Valentino kept going to the back of the alleyway, and then stopped and stood still. I was very tense, ready to pull my knives out of [Inventory] at any moment. I realized that I may have made a mistake by following Valentino into the alleyway. I was greedy to solve the assassin issue, and this was the fastest way to get to them, but if I had underestimated them, it may have been the death of both of us.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, I heard whispering from somewhere nearby. It was soft, and ordinarily, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make out what they said, but with [Enhanced Senses], I heard every word.
“Why did you make the girl come too? We’re only after the man, dumbass!” said one voice. It sounded female.
“I didn’t!” whispered a second, nearly identical voice. “I told her to keep walking and ignore him. I don’t know why she followed!”
“Is she faking it?” asked the first voice.
“Maybe,” responded the second. “Let’s just kill her. We only need the mutt alive.”
“Good idea.”
“Make sure you slit her throat so she can’t scream. We don’t want to wake up the mutt yet.”
“Of course, I’m not an amateur.”
In that split second, I had to make a decision. If I reacted, then they wouldn’t be able to slit my throat so easily, but then I would have to fight off the two assassins on my own without any combat skills, and without backup, because I didn’t know how to wake Valentino up. There was also a chance that they would escape, and we would be in a worse position than before, because they wouldn’t let their guards down again.
On the other hand, if I let them do it, I would gain the element of surprise. I was fairly certain that I would be able to survive having my throat slit. I didn’t actually need to breathe, and even if it was deep, it would be a relatively minor wound, and would heal easily. If I miscalculated, I still had [Perseverance], and around half my [MP] back. I decided to stay still, and a second later, I felt a blade pass through my neck.
I had never been that interested in acting, but, I’d like to think I was still pretty good at it. I was good enough to fool the assassins at least. It helped that the wound actually hurt, so I didn’t have to fake the expression of pain. I clutched at my throat, and tried to force myself to breathe, which send blood gushing out of my neck even faster. I did that a few times as I collapsed to ground, still clutching my neck before I became still and deactivated [Imitate Life]. Just before I ‘died’, I made sure to check my HUD, and was surprised to see that I had only lost around 60 [HP]. That would be healed within a minute with [Rapid Regeneration], so I deactivated that skill as well, so that the assassins wouldn’t see me healing.
As I made my performance, I was able to see the one who had ‘killed’ me. It was a woman wearing a tight-fitting, all black outfit with a mask much like mine covering her face and a hood hiding her hair. The only feature of hers I could see clearly was a pair of brown eyes so dark they almost seemed black.
She watched me ‘die’ with an almost bored expression, and when I finally stilled, the other assassin appeared, identical to the first aside from her pale gray eyes. She must have been the one who had used [Compulsion].
“Check if she’s dead,” whispered the gray-eyed one.
“Of course she’s dead. Look, the blood stopped flowing. She’s not breathing. If she’s not dead, then I’ll eat my own shoe. No, actually, I’ll even eat your shoe,” said brown-eyes.
“Alright, stop talking about shoes, you foot freak. Just go check to see if she’s dead. We can’t have any loose ends.”
“Fine.”
The brown-eyed assassin walked up to me and felt my neck and waved her hand in front of my eyes. I made sure to keep my eyes unfocused as she did so, and didn’t react to her hand at all.
“Definitely dead,” she whispered back to her companion as she wiped her now blood covered hand on my clothes. Then she jerked my body forwards so that I was laying on my side and began rifling through my bag.
“No time for that right now!” the other one scolded. “Tie up the mutt first. Keeping him controlled is burning through my [MP].”
“Why can’t you do it? You have hands too, don’t you?” said Brown-eyes, still going through my things.
“You have the rope, dumbass.”
Brown-eyes paused. “Oh yeah.” She stood up and walked over to Valentino.
The moment she turned away, I reactivated [Rapid Regeneration] and watched my HUD as my [HP] slowly filled back up. As my flesh stitched itself back together, I also used [Hemokinesis] to get the blood that had gone into my lungs to flow back into my body. I left [Imitate Life] inactive though. Since I needed my [MP] for what I was about to do, I couldn’t have it constantly draining it away.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as the assassins tied up the still entranced Valentino. They did it loosely at first, draping the ropes over his body and getting the knots into place while also fitting him with a gag. Then, with one massive yank, they pulled the rope and all the knots tightened at once, causing Valentino to fall over.
When the ropes tightened, he finally started moving again. He frantically strained against the bindings while looked around wildly, trying to figure out what was happening. He was confused at first, but as soon as he saw me lying on the ground in a pool of my own blood, he started straining even harder, and I heard his muffled yells through his gag.
“Shut up, mongrel,” said the brown-eyed assassin, kicking him.
The gray-eyed one crouched down in front of him and looked down on him. “Hey, look at his eyes. I think he might be part cat, not part dog.”
“Who cares?” responded Brown-eyes. “Whether he’s a cat or a dog or a bear or a fish, or whatever other kinds there are, he’s still a mutt.”
Gray-eyes looked up at Brown-eyes and giggled. “I guess so.” She looked back down at the still struggling Valentino. “So, I hear you’re a princeling. I didn’t believe it at first, but seeing you now, you do like quite… princely.” She gently caressed his face with her hand.
“Hey, don’t get any ideas,” warned Brown-eyes. “We need him untouched if we want the full reward.”
“I know, I know. I can still look though,” said Gray-eyes, while Valentino jerked around violently, trying to escape her touch. “We were originally hired to kill you, but then someone made another offer for us to capture you alive and deliver you to them. If you don’t struggle, we’ll deliver you completely safe and unharmed. Otherwise… well you can see what happened to your girlfriend. We still get paid if you’re dead, just not as much.”
Valentino stopped struggling but he still trembled in fear as he glanced back and forth between the assassins and me. I couldn’t see their faces, but I could imagine that at least Gray-eyes was smiling. I considered winking at him, so that he would know not to worry so much, but I knew that he wasn’t smart enough to play it off, so I just watched as best I could through my unfocused eyes as the assassins continued to talk to him.
“Calmed down now?” asked Gray-eyes. “Good boy.” She patted his head gently as tears welled up in his eyes.
“Well, you have fun with him, I’m gonna go back to see what the chick had” said Brown-eyes as she turned back towards me.
She crouched down in front of me and started trying to manipulate my arm so that she could get my bag off my back. When she did this, she brought my hand right next to her leg, and I decided to make my move. I summoned one of my knives from [Inventory] and slashed at her leg. She wasn’t expecting it, so she didn’t make a moved to dodge until after my blade had nearly taken her leg off.
“Fuck!!” she shouted as she stumbled backwards and sat on the ground a few feet away.
Gray-eyes, who had been crooning over Valentino, turned around at the commotion just in time to see me raise the knife to my mouth and lick the blood off of it.
[Create Thrall] lvl 2
Current Thralls: 1
Available Thrall Slots: 1
You have consumed the blood of [Human] Liliane. Would you like to add a Thrall?
[Yes]
[No]
You have acquired [Thrall] Liliane! [See Details]
[Create Thrall] lvl 2 -> 5
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Immediately, the assassin’s brown eyes grew dull, and the constant stream of curses she had been uttering ceased. She kept the pressure on her heavily damaged leg, but did not move. Gray-eyes stared in shock for a moment, before her expression changed to one of intense concentration.
[Pride] has nullified [Assassin]’s [Compulsion] skill
[Pride] has nullified [Assassin]’s [Terror] skill
[Pride] has nullified [Assassin]’s [Hallucination] skill
[Pride] has nullified [Assassin]’s [Compulsion] skill
Seeing the notifications and realizing what she was doing, I began to slowly stand up while using Hemokinesis to draw all the blood from my clothes and form it into an orb in front of me. As she continued spamming her mental skills at me, I casually pulled my mask down and streamed the floating orb of blood into my mouth. Once I had swallowed it all, I let out an exaggerated, satisfied sigh.
“Man, dying is such pain in the neck,” I said, cracking my neck. Then I pointed to Liliane. “Remove your mask and hood.”
She immediately took her hands away from her still heavily bleeding leg and did as I commanded. Her hair was blond, but so pale it almost looked white and her skin was almost as pasty as my own.
“Now draw your knife and hold it to your throat.” She obeyed, and I turned to Gray-eyes who had stopped attempting her mental skills and was watching me warily. “Remove yours as well, or else your partner dies.”
She glared at me for a moment, but did as I said.
“As I thought. Twins,” I said. “Now free him.” I pointed to Valentino, who looked just as shocked as the assassin. “And don’t even think about killing him. If you do, I’ll kill you and your sister.”
She hesitated for a moment, but one glance at the growing pool of blood around her twin made up her mind. She reached for the knife on her belt, but then thought better of it, and started untying Valentino by hand. A few seconds later, the ropes slackened, and he was able to sit up. He removed the gag himself, and then cautiously made his way over to me. Once he was free, I switched my control over Liliane to geas.
“Don’t move from that spot,” I said as she regained her senses.
She was initially confused, seeing me and Valentino standing over her, but the pain in her leg must have reminded her, because she almost immediately started cursing again while clutching her leg and trying in vain to stop the bleeding.
“Now, I don’t want to kill either of you,” I said. “You are more useful to me alive. If you answer my questions properly, and agree to my terms, I will let you both leave unharmed.” I glanced at Liliane’s leg. “Well, at least not any more harmed than you already are.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?” said Gray-eyes quickly. “Who hired us? It was Lady Florence Berlioz for the assassination and Lady Rossana Paganini for the kidnapping.”
Valentino flinched when he heard each name.
“You seem to be in a hurry,” I said mockingly, as Liliane’s already pale face grew paler and her breathing started to become shallow. “But you are correct, that is exactly the information I wanted. Now, for the conditions. First, I am going to need some of your blood. Cut your arm a bit for me.”
Gray-eyes drew her blade immediately and cut her forearm. I used [Hemokinesis] to take the blood that welled up and float it into my mouth.
[Create Thrall] lvl 4
Current Thralls: 2
Available Thrall Slots: 2
You have consumed the blood of [Human] Maxine. Would you like to add a Thrall?
[Yes]
[No]
You have acquired [Thrall] Maxine! [See Details]
[Create Thrall] lvl 5 -> 7
Maxine’s face went blank once I took control, so I immediately went to change the control type, but was slightly surprised at what I saw when I checked the options.
Total Domination (current): Takes away Thrall’s free will, making them into a puppet for the User. Thrall cannot act independently without command and cannot think for itself.
Geas: User places geas on Thrall preventing them from doing certain things. Cannot be used to force Thrall to carry out commands.
[Select]
Lesser Hypnosis (unavailable): User can put Thrall into trance-like state temporarily and give commands. Thrall will obey commands once released from trance. Only works with simple commands.
(Currently unavailable. User [Wil] must be at least 1.5x stronger than target’s [Wil])
Greater Hypnosis (locked): Similar to Lesser Hypnosis, but can be used with more complex commands.
Unlocks at [Create Thrall] lvl 25
Perfect Hypnosis (locked): Similar to Greater Hypnosis, but command complexity has no limit. Unlocks at [Create Thrall] lvl 50
Perfect Control (locked): Thrall becomes completely and undyingly loyal to User. Commands no longer need to be given, because Thrall will act on requests.
Unlocks at [Create Thrall] lvl 75
[Lesser Hypnosis] had been available for both Jacques and Liliane, but Maxine’s [Wil] was too high. It made sense, though. She did seem to be focused more on mental skills than physical, so her [Wil] would have to be higher. Fortunately, it was not higher than mine. I switched the control type to [Geas], and the life returned to her eyes.
“Now, for the rest of the conditions. You will have no choice but to follow these ones, whether you like it or not. First, you will not do anything to harm either myself or Valentino here. Second, you will not reveal our whereabouts to anyone. Third, you will not reveal anything that you saw here today to anyone. Is that clear?”
I felt my [MP] drain with each condition I added, but I kept a close eye on my HUD, and it never got dangerously low. The twins nodded.
“Good. Now, scram!”
Maxine immediately leapt to her feet and sprinted towards Liliane. She picked her sister up and began running swiftly out of the alleyway.
You have survived an assassination attempt! You have gained a large amount of exp!
[Sole Survivor] lvl 3 -> lvl 8
Once they were gone, I turned to Valentino, who was standing much further away from me than he had been earlier in the day. I decided that I was going to tell him right there. If the assassins had been comfortable with killing me and kidnapping Valentino, they were probably confident that there would be no one around to overhear. Before I could say anything though, he spoke first.
“I was right,” he said, staring at the pristine skin of my neck.
“You were,” I sighed.
“What are you?”
“I am a vampire.”
“I thought they didn’t exist.”
“They don't, for the most part. I am the last one.”
He stayed silent for a few seconds before speaking. “Are you going to do what you did to them to me to keep me from talking?”
“No, I only do that to criminals or people who I believe pose a serious threat to me. I think that you have enough of a moral compass that you won’t need any additional reasons to keep my secret.”
He didn’t respond.
“For the record, I was actually planning on telling you. I just didn’t do it earlier because I wanted to build up some trust, so you wouldn’t report me to anyone immediately. This isn’t exactly how I wanted to build up trust with you, but, like it or not, I just saved your life, so you need to keep my secret now.”
“...ok,” he said.
“Swear it,” I said.
“I swear on my life and my grandfather’s name that I will not divulge your secrets to anyone.”
I nodded. “Those women that hired the assassins. Who were they?”
His face darkened. “Florence Berlioz was supposed to be my fiance. I guess she wasn’t any happier about our engagement as I was. But Rossano Paganini… She is the daughter of the chief of the Tiger tribe. In Vivaldi, their power is second only to my family’s. I’m not sure exactly what she wanted with me, but… I’ve heard rumors. It wouldn’t have been anything good.”
“I see,” I responded.
I waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, I turned away. He seemed to be deep in thought, so I let him be, and checked my HUD.
[HP]:
460/460
[MP]:
269/1400
[Life Energy]:
57/100
[Pawn of the Gods] enemies remaining
6/6
While having my throat slit, had not done much to my [HP] all that laying around bleeding out had taken a toll on my life energy. Fortunately, with Hemokinesis, I could recover all of my blood that had ended up on the ground, and restore myself further with Liliane’s blood. I used [Hemokinesis] to grab all the blood off the ground, and into my mouth. [Hemokinesis] only affected the blood, so I was able to avoid getting any dirt in my mouth. By the time I had consumed it all, my [Life Energy] had recovered up to 91.
Once I finished, Valentino walked up to me and bowed his head.
“Thank you for saving my life. And I’m sorry I put you in danger in the first place. I-I was being childish. And stupid.”
“It’s fine. I wasn’t really in danger. I wouldn’t have gone into the alley with you if I thought I would be in real trouble.”
“Still, by following you around, I was putting you in danger.”
“That you were. Good to see you’re not a complete idiot, since you can recognize your mistakes.”
“I-I’ll stop following you around now. And bothering you. I’ll leave you alone and- and keep your secrets.”
“Good. That’s all I need from you,” I replied.
I turned to walk back out of the alleyway, and started to make my way back to the Adventurer’s guild. Valentino followed at a distance, since he was in a trance when he went to the alleyway, but once we got back to the main street, he made good on his promise and disappeared into the crowd.