Two nights later, after my newest acquisition finished recovering from his transformation, our newly forged team was fully in business. The experience points came pouring in, even as the heads of our unfortunate prey were sent flying.

I had a lot of fun. I hadn’t enjoyed myself this much in quite some time.

The creatures we hunted this evening were an infamous goblin variant known as Redcaps. They were given that name because of their notorious habit of slitting the throats of their dying victims and dipping the tiny bowler caps donned on their bulbous heads in the fountaining blood, dyeing them a vibrant red.

Just how repulsive could a lesser lifeform be?

Most people might think that a vampire would be unconcerned about such blatantly unhygienic behavior, but in this regard, they’d be completely wrong. Did I occasionally get other people’s blood on my clothing during a violent confrontation or feeding? Sure. It happens. Such is life. But do you know what I always do afterwards? I take a shower and change my clothing! I didn’t make nasty little keepsakes that would attract buzzing parasites and spread bloodborne pathogens because I’m not gross and I believe in the value of cleanliness.

Trust me, I’m a big advocate of soap. Soap is dope as far as I’m concerned. If you could have seen what the world was like before we had the option to enjoy things like a nice lavender rinse, I’m certain you’d be quick to agree.

From above, a Redcap came flying down, yelling a ferocious battle cry as it swung its jagged butcher’s blade at my head, only to be caught in midair by the tip of my spear as I impaled it. Its eyes bulged with pain as he was next flung down and dispatched with a crunchy stomp to the head that splattered the contents of its skull across the cold earth.

Bits of the creature also splashed across my face, which I cheerfully wiped away as I sought another target. What a joyous exercise this was! How exhilarating to hunt in the name of pleasure and profit, something I haven’t had cause to do in ages.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed going forth into the world and staining my hands with the blood of my foes. This was how life should be lived! Adventuring, conquering, slaughtering. Before my death I hadn’t left my castle in nearly seventy years. What had I been doing all that time?

Sitting and brooding and lamenting past mistakes.

Being out here was so much better!

It felt like a renewal.

I wouldn’t have known so much about the nature of these Redcaps if I hadn’t begun making a study of the Gore Grimoire that had been gifted to me by the Alpha Administrator. In its sprawling pages I’ve discovered so much useful information about the world I now inhabit, and the creatures and cultures I shared it with. The grimoire was far more than a repository of stolen powers. It was the key to my potential ascendency, should I decide to pursue that path later.

The Alpha Administrator had proven to be a very good friend.

At first, I’d been disappointed that Alpha, as I’ll now call her for brevity’s sake, had yet to reach out to me even though she promised we would speak again after I escaped the goblin’s lair. I feared she was either too busy to keep her word, or she’d told a fast lie to get rid of me, as though I were an unsatisfied customer who’d been harassing a call center operator.

It wasn’t until I materialized the grimoire into my hands out of sheer boredom and gave it a good read, that I realized how much aid she’d already provided. The Gore Grimoire was a tome that provided answers to any question I could even think of asking. It was a collection of spells, a history book, a player’s guide, and a monster manual all in one package. To get the answers I sought, all I had to do was make an offering of blood, which was hardly an inconvenience when you’re a vampire.

My question for tonight had been, “What is an appropriate enemy for me to fight that is nearest to my location?”

The answer had been Redcaps. And so, I sought them out.

___

My new canine companion growled ferociously as he nipped at the heel of another Redcap with his razor-sharp teeth and successfully severed the hamstring of the monster’s right leg, causing it to fall hard on its face with a pitched squeal of anguish. When it turned to slash helplessly at the dog in an attempt at pointless reprisal, I stepped forward with my spear at the ready and plunged its tip through the back of his neck, killing him instantly.

The dog wagged his tail happily at the Redcap’s body before stepping over it to circle around me and demand a pat on the head. I granted his wish and even gave his pointed ears a gentle scratch as I gave our work an appreciative whistle.

“That’s number eleven so far, Providence,” I told him as he stood on his back legs to demand a pat from me. “Just one more and we’ll be level five. Won’t that be nice? Yes, it will be. Yes, it will be!”

“Why don’t you just call him Lucky?” asked the spear for what felt like the two hundredth time. “You’re supposed to be an uneducated rube barely ranked above serfdom. Why would an irrelevant commoner teeming with rude ignorance, name his dog Providence? Where would he even hear that word?”

“Because our chance encounter with this wonderful beast was an act of providence itself, thus Providence shall be his name,” I replied. “And the background history of my body’s former owner is unimportant. Evans was Evans and Stragos is Stragos.”

“Naming a dog Providence is pompous and out of touch. For his own sake and in deference to his class, I’m calling him Lucky,” the spear said stubbornly.

“Must I order you to use his correct name?” I asked with an exasperation that was only slightly exaggerated.

“You could if you wanted to prove your tyranny,” the spear sniffed.

“Why would a spear care about a dog’s social class?” I asked.

“A spear is the weapon of the laborer!” the spear exclaimed proudly. “Let some arrogant knightly nobles wield their precious swords that’ve been in their families for a thousand generations or whatever. Who cares? Spearmen were the backbone of any true fighting force! Conscripted peasants dragged from their homes and given a pointy stick to prosecute the rights of their monarch against foreign scum and traitorous scum and prayerful scum who weren’t doing it the right way or were doing it for the wrong gods. My eternal heart beats in solidarity with the humble people of the farm and field!”

“You sound remarkably Marxist for a tool of divinity,” I observed. “How’s that work?”

“What’s a Marxist?” the spear asked curiously.

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“Typically? Someone too trusting in the better angels of their fellow men to make their vision a reality.”

“What’s wrong with trusting in angels?” she asked, puzzled.

“I think you just disqualified yourself from the glorious revolution with that one sentence,” I said with slight smirk. “Although I am curious to know what a blessed spear would know of life in the farm and field.”

“Well, I didn’t start out this way in life, did I?” she said. “I spent the first fourteen years of my life on the family farm, raising cows and swine. A hard life to be sure but one I’m glad to have lived. Another few years and I would have eventually had a husband and children of my own. But the will of heaven had a different fate in store for me.”

“What made you so different?” I wondered. “What set you apart so much that your church came to literally forge you into a weapon of holy wrath?”

“I don’t see why I have to discuss that with you,” the spear said sharply. “Set your pain upon me if you must, but I prefer not to betray the mysteries of my faith.”

“Be at peace,” I said to her with an offhand wave. “I was just curious about your past circumstances. Keep any secrets that you wish if they won’t negatively affect me. There’s no need to leap into martyrdom.”

“I would be proud to suffer for my faith,” she said stiffly. “There is no greater honor than to sacrifice yourself for the goddess.”

“How convenient for your goddess,” I replied.

So, the soul that existed in the spear had a farming background, eh? How unpleasant. Animal Husbandry is a career path which I’ve always found unsettling. I understood the necessity of creating a stable food supply for the maintenance of civilization, but the fate of the livestock made me feel sad. Cows adored their human owners. They loved them. But that love would inevitably be rewarded with a rent throat and a body drained of blood.

Mass agriculture and certain vampiric practices had entirely too much overlap.

To my left I saw another Redcap staring hatefully at me before turning his back and scrambling away at an impressive speed. Providence growled and was about to give chase before I stopped him.

“What are you doing?” the spear asked. “If you let it escape it’ll warn its allies. Let Lucky bring it down.”

“His name is Providence,” I corrected her. “And we’re not letting the creature escape. We’re allowing it to lead us to its lair. More blood, more experience points, more amusement to be had.”

I knelt beside the dog to rub his head affectionately before bidding him to track the fleeing monster. “Besides,” I added. “It’s important to teach you both the necessity of delayed gratification. It’s impossible to hold the advantage in every situation. Killing an opponent that we can find a use for is the same as denying ourselves future success.”

“I’m a warrior of considerable experience, you pretentious boy,” the spear said bitterly. “I’m hardly in need of your coaching.”

“You were a weapon of war fought in open plains under the light of day,” I informed her disdainfully. “Those options are now denied to you. It’s time you cast aside such regulated gentility and embraced your shadowed nature. We are monsters who strike cruelly from the dark with never a thought reserved for fairness or mercy. In your new existence, honor is ornamentation. A beast’s only concern is survival and proliferation.”

“I refuse,” she said forcefully.

“You are overruled,” I replied.

__

The stealth skill that I’d taken from the guard proved its value as we made our way to the kobold’s lair. It was an active magical skill that allowed me to hide my presence from others, even if I was standing in front of them. Thanks to the familiar’s link I now shared with Lucky-(I meant Providence), I was able to extend the cloak to him as well.

The Gore Grimoire’s ability to steal talents from other hunters and monsters would prove to be invaluable over time. It was a shame that it came with such strict limitations. The grimoire could only store a total of twenty skills and would never allow me to slot more than four stolen abilities at once for use. And that was further restricted by limiting those abilities to two active skills and two passive ones.

That meant I not only had to be selective with which abilities to use but that I also would eventually need to discard older powers if I came across a new one I desired.

While that was disappointing to learn, I understood that this was a necessity for reasons of balance. If I could just take however many abilities I wanted and could use them whenever I wished, I’d quickly become unstoppable. As a vampire lord, I was meant to gain most of my power by investing in my skill tree once it was unlocked at level ten. The skills I acquired by using my grimoire were just a bonus. The honey in the tea.

Be that as it may, I didn’t see myself discarding my two current skills anytime soon. [Stealth] had already proven its brilliance by allowing me to easily infiltrate this Redcap nest. But the skill I’d taken from the Goblin chieftain, [Titanic Strength] was what allowed me to dominate the encounters that followed.

While [Stealth] was an active skill that had to be focused on to activate, [Titanic Strength] was a passive one that multiplied my physical strength by two. With passive skills, you only had to set them and forget them to reap their benefits. In my human form, it would have given me the power to lift about three hundred forty pounds. Not bad for a malnourished teenager.

But my vampiric form was considerably stronger. A young vampire could lift a ton without straining themselves. With [Titanic Strength] doubling my might, I could now comfortably throw around up to four thousand pounds. A vampire would normally have to be at least two hundred years old to gain that level of strength.

All this to say that when I struck at the redcaps from behind with even a light blow, the wounds they received were grievous. And when I slapped one with full force out of a desire to experiment, his head exploded as though an overly ripe melon had been struck with a war hammer.

Oh, dearest Gore Grimoire. Imperfect as you are, I shall always adore thee!

There in the lair of the Redcaps, with spear in hand, and my hound by my side, we unleashed such splendorous ruin upon the hapless fools that I actually received a notification for it, informing me that I had completed an achievement,

[Congratulations!] said the status screen.

[You have received the following achievement: “Redcap/REDRUM!”]

[You have earned the title Butcher of Gobkind. Goblins and goblin variants will automatically feel hostility towards you.]

“No,” I said immediately. “No, not satisfactory at all.”

[…I’m sorry?]

“You should be,” I said.

[May I ask what you find unsatisfying about your recent achievement?]

“Only that it makes no sense and is completely illogical,” I replied.

“What are you doing?” my spear asked in alarm. “That’s a celestial messenger! You’re supposed to graciously accept the news he delivers on behalf of the system, not…not quarrel with him!”

“I’m not quarreling with him, I’m offering an opinion,” I said to her. “And to better answer your question, status screen, take a look around this foul den. What do you see?”

[Dead and dying Redcaps.] the screen said reluctantly.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Exactly! This is an abattoir. A grinder. Cast your eyes upon this pitiful rabble and know that from the dark, we have dealt them a horror. There’s more of them beneath my boot than inside their bodies. Do you see?”

[…Yes.] the status screen said reluctantly.

One wounded Redcap lay helpless nearby. To help illustrate my point, I seized the wretch by its thin neck and held it aloft, while it kicked helplessly and choked.

“Look into its eyes, messenger. That is mortal terror. That is the fear of being swept westward presently tormenting its mind. If I’ve become a ‘Butcher of Gobkind’ then is hostility truly the emotion my presence should evoke in this lesser thing? See how he writhes? That is not resentment! The hand of Phobos has seized his heart!”

[I understand.]

“DO YOU?” I shouted as the goblin sputtered a final time before dying from lack of air.

“Kyler,” the spear said uncertainly. Lucky barked suddenly and pawed at my leg.

[Corrections will be made. You have made your point.]

I blinked suddenly and looked around my surroundings while wondering where my mind had gone.

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked sheepishly as I tossed the dead edcap aside.

[Your title has been edited.]

[You have received the following achievement: “Redcap/REDRUM!”]

[You have earned the title: Butcher of Gobkind. Goblins and goblin variants will automatically feel the utmost terror in your presence.]

“Ah,” I said after mentally processing that. “Okay. Well, good. I’m always happy to see reason triumph when prevailed upon. Thank you for making use of your good sense.”

[Uh. Always happy to be of service.]

“Yes,” I nodded.

“What the hell is happening here?!” the spear asked trepidatiously.