Serious Consideration

(Same Person As Last Chapter)

Next I will share my considerations for the [Energy Vampire] class. I am a bit ashamed to admit this but upon first reading the title of this path I felt an outright rejection, due solely to my own hidden prejudice.

For most of my past life demons like vampires have always been my enemy and although I managed to conquer my unwanted feelings in the matter somewhat, I had the most success in my considerations towards enemies who like myself took a more direct mode of attack.

That is those that didn’t use obvious weapons or flashy magic always made me feel uncomfortable. I am actually being kind of hypocritical here because while I prefer the direct method I am not above using everything and anything that I am capable of doing in order to survive.

I am thinking that it has to do with my rebellious tendencies that were strong enough that they weren’t even suppressed by the forces keeping me down as a peasant. I absolutely despise the thought of weakness in myself. It is one of my greatest fears and an ability that seems to be able to prey on that fear is a bit instinctively abhorrent to me.

To show you more clearly what I am talking about, I can say that an ordinary common garden variety blood sucker doesn’t really bother me at all for some reason, but when you take the blood and replace it with pure energy…it terrifies.

From what I can remember from my conversations with the Demon lord I am not alone in this attitude either. It seems amongst demons, energy vamps are often found to be the lowest class of citizens even among their own sub race. Only the poor succubae who can manipulate physical feelings such as lust ever rival them for being disdained.

However the Succubae redeem themselves in the fact that despite being a mostly monogamous society, demons are no exception in their love of ‘you know’. And thus they are often seen as concubines or mistresses or you-know-whats of the widowed or merely more perverted demons.

There is also the little fact that with manipulating another’s feelings of attraction it can be done without any magic at all, it can be about giving such as displaying your looks to give your beauty. While no matter how you say it vampirism, especially energy vampirism will always be about taking, sometimes rarely with permission but most of the time through theft.

However after considering the path quite a while as well as having many arguments with myself I finally managed to get over my constrained thinking and was able to judge with much more clear eyes. It was a process of multiple steps and complex processes.

Firstly I acknowledged my hypocrisy of various varieties. Such as the fact that the path I currently favored the [Projective] path was just as bad as the Vampire path when it came to taking. While like the seductive techniques of a succubus it had the ‘can do something similar without magic’ to soften it up, the glaring fact remained that like Vampirism and usually unlike ‘charming’ techniques it can directly take away the targets free will, and power.

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Yes it was a different and more subtle power but a power none the less.  Actually to be truthful in many ways the Vampire path may suit me better than the [Projective] path does, when it comes to offense at least. It was mainly about taking the power of others and making it your own.

Secondly being good at killing and causing pain is not necessarily a bad or evil thing. I can easily understand the reason why the status database says it is considered the most ‘practical’ option. Vampirism isn’t exactly pretty but it is the most obviously combat oriented of the [Empath] class paths.

It may be a bit brutal, savage even, but when it comes right down to it, the main purpose of fighting is self-defense thus it defiantly doesn’t have to be anywhere near pretty. And if I ever end up wanting pretty there are many ways that vampirism even energy vampirism can be made pretty.

When it came right down to it, I could see myself modifying and customizing several things about the class, enabling it to even better suite me.  

Thus I would probably be seriously tempted to choose it, if combat were my only reason for choosing the [Empath] class.

All my paranoia aside, I highly doubted that I would have any need to fight while still in egg, and I plan to have magic and later swordsmanship be my main self-defense methods. Getting used to using my mental powers as my main offense doesn’t seem very efficient.

Also unlike with [Projective] the weakness seems seriously dangerous. Finding pleasure in others pain…it is a usually hidden but definitely present part of my ‘darker side’. Although in my past life the discipline of my work and training usually kept it in check, I wouldn’t want to chance things in that way.

I imagine giving into that side of me would be similar to someone addicted saying they will have just one then stop. I would probably keep pushing the restrictions I would place on myself more and more until they broke. At that time I would either fall into bouts of insanity based on fighting my depravities. Or something even worse I would completely succumb and thus no longer be myself.

However, though choosing such an option would probably make it easier for me to encourage my faults in the end they would still be my faults, and I do have quite an amount of faith in myself. Thus I believe it quite within the realm of possibility that I could not only overcome my faults but turn them all into strengths that compensate for any remaining weaknesses.

After seriously considering the [Energy Vampire] path I knew I was least likely to choose it, however my reasons were no longer based on flimsy emotional based rejection but rather sound logic, and more true deep feelings based on my true tastes instead of the ones cultivated by my past life.

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Second to last warning before party/contest ends