“This is seriously bad news…”

I was using a metal plate where I ate my food to check my reflection… I didn’t expect that my ears would become pointy at this point in time. I thought that I would just have to worry about my hair, but it wasn’t true. I wasn't entering puberty either, so it was a weird time for my appearance to change...

In this world, pointy ears were a trademark of vampires. Elves had pointy ears too, but they were quite long, so I couldn’t try to pass as one. Even half-elves had longer ears.

“Well, it has been a while since I faced some kind of problem, so perhaps it can’t be helped. My wave of luck is over.”

I was only nine, and I thought that I would have one extra year to get ready, but my preparations had been finished, somewhat. It has been three years since I talked with Rayner, the kids weren’t even coming home anymore. They were heading to where he was working.

“I didn’t know that the number of enemies would be that high… pirates, huh?”

Most pirates were orcs and goblins and they reproduce pretty fast, so it made sense that their numbers would be high. I thought that they were supposed to be monsters, but some of them are born with the ability to talk and obtain classes too, so they can become problems if they are left to their own devices because they have more potential than ordinary goblins. Since they are smart, they know that reproducing and increasing their numbers is one of their weapons too.

I checked the map that I found in a book. The Great Sea was south of my location… by horse, it would take two weeks to reach it. The Knights Academy was also in that direction, so it made sense the other kids would head there to see their father.

On the map, I had a bunch of lines that showed the routes that I had planned to take. One usually would think that hopping from dungeon to dungeon and gaining a class on the first floor was the best option. However, that was far from the truth.

Traveling costs money and the roads aren’t safe either… one usually would need to pay to be guarded or work as a guard in some caravans that move from one place to the other. That kind of work is usually offered by the guilds and they wouldn’t offer such work for someone who didn’t have a good reputation. Their dignity would be at stake as well, after all.

The other option was to rely on trains, they are pretty fast, but they cost a lot of money. I figured out that getting at least two classes in a dungeon before moving on was the best method to grow stronger and make money at the same time.

A few days later, there was a party at home because the twins soon would depart to the lady's academy. After studying for three years there, they can go to other schools that would teach them the subjects that they liked the most.

After all this time, I managed to learn a bit more about my sisters when I was doing some studying in Rayner’s office. They were walking in the corridor while talking about their goals.

Adelin likes nobility and luxury and she was planning to marry someone rich to become more influential and expand her family influence... She is full of herself or so I assumed since she has that air of arrogance while using a fan on herself. She was studying economics since she was already fifteen and had graduated from the lady's academy.

Gethiana was a skilled and smart mage who showed promise with her magic skills, she wanted to obtain a high position in the human magic academy to make her family more influential there as well.

Iri also wants to become a high priest like her mother. She is gentle and always healed her brothers when she was at home after they trained, and she wants to be able to heal those who can’t pay for healing magic. Just like Jacques, despite her good parts, she hated me with passion.

Lizzie and Linnet wanted to become mages, too, but it was hard to tell now if they had the knack for it. In any case, I stayed away from the party as usual since I wasn’t invited. The next day, they departed and then the mood at home took a nose dive. When I decided to talk with the merchant again, no guard decided to follow me… it seemed that the wives were controlling things at home now.

‘I guess I will stay at home, then.’

I knew better than to get overconfident… I had gotten a bit stronger lately, and more skilled too, but time was one of the most important factors to make someone strong in this world, so the best I could hope for was to win against those only a few years older than me.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

… …

While Regulus was thinking along those lines, a few days passed. On a random night, a cloaked figure suddenly appeared at the top of the mansion. The figure silently moved on the roof without making a single sound and then moved to one of the windows of the mansion. The window was locked, but the figure’s hand passed through the glass and then unlocked the window before jumping inside the mansion and then landing without making a single sound like they were made of feathers.

The figure moved to the shadows and it disappeared there before reappearing meters away in front of the staircase that led to the lower floors. Soon enough, the figure appeared on the first floor in the old part of the house where only Regulus lived. The figure’s hand passed through the door and checked if it was locked… it wasn’t, so they silently pushed the door and opened it.

The figure saw Regulus’ body under the cover of his blanket since the window of his room was blowing with the strong cold wind. The curtains weren’t enough to make the room warm. All of a sudden, a knife materialized in their hands and then they stepped forward to deal with him, but as soon as the door stopped moving, they heard a click of two spheres touching each other right above the door, and then an explosion happened.

… …

I woke up with the mansion shaking and with the sound of something cracking. Some of the books in the office fell on the ground and I quickly got up. I expected that this would happen, but...

‘The combination was a lot more powerful than I had predicted. Still, they didn’t die…’

I imagined that it was only a matter of time before someone decided to claim my nice neck, so… since no one ever went to talk with me at night, I figured out that I could set up a trap in my room. One that would target any possible assailant.

Thanks to that, I had been sleeping rough in Rayner’s office. I couldn’t leave any signs of it there, so I slept while sitting on the floor for a whole month. Under his table, I grabbed the things that I had packed to leave the mansion when the time came. It was just a simple backpack with my notes and some clothes and a few Terra coins since I had to travel lightly.

I approached the door and then put my ear on it, I could hear shouts and some screams, but they were all heading to the rooms of Rayner’s wives. The guards who were unaware of what had transpired assumed that someone was targeting the ladies. So, that was my cue to leave.

I slowly left the office without making any sound, I trained a bit for that, but having high dexterity helped quite a bit. I silently approached the closest window and then saw some guards in the distance approaching with torches. The ones that guarded the place at night were already inside.

With that in mind, I headed to the western side of the mansion, it was on the opposite side of my room, and it was the area where the warehouse could be found. The place was empty as expected, so I soon opened one window there before jumping to the other side and closing it.

I looked around once more before approaching the wall that was around the mansion and then climbing it almost like a spider. Dexterity truly is useful… The wall was five meters tall, so I climbed it in two seconds before jumping to the other side. The fall hurt a bit, but I clenched my teeth and began to move while ignoring the pain.

I headed to where the merchant worked, the one that was selling my goods. A while ago, I wrote a letter asking him to look for some things. The wind and fire spheres that explode when they touch anything after they are set were one of those. In exchange for that, I gave him the blueprint for the scope.

In exchange for all my gains in the sales of those products, I also told him to look for a version of the magic implement that could hide my information. I also gave him the blueprint for a bicycle… it seemed too valuable and I could make a lot of money with that, but it was to make sure that he wouldn’t betray me and to make him realize that being my ally would be a lot more advantageous.

‘Greed wins over hate, huh?’

In the back of the alley behind the shop of the merchant, I found another backpack there with the stuff I asked him for. The ring of misinformation of rare rank… would work against those who have their identification skills up to level 20. A set of dye bottles of all colors to change my hair color whenever I moved to a new place and a cloak and a hood. It was black, but I could change it with the dye or other types of ink.

I moved from the area since things were starting to get noisy… I hadn't planned to burn down the mansion, but it seemed that the explosion created flames that spread around. That would be good enough to make people think that I had burned to ashes… only the assailant would know that I was alive.

Luck was on my side… once I dyed my hair a golden yellow, it began to rain, so I had an excuse to keep my hood on. The smell of the dye was slowly being washed away by the rain too.

A lot of people left their houses to check what had happened, but they didn’t mind seeing someone hooded heading in the opposite direction, chaos had spread and it was a weapon that I could use. It would be even better if the train station worked at night, but since not a lot of those existed, only a couple of them departed from the city every day. I didn’t have enough money to use it to reach the other side of the country, but I had enough to reach the next town and that was enough for me.

‘This will do…’

I found a dark alley close to the train station… it was a bit cold thanks to the wind and the rain, but I just had to endure that for six hours. The first train would depart at eight in the morning, but my desire to start my new life kept me warm during the whole time. Hours passed just fine and nothing serious happened.

When morning came, I saw some people heading to the station, so I decided to head there too, and wait for my train. There were some guards there, but they were yawning all the time and not paying attention to the passengers. After waiting for two hours, I eventually embarked on the train.