We followed the road, surrounded by dense plants. I dragged a wagon with Flora next to me. The people we met earlier were in the wagon, using the clothes I gave them as blankets. Silva guarded us while playing with the two kids we met before.

Ever since we embarked on this trip, I’ve watched her annihilate several monsters with one blow. We were constantly attacked by animals that resembled those on Earth but with some twisted features. They were hybrids of different creatures. At one point, we encountered a group of goblins. I thought I would have to persuade Mia to act, but little did I know we had a formidable weapon. Silva killed them all in less than a second. She blew off their heads with some kind of attack that I couldn’t see. The burnt edges of their necks indicated it was something hot. It wasn’t fire, because it was too fast and invisible. I deduced it was some kind of laser.

Lasers were typically invisible till they hit their targets. This explained the things we got hit with when we were fighting her and why Mia couldn't dodge them. It was because they were literally invisible and the fastest attacks possible.

I looked at the small pixie. The fact that she looked so small and harmless made me terrified of her.

Flora had cleaned up the corpses by grabbing them with plants and throwing them into the woods. When I asked if that wasn't hurting the environment in any way; she told me that the corpses would be gone before morning.

“Everything in these woods has a voracious apatite after all,” She said.

The wagon halted to a stop and got stuck again. I dug my feet into the ground and pulled harder, forcing them to get unstuck, but causing small screams and gasps amongst the group of women.

"Sorry about that," I apologized.

The wagon tended to get stuck when I got too relaxed, but it seemed that all I needed to do was add a bit more strength.

Now I knew why cars didn’t have wooden wheels---They sucked!

I had wanted to use the wolf form to pull the wagon as it might have made things easier, but Mia warned me against that form. Apparently, I was likely to start losing it and attack everyone once some period of time had passed.

As we traveled, I chatted with Flora several times and learned a lot from her. She told us how she saved us after we got nuked. She wished to bring us back to life right away, but she cared about not hurting innocent people. So she searched for humans who were wicked enough to earn no compassion from her.

They moved with us, as they continued on their way to Flora’s home. The plan was to find suitable humans on the way, which they did with the bandits. It had been a whole week since then.

It was hard to believe I came back from only a heart. But I had no right to complain. I was a soul who turned into a half-god before even graduating high school.

It couldn’t get any weirder than that.

As we moved, we were somewhere near the center of the empire’s territory. I couldn’t get the full story on this because Mia had cut in and taken over the conversation, but it seemed that Flora and Silva had taken us deeper into the empire in their pursuit of home. Mia didn’t like this information, apparent by her quietness and constant feeling of annoyance and stress coming from her.

What was she so afraid of?

While I speculated on Mia’s worries, a question suddenly came to me.

“If where you live and where you met us were so far. What were you doing at the place to have met us?” I asked Flora, who gave a small glance my way.

“The queen’s teleportation circle isn’t very precise in its destination of where someone will land.”

Oh, so they had teleported to us?

I wondered from where, but just guessed they came from the fey world or something because of the mention of the word queen. That was really unlucky of us, or lucky? I couldn't really tell if getting to be friends with Flora and Silva was worth almost dying.

“Anyway…. What happened to the wolves? The ones we… fought.” I asked since they were the sole reason this fiasco started.

“They were sent ahead.”

Ahead? Meaning they were already there to where we were going? But, “Are they alright though? We had done some pretty serious damage on them.”

"They're fine, Silva has a technique that can recover wounds."

“Are they spirits too? Just like you and Silva?”

"I'm afraid not, they’re simply dire wolves, that Silva raised."

Wait, then how could they talk though?

I tilted my head in confusion but decided to forget about the matter. My eyes landed on the pixie that flew around, not once seeming to lose her happy atmosphere.

I thought; I should apologize to her about her pets.

After I made that small promise, some number of minutes passed by, of us just walking in silence.

“Could I have said something wrong for your vessel to be so upset?" Flora suddenly asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her.

“Did I interfere with some sort of plan by bringing you here?”

“Maybe...Because Mia had planned out a lot of stuff about where we were going to go and what we were going to do. She told me a bunch of places we were heading so that we would be able to leave the empire.”

“Your intention was to vacate this human country?”

“Yeah, I figured it was because it was dangerous for us here.”

“I see….. then would I be correct to assume you had planned to hide amongst humans? Once you vacated the Bathaija empire?”

“Well…… I guess? We are a vampire after all, so we’ll need blood…...though I’m still wondering if we can drink animal blood instead?” I thought out loud.

“You cannot,” Flora said, her voice awfully firm.

“……. Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re a curse. the curse that’s made your vessel, is primarily pointed at humans. You can only consume humans or races containing human blood like hybrids. You cannot feed on any other blood.”

"Really……. Well…… that sucked."

I thought drinking animal blood would solve my problem, but I was wrong. Flora destroyed my hopes before they even formed.

During our short journey, I felt a strong urge for blood whenever I saw the people behind me. It was a frustrating and sometimes overpowering feeling that I tried to ignore. It reminded me of when my mom took away my phone because I spent too much time online. Back then, I needed any device to satisfy my craving for watching videos. Now, I felt the same way, if not a bit worse. I wanted blood.

This was going to be a problem if I wanted to be around others.

“And I’m afraid your vassal’s plan wouldn’t have worked if what you wished to avoid were the human organization that eradicates undead.”

“Please explain?” Mia demanded, as she suddenly took control for a split second.

I stumbled and almost fell at the sudden and unexpected loss and regaining of the body.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Damn it, I wished she’d stop doing that! If she wanted to talk to Flora, she should have just taken full control and pulled the wagon while she was at it.

“Are you alright?” Flora asked with concern, but I simply smiled and answered with "Yes, I'm fine,” then kept walking.

The dryad, looking back at the road walked in silence for a second before she decided to speak.

“You wish to know why avoiding the Order by leaving countries wouldn’t have worked?”

[Tell her yes, and to explain in great detail.]

“She said ‘yes please’,” I passed on Mia’s thoughts.

“Well, it's very simple in fact. You would have been found out as a vampire in any human settlement you would have gone to.”

“?.... really? I’m sure Mia could sneak in any place she wanted---we wouldn’t get busted that fast would we?” I said in Mia’s defense.

“You would have been discovered because of the simple reason that you could not hide your presence as a vampire. Even as we walked now, there was a clear example here" She turned her head and looked behind "Look at the humans that you’re hauling.”

“They are still clearly afraid of you even after long periods have passed. You haven’t done anything to reinforce their fear and yet they're still afraid. Did you not question yourself why?”

“I….” I paused to think about my answer.

She had a good point. It was unnatural for someone to still be terrified even after the danger was clearly established to not be a threat to them. Was there something about me that kept constantly reminding them to be afraid?

As if to answer my question, Flora continued.

“It is because of your presence, well both of your presences combined. Miss Charlottes as your vessel is at the front, so people will sense her before they sense Sir Leo. But even when I simply say it like that it’s still not that simple. Leo’s presence is the heaviest as a divine being, but instead of overshadowing your vessel’s, it magnifies it, giving you the appearance of a vampire that's on the same level as a greater demon. However, after your encounter with Silva, your presence did get weak. I would think you might be able to enter a city as you are now…. but you will get caught quickly.”

[…….. ]

“So everyone we’ll meet will see us as a super powerful vampire, or something?”

Her smile fell away for a second then immediately recovered. It happened so fast that I doubted my own memory.

“They’ll be more afraid than in awe,” she corrected. “Undead presences inspire dread and terror within their alive counterpart.”

Ohh…. Then being around people in general was a bad idea.

But I wondered though, was this presence thing; the same thing that the goddess did to me when we first met?

I looked back at the group of women and kids and wondered if I should have been a bit more far away so they wouldn’t have been so afraid of me. And as a matter of fact, what range was the fear aura we were producing?

Flora suddenly grabbed my wrist and stopped, causing me to halt too. I turned, looking at her.

“Wha-What is it?” I asked, startled.

"Hmm…. I just realized something." She raised my arm, pulling back the sleeves. Her eyes ran all over my arm, scanning for something.

“Oh, I see now!” She exclaimed, her hand running across my arm.

Her hand was ruff, just as I should have expected from a hand made out of wood.

"It was the other way around. A curse built up upon life force,” She said with wonder.

Her eyes were somewhere else, showing she was thinking intensely of something. She turned and walked.

Okay, I wasn't going to let that slide. What did she mean by that?

I pulled the wagon and caught up. Once I did I asked her what she meant.

She brushed off my question, saying that she was still figuring it out and would tell me when she did. I was not satisfied with that answer, so I tried to coax her into telling me something, anything because I hated being in the dark. “I apology important one, but I cannot miss lead you with barely made theories and speculations,” She said every time I asked. We did, however, agree on a compromise: she would answer any other question I asked. I seized the opportunity and asked her what I really wanted to know, which was obviously magic.

I hoped that she would be a better teacher than Mia, even if she couldn’t teach me magic directly, she could guide me in the right direction.

“Hmmm,” she hummed thoughtfully. It seemed that my request for magic lessons had stumped her. “Can’t you do it?” “Hmmm?” she looked at me and I met her gaze with pleading eyes.

“Ohh, there is no need for that,” she said with a gentle laugh. “I have faith in my ability to guide you. Although magic works differently for mortals and divine beings, I believe I can assist you. You only need a bit of knowledge and you will be fine and dandy. The challenge is that it will require some time to explain everything to you. I presume you have little experience with life force and techniques, no?”

I nodded, and for the rest of our trip, we moved steadily while Flora explained what life force was. She said that techniques were a more complex topic and she would teach me later when we had more time.

***

The soul and its relation to magic. The soul, or the essence or life force, Which I realized were the same thing, were the core of all magic. When someone used magic, they used the energy within their soul which was mana, to alter the world. The soul created and controlled mana, but because Mortals could not command their souls, just as they did their physical body, they needed a way to use magic. Techniques were the solution to solve this problem. A system of writing instructions on the souls. Formulas that converted mana into a phenomenon.

Since souls produce mana, a person with a larger soul would have more mana, which translated to a stronger presence.

“So is mana and presence directly correlated to each other?” I asked.

“Indeed, you could say presence is the overflow of mana in one’s body that can affect others close to you.”

[If that is the case, the I wonder how they are able to completely conceal their presences? But even then I couldn’t sense the same energy I received when living beings were near. What were they using to completely hide themselves like this?] Mia inquired.

[Conceal? You mean they have no presence?]

[Indeed, I can’t sense an ounce of anything from them. I’m certain if we weren’t looking at them we wouldn’t know they were here.]

Well, I’ve always had to use my eyes or ears to know someone was there. So there was no difference to me.

“Anyway how did an apostle using magic differ from a normal person using it? you mentioned it but didn’t explain.”

“Hmmm? I said I would explain techniques to you at a later date, but…. I can summarize it like this. There are concepts in the world and these concepts can also be called the gods... A mortal is able to connect to that power using techniques as a medium to construct the mana into a phenomenon... An apostle, however…... is like the god they serve, they have full control over the entire concept.”

Our conversation then turned to vampires when Flora commented on us having two affinities. “An advantage that would have already been ridiculous on its own, but that wasn’t the most absurd thing about you,” she said.

And sure, when she said that, I wanted to know what she meant. What could have been so good she would describe it as ‘absurd’. Flora explained, her attitude less formal than it was before and she seemed genuinely happy to talk about this.

What made us amazing, in Flora's words. Was our ability to drink blood. I was confused by the statement at first but when she got into the details I further understood what she meant.

The undead, or more specifically, the vampires. Vampires are able to absorb the life force of other creatures and add it to their own power, allowing them to become stronger over time. To have more mana and heightened abilities.

Life force was absorbed and converted to a different kind of energy that served the same job as a soul. This power for the undead was death or rather death energy. There was a downside, however, this absorption of life force and conversion to death energy was not efficient. Vampires could only turn less than half of the life force into death energy, and the rest was wasted. This made vampires grow slowly despite their ability to take the energy of life. There also was a limit to how much power vampires could gather and that limit was the final evolution of a vampire.

Mia and I had an advantage because Mia could transfer all the life force to me without converting it into death energy, which saved us from any losses. I acted as the soul for Mia, which meant that we didn’t waste any energy when we fed on blood and we would grow much faster than normal vampires. In fact, she corrected herself and said we had the highest growth potential because I was a divine being rather than a normal soul. We had no limit on how much life force we could absorb. And to make it even better, we had two affinities belonging to the two strongest gods.

I was excited and very thankful for the information as it made my quest to use my first spell much easier. The goddess also didn’t hold back on the cheat skills. I was also impressed by the cheat codes the goddess gave to us. They were overpowered, but the catch was that they all relied on our ability to get blood from people which I was not a fan of, in fact, I was afraid of.

Concerns flooded my mind of all the bad things that could happen with this much potential and very little self-control. I was sure Mia wouldn’t be any help in keeping us in check so we wouldn't be a tyrant or some kind of evil existence that no one could stop. I mean we grow stronger by how much blood we consume? What would stop us from massacring millions if we reached a certain level of power? What would stop us if we were power hungry and we would do anything to get it? I didn’t think Mia would do it, in fact, she would be the instigator of such a path.

What was the goddess thinking about giving a kid like me this sort of power? I was a teenager, my morality was on shaky grounds and I could be easily corrupted by power, especially if I had someone who was a hedonist and had no morals, as a partner.

***

“We arrived,” Flora announced.

At her announcement, we stood questioningly at a wall of forest. A wall of forest was the best way to describe it by how many trees and vegetation there were. they blocked our path.

We had gotten off the road a while ago and had marched through the woods till we got here. The group of humans seemed really adverse to moving off the road. But with a single glance from me, they were willing to cooperate.

I was really sorry for scaring them.

Looking around I wondered, where Flora’s place actually was. She didn’t mean we were actually going to live in the forest right?

With a gesture of her hand, Flora commanded the trees to part, revealing a hidden path.

I gasped in awe. Okay, now that was cool.

I stepped closer to the path, which was lined with smooth grass and tangled trees. The trees bore glowing plants that lit up the way, their orange fruits resembling carrots. I admired the beauty and mystery of the place.

As I entered the opened path. I felt a sudden change in the air, a difference that made me nervous. It was as if I had intruded into someone else's territory, and I was not supposed to be there.

[A barrier,] Mia said in shock.

I remembered Flora mentioning it before, but we never got into detail on what it was.

Everyone followed behind us and as Flora passed me she said.

"You know it's rude to enter homes without permission, right?”

“Sorry,” I said, and she gave a small chuckle.

“It’s only a jest. Because vampires can't enter houses without permission?”

“Ohh….” I said giving a small laugh in return.

[We had a weakness like that?]

[Hmm…. I believe so.]

[Then why didn’t you tell me when I asked you what our weaknesses were,] I said referring back to the river incident.

[I forgot about it.] She simply stated.

My mind returned back to reality, to find Flora staring at me intently. "Umm…. W- What was up?"

Her stare moved from me to behind me.

“Your humans,” She said.

The group of women stood at the edge of the entrance, huddle together. They did not speak any words but their expressions said more than enough, that they were not moving passed this point.

The ‘older woman from before’ stepped forward, the others hiding behind her as she did. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing heavily. She clearly was afraid, but still stepped forward, separating from the group.

"Umm…. Yes?" I asked when a few seconds of silence passed.

“T-This place…... will…... will we get out…if…. If we were to enter?”

Umm….. of course? It was not like you were forever going to be lost in here? I just didn’t want to leave you guys in the woods alone.

“Though I pity your situation,” Flora said. “I have no word on your fate. Whether you get to leave or not is entirely dependent on Sir Leo here.”

Fate? Ohh I got it. They still thought I was going to eat them or something.

I really wasn’t. But I didn’t know how I could make it any clearer; I wasn’t going to do anything to them.

“Oh…. um," I muttered softly.

“Please,” the woman pleaded. “I… I am more than willing to do anything you want….. including to die or be your slave or anything…... but….. but just please… please let the rest go. They still have much left to live for. Their families need them….”

Her voice was sorrowful. It was one that would put a lump in your chest if you were to hear it.

I raised my hands in a calming gesture, a reflex I often did when I tried to de-escalate a situation, But……

"Very well, I will accept your loyalty for the lives of the humans behind you," Mia announced.

She had suddenly taken control out of the blue, a repeat of what she'd been doing, throughout the night.

She, with our male form, walked closer and grabbed the arm of the woman, looking her in the eyes.

“Do you swear to serve me in exchange for the lives of the humans behind you?”

[Mia! What are you--]

[Silence!] She yelled at me. [I believe I've let you done what you wanted up until now. It’s my turn to do as I wish. And let me warn you, if you interfere I swear….. I will do everything in my power to kill every last human here.]

Seriously!?

I hesitated to do anything.

“I….” the woman stuttered. “I swear.”

Mia smiled. She bit our wrist, so hard that she tore out a chunk. Though the wound didn’t hurt, it still looked gruesome enough to freak me out.

[M-Mia!?]

She brought the wrist that dripped with blood to the woman’s mouth. The lady looked distressed as she tried to turn her head away. But she couldn’t resist and was forced to drink the blood.

The woman had immediately cried out after that, falling to her knees, shaking, and appearing to be in pain.

[What did you do to her?]

Mia ignored my inquiry and simply kneeled down next to the woman, moving our mouth near her ear.

“Don’t resist…. You swore, did you not??” She whispered, and as she did, the woman slowly stopped shaking and seemed to relax.

Mia stood up and looking down at her she said, "Stand." The woman stood up without a moment of delay or hesitation. Her face looked extremely tired but she didn’t disobey Mia.

“The rest of you can follow, you do not have to worry as your lives are guaranteed, I will—in accordance with my promise, even guide you to a human settlement where you will be safe but only when I have the time,” She said to the group before looking back to Flora with a smirk.

“Now will we hurry up with the tour?” Her eyes moved to Silva who floated next to the drayed. “I wish for a rematch with a certain high-ranked spirit.”