Chapter 4: Love for the sun
The Goblin collapsed as its skull was caved in with a dull noise.
「Hmph. Are Goblins the only enemies that are going to come out?」
The High Priest of Alda, the God of Law and Fate, hurled abuse at the Goblins as he beat them to death with his favorite mace.
「High Priest Gordan, is it not likely that the Dhampir either escaped with his Vampire father or was buried alive when that cave collapsed?」
So said one of the holy knights under his command, but Gordan was not satisfied.
Bormack Gordan was originally a commoner, but he was now a great man who had climbed to the position of High Priest by his thirties using his faith, physical strength and his magic of the life and light attributes.
Now he had a burning obsession with exterminating Vampires, Lamias, Scylla and the other monsters that Vida had given birth to.
『Alda, the God of Law and Fate is the only one with authority in the world of Lambda and he has determined that the mere existence of these creatures is evil. It is our duty as his followers to destroy them!』
Like the other zealous followers of Alda, Gordan earnestly believed this with no doubts. He felt no shame in having killed the Dark Elf or in his current task of hunting down her Dhampir son; he was proud, believing that his actions were those of justice.
For that reason, he had been conducting a very thorough search of this small forest to find the Dhampir, but the search had run into problems.
Unable to contact the hunters who had sold out the Dark Elf to lead them through the forest, he had hired other hunters and joined forces with the feudal lord's knights, but they had only encountered wild animals like wolves, bears and boars and the occasional weak monsters like Goblins that came out to attack them.
Five days after they had began their search, they discovered a cave that someone appeared to have been living in that had collapsed, but they hadn't been able to find the Dhampir's corpse.
Gordan had thought to dig out the whole cave, but had no choice but to give up on that idea because of the risk of it collapsing on top of them. If they had a construction specialist or a Dwarf miner at hand, it would be a different story, but there was no demand for a construction specialist in this area right now, so they were unable to hire such a person.
The reason they continued searching the forest for two more months despite this was that the hunter that had sold out the Dark Elf and two of his friends had simply gone missing after setting out to hunt the Dhampir.
Three hunters who were all familiar with the geography of this area had all gone missing. On top of that, their corpses still hadn't been found.
Gordan's intuition told him that this was not the result of some coincidence or unfortunate accident, but something had taken revenge on them.
『The Dhampir in question is apparently still a baby, but it's not out of the question. There was a reported incident in the past where a three-year-old Dhampir slaughtered a party of D-class adventurers.』
Giving up here would mean allowing evil to take root and grow in the future. He had to hunt the Dhampir down and turn him into ash.
「High Priest Gordan, it is impossible for us to make our search of the forest any more detailed than we have already done.」
「Baronet Bestero has withdrawn his knights already as well.」
However, not everyone shared Gordan's zeal or saw the impending threat that he did. The feudal lord, Baronet Bestero, had dispatched five knights and half of his soldiers to help with the search, but now he grimly refused to offer any help at all.
He could not allow the soldiers and knights that were needed to uphold public order to spend too long searching the forest.
In fact, he criticized the continuation of the search, asking,「Is there no other work that the High Priest could be doing for the people?」
「… I know that the inhabitants of Evbejia have expressed their discontent.」
This forest was an important source of resources for the people of Evbejia and the High Priest had told them,「You cannot enter the forest while we are searching for the Dhampir, as it is too dangerous.」It was only natural that the people of Evbejia were unhappy about being unable to enter the forest for two whole months.
「No, it is not only the people. The adventurers are not happy either. Well, they are F-class and E-class adventurers of no importance.」
「They are taking their complaints to the Guild, saying that they are having their work taken away from them.」
The monsters such as Goblins that the adventurers received payment to exterminate had heavily decreased in population during Gordan's search of the forest. Of course, this resulted in a sharp drop in the income of those adventurers.
In addition, Evbejia was a central point of commerce between villages and towns so there were many merchants and wealthy travelers requesting escorts, but as the adventurers accepted those requests, there were less adventurers operating inside Evbejia itself. Naturally, the Adventurers' Guild was not pleased by this.
Baronet Bestero didn't approve of the number of adventurers decreasing either. High Priest Gordan and his men were keeping the population of Goblins in check for now, but they were not permanent residents of this town. After they left, he had no way of knowing if enough adventurers would return to control the population of Goblins, who reproduced very quickly.
「What are you saying we should do?! Surely you're not going to suggest we spare the Goblins that come and attack us!」
「Like I said, perhaps it is time to give up? My words are not those of the feudal lord, but there are plenty of other places that could benefit from our presence.」
「Muh…」
In reality, while they were spending their time here, the Vampires were moving in the shadows. Other monsters of Vida were also causing harm to the people.
Was it acceptable to continue spending time searching for this Dhampir with no leads to follow?
「We have no choice. We will leave Evbejia the day after tomorrow.」
The red evening sun shone on Gordan's bitter face.
He had a strong feeling that the Dhampir would be laughing at them in the nights to come.
That Dhampir, Vandalieu, spent the afternoon that High Priest Gordan left sunbathing to his heart's content.
「Sunlight… Love you…」
He proclaimed his love for the sunlight. He had recently become able to speak, though it was not completely coherent yet.
Living for that long underground had been harsh on him.
He had thought that it would be for one month at most, but Gordan and his men had persisted for two whole months and Vandalieu had spent all that time living in the dark, surrounded by earth and rocks.
He had used his death-attribute magic to prolong the lives of the two hunters, but they only lasted about half a month. After that, he had Bone Monkey and the other Undead to crush the wheat grains and dried meat that Darcia had left behind and soak it with water to make baby food for him to stave his hunger off with. When he could no longer stand that, he desperately looked for insects in the dirt to eat.
His search led to the discovery of a stream of underground water; he had thought the cave would flood and he would drown, but it ended up being a fortunate event. His water supply had fallen low and the discovery of this underground water had allowed him to clean his diapers.
Up until then, he had made a Golem out of the earth to change shape and dig a hole, drop in used diapers and then bury them. Having run out of the ones that Darcia had made before, he had been forced to use diapers made from the clothes taken from the dead hunters, and even those were running out.
He could use death-attribute magic to sterilize himself, but he couldn't stand having soiled himself. As a person, that was not acceptable.
He had been living on earthworms and sap from tree roots for the past few days. Thanks to a new skill he had learned,[Danger Sense: Death], he could find the ones that weren't fatally poisonous, but as he consumed them, for some reason, his Status Effect Resistance skill's level increased. There was likely something in the food he ate that was poisonous, though not enough to kill him.
『I don't ever want to have to live a life where I can consider catching a mole to be a miracle ever again.』
He firmly told himself that.
Vandalieu, being a Dhampir, could see in the dark just as well as he could in the middle of the day. But that didn't mean he didn't need sunlight. After all, he was half-Dark Elf.
He had been worried that he was going to die of vitamin deficiency-related diseases.
『High Priest Gordan, adventurers of the Five-colored Blades Party, please be well.』
Vandalieu earnestly prayed for the well-being of High Priest Gordan and his men, who had left Evbejia and Baronet Bestero today, and the『Five-colored Blades』that had left two months ago.
『Please don't die until I kill you.』
He earnestly prayed for them to not be killed by someone else or die by accident or illness.
『The limit for a human to be in the dark is around ninety hours? If you're trapped in darkness for that long, apparently it causes some mental problems, but I seem to have endured it surprisingly well.』
His sunbathing had calmed him down. Relieved that his mental condition had not changed over the past two months, he had the Undead set traps to catch rabbits and other small animals.
When he checked his status, a skill with an ominous-sounding name called Mental Corruption had been upgraded all the way up until level 10; was this because he had sworn to take revenge? Well, it also seemed to serve as a mental stability skill, so he didn't think much of it.
As for his Death-Attribute Charm skill, he thought it was a skill that he had used in Origin. There were several occasions when the elderly researchers in Origin that had treated him as a guinea pig died of strokes, became spirits and then completely changed their personalities and apologized to him in tears.
He hadn't thought badly of them for it; if it weren't for his conversations with the spirits in Origin, his mind would have crumbled long before his body died.
However, when Orbie and his companions had approached him as spirits after they died, he had felt only disgust for them.
Vandalieu did not want to let them pass on peacefully, so he had forced them to inhabit a stone pillar that was supporting the cave, and they were still there now.
『For now, I guess I have to stay quiet and hidden until I grow a bit bigger.』
Over the past two months, Vandalieu had grown teeth other than his fangs. He was now also able to walk, though with poor balance due to the relatively large size of his head.
But he still needed to sleep for long hours and wasn't able to run. He was capable of only an unsteady waddle, so even if he spent a whole day walking he wouldn't cover much distance.
If he wanted to leave this place, he still needed more time to either grow up or make preparations.
Because of that, he had to postpone his revenge on Baronet Bestero, his knights and the people of Evbejia.
He had already thought of how he was going to do it and had the confidence that he could pull it off, so he was feeling impatient, but it was something that he had to endure.
『It's already winter, huh. Now that I think about it, I still haven't asked Mom about this world's history. But before that… can I catch some prey whose blood I can drink?』
Though he had finally come outside, it seemed that he would die of starvation in the cold of winter. Vandalieu let out a sigh at the harshness of this world.
In Lambda, Vampires were divided into four different categories.
First, there was the Vampire born between Vida and the Undead champion Zakkart, who had long since perished and had his name forgotten, the[True Ancestor.]
The ones who had directly received the blessing from the True Ancestor or those who were his direct descendants were known as[Pure-Breeds.]
Those descended from the Pure-Breeds with Vampire blood that had thinned over the generations were known as the[Noble-born.]
And finally, those given the blood by the Pure-Breeds and Noble-born and taken as servants did not inherit the Vampires' magical abilities such as their charming gaze; they inherited only their physical abilities such as their superhuman strength and regenerative capabilities. They were known as the[Subordinates.]
Generally, the closer a Vampire was related to the True Ancestor, the stronger their powers were. But Vampires had considerable individual differences, so some Subordinates who were even more powerful than Noble-born Vampires also existed.
The common features among all Vampires were their weakness to sunlight and the anti-Undead life-attribute magic taught among the followers of Alda. The other feature was the need to drink blood to sustain themselves.
Vandalieu's father was a『Pure-Breed』's『Subordinate.』He wasn't even one of the exceptional ones that were stronger than the Noble-born; he was simply a normal human who had been turned into a Subordinate. His name was Valen. He had originally been a thug living in the slums.
The only thing that was not ordinary about Valen was his resistance against the sun. He had been even more resistant to the sun than most humans, so his Pure-Breed master valued him highly. He had ordered Valen to carry out various tasks and gather information among the people.
That was when he met Darcia.
Just like in old love stories, the two of them had fallen in love at first sight.
However, in the modern age, Vampires were also divided into two factions. There were the conservatives who continued to believe in Vida, who had been defeated by Alda, and the extremists who had converted to follow evil gods. The latter overwhelmingly outnumbered the former.
If Valen's master had belonged to the conservatives, there wouldn't have been any problems with the love between him and Darcia. But as an extremist, he was strongly opposed to the dilution of the Vampire blood with that of other races, even if that race was another race created by Vida.
Making use of his special trait that allowed him to use his powers even during the day, he eloped with the pregnant Darcia, but in the end, he fought with his pursuers to protect his unborn son.
And so Darcia, who managed to escape to this forest, gave her son half of his father's name and half of her own name.
『So, that's why I'm named Vandalieu.』(Vandalieu)
『That's right. Do you like it?』(Darcia)
『Yes, I like it. It's a very good name.』(Vandalieu)
Vandalieu, who for the first time in a while was able to eat something other than insects and tree root sap, listened to her story about his father that she had already told him dozens of times.
『That's good. I'm sure your father would be happy, too. We'd agreed that we'd name you Vandalieu if you were a boy and Varcia if you were a girl. Err, so, where was I? Ah yes, I was telling you about the Vampires.』(Darcia)
With a smile, Darcia began to repeat the story that she had just finished telling. Her memory was prone to quick failure.
After the death of her body, her spirit was deteriorating as it spent time in this world. There were cases where spirits would retain their personalities even after a hundred years if they were tenacious or harbored strong hatred and strength of will, but she felt regrets about the fact that she had been reunited with Vandalieu as she was about to pass on.
Even though she was inhabiting a piece of her own remains, her spirit could not recover.
『… Even so, if I keep supplying her with Mana, she'll last a hundred years.』
As he listened to Darcia talk, he decided to find a way to make her a new body within that time.
Despite the few problems that she was having with her memory, Darcia could still clearly remember things from when she was alive, so she told Vandalieu everything she knew.
Lambda's time and calendar were the same as Earth's, with twenty-four hours in a day, twelve months of 360 days in a year.
The reason Japanese was spoken was because it had spread from the champions who had spoken Japanese in their original birthplaces after they survived the battle with the Demon King. Currently, only common Japanese terms were used and commoners could only read hiragana and katakana. The ability to read kanji was limited to nobles and merchants who had received a higher degree of education.
Experience Points were a quantification of the life experiences that a person had been through. The people of Lambda increased their Experience Points little by little as they lived their lives. Of course, defeating monsters would grant Experience Points. However, the amount of Experience Points gained through certain experiences depended on one's Job.
Jobs were apparently the『Blessings of the Gods』that existed since before the Demon King appeared. The people were feeble when compared to gods, so they were given Jobs in the hope that one day they would grow to be able to stand alongside the gods.
Jobs determined attribute points and adjusted how new skills were acquired, and if a Job's level was raised to 100, one could change Jobs.
For example, if someone reached level 100 as an apprentice warrior, he could change Jobs to a warrior.
As well as than warriors and mages, there were farmers, craftsmen and the like. People with Jobs like warrior and mage would gain most experience from defeating monsters and enemies in battle, while farmers would gain most experience by doing everyday farm work or doing agriculture research and craftsmen would do so by crafting things.
『Well, it would be strange for someone with a warrior Job to gain a lot of experience by doing farm work. It would also be strange for a craftsman's skill at crafting things to increase by defeating monsters.』
In other words, it was a system to encourage warriors to be warriors and farmers to be farmers; everyone should work hard in their specialized fields.
Incidentally, monsters had no Jobs but had levels, and apparently evolved or transformed into a higher-rank monster upon reaching level 100.
Therefore, it had been possible for Vandalieu's father, Valen, to survive long enough and evolve from a Subordinate to a higher-rank monster. If he had managed to do so, he might have survived.
『Now I know just how bad the curses that Rodcorte gave me are, the ones that prevent me from gaining existing Jobs and gaining Experience Points for myself.』
Cannot learn existing Jobs… In other words, the curse prevented him from attaining a Job whose existence was already known, so it was troublesome. If he didn't discover some new, unknown Job, he would forever be Jobless.
The curse that prevented him from gaining Experience Points on his own was likely even more serious. While others could steadily increased their levels, no matter how hard Vandalieu worked to train himself or study, he wouldn't gain even a single point of Experience.
『Eight months have actually passed since I was born. I've gone through much harder experiences than the typical infant; I've trained myself in magic, used it in practice and finally even captured Orbie and those other hunters, but I haven't leveled up.』
At this rate, he would reach adulthood and still be level 0. Being a Dhampir, his attribute points were high, but it would still be impossible for him to work as an adventurer and a soldier.
With that said, it would also be difficult for him to work as an industrial worker like farmer or craftsman.
With no Job, he would not have any adjustments for how he would acquire new skills. In other words, he would have to work several times harder than regular craftsmen to compete with them.
In addition, Vandalieu was aware that he had poor communication skills.
He had no talent for communicating with people; he had been born with anxiety problems.
『The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling that I've been cornered in this life… I'll stop thinking about it, then.』
Let's go to sleep. They say that sleeping children grow up well.
Vandalieu had Bone Monkey put out the fire that he had started by making Wood Golems out of two pieces of firewood and having them rub against each other. Wrapped in furs, he went to sleep, leaving the other Undead to keep watch over him.
He drifted off, thinking that the lullaby that Darcia's spirit was singing to him sounded nice, but wishing he could feel her warmth.
Incidentally, Darcia didn't know of any Dhampirs other than Vandalieu and Dhampirs themselves were very rare. Therefore, she didn't know anything about Dhampirs and he had been unable to ask her about them.
Name: Vandalieu;
Race: Dhampir (Dark Elf);
Age: 8 months old;
Title: None;
Job: Ordinary person;
Level: 0;
Job history: None;
Attributes:
Vitality: 21;
Mana: 100,001,200;
Strength: 31;
Agility: 4;
Stamina: 30;
Intelligence: 27
Passive skills:
Superhuman Strength: Level 1;
Rapid Healing: Level 2;
Death-Attribute Magic: Level 3;
Status Effect Resistance: Level 3 (LEVEL UP!);
Magic Resistance: Level 1;
Dark Vision;
Mental Corruption: Level 10;
Death-Attribute Charm: Level 1
Active skills:
Bloodsucking: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!);
Surpass Limits: Level 2;
Golem Transmutation: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
Curses
Experience gained in previous life not carried over
Cannot learn existing Jobs
Unable to gain Experience Points independently
Chapter 5: An idea: If I can't get stronger, then those around me should get stronger instead.
『Time for training.』
Vandalieu told this to his undead servants after making them line up in front of the cave.
Because of Rodcorte's curse, Vandalieu couldn't level up or change Jobs, thus making it impossible for him to become stronger on his own. So he tried to change his way of thinking and thought:『If I can't become stronger, then I'll just make my servants stronger.』
His reasoning was that if the undead following him were stronger, he could become capable of doing a wider range of things.
『Going to the town with them might be difficult, but Mom did say that there were some adventurers that had Jobs in which monsters did their bidding, like Tamers, Lesser Mages and Summoners, so it'll work out somehow.』
In the future, he wanted them to have enough strength to fight monsters easily, but for now, if they could carry him and run with the same speed they had when were alive, it would be enough to get out of this forest and go on a journey.
『They can't even defeat wild wolves and bear as they are now, let alone monsters. Just the other day, my Bone Goblin was broken by a living Goblin.』
The Undead that he had recently created were all very weak. Well, that was to be expected since he had a group of level 1 Undead. Well then, why didn't he just create stronger Undead? That reason was that he didn't know how to make Undead above level 2.
In his previous life when he had awoken to the Death Attribute, he hadn't experienced turning anybody into Undead except himself.
『The researchers at that facility would have never given me the chance to gather servants. When I awoke, my control over both my body and my magic had already been taken away long ago. If they hadn't done that, I would have found out about the various things they were researching, like immortal soldiers. Well, that facility ended up failing anyway.』
He decided to change gears and check the fighting potential of his servants. Excluding the bugs that he used for gathering information, he lined up the Undead that looked like they could fight.
Bone Monkey, Bone Wolf, Bone Man, Bone Bear and Bone Bird. These were the ones that seemed suited the task. There were also Bone Boar, Bone Rabbit, Bone Goblin and so on. But the only ones who were complete, without missing or broken bones, were these five only.
『Well then, let us start the…training? Wait, what should I even make them do?』
Vandalieu, who suddenly realized that he had no idea about what to make Bone Monkey and the rest do, was at a loss for words.
Even amateurs had an idea about what do when training in order to become strong.
One would run to increase stamina and do strength training to increase muscle strength.
One would learn the moves of martial arts or unarmed combat and then have sparring sessions to get practical experience, and so on.
But what would be an effective, Experience-Point-earning training for the Undead lined up in front of Vandalieu?
Running? It would be pointless. They have no heart or lungs, and in the first place, what would be the point in the untiring Undead aiming to gain more stamina?
Strength training? No, still no use. They had no muscles in the first place, having bodies solely made up of bones, so what exactly would they be trying "exercise" by doing push-ups and sit-ups?
Unarmed combat and martial arts? Vandalieu didn't know any, so there was no way to teach them.
Sparring? The mental capabilities of the Undead were too low; if he had them fight, they would keep fighting until they were in pieces. It would just become a contest for one of them to crush the other.
To begin with, Vandalieu himself never received any real training for fighting. On Earth, he did a moderate amount of exercise, but it was on the level of practising judo in physical education class in middle and high school; certainly not something that could be used in a real battle. In Origin, well, nothing more needed to be said.
『Maybe I can ask the spirits of Orbie and those hunters… No, it's impossible.』
Those guys knew how to use bows. And the Undead didn't yet have enough mental capacity to use bows. There'd be no point in teaching them.
『Let's check their status for now.』
Though Darcia had failed to check Vandaleiu's status when she tried, he was easily able to check the status of the Undead. What had been impossible for even a parent to do was probably possible because the Undead were in a subordinate relationship with Vandalieu. Darcia didn't know much about the Jobs that let one control monsters like Tamer or Lesser Mage, or the skills related to them, so there was no way to be sure why.
The status of the Undead was the following:
Name: Bone Monkey/Bone Wolf/Bone Bear/Bone Man/Bone Bird
Rank: 1;
Race: Living Bones;
Level: 0;
Passive skills:
Dark Vision;
Active Skills:
None
『They're weak… Too weak.』
The Undead all belonged to the same race, regardless of what creature's bones had been used to make them, and they all had the same status.
Living Bones: Corpses that moved despite having become only skeletons after death. They had no other special characteristics.
They did move, but their movements were clumsy and their strength was far below that of an average adult male. As for agility, they weren't capable of running; their movement was slow. In addition, they couldn't use the abilities and skills that they had while they were alive.
The bones themselves were hard, but it would be easy to defeat them by attacking their joints.
They had almost no intelligence or instincts, and at most they would make practice dummies for apprentice adventurers.
In short, they were undead that couldn't be relied on in battle.
『So how am I supposed to make these guys stronger? I created them two months ago and they're still level 0. I guess that means that they haven't done anything that would gain them Experience Points as Living Bones. Then what would gain them Experience Points?』
Swordsmen would gain Experience Points through battles and training, farmers through farming and weaponsmiths through forging weapons. So what would Undead need to do to gain Experience Points? How did monsters normally gain Experience Points?
『By killing humans, maybe?』
It occurred to him that they would need to harm humans as monsters would do, but… Even if this would work, it would be difficult to do in practice.
Vandalieu would feel no remorse no matter how many of the people of Evbejia he killed, but if he killed people and then the Adventurers' Guild sent out a request for him to be exterminated, he would be forced back to his underground lifestyle.
He might be able to escape using the Undead as a decoy, but complete skeletons of large animals like Bone Monkey's weren't easy to find. They weren't servants that he could use carelessly.
『Well, let's try killing things like rabbits and mice.』
Because Vandalieu had needed fresh blood as a replacement for his mother's milk, the Undead had captured animals like rabbits in traps, but kept them alive. Vandalieu would then bite them with their fangs to suck out their blood.
If the Undead killed the animals themselves, they might be able to gain Experience Points.
The next day, the Undead successfully captured a Goblin alive.
High Priest Gordan's expedition had decreased their numbers, but not completely wiped them out. There was a reason the Adventurers' Guild was always requesting the subjugation of Goblins.
「Gyiih~! Gyageeh!」
There was no way to know whether the Goblin was trying to be menacing or hurling insults at them in the Goblin language, but it was shouting in an annoying voice as the Undead held it down.
『So this is a Goblin…』
Vandalieu looked at it with excitement, though his face was expressionless. It really was a fantasy world, he thought.
Goblins. They were the typical small-fry monsters found in numerous fantasy works and it seemed like Lambda was no exception.
It was lower-rank monster that not only lived in Devil's Nests that were inhabited by monsters, but also lived in normal forest and even grasslands. Its body had dark green skin with a height reaching around the chest of a grown human and it had long ears like an elf, but its face was incomparably ugly.
Its strength was about the same of an average human, if not a little less, and it wasn't particularly agile. Its mental age was the same as a three-year-old, and it armed itself with a tree branch while using the hide of an animal to cover its body for protection.
It was at Rank 1 and stronger than a single of the Living Bones Undead, but if alone, it was so weak it could be taken down by a farmer with a hoe. However, there was several superior types as well, so it was wise to be cautious.
But the thing Goblins were feared for the most were their reproductive capabilities and adaptability.
When breeding, Goblins birthed at between three to eight children at once. The newly born children became full adults in six months. The Goblins could keep on increasing in numbers regardless of if they were in the middle of a scorching desert or in the middle of winter.
『Oh and there's also the setting that often occurs in fantasy works where they kidnap human women. Though apparently it's not as common as Orcs doing that.』
He considered the knowledge Darcia had given him, but he thought it unlikely that the Goblin in front of him could do that. Simply because it didn't have the strength to.
『For now… all of you, go ahead and deal the finishing blow together.』
His initial excitement was over; now it was time to see if the Undead could gain Experience Points or not.
「Giyaahhhhh!」
Bone Monkey and Bone Man hit and kicked the screaming Goblin on its head, Bone Bear and Bone Wolf bit and scratched it, while Bone Bird pecked at it. It was a gruesome method, but since the Living Bones couldn't finish off the Goblin in one hit, it couldn't be helped.
Within ten seconds, the Goblin stopped moving. Vandalieu checked the status of the Undead.
Name: Bone Monkey/Bone Wolf/Bone Bear/Bone Man/Bone Bird
Rank: 1;
Race: Living Bones;
Level: 24~32;
Passive skills:
Dark Vision;
Active Skills:
None;
They had leveled up from level 0 to level 2.
『Oh, they leveled up! Now it's clear that Undead can gain Experience Points from killing living things.』
Having found out that even the Undead that he created using death-attribute magic could gain Experience Points, Vandalieu was both relieved and elated at the same time. With this, the prospect of living as an adventurer somewhere away from the influence of Amid Empire and the Church of Alda wasn't impossible. He felt really good.
『Hmm? I feel a little too good… status.』
He was a little curious, so he tried checking his own status.
Name: Vandalieu;
Race: Dhampir (Dark Elf);
Age: 8 months old;
Title: None;
Job: None;
Level: 3 (Up!);
Job history: None;
Attributes:
Vitality: 24;
Mana: 100,001,203;
Strength: 29;
Agility: 4;
Endurance: 31;
Intelligence: 29
Passive skills:
Superhuman Strength: Level 1;
Rapid Healing: Level 2;
Death-Attribute Magic: Level 3;
Status Effect Resistance: Level 3;
Magic Resistance: Level 1;
Dark Vision;
Mental Corruption: Level 10;
Death-Attribute Charm: Level 1
Active skills:
Bloodsucking: Level 2;
Limit Break: Level 2;
Golem Creation: Level 2
Curses
Experience gained in previous life not carried over
Cannot learn existing Jobs
Unable to gain Experience Points independently
A surprising change had occurred.
『My level has gone from 0 to 3!? The curse is still active, so why?』
In the 8 months that he spent after being born on this planet, Lambda, his level had not increased at all no matter what he did. Even when he practised death-attribute magic, or killed rabbits by sucking them dry, or even killed Orbie and his partners in the same way.
He checked his status again; there was no mistake. However, the "Unable to gain Experience Points independently" curse was still there.
Then why? As Vandalieu was thinking about this, an explanation came to him.
『Maybe, when Bone Monkey and the others gain Experience Points, a portion of that goes to me?』
On Earth, there had been games with systems where when friendly monsters or the clones of the protagonist gained Experience Points, the protagonist gained a portion of that those. Had something similar happened here?
『The effect of the curse just stops me from gaining Experience Points on my own, but gaining Experience Points by having the Undead under me earn it for me is effective… For curse a god cast on me, that's too big of a loophole.』
To overlook that fact that Vandalieu could get around the effect of the curse that had been cast in order to drive the death-attribute-wielding Vandalieu to suicide by having the Undead gain Experience Points for him. It was such a big loophole that he thought it was some kind of trap for moment. Rodcorte wouldn't even have to think for a second to realize that Vandalieu could create Undead.
However, the more he thought about it, the more Rodcorte seemed like a simple fool.
『Now that I think about it, what he is doing is basically just passing all the work to us. Giving strength and opportunities to us… to everyone excluding me, and then offering no detailed instructions or following up with us afterwards. In that case, it would be natural to think that he wouldn't be able to predict something like this.』
It was likely that Rodcorte was viewing Vandalieu and Amemiya Hiroshi from a place that was far above. It wasn't like a nobles-and-peasants relationship, it wasn't even in the same dimension. It was like the relationship between a player playing a simulation game and the player character inside the game. That was the extent of the gap between them.
That was why even though he had put Vandalieu through such a terrible experience, he had merely thought "That was wrong of me" and nothing more. That was why, on top of that, to make Vandalieu give up on his revenge, Rodcorte thought nothing of trying to drive him to despair so that he would commit suicide.
That was why Rodcorte didn't think too deeply about Vandalieu. To him, Vandalieu was just one character among a hundred and one characters.
『That's why it was a curse like this. At this rate, I might be able to do something about my Job too.』
Vandalieu felt delighted and invigorated, but at the same time, remembering all those thing made his wrath against Rodcorte flare up again. And then he renewed his vow to never commit suicide, a vow that he had made to himself many times before.
Incidentally, he went ahead and had the corpse of the Goblin buried. The blood of Goblins tasted bad, there were no raw materials to be gotten from it, and since he wasn't an adventurer, he couldn't collect a bounty on it so there was no point keeping its body parts as proof of killing it. He thought about turning the corpse into Undead, but thinking that increasing the numbers of bodies that needed training would be a hassle, he said goodbye to it.
When the sun had completely sun below the horizon, a bonfire could be seen burning in front of the cave in the forest.
Five Undead with bluish-white flames burning in their empty eye sockets were gathered around the red fire. And then there was the child that looked like a toddler with such white skin that one would shiver at the sight of him, even in the red glow of the fire.
In addition, the spirit of a beautiful, yet scarred Dark Elf appeared beside that toddler, as if cuddling him.
If a traveller happened to come across the scene, such fear would be instilled in him that he would run away as fast as he could.
The Dark Elf's spirit slowly opened her mouth.
『~♪』
It was an awkward song. It was said that it was the song that the champions had sung on their birthdays long ago, and it was still sung on birthdays in Lambda to this day.
Kakakakak, Kashakashakasha.
The Undead that had nothing but bones, instead of the song began making sounds with their teeth and beaks, or their hand or feet bones in rhythm with the song.
『Happy first birthday, Vandalieu!』
Receiving the blessings of the spirit, the toddler breathed in, and whispering a few choice words, blew in the direction of the bonfire.
「Heat Leech.」
The bonfire which was robbed of its heat by the magic spell imbued in the breath promptly went out. The surroundings became pitch black, but the hearts of the ones present were shining like the sun.
『Happy first birthday, Vandalieu. Your Mother is really happy.』
「Thank you, Mother.」
The humidity of June in the country of Mirg was less than that of early summer in Japan. Vandalieu had turned exactly one year old today. They were gathered here to celebrate his birthday, but he couldn't deny that it was less than glamorous compared to the birthday parties in typical households in both Earth and Origin.
There was no cake and no presents. Their feast consisted of soup, with stock made from the bones of a raccoon with its meat finely minced and cooked with some spices.
And, of course, the fresh blood of a raccoon.
Though he had forcibly made the hard, smelly meat of the racoon into something edible, it was in no way an excellent meal. For a Dhampir like Vandalieu, it could be said that the blood was the only saving grace.
『I'm really sorry. If your Mother was still alive, I'd have made you a proper feast.』
Nonetheless, Vandalieu was happy.
「There's no need to apologize, Mother. I'm very happy.」
Vandalieu had lived on both Earth and Origin, but this was the first time he was experiencing someone celebrating his birthday. In Origin, no researcher would celebrate the birthday of a guinea pig. To them, it was probably nothing more than increasing the number in the age field of their data records by one.
On Earth, he had lived with his uncle's family, but was told「You're going to becoming a very responsible adult in the future, so if we start celebrating your birthday or christmas while you're a kid you'll become spoiled」and thus received no presents or cake. He had never even been congratulated once, even though the uncle did celebrate his own children's birthdays.
For Vandalieu, this was his first birthday party.
『Vandalieu…』
「Besides, today is a very memorable day when a lot of happy things happened.」
Vandalieu said to Darcia, who had become teary eyed and reminded her about the other memorable things that had happened.
First of all, he had become able to speak properly. This was a surprisingly important thing, because by being able to speak words, he was finally able to chant the spells he was casting.
Up until now, he had been unable to chant the spells, and had been forcibly activating them by using an absurd amount of Mana. Therefore, each spell used Mana several times more Mana than it normally would and its potency was less than half of what it would normally be. If he hadn't possessed such an abnormally huge amount of Mana, he would not have been to come as far as he did.
However, since he did come this far without reciting the spells at all, as soon as he was able to speak, he gained the[Chant Revocation]skill, which allowed him to cast spells without chanting them.
Apparently, it was such a rare skill that even Darcia was shocked, although she was a little bit depressed by the timing.
In addition, Bone Monkey and the other Undead had reached Level 100 and increased their rank to 2.
Name: Bone Monkey/Bone Wolf/Bone Bear/Bone Bird;
Rank: 2;
Race: Bone Animal;
Level: 0~7;
Passive skills:;
Dark Vision
Active Skills:
None
Name: Bone Man;
Rank: 2;
Race: Skeleton;
Level: 4;
Passive skills:
Dark Vision
Active Skills:
None
As usual, there were no skills except Dark Vision, but there were great benefits that had come with increasing their rank.
The overall attributes of Bone Monkey and the other Undead, which had now become Bone Animals, had increased to match the values they had as when they were alive. In addition, they now not only obeyed Vandalieu's commands, but had their own intelligence of normal beasts.
Bone Man was the only one that had changed into the Skeleton race after the rank up, but that was a given since he was made of the bones of a human. He had the strength and agility of an average human, and from the viewpoint of adventurers it was still a small fry, but for Vandalieu it was a reassuring addition to his forces.
If he made him wear the leather armor that he had obtained from Orbie and the other hunters and then equip him with a dagger and wooden shield that he had made by creating a Wood Golem, he could prepare a fine skeleton warrior. Right now, it was practising using a bow.
Incidentally, Vandalieu had also reached level 100. However, since it was the level 100 of "None" Job, his attributes did not increase that much. Although he had technically fulfilled the requirements for a Job change, he didn't have access to the facilities required for a Job change, namely the special rooms that could be found in various guild or temples, so it was meaningless.
Finally, even though his forces had come together somewhat, Vandalieu thought that it was still too early to exact his revenge on Evbejia. His power was still far too little. Even now, starting and completing his revenge would be possible. But he wasn't sure that after that he would be able to run away from Evbejia and reach a place far away from the Mirg country where a Dhampir could live peacefully in a town. He must get his revenge on Evbejia and feel satisfied afterwards, so for now he was amassing power and supplies.
「I'm thinking of starting to hunt bandits from tomorrow.」
Bandits. They were not monsters, but rather armed factions of criminals that worked as robbers in the outskirts of towns.
In other words, they were humans.
How was the goal of amassing power and supplies related to taking the initiative to kill humans? There was very logical answer to this.
「Recently, no matter how many hares or raccoons the Undead kill, their levels don't go up, and there no monsters stronger than Goblins in this forest. But Evbejia is the center of the path that leads to other villages, and if we search for some bandits, I'm sure we'll find some. If we kill the bandits, that'll become Experience Points for the Undead, while the supplies they have hoarded will become ours. Two birds with one stone, I think.」
And on top of that, in this world, there was no law against killing bandits and taking their loot for yourself. On Earth and Origin, killing and taking their stolen good made you a full-fledged criminal. However, in Lambda, even if a normal citizen killed a bandit, he would not be treated as a criminal. On the contrary, you were praised as having done a good job and no one called you a「killer」or told you that you「took away their human rights.」The stolen goods were treated as the rightful property of the one who took down the bandits. If the original owner really wanted to regain his possessions, it was thought that he should independently negotiate with the one who took down the bandits.
『But, isn't taking down bandits dangerous? Even D-class adventurers do it in a group.』
Darcia spoke to Vandalieu, worried about him. He smiled at her reassuringly.
「I'll prepare a proper ambush, so it's okay. Besides, I already have an idea of where I can find some bandits.」
And so, from the next day, at the age of one, Vandalieu began to do work by himself that even D-class adventurers did in a group.
Name: Vandalieu;
Race: Dhampir (Dark Elf);
Age: 1 year old;
Title: None;
Job: None;
Level: 100 (LEVEL UP!);
Job history: None;
Attributes:
Vitality: 34;
Mana: 100,001,223;
Strength: 32;
Agility: 7;
Stamina: 33;
Intelligence: 45;
Passive skills:
Superhuman Strength: Level 1;
Rapid Healing: Level 2;
Death-Attribute Magic: Level 3;
Status Effect Resistance: Level 3;
Magic Resistance: Level 1;
Dark Vision;
Mental Corruption: Level 10;
Death-Attribute Charm: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!).
Chant Revocation (NEW!).
Active skills:
Bloodsucking: Level 3 (LEVEL UP!).
Surpass Limits: Level 2.
Golem Transmutation: Level 2.
Curses
Experience gained in previous life not carried over
Cannot learn existing Jobs
Unable to gain Experience Points independently