Count Zhastar heard someone's footsteps behind him and turned around. He furrowed his eyebrows as he thought that he knew every single vampire living on the island – Rilo, but no matter how much he looked, he couldn't recognise the approaching vampire – Richard.
Stopping an arm's length away from count Zhastar, Richard bowed his head.
"Count."
He raised his head and his eyes met with count Zhastar's.
"I haven't seen you before. Who are you and where did you come from?"
"My name is Richard Vice, count. As for from where I came from—that's hard to answer as I don't remember myself, count"
Richard decided not to say anything of his encounter with King Yama as he was sure that count Zhastar wouldn't believe him and would cut off his tongue for lying.
"You don't remember where you came from?" count Zhastar said as he narrowed his eyes.
"Yes, count."
Count Zhastar sighed and shook his head. His face relaxed.
"Follow me into the city, fledgeling. I will appoint you your job."
Bowing his head, Richard said, "Thank you, count."
Notification messages started flashing in front of him and he with count Zhastar left towards the city.
<Quest Accepted>
<Go with count Zhastar and decide the path you want to take>
<Rewards: +100 XP>
Entering the city and following count Zhastor through it into the town's hall, he saw that every building was of gothic architecture just as he saw from the distance. But he didn't see any exclamation markers above any of the vampire heads that he walked past.
Inside the town's hall, stood six rows of seats. Three from the left of the room and three from the right of the room. While in the middle, between the six rows of seats, laid a red carpet that went all the way to the podium. Behind the podium, stood a table. Behind the table, stood one chair barely touching the wall and another chair in front. To the left and to the right of the table, by the walls, stood two bookshelves each. The left and the right walls were decorated with three paintings each. Two paintings were of count Zhastar, two paintings were of a woman whose beauty exceeded even that of his ex-wife. She had beautiful scarlet red eyes, beautiful red lips, long layered crimson hair, pale skin, perfect face, goddess-like figure, beautifully shaped buttocks and big beautifully shaped E-cup sized breasts. And the last two paintings were of a man.
As he followed count Zhastar to the table, he caught sight of the woman's full body portrait and he looked at it for a few seconds. During that time only one thought went through his head, "What a beautiful woman."
"Please sit," count Zhastar said as they reached the table, and he sat down on the chair behind it.
"Yes, count," Richard replied and sat down on the chair in front of it.
Count Zhastar pulled out a book from one of the table's drawers, opened a clean page and grabbed a pen which was laying on the table.
"Which one do you want to be: a soldier, a person of the land or an adventurer?"
"Adventurer," Richard said without hesitation as he knew that to keep his word to King Yama and to kill Cain, he had to become strong. And to become strong, he had to fight and kill. Which left him two options, to become a soldier or to become an adventurer. And he chose the latter as the latter wouldn't tie him down to a place and he could move around freely.
"I understand."
Count Zhastar lowered his eyes and began writing in the book.
Notification messages started flashing.
<Quest Completed>
<Title changed from fledgeling to adventurer>
<+100 XP>
<Level Up>
<Level 1>
<You have gained 5 attribute points>
<You have gained 1 affinity point>
"So I gain both attribute and affinity points when levelling up. Hmm… It seems Zhastar will be writing for a while, I can use this time to allocate my attribute and affinity points," Richard thought.
He focused on the icon in the top-right corner of his view and a window opened. He opened his character and looked at the attribute and affinity portion of the window.
<Name: Richard Vice, Race: Vampire, Class: Vampire, Level: 1, Title: Fledgeling>
<Health: 360/360, Blood: 100/100>
<Attributes>
<Strength: 5+, Dexterity: 5+, Intellect: 1+, Knowledge: 1+, Vitality: 7+, Endurance: 2+, Charisma: 10+, Spirit: 1+, Armour: 2>
<Affinities>
<Physical: 0+, Fire: 0+, Water: 0+, Ice: 0+, Light: 0+, Dark: 0+, Lightning: 0+, Earth: 0+, Wind: 0+, Chaos: 0+>
<Extra affinity>
<Blood: 0+>
"Let's see. I have eight attributes but only five spendable attribute points. Out of all the attributes, the most useless ones to me now are spirit because I don't have mana and have healing abilities, charisma because I don't have any followers, endurance as it only reduces damage received from critical strikes and knowledge because again I don't have mana. The most beneficial one to me out of these four is charisma. As for the affinities… I will hold onto the affinity point for now," he thought.
He allocated one point into strength, dexterity, intellect, vitality and charisma, then looked over his changed attributes.
<Name: Richard Vice, Race: Vampire, Class: Vampire, Level: 1, Title: Fledgeling>
<Health: 395/395, Blood: 100/100>
<Attributes>
<Strength: 6, Dexterity: 6, Intellect: 2, Knowledge: 1, Vitality: 8, Endurance: 2, Charisma: 11, Spirit: 1, Armour: 2>
<Affinities>
<Physical: 0+, Fire: 0+, Water: 0+, Ice: 0+, Light: 0+, Dark: 0+, Lightning: 0+, Earth: 0+, Wind: 0+, Chaos: 0+>
<Extra affinity>
<Blood: 0+>
He closed the character window and the menu. And at that time, count Zhastar put down his pen and raised his head, looking up at Richard.
"Since you chose to become an adventurer, I will start you off. Go collect bat skins for me."
He reached into his clothes and from them pulled a pouch. Then inserted his free hand into the pouch and metal sounds sounded from it. He pulled out his hand from the pouch and placed what he took from it onto the table.
Glancing down at the table, Richard saw eight copper coins.
"Go to the building that is two buildings away from this one and ask to be trained in bat scavenging. Once your skills are up to the standard, do the task."
"Alright," Richard said and thought, "I don't want to work for others, but from now, I am in no position to refuse anyone that asks for my help, in the same way as a worker is in no position to refuse the CEO. In one case one gets fired while in another executed."
"How many do you need?" he said as his thought finished.
"As much as you can."
Richard took the coins from the table and a few notifications flashed.
<+8 Copper Coins>
<Quest Received>
<Collect bat pellets for count Zhastar>
<Reward: depending on performance>
He stood up and bowed his head.
"Excuse me, count."
"See you later, Richard."
Richard walked out of the town's hall, but not before glancing at the beautiful woman's full body portrait one more time.
Walking out of the building, he saw a man with a yellow exclamation marker above his head. He turned away from him and walked towards the building that he was told to go to and entered it.
Inside the building, he saw a man dressed in plain clothes, sitting behind the counter with his chin resting in the palm of his right hand.
The man raised his head and lowered his hand, putting it on the counter over his left arm.
"Welcome," he said, tilted his head and said again, "I haven't seen you before."
Walking up to him, Richard said, "I am new here."
"New? You are an adventurer?"
"Yes, I am an adventurer and I want to train as a scavenger."
"You mean that you have never scavenged a single corpse?"
"Yes"
"That's rare, a visiting adventurer that doesn't know how to scavenge a single corpse."
The scavenger chuckled and Richard furrowed his eyebrows as it was an incredibly long time since someone mocked him for not knowing something.
The scavenger coughed into his hand.
"My apologies, that was rude of me. First, do you have a knife?"
Richard unfurrowed his eyebrows.
"I don't."
"Then go buy one at the general store, it costs three copper coins. After that, go kill what you want me to train you to scavenge and bring it here. Depending on the creature, the price will differ. Bats are five copper coins, wolves are twenty, werewolves are two hundred."
Richard nodded his head.
"I will be back."
Turning around, he walked out of the scavenging profession building and walked around the city until he found the general store. He bought the knife for 3 copper coins just as the scavenger said and walked outside of the city to search for a bat.
He didn't have to search for long as one of the bats appeared in front of him, floating above the ground. It was a brown, human-sized with red eyes, sharp teeth sticking out of its mouth and claws at the edges of the wings.
Focusing on the bat, made its name, level and health appear above its head.
<Bat, Level 1>
<HP: 30/30>