Being Consumed (Rayne’s Pov)

Darkness. Not quite the type of darkness that you see when you look into a hole, but the darkness you see when you close your eyes in a dark room. That was all that surrounded me. Honestly quite bothersome. At least give me a painting to look at, or that maid’s eyes. I really liked her eyes. But no, all I had was darkness. How long had I even been in here? It felt like forever.

A ripple extended through the darkness, washing over me. I looked towards the source, and saw Avalina on the ground. I got up from my cross legged position and walked over, careful not to get too close. I didn’t want to black out again if I saw her blood. To my relief, I saw nothing, so I walked closer.

As I knelt over her, she shot upwards. Our heads slammed together, sounding a resounding crack. I cried out, in surprise more than in pain, but pain was definitely there too. Avalina was the same. Rolling around on the ground, tears in her eyes, Avalina was actually cute. Not that I would ever call my mother cute to her face…

“Huh? Where am I? Why is it so dark?” She asked after she finished rolling. Both her hands were still over her forehead, ruining her serious question.

“Hmm. I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t expect you to come with me when I came here, though.” I answered, scratching my head as I looked around.

“Huh? You can speak?” Her words made her sound confused, but I could clearly see the fear in her body. The arm over her body, the princess sitting position, leaving both her shins facing me in case she needs to kick me away from her. Her slightly tilted body, leaving less of a target for attack. The upraised shoulders, protecting her neck for some reason.

“Indeed. My real body can’t, but it seems I can here. Also, stop being so afraid of me. What did I do?” I asked, actually confused. I don’t remember anything except having that burning pain in my chest. Did I burst an eardrum when I screamed? That would be embarrassing.

“I’m sorry. You seem to be a different person. Your… body, as you call it, is a vampire. You assaulted me for my neck.” She explained what happened after I passed out. My face slowly continues on its way to a face filled with horror as the story continues.

I bow down, touching my forehead to the ground. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t have control over my body. Is there any way I can compensate you for it?!” I sincerely meant it.

Silence. I wondered slightly if I had done something offensive to her. Then I heard laughter. It started as a little chuckle, before turning into a giggle, before uncontrollable laughter as I kept my head down.

“Oh man, Elliot would be so pissed if you bowed down to her like that…” Avalina mentioned a name I hadn’t heard before. But at the moment, I had no right to speak.

“Raise your head. My own son should not be bowing to me in forgiveness. I am not a cruel mother. I am Avalina, the mother of a demon. And you, you already have your name, don’t you? Almost makes me feel like the hours I spent thinking of one went to waste.” She chuckled nervously.

I smiled at her. “Let me hear it. With luck, they’re the same name. Wouldn’t that be a coincidence?” A nervous chuckle from me as well, to make her feel more at ease.

“Rayne. I had thought of naming you Rayne.”

I was dumbfounded. I hadn’t actually expected it to be my name. Avalina must have seen my face, because she once again burst out laughing. I nervously grinned.

“With luck?! With luck, you say?! I bet you didn’t expect that!” More laughter. Soon both of us were rolling around on the ground with laughter.

After the laughter faded, all that remained was another silence. I broke it by asking some of the questions I had been wanting to ask for a while now.

“So, two, no wait… three things. First, about learning magic. I would appreciate it if we could start as soon as possible. Second, about learning writing. Again, I would like to learn that after the basics of magic. Third, please teach me anything you know about how time works, the social structure, average lifespan, anything I should know about this world and how it works.”

Avalina looked at me strangely for a few seconds, before starting to explain.

Time is separated into years, months, weeks, ten-days, and days. Except for the fact that every week is 30 days, each month is 12 weeks, and each year is 12 months. Each month is 360 days, almost a year back on Earth. The average lifespan differed for each race. For humans, it was about 100 years old. For the Elves, it was 135 years old. Dwarves were about 90, but that was brought down because of how often tunnels collapsed. Demonkind lived until about 1000 years old, but most of them were beasts. Beastkin had an average lifespan of about 92 years, oddly specific. Fairies weren’t seen much, but they lived until nearly 500 years old most of the times.

As for the social structure, it seemed it went in this order: Humanity > Elves > Dwarves > Demons > Beastkin > Fairies. When asked why, it seemed that it was the case of the winner of a battle chooses the loser’s punishment. A great war was waged on some 60,000 years ago, with the Humans, the Elves, and the Dwarves on one side, with the Demons, the Beastkin, and the Fairies on the other. Nobody's quite sure what they were fighting over, as all the records of the war are seal in something called ‘The Great Vault,’ something guarded 24/30 (Yes, they have to say 24/30 if they want to say 24 hours a day all week.) by humankind. Seems a bit suspicious to me, but I won’t question it. I’m not going to be the one to unravel 60,000 years of hate. At least, I won’t try to. It sounds like a lot more effort than I am willing to put in. I’ll just do what I do.

Next is magic training, which sounds like lots of fun. It seems it’s normal meditation for now, until I find my mana. It’s different for every person, so until I find it, I have nothing to go on. Well, I suppose my motto doesn’t work out here. If at first you fail, pester somebody else to do it for you. How bothersome. I asked how I could find it, but Avalina only shrugged. Even more bothersome. I’m doing something I don’t know how to do properly, to find something that may or may not be there. I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

Magic is complicated.

To Control the Demon (Rayne’s POV) [4319/364 days until Eve]

Ugh… Is this mana? Nope, that’s just blood. This? Blood. Why does my blood even have this mana? Is it really just to distract me? It’s working.

Another day of stupid meditation. I spent the rest of yesterday by this stupid boulder, trying to ‘find my mana.’ Near this boulder, I seem to be able to imagine my ‘inner workings,’ as I call it. I can visualize any part of my body, but the view is really, really small. But when I do this, I can sense my own mana. In that tiny part of my body. Even worse, sometimes I can’t even see anything. It’s not based on my emotions or my thoughts either. I just sometimes can’t see it.

A sigh escapes my lips as I think about something else I could do to relieve some stress. I see Avalina out of the corner of my eye. I turn to her, wondering what she wants.

“So, you haven’t had another… Incident, since then, have you?” She asks, more curious than fearful.

I shake my head, still unable to speak. I do wonder why I can’t speak with this body, but I can speak in that other dimension. Not that it matters. I should be able to speak eventually.

“But, what if it does happen again? Will you be able to control yourself again? We should look into some way to fix that. Like, you might be able to control it better if you go back and forth between the two forms more often? I should be able to force you into your vampire form with some magic…”

I thought long and hard on this. Just kidding. It took me less than two seconds to realize how bad it would be if I had gone vampire while around Eve. I nodded my head with vigor, wanting to get started right away. I stood up, stretching my limbs. I put one arm behind my back, grabbing the other before pushing both arms forward, cracking my back, before looking to Avalina. She grinned in such a way that it, for some reason, made me fear for my life.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit…” She took out a knife. I began fearing for my life. But then she placed the knife on her wrist. Before I could even ask her to stop, she had drawn it across the skin, painting the blade red.

My breathing grew ragged as I resisted the pain in my chest. My hair fell across my eyes, shifting between silver and blond. My vision faded in and out. A minute passed, and I heard a thump. Looking around, I saw Avalina on the ground, bleeding out from the wound on her wrist. She seemed to have sliced a vein.

I leaped forward on instinct, leaving it to my Vampire side to save her. The taste of blood filled my mouth as I greedily sucked on her wrist, lapping up the leftover blood like a dog. The wound closed, Avalina’s breathing stabilizing. I mentally pulled myself back, not wanting to bite into her neck or anything. But either way, it seems like my vampiric self has had it’s fill of blood. For now. It easily followed my wishes. I could even speak. The silver hair was kinda bothersome, but everything else seemed to have a plus.

My eyesight sharpened. I could easily see the grass sway in the wind through the person sized hole in the wall to my right. My hearing also sharpened, as I could hear the carriage coming to bring us home for breakfast. It was still 30 minutes until they were supposed to arrive. I felt like I could lift the entire boulder with one finger. My skin felt like leather. Moving was fluid, as if I had been doing it all my life. Even greater, I could speak.

“Well, I can only hope that everything is fixed with her. There isn’t much I can do to help her if she’s unconscious… Hmmm… I suppose using large words like that, even in vampire form, isn’t exactly a smart idea in a child’s body. I’ll try to stop myself next time.” I chuckled, looking back to the boulder. I only had 30 minutes to find my mana before probably having to wait until tomorrow.

So, with those thoughts filling my mind, I ignored my vampiric transformation and instead sat down to meditate.

But this time, something was a little different. Everything that I could see was shining slightly with silver. It took me an entire 4 minutes of my precious 30 to realize that I had just found my mana. After all, every cell of my body was brimming with it.

I only learned much later that, from an outside perspective when I was meditating, I was shrouded in fiery mana, rising with such force it displaced air. I can only assume that the mana in my body was literally ejecting itself out of my body because I had no room for it.

But for now I simply marveled at the amount of mana I could sense within me. Believe me, though, I would have been simply astonished if I realized that excess mana was being pushed out of me as well. I didn’t even try to move any of the mana. I just simply watched as it slowly became less and less visible as my transformation wore off.

Even when I was completely normal again, I could still barely see it. That’s when I realized that to see it, I needed a large amount of mana. In order to expand how much mana you can take/hold, I learned this earlier today, you have to age. That’s it. The only way to expand your mana pool is to get older.

Did my mother set me up?

I think she set me up! What an ass! Oh, wait, I’m a child. Can’t be thinking those words. But, really!? She gave me a task that’s impossible for a long, long time! Luckily, I’m a vampire. I can just kinda… Absorb the mana in her blood.

That makes me feel really bad… But her blood, surprisingly, isn’t salty. It’s something between the sweetness of honey and vanilla cake. But her blood is thick. Like soup thick. Makes it difficult to drink.

Anyway… getting a bit off track here… The carriage arrived shortly after Avalina woke up. I had a short conversation with her, hinting not-so-subtly about giving people impossible tasks, while she inspected the healing on her arm. Blushing from embarrassment while staring at where you slit your own wrist so that your son could suck your blood is quite the odd sight. In fact, just thinking about it is odd.

Once we were all on the carriage, heading to the nearest city for breakfast, I thought of something. I was actually quite surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. So, fulling doubting it would work, I thought one word.

Status.

And, to my twisted sense of humor, it worked.

Defining Status… Please wait...

Name: Rayne

Level: 1

Experience needed: 150 (0%)

HP [100/100]

MP [15/15]

SP [17/17]

Race: Vampire

HP [0.1/sec]

MP [0.001/sec]

SP [0.03/sec]

Blood [100%]

Strength

6

Endurance

6

Luck

8

Perception

12

Dexterity

12

Agility

6

Intelligence

16

Wisdom

15

Leadership

0

Vitality

10

Faith

4

Willpower

60

Skills:

Blood Drain (Max)

Gain stats based off of amount and quality of blood drained.

Persuasion (8/10)

40% chance to persuade people to your side. Lessens if they know about the situation.

Mana Sense (2/100)

Sense mana. Higher levels allow more detail and range.

Meditation (6/100)

Recover mana quicker, regain stamina at astonishing rates.

Effects:

Sunlight Weakness

5% less Strength in sunlight.

Disease Immunity

Immunity to any disease debuffs.

Blood Drinker

Grants Max level skill [Blood Drain]

Mana Body

All Spells deal 20% more damage.

Vampiric Body

Sets Hp/sec to 1, if over 1, 120% increase.

Status System has been unlocked from this point on. Have a nice day.

I wasn’t even able to read any of it before laughing like a maniac. I couldn’t help it. Never would I have imagined that this was going to become a game for me. A vampire, and now a game character? It was just too ironic. After all, I was much too poor to have even hoped to buy a game before.

My mother stared at me like I had just licked her cat. Wait, do cats even exist here? There are beastkin… That being said, how were they made? Was it Adam and Eve thing? Two people came, then, you know, they reproduce enough to create infinite generations. Wait, does that mean that technically, everybody practices incest?

I twisted my eyes back to the window in front of me, having enough with that train of thought. As I stared into the window, reading it, I nodded multiple times as the stats began to make sense to me. As a vampire, I half expected to have a strength buff, but it seems this wanted to let me be disappointed.

However, it seems that even if I had the [Blood Drain] skill, my stats were still quite pitiful. I wonder if it wasn’t technically activating when I sucked my mother’s blood those two times. Oh well. I’ll try to keep enough sanity to use it on the next person I suck the life out of. Or animal.

Wait, was I seriously just thinking about killing somebody by sucking their blood? What the hell is wrong with me? Am I being taken over by this vampire form?

I began to grow worried. Biting the tip of my thumb out of habit, I didn’t notice my mother talking to the driver of the carriage. I also completely forgot about something I knew I could abuse when it came to games like this. Even if I was too poor to try them, I could easily listen to people around me talking about their little ways of cheating without breaking rules. Not that this would feel very good.

I bit into my thumb, blood seeping through my teeth. A small wince didn’t escape Avalina’s notice.

“Rayne?! What are you doing?!” Avalina ripped my thumb out of my mouth, a small amount of blood splattering on her shirt. Luckily, I felt no urges this time.

But I still couldn’t speak. It seems out of my vampiric state, my vocal cords are undeveloped. So, of course I did something I was trying for the first time.

I forced it to take over me.

Vampiric urges take over your body

I felt the sudden surge of magic rock the carriage slightly.

“I was trying to get a pain resistance skill. I thought it might help out a little bit.” Avalina looked at me strangely.

“You demon child…” She chuckled, putting her hand to her head.

I tilted my head, wondering what she was saying.

“You are, what, a day and a half old?” She waited for my confirmation before continuing, “Most children aren’t able to walk until 10 days old. They aren’t able to talk until nearly a week and a half old. Also, I can tell you managed to find your mana.” At this, the driver even looked back in surprise.

I was confused. I mean, I knew that she gave me an impossible task, but that doesn’t help me understand why exactly she was so surprised.

Seeing my look, she responded. “I found my mana when I was 4 years old, and I was considered a prodigy. You have exceeded every expectation of mine. I guess tomorrow we should start teaching you spells?” A deep sigh. “You demon child…”

I could only grin in response.

Spellcrafting (Avalina’s POV)

I waved to my husband, who was standing at the gates of Grandar, ‘one of the grandest cities out there!’

I hate that slogan. So stupid. Anyway, back to me waving to Eugene. He waved back, the scoundrel. Couldn’t he tell that I was being sarcastic. Rayne was… Challenging the city to a staring contest.

He seemed excited, to say the least, and I was pretty sure I knew why. He hadn’t been here before, even if I described what was going to happen beforehand. I almost smirked when I remembered that Elliot, the maid, should be on her shopping trip right about now. Oh how much fun it would be if we so happened to come across her.

Nah, I couldn’t hold back my smirk this time as I tried to remember all the different stores that she went to on her trip. If we happened to go through her trail backwards, we would definitely meet her.

Once we got in the city, I grabbed Rayne’s hand, much to his obvious surprise. Seriously, if you’re trying to complete the mysterious boy act with your silences, don’t be so obvious with your face. He then looked depressed and looked up to me with puppy eyes as he realized what I was doing. I quickly looked away.

I won’t fall for your tricks, demon child!

I heard a door close, along with the sound of a bell. I looked to the source and guess who I saw racing toward Rayne like a missile locked on target?

Elliot.

Rayne was tackled to the ground with the sudden impact of a squealing maid sprinting like a football player. His hand was ripped from mine, but he couldn’t go anywhere with Elliot on top of him. I saw some onlookers looking at me, but most of the gathering crowd was focused on Elliot. I highly doubt they ever saw the composed maid squeal until now.

“Ahhh! I would never have thought I’d see you again so soon! Lady luck must be on my side!”

I swear I could almost see him glaring towards the sky. I laughed until I felt sick. Elliot had pressed Rayne to the ground and stared into his eyes for the entire time.

It took nearly 4 minutes after that to get up off him. She looked very… How to say it… Full. Her breathing was slightly more of a pant, her pupils almost looking like hearts. She kept hugging her sides, swaying slightly from side to side. If I looked closely, she also had small silvery strings of saliva between her lips. If I didn’t know any better, I would have called her a succubus in a maid outfit.

After a minute to recover, which really didn’t do much other than steady her shaky legs, she bowed to me and Rayne before leaving without another word.

I have nothing to say about that. Definitely not. Nothing. But I do have something to say in general.

“Rayne, what are you humming for?”

Rayne looked to me, an odd glint in his eyes. Then he put a finger to his mouth, motioning for me to shush. I stared for a second longer at him before shrugging. Not like I could take words from somebody who can’t speak.

“Wait, Rayne, why can’t you speak anymore?” I asked, confused. He was talking in the carriage, right?

Rayne stopped just long enough for some mana to pour out of his body. It solidified, making odd shapes. Then he turned to me and floated the mana to me. They were making letters.

They read ‘Transformation’ Then shifted. ‘Can’t speak. Without. Transforming’

Once again, I was amazed. He managed to gain control of solid mana before two days old.

“Demon child…” I muttered, sighing before chuckling. “Most people don’t gain control over solid mana until they are nearly a year old.

His eyes widened. The letters shifted, drawing my attention. They turned into liquid. They still kept the shape, but they were smoother, or something. Then they rearranged.

‘Why can people use. Solid mana. Before finding. Their own mana?’

“Because finding your own mana is being able to control every last particle of mana in your body. Utilizing solid mana is possible without using everything in your body per se. But it comes pretty close. But you’re over here less than two days old and using both solid mana and your own mana. Beating all of my records like nothing else in this world did.” I sighed, putting my head in my hands in depression.

Nobody ever managed to beat my records, even going as far to say that I was relying on demons and whatnot, earning me the title ‘Witch’. Quite bothersome, actually.

Rayne wasn’t even really paying attention to me anymore. He’s looking around the city with wide open eyes, like a kid who found his way into candyland.

Alright, something odd just happened. Rayne suddenly disappeared. I was definitely holding him just now. Hmm? I feel something oddly round in my hand. Is this… a solid mana ball? It’s reforming as well? What type of freakish control over his mana…

It turned into words, giving me a few seconds to read. ‘She needs help’

Then it turned into a liquid. And poof, I was left alone in the middle of a city.

Fucking demon child.