Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 22: Before All the Killing

Chapter 22: Before All the Killing

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Earlier, before the night and moon had graced him

Within his candlelit bathroom, water sloshed, and his long shadow flickered across the wall, the flames undulating. A low, humming tune came from his throat, although, even while sounding pleasant, it betrayed his emotional turmoil.

He had only a short time ago made the decision that he would leave his apartment to first of all get proper weapons to protect himself.

Hopefully, a gun. Ideally, more than a single gun. Better yet, A couple of guns, with a couple dozen, or a few hundred, boxes of ammunition.

Even the forsaken could dream.

Nevertheless, thirdly amongst his immediate concerns was to find a way to sustain himself without drinking blood.

Fourthly and finally, but not least importantly, was to find information.

If he was to skip any of the steps above before finding information about the apocalypse, then really, whatever he found out could easily become useless. He would die before he could use it, or likely starve.

With these thoughts, Dion had reluctantly accepted that he could not leave the house in the state that he had been in.

He had just heavily exhausted himself by trying to summon Anastasia and failing.

Then there was the fact that he could feel the hunger growing within him, the vampiric hunger for blood.

He had just tried to eat a bowl of noodles, only to find that while it wasn’t repulsive and he could still eat, it was unsubstantial.

The only thing it made him feel was the pleasure of tasting their flavours.

And a part of him hoped that maybe the act of eating itself would help hold him over even if he didn’t feel like it did anything for him.

Were he to blindly run out into the apocalypse like this, with nothing more than the baseball bat that Shijo had left at his place and his fireplace poker, it might be no different from handing himself to the clutches of zombies, or worse, a gnoll.

Dion didn’t wholly get what was going on, but considering that suddenly systems had awakened, and creatures that should have only been told fantasy stories about, in gnolls, had appeared, then perhaps some other things could be inferred from that same connection?

’I must have drained my mana completely last night... and even sleeping wasn’t enough to recover it completely. Is it because of the transformation to make me a vampire? I remember seeing a magic circle-like construction... so, my mana had been used to fuel it?’

One of his legs hung over the ledge of the bathtub, dribbles of water slipping down onto the ground. His arms had been draped along the rim of the bathtub with one of his other hands dangling over the side.

’But why would it then take so long to recover even after the fighting had ended?’

In that moment, with his eyes trained to the ceiling, watching the quivering of the orange flame, his expression somewhat listless in his pondering. He had briefly considered whether it might have been because of the errors that he had forced into struggling for mana just now.

And he thoroughly tried to wrack his brain for anything else that he could remember that he could explain why he didn’t have enough mana to summon her when she had clearly been there before he lost consciousness.

Then the sight of that white hair, and the fact that in the first place he needed mana to summon her, flashed in his brain. It was a slight detail, one that he had already known about, but thinking more about it led him to what he believed was a truth.

’My system should be directly connected to the garden because it had said it was protecting me... so it used my mana for my transformation as well as to summon her. Though the matter of the transformation isn’t something I can confirm, it likely did use my mana to summon her... then.... After I killed that gnoll... and when she had brought me here....’

Dion’s head leaned to one side, glancing down the bathroom to the floor still littered with the sharp, broken pieces of his toilet seat. The bathroom had a good amount of mist swimming about, and the scent filling it was a delicate jasmine.

’She’s the only explanation. It must take mana for me to maintain her presence here. Which means she disappeared not long before I had woken up... And that would explain why the room was cold.’

Dion opened up his system panel as the water stirred once more and he brought his gaze back to the roof. However, he didn’t look at the whole thing.

He was looking for the specific descriptions of the information on his status. And perhaps to make him feel that little better, he saved what he had hoped would be the best—his Ascent—for last, as he went through some of the Attributes first.

{ Attribute: Adored by Prana }

{ You are seen quite fondly by Prana. }

{ Charm }

{ You possess a natural allure towards those who are favourably inclined toward you and are the object of your attention. }

{ Attribute: Ruthless }

{ What you damage or destroy is more difficult to restore. }

Charm and ruthless were rather straightforward, even if he had not seen their effects in person. However, Prana was the most curious.

’Is the energy called prana and not mana? I don’t feel very adored by it right now...’

Despite the onset of this idea, Dion didn’t feel as if the energy within him was prana. They instinctively felt quite different.

’Maybe that’s the adoration speaking.’

Then, rather than continuing with his Attributes, be jumped up towards his titles, feeling that perhaps they might give him a little more insight into the remaining attributes and details of his status that he would go on to see.

{ Title: Emperor of the Hanging Garden of Babylon }

{ This title is the crystallization of your investiture, and the proof of your status. You are the sovereign chosen by the ancient and forgotten Hanging Garden of Babylon, and all within it falls beneath your rule. }

To think that the game that he had been playing for so long would turn out to be what saved him rather than the system that was meant to have awakened in him properly.

It made him distantly question just what the hell was going on with that game in the first place. He didn’t know if other people besides him had played within their own sandbox of the Hanging Garden, so he couldn’t know if there was anyone to look for to get answers.

’And the creator of the sandbox itself was anonymous...’

That memory was rather ominous to think of as he sighed. But ultimately, he didn’t let himself linger too long on it. There was nothing that he could do about it right now, and thinking anymore would simply leave him running in circles.

Understanding what his awakening had brought him that he could actually control right now, and that would help towards his survival and reaching his family, was far more important.

Thus, he went on to look at the information of the next Title.