Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 3.5

Side Story: Isaac the Vampire

It was said that Division showed a vampire’s individuality. It required thinking of yourself as a collection of something else, and there was no way everyone shared the same image of what that something was. Just as humans had their individual traits, so did vampires. Still, most stuck to a few broad trends.

For example, dividing yourself into bats was common. That was because they had seen many of their teachers or forebears turn into bats when demonstrating Division. Just as I was currently teaching others how to divide, everyone learned the ability from someone with more experience. It was only natural that one would fixate on the example they first saw.

Nevertheless, there was nothing that required the form to be a bat. When we first learned how to divide, we were told that we could choose whatever we liked. Rina had become a cat, but there were examples of other animals as well. But for Rina, even when she learned to divide her entire body, all of her forms would be cats. That was how Division worked. No matter how many bodies I created, they would all be bats.

However, just what was I witnessing?

Rentt. Rentt Faina.

First, he turned himself into a tree. That, while extremely rare, wasn’t inconceivable. It was up to the individual what they wanted to become, so it was perfectly plausible to become a tree if you so wished. But because mobility was largely dependent on the form itself, it was almost unheard of. At the very least, I’d never seen a vampire divide into a plant.

I felt that Rentt’s choice demonstrated just how unusual he was. But that was fine. The issue was what happened after.

Rentt must have realized how inconvenient that form would be, because his expression turned to one of panic.

The very first transformation was extremely important, and once you imagined your divided form, it was extremely difficult to change it. It wasn’t impossible, but once you divided into something, your mind turned to the same thing out of habit. Changing that required an enormous amount of effort and technique, so choosing the right form at the start was essential.

Nonetheless, if you were too preoccupied with that issue, you could fail to divide, so it was a difficult balance. That was why the teacher or mentor would demonstrate their own Division first, providing an easy example for the pupil to follow and relieving some of the pressure of choosing. Hence, as I noted earlier, most vampires turned into bats.

There were exceptions, and of those, most chose different animals. Practically no vampires had attempted anything particularly different. And yet here was Rentt Faina, attempting to further divide his plant body.

Something else started flying out of his arm. When I looked closely, I saw rabbits and birds. They were shadowy black silhouettes at first, perfectly normal for a beginner, but as they began to scurry around Rentt, they gradually became sharper until they were nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.

Then other things began appearing—boars, small dragons, mice. Meanwhile, his body began to twist into a dark mass, as though he were becoming a gloomy, cursed forest. He was now several times his original size, bringing Shumini’s monstrous body to mind.

I’d honestly thought he’d failed, so I was about to intervene. However, the various animals scurrying around suddenly paused as though summoned by something and returned to the forest. Once they were all back, the forest itself began to shrink.

The bright greenery dimmed to inky black shadows and began to coalesce into a humanoid outline. The animals looked like they were trying to break free of Rentt’s silhouette, but that only lasted a few moments. Gradually, his form slowly grew more stable. Then the black silhouette finally melded back into Rentt Faina—which meant he hadn’t failed.

Yes, Rentt Faina had successfully used Division. Though he had changed into that chaotic morass, dividing his consciousness into several dozen forms, he had controlled all of them, returning them to his original body and bringing himself back into existence. Only vampires who could utilize Division could understand how difficult a feat he had just accomplished. There were stories of rare, extremely talented vampires who had managed complex Division techniques from the start, but since I hadn’t expected Rentt to be one of them, I was shocked.

Perhaps this was a bit of a mixed blessing. The fact that he’d accomplished such a feat wasn’t an indicator of skill in and of itself. How would I describe it? It meant that he could precisely control how much power to output, but it wasn’t related to his reservoir of mana or spirit. That wasn’t to say it was pointless. Control was important for Division, so what Rentt had done was really admirable. We didn’t know the scale of his full potential, but it would be a treat to watch him grow into his powers.

On the other hand, how was I to interpret the unusual nature of his Division? Was it because Rentt wasn’t a standard vampire? But if so, Rina had an edge over him. Yet her Division had been standard. Was there some other cause, then? I didn’t know.

“Phew, somehow managed to do it. Isaac, how was it? Did I do it right?” Rentt asked, oblivious to my confusion.

I had no accurate answer to his question, so I just said, “Yes, you were able to do it. However, it was a very strange Division. You couldn’t do it normally?”

My words came out a bit more barbed than I’d intended. I must have let my mixed feelings creep into my tone. Surely no one could blame me for that.

◆◇◆◇◆

For some reason, Isaac was staring at me with a look of exasperation. I briefly wondered what I had done wrong, but evidently that wasn’t the problem. I asked why he was looking at me that way, and he explained it was because it was unusual to accomplish a full-body Division on your first try and it was extraordinarily rare to change into multiple animals and plants.

Controlling the various objects was similar to controlling magic or spirit, so it came naturally to me. My lack of power in those fields had forced me to learn how to precisely regulate them. Nevertheless, it had felt strange for my perspectives and consciousness to divide into multiple bodies.

But no matter how many times I divided, I was still me, so it wasn’t that hard to bring myself back into a single body and consciousness. It was like a greater consciousness controlled everything, and you just had to collect everything into that. If you asked me how to do that, though, I could only say that was how I imagined it.

When I explained that, Lorraine quipped, “Ah, I see. So it’s like you divided your multiple consciousnesses into a commander and soldiers. I can see how that would maintain coherence even if your awareness was divided into multiple bodies. But I could also see those soldiers suddenly taking matters into their own hands.”

“It’s a standard method, actually,” Isaac explained. “There are other methods, but that one is simple and the most efficient. As you surmised, there are times when the parts begin acting of their own accord, so it’s a very difficult method for dividing your entire body. Yet it seems Rentt managed to control the situation using his strong will and brute force. Normally, that method is for two or three parts only.”

So it was a technique for controlling partial Division. You turn the human part of you into the commander and the detached parts into soldiers. But for the reasons Lorraine mentioned, it wasn’t suited for full-body Division. Still, I’d been able to do it, so there wasn’t much else to say.

“Miss Rina, you would do best to avoid emulating that method,” Isaac said gravely. “It’s better to steadily build up your skill through practice. Outliers like Rentt aren’t useful models.”

“I-I understand. Besides, it’s not like I ever thought I could emulate him!”

Why did she refer to me like I was some eccentric weirdo? It was a little hurtful, but there were a bunch of odd things about me. Given that I went from being a skeleton to a vampire, only to find out that I wasn’t quite a vampire, I knew I was some odd mix of human and monster. I had no right to claim that I was normal. However, Rina was a monster now too. I figured she’d burst out crying if I said that, so I wasn’t going to say it out loud. Besides, she was my friend.

“Anyway, I guess this means you’re a proper vampire now? You were always hard to kill, but now I think we can safely conclude that you’re pretty much unkillable,” Lorraine said rather casually.

In terms of endurance, my body would keep regenerating when damaged, even without Division. I was a lot harder to kill than the average human, and now that I had Division under my belt, I could just reform any loss.

I was getting further and further away from human. Wasn’t my original goal to find a way to be human again? A part of me felt conflicted that I’d changed so much, but since it meant I was harder to kill for the moment, I supposed I’d just live with it for now.

“Yes, most methods can’t destroy you, but you shouldn’t be too reliant on those abilities,” Isaac warned. “There are several ways to inflict serious damage on a vampire. It’s very dangerous to think you can take any attack and survive. The biggest cause of death among newly created vampires is because they lose their sense of danger.”

“Do you have an example?” Lorraine asked.

“The most common examples are those who go on a rampage, doing whatever they want because they feel they can’t die, only to end up the target of a divinity user. Divinity-imbued weapons won’t necessarily destroy you on contact, but you can feel they’re more effective than ordinary weapons. That usually causes more panic and confusion than normal, and before you know it, you’re dead without putting up any notable resistance. It’s definitely one of the sadder ways a vampire can meet their end.”

Similar things happened to adventurers all the time. A freshly promoted adventurer could take their class ascension as an increase in strength and wander too deep in a dungeon and die. It seemed that sort of thing was the same whether you were a human or a vampire. But since it was just one of the sadder ways a vampire could meet their end, it sounded like there were worse ways to die? There were also plenty of ways to make them suffer.

When I started thinking of ways to torture a vampire, a lot of things came to mind. I decided to stop that train of thought. It was way too creepy.

“So I shouldn’t get too cocky just because I can use Division, right? I’ll be careful, then,” I murmured to myself.

“That would be best,” Isaac said. “That’s the secret to a long life. Now, this will do for Division. There are other vampiric abilities, and while I want to teach them to you, it’s better that you master Division first. They’ll have to wait for next time.”

I thought it would be better to learn everything at once if we were going to learn them all, so I tilted my head quizzically at Isaac.

He noticed my expression and replied, “I understand your perspective, but there are several techniques that assume a certain mastery of Division. Even for abilities that don’t require that, when you cram in the knowledge, it’s easy to miss the subtleties of their use. Also, Miss Rina looks like she can’t handle any more today.”

While disappointing, Isaac’s reasons were logical. I agreed it was best to wait. I could use Division to some extent, but I couldn’t say I could do it perfectly. According to Isaac, once you mastered it, it would come naturally without much conscious thought or focus. Yeah, that made sense. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be much use in combat. It looked like I’d be training with Rina for a while.