught fire and burned her it took them long to put the fire out as the flames died, and they found a charred body. They didn't notice she was slowly recovering

Ciobara's fire trauma did not help as she went unconscious which made the bullies think they ended up killing her. They removed her restraints and threw her out of school in the nearby forest.

The situation made Victoria decide to take revenge for the original and punish them for such a humiliating way of using magic. Not for burning her. But for using magic in a way she thinks is disrespectful to the discipline.

(Although, she was mad about them burning and using her as a live target)

While sorting out her memories she fed herself once more. It was the spell that she had regretted not being able to share with the child who requested its creation.

[Sapid Sagine]

She now drank blood to have her fill as the last one was used in her recovery and regeneration till, as she felt her hunger satiated. She used the 2nd spell she made for young vampires in her early days as a sage:

[Anathema Sunkremo]

Which would grant her the ability to walk under the sun unhindered.

She has finally recovered to peak condition though malnutrition is still there and it will take some time for this issue to be resolved.

She was now ready to return to the Academy and wanted to meet the ancient sage said to be at the helm of the academy. Maybe he would be able to give her some inspiration.

(As the legendary vampire sage, how was she supposed to miss the opportunity)