Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Vampiric Techniques

“Did everything go okay at the guild?” Isaac asked as we stood in the yard.

After we said our goodbyes to Nive, we had returned to the Latuule estate for the time being. We hadn’t learned any of the special techniques unique to vampires yet. Plus, it would be easier for Isaac to teach both of us at once. Lorraine was free to go back home, but she’d insisted on coming along, noting that it was a rare opportunity to see vampiric abilities in action.

I understood her point. While we had seen vampires using these abilities in the New Moon Dungeon, we had been in the middle of battle. It wasn’t like they had stopped to explain the mechanics behind them. Our knowledge was vague at best.

In general, that was what most people knew about vampires. Nive certainly knew more, but she was a little too knowledgeable. I was positive she was closest to understanding the truth about them. She was a good example of how, with enough determination, humans could pretty much do anything. Of course, she wasn’t very humanlike. She’d be mad if she heard me say that, though.

“Yeah, there weren’t any major problems,” I replied. “I thought there’d be a lot more questions, but Wolf already knows my secret. He probably thought I wouldn’t have anything else to hide at this point. Besides, everything happening in Maalt right now is unprecedented. Even if he’d wanted to ask more, he just didn’t have enough information to work from.”

Just what was the probability of someone figuring everything out without knowing anything about the recent events? It had to be close to zero. We only knew because we had been involved from the very beginning. That was just a product of chance.

No matter how sharp Wolf was, he’d need some sort of oracular vision to connect the dots. He only knew that thralls had attacked the city, vampires had shown up, and a new dungeon had suddenly appeared beneath the city.

“I see,” Isaac said, nodding. “Yes, even the guild can’t gather information on matters they know nothing about. Besides, Master Wolf is a pragmatist. He’s more likely to prioritize the issues in front of him that he can deal with.”

“When you put it that way...yeah. That’s what it was like.”

Wolf had primarily talked about how to handle the new dungeon, how things would change in Maalt, and how the guild would deal with those developments. To him, it was more important to figure out what to do from here rather than figuring out the details or the cause. That was definitely pragmatic. No doubt he would like to know everything if it were possible, but not even specialist researchers knew everything about dungeons. Nive, too, had been willing to let others figure out the details. It wasn’t something a guildmaster could discover just by putting in effort.

“I think it’s safe to say we can rest easy for now,” Lorraine stated. “There might be problems once adventurers from other regions and elites from the capital come to Maalt, but for the moment, Rentt and Rina should learn as much about their new abilities as possible. Isaac, you will be demonstrating vampiric techniques, yes?”

Lorraine hadn’t been able to contain her enthusiasm, and Isaac let out a dry chuckle. “Yes, that was the promise. First, let’s begin with this.”

Immediately after Isaac finished speaking, his body scattered as though he had exploded. He hadn’t actually exploded, though. I looked closer and could see that his body had turned into several jet-black animals that then flew off.

“Division. Perhaps the most notable vampiric ability,” Lorraine said, intensely interested.

Isaac’s body had split into multiple small bats, and they were currently flying around the area. It seemed as if all the bats had mass, but they looked a bit blurry, as though they would vanish at any moment. When I reached out to touch one nearby, my hand went through it. It did feel like I had touched something, but...it was hard to say. It was like trying to grasp sand that had been flung into the air.

Rina and Lorraine were trying to touch the bats as well, but they couldn’t grab one either. Rina looked like she was enjoying chasing the bats around, and Lorraine’s eyes shimmered with childlike glee. It was practically unheard of to see a vampire use Division and then be allowed to try to touch the divided animals, so her reaction was understandable.

After the bats had flown around for a while, they slowly gathered in a single location and began to form the outline of a human being. Then, in an instant, the bats blurred together, and Isaac was standing there once more.

“How was that? Though I know Rentt and Lorraine have seen this before.”

“It is still surprising, though,” Lorraine said with a nod. “It gave me a better understanding of what makes vampires so dangerous. In that form, a mage has no option but to trap all the animals in a closed room and try to incinerate them all at once.”

Her description sounded a bit scary, but in general, vampires were an enemy. It made sense that she would focus, first and foremost, on how to fight them. Laura and Isaac were exceptions rather than the rule.

“Even if you were to do that, most vampires can revive several times, so it would be difficult. Fights against vampires tend to turn into battles of attrition,” Isaac explained.

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“However, that’s only if you were to fight them conventionally. There are, in fact, other methods,” Isaac stated. When we tilted our heads at him, he added, “For example, divinity. We’re particularly weak to it. It burns us, and if imbued in a weapon, it can do an immense amount of damage. Still, it’s not enough to kill us outright. The most it does is slow the process and decrease the number of times we can regenerate.”

Thinking back on it, Isaac hadn’t liked being near the pseudo-holy tree that Lorraine had created. While it wasn’t a lot, divinity still flowed out from it. However, Isaac had left it growing in the yard and had made no attempt to get any closer to it. He really must have found it unpleasant. I couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t just yank it out and dispose of it, but I supposed his loyalty to Laura was more important. However, it was a big discovery to learn that you could reduce the number of times a vampire could regenerate. After all, if you couldn’t, you’d end up in a never-ending battle.

That must have been what Nive was doing in the New Moon Dungeon. Nive was a lot better at using divinity than me, so I honestly couldn’t tell when she was using it. Her Holy Fire was obvious, but she usually didn’t use divinity that way when fighting vampires. Given that even I could hide my divinity to a certain extent, there was no way that Nive, with her greater experience, couldn’t hide hers. That must have been it.

The reason the vampires had been so shocked during that fight was because they had just learned that there was a limit to their regeneration and that their reserves were depleting faster than expected. That had all been Nive’s divinity. It spoke to her twisted personality that she had demoralized them and broken their spirit without mentioning that fact.

I supposed that was fine. I’d known already that she had a...problematic personality. But she generally reserved that for vampires. She wasn’t that bad with everyone else.

“Is there anything other than divinity that works?” Lorraine asked.

“There’s this, as an example.” Isaac suddenly retrieved a sword out of thin air.

He had only swung his arm, but... Just where did that come from? Was it some sort of sleight of hand? Was Isaac a magician? Nah, that couldn’t be it.

Just to be clear, a magician was someone who could do seemingly magical feats without the use of magic. They would often do things that magic couldn’t, using one sleight of hand trick or the other. Once you knew the mechanics behind their tricks, it was often anticlimactic. But since it was entertaining to watch, there were quite a few magicians wandering around as entertainers.

Anyway, back to the sword Isaac had just taken out.

“That’s...the sword you used against Shumini? It looked a lot bigger at the time.”

Isaac was currently holding a thin thrusting sword, which was why I’d been caught off guard. But when Isaac gripped the hilt with all his strength, the blade began to grow until it was the greatsword he’d carried at the time. The blade itself was red.

Damn, that’s a cool-looking sword. But what was it? Some sort of magical sword?

I wasn’t the only one who was curious. Lorraine asked, “That weapon... Is it a magic sword? I’ve seen swords whose blades grow larger when imbued with mana, but...”

Oh, those existed? Well, blacksmiths created various magical weapons through trial and error. It was probably safe to assume that someone, somewhere, had already succeeded in crafting a sword with all the properties you could imagine. Whether they were actually effective enchantments remained to be seen.

In that sense, Isaac’s sword wasn’t particularly unusual. But what drew my attention was the fact that it had suddenly appeared in Isaac’s hand. Was that one of the enchantments? If so, it meant that it could teleport just a part of the weapon. I didn’t get it.

Isaac sensed our confusion and began to explain. “This is a special weapon known as a San Arms. It’s a mana blade crafted by a vampiric blacksmith. By using the wielder’s blood, the wielder can store it within their body. With this weapon, you can inflict damage on even a vampire as though they were an ordinary human.”

San Arms. There were weapons like that? Since he’d called it a mana blade, it must have been some type of magic sword.

A mana blade and a magic sword were slightly different. “Magic sword” was a broad term for weapons enchanted with magic, while a mana blade referred to particularly powerful weapons of that type. I was sure Lorraine would say I was being imprecise and there was a more technical definition, but most adventurers would never get their hands on a mana blade. They weren’t exactly a common item. Plus, they could cost dozens, if not hundreds of platinum pieces. Not even I could buy one right now.

My current sword was just a magic sword. It was a simple weapon that could handle mana, spirit, and divinity. Clope would gripe at that description, though. It was, without a doubt, a quality sword, so complaining about it would be ungrateful. Besides, if Clope had the materials and the money, he could most likely make a mana blade.

“So vampiric blacksmiths can craft mana blades,” Lorraine murmured, sounding surprised.

For the most part, mana blades were high-level dungeon items or ancient artifacts that had been discovered somewhere. That, or they’d occasionally show up at an auction. They were extremely difficult to craft from scratch and almost possible to reproduce, so I understood Lorraine’s surprise.

Isaac continued, “As far as I’m aware, there’s only one vampiric blacksmith that can produce such weapons, and no one can copy their techniques. It’s not something that vampires as a whole can produce. One individual is just an exceptionally talented outlier.”

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“We’ve gotten off track. Shall I teach you to use Division?” Isaac said casually, as though instructing us to swing a stick. When he saw our hesitation, he chuckled and said, “It’s actually not that difficult, at least for middle vampires or greater. Even lesser vampires can use it with enough effort, so I believe Miss Rina can also do it. The only issue would be if it turned out that you were of a race that couldn’t actually use Division. We’ll only know once you’ve tried it, however.”

I didn’t mind that last part because there was nothing we could do if so. We didn’t know whether Rina and I were a vampiric variation, a race that was extremely close in nature to vampires, or a completely different race. We were the same in that we needed to feed on human blood, and we had regenerative abilities that rivaled that of vampires. We were probably either a variation or a similar race that could use similar abilities.

“So, how does it work?” I asked Isaac.

Unlike magic, spirit, and divinity, you couldn’t try Division without knowing the general approach. It was the same as not being able to cook even basic dishes unless you knew how to use a knife and how to use various seasonings. Lorraine had once tried to chop a potato with a kitchen knife using both hands. She did manage to cut it in half, but she’d split the cutting board in two. I supposed that was something every beginner went through, regardless of the field.

“The first thing to work on is image training. Think of your body as a collection of something else. As for what that ‘something else’ is, that depends on the person. In my case, bats were the easiest thing to imagine, which is why my Division looks like this.”

Isaac used Division on his fingertip, which turned into three bats that flew off before returning and reforming into his finger.

“Ah, so it’s possible to do partial Division?” Lorraine asked.

“If anything, partial Division is how we start. It’s more difficult to use it on your entire body. Since your consciousness and your viewpoint scatters into multiple bodies, it’s hard to stay focused. But if you only divide a single body part, it’s like looking in different directions at the same time. It’s much easier to acclimate to the sensation that way.”

While I understood what he was saying, I felt like I’d definitely get disoriented and maybe even get motion sickness. But perhaps it was similar to how I felt when I was controlling the miniature airship. That split my viewpoint in two. But my consciousness as well?

“It’s a little scary to think about,” I uttered.

“There’s not much to be afraid of,” Isaac assured me. “If a beginner tried it on their own, they could end up so scattered that their consciousness completely disperses and they vanish, but I’m here as a more experienced wielder. If you’re in danger, I can force you back into a single form.”

That just made it sound even scarier. You could disappear if you failed? I wasn’t just feeling hesitant now.

Isaac saw that I was worried and added, “Oh, as for forcefully returning you to a single form, I can only do that when you’re starting out, so there’s nothing to worry about there. Once you learn to control your own Division, no one can interfere with it.”

I wasn’t worried about that, but I decided not to say it aloud. I knew I was just trying to salvage a little dignity. But either way, it would be a useful skill to learn. Even if it was frightening, I had to do it. There was no point in fretting about it.

“Okay, I guess I’ll try it. Who should go first? Rina or me?”

Isaac paused a moment before saying, “Let’s have Miss Rina try it first. Honestly, in your case, Rentt, your powers seem to be a bit unstable, so I can’t quite say what might happen.”

“Indeed, that’s true. There was the whole incident with the ignition spell,” Lorraine said in agreement.

I had used a spell that was supposed to produce a little spark, but I’d created a giant pillar of fire. It was definitely hard to tell what would happen if I tried Division. Still, my water magic was decent. Why had my ignition spell reacted that way? I couldn’t figure that out. Well, it was fine. At least I could make my own drinking water. I’d just let Rina handle lighting the campfires from now on. If I did it, I’d just end up being an arsonist rather than a camper.

“While I hate to admit it, that sounds like the right call. Okay, then. Rina, you ready?” I asked.

Rina nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! I’ll do my best!”

There wasn’t any trepidation in her voice. It seemed she had a lot more nerve than I did. But that had been true ever since the first day we met. Rina had kept insisting that I could go to the city despite my appearance. Perhaps it was a little reckless to do so, but sometimes adventurers needed that sort of courage. Of course, courage in excess could very well kill you. Rina was pretty hard to kill now, so it worked out, all things considered.

“Shall we give it a try, Miss Rina?” Isaac asked. When she nodded, he instructed, “Try to do what I explained earlier. First, consider your body as a collection of something else. Then imagine that your fingertip can move on its own. Since your unconscious mind also affects your form, what appears from your fingertip might be different from what you imagined, but don’t panic, and just try to treat that new object as part of yourself.”

Rina must have been spreading her imagination’s wings as she listened to Isaac. She closed her eyes and focused. And, several moments later, it happened.

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The outline of Rina’s fingertip began to waver, as if the border between her body and the world around her began to blur. Then it turned into a black haze, looking more and more like a shadow before it suddenly leaped away.

Rina’s entire hand had vanished. The object that had detached itself began circling her.

“She did it,” Isaac said.

Rina had successfully performed partial Division, the very first step in mastering the art itself. However, she didn’t react to Isaac’s words. Or rather, she wasn’t able to. Her eyes stared blankly into space, and sweat seeped out of her pores. It seemed maintaining the Division was taking quite a toll on her.

“Is she all right?” I asked Isaac.

“Everyone reacts like this at first,” he answered. “You just have to keep doing it and get used to the feeling. Still, her Division is unusual.”

Isaac looked at the object that had detached itself from Rina. Lorraine and I also turned to look.

“Hm? It’s a cat?” Lorraine said, tilting her head.

With its graceful lines, long tail, and pointy ears, it was most definitely a cat. Be that as it may, it didn’t look like a real cat, but a shadow of a cat come to life. Were it a real cat, it would have had eyes that glowed in the dark and a pink tongue that peeked out from its mouth. This cat had neither of those features. It was entirely black, from its limbs to its ears.

Out of curiosity, I asked, “It doesn’t look very real. Is it supposed to look like that?”

“As she gets more used to it, it will start to look more like the real thing. For example...”

Isaac divided his own fingertip. A moment later, it formed into a bat that, unlike the earlier examples, looked exactly like a real flesh and blood bat. It had eyes and a mouth, and upon closer inspection, it also had fur. In fact, if I hadn’t known ahead of time, I wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was a part of Isaac.

“This version is still the easiest to make,” Isaac continued. The bat’s details faded, and it changed into a shadowy simulacrum of a bat.

“Hm, how interesting,” Lorraine muttered. “I’d like to try it, but it’s probably not possible for a normal human,” she said with a faintly envious tone.

Well, yeah. It’d be creepy if a normal human could do it. Or maybe it’d be fun if they could. Of course, it was debatable if Lorraine counted as a normal human. I’d never say that to her face, though.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to accept your limitations,” Isaac stated as he watched Rina. “Ah, it looks like she’s nearing her limit. Miss Rina, can you hear me? If you can, try to turn the cat back into your hand. Just focus on that image.”

Rina made no indication that she’d heard him, but the cat that had been wandering around her suddenly changed course. It had been a few strides away, but it slowly approached her before leaping toward her arm. The moment the cat reached Rina’s wrist, it slowly wavered and dissipated, melding into her. In the blink of an eye, her hand had returned to normal.

Rina had been staring blankly into space until then, but she suddenly collapsed in place. Lorraine and I ran over to support her. Her breathing was labored, and she looked tired.

“Hey, you all right?” Lorraine asked, concerned.

I added, “It might be best if you lie down.”

Though her features were drenched in sweat, she replied in a firm voice, “No, it’s okay. It just feels like I ran with all my strength. I’ll be fine with a little rest. I think...”

Ah, so it felt like sprinting—or something that burned about the same amount of physical energy. She was just extra tired because she wasn’t used to the exertion. At least, I thought that was why she was tired.

The vampires we’d met in the New Moon Dungeon had also felt drained after they used Division, but less so than Rina. I guessed they could withstand it because they had already practiced the technique. Even then, as Nive had explained, there was a limit to how long they could maintain it. It wasn’t an all-powerful ability that made you immune to damage.

“Is resting enough for her to recover?” I asked Isaac.

“Yes. Because it was her first time, it’s best she take a fairly long rest, but there will be no lasting effects. However, she’ll need to practice this several times to get the hang of it, so she’ll have to try again while the sensations are still fresh in her mind.”

So she would have to repeat it before she fully recovered. That sounded harsh. Not that I knew how harsh it was...yet.

I started to wonder what it felt like, so I asked Rina, “What do you think of Division now that you’ve tried it?”

I felt a little bad about quizzing her while she was tired, but it didn’t look like she was so tired she couldn’t hold a conversation.

“I felt a bit confused. It really did feel like looking at different things with each eye. And it felt like there were two of me. I mean, they were both me, but since I was looking at something else at a slightly different location, my thoughts started to diverge. It’s really hard to remember that you’re all the same person.”

That must have felt completely alien to a human. I wasn’t a human anymore, but it was definitely something I’d have to experience to really understand.

Lorraine listened to Rina’s explanation with interest. She looked like she had a thousand questions but evidently couldn’t bring herself to subject Rina to such an interrogation when she was so exhausted. A short conversation was one thing, but Lorraine’s inquiries tended to go on at length, and she liked precise details. It could be a draining experience.

“At any rate,” Isaac interjected, sounding grave, “it appears Miss Rina has cleared the first hurdle. If she continues to practice, she should be able to master full-body Division as well. She’s picking it up quickly. A promising student, I would say.”

A promising student? What did that even mean for a sorta-vampire? Like she could maybe become a demon lord? I’d heard there weren’t any vampire demon lords, so actually it might be a good goal. An image of Rina lounging on a throne in some castle situated atop a mountain, swirling blood in her glass like wine as a host of handsome young men naked from the waist up surround her popped into my head...

Okay, that was definitely a weird thought. Although, maybe she’d look good in that role. Nah, I was just kidding.

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“It seems like Rina won’t have any problems, then,” Lorraine stated. “If she keeps this up, she’ll be able to master other vampiric abilities. Though whether that’s a good thing is debatable.”

I knew what she was trying to say. It wasn’t as though Rina had wanted to become a pseudo-vampire. She hadn’t mentioned a desire to become a powerful example of one either. So whether it was good to have that promising talent remained to be seen. That said, Rina was an adventurer. The simple fact that she had gotten stronger was worth celebrating.

It’d be a problem if Rina ever found a way to become a human again. There was no way of knowing if she could retain her current monstrous abilities. But there was no point worrying about that at the moment. Perhaps there would come a day when she’d have to choose between her strength or her race, but if that ever happened, it would be her choice to make.

“Living as a vampire isn’t that bad either,” Isaac replied. “You won’t die of old age. However, there’s an indescribable ennui that comes from being left behind as the times change, and staying in a single place can cause issues, so I can’t say with certainty that it’s a great life. The answers to those questions don’t come in a single night, so Rina will have to struggle with them herself.”

Isaac paused for a moment before saying, “Let’s test your Division, Rentt. Are you ready?”

I nodded with confidence. I’d been in countless bizarre situations before, so I was no longer fazed by this level of uncertainty. I still hoped that nothing too weird happened, though. But all I’d be doing was using Division, so even if something truly strange did occur, I’d just end up dividing into the shadow of some strange creature. I didn’t want to turn into a cockroach or anything, but that would be the worst of it, right?

“Now that you’re mentally prepared, let’s get started. You already heard how to do it when I described it to Miss Rina, so all that’s left is for you to try it. You do remember, yes?”

Yes, even I, with my bird-like attention span, could still recall something I’d heard ten minutes ago. First, I needed to imagine my body as a collection of separate objects. If I remembered correctly, I was supposed to think of them as independent entities, and then I should be able to divide. Just in case, I confirmed the steps with Isaac anyway.

“Yes, that’s exactly right. The important question is what you imagine yourself dividing into. Since you’ve seen my bats and Miss Rina’s cat, it should be easy enough?”

“True. I feel like I’ve got a rough idea of how it works.”

Now that I had to consider it, I wasn’t sure what that creature should be. I knew I was really indecisive when it came to this sort of thing. Maybe a dog since Rina was a cat? Okay, maybe that was a little too thoughtless. Oh, since I have Edel, maybe a mouse? Then again, a mouse can’t fly. I knew based on my experience with the airship that I found freedom soaring through the blue skies. I could already fly on my own, though, so I didn’t know if there was any reason to obsess on that detail. Gah, this was a lot harder than I’d thought it would be!

“Oh, that reminds me,” Lorraine said as though suddenly struck by a thought, “you and Rina both used animals for your images, but is it possible to imagine something else? Like a plant, for example.”

“It’s not impossible, but since the form is fixed once you use it, it wouldn’t be wise,” Isaac answered.

Isaac had meant that as a warning, but as I listened to their exchange, I couldn’t get the image of myself as a tree out of my head. The moment I felt my fingertip changing, I realized my mistake. My finger wavered, and then something began growing out of it.

Hey, wasn’t that... Oh no. Branches, leaves...

I tried to stop it, but the transformation had already spread up my arm. My entire arm had become a branch. I, the walking fertilizer pile, was going to end up a plant myself. It sounded like a joke, but it wasn’t funny.

I was now a collection of plants. So my body was becoming a forest? Wait, a forest had animals, like birds and rabbits and stuff. And depending on where that forest was, there could even be dragons.

Once my thought process reached that point, I saw shadows of rabbits and birds flying out of my other arm. I was seeing all this through two different perspectives, and I was struck by a brief sense of vertigo, but I quickly grew used to the feeling. It must have helped that I’d already experienced something similar with the model airship.

That made me think of something. I was supposed to imagine myself as a collection of something, but nothing said I had to be just one thing. Perhaps Isaac hadn’t mentioned it because it was obvious to him, but it seemed I was able to pull it off, so no harm done.

I continued my brainstorming. For example, not all plants were rooted to the ground. It was useful to transform into something else, but it would be really inconvenient if I couldn’t move at all. Fortunately, there were trees that could move on their own. There were shrub ents and tree spirits like dryads. So even if I turned into a plant, it was perfectly reasonable that I could still move.

My imagination began turning my body into a really weird collage of objects. Lorraine, Isaac, and Rina’s eyes were all wide in shock as they watched my transformation. But once it started, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it.

I continued dividing in the direction my thoughts took me...