The sun rose in the horizon dyeing the sky with soft pinks and oranges. Lilith as a vampire has a strong body and fatigue is hard to accumulate, the same goes for her family. However, mental fatigue is a completely different thing. She can go for days or even weeks without sleep and her physic wouldn’t decline at all. But being mentally burdened will, of course, make her feel sluggish. For this reason, she had slept last night like a log. After finishing her requests and having to hold down her family her young mind was exhausted, nothing a good night’s rest couldn’t fix.

“Hey Mia, how about today we go and gather herbs instead? That way we can also hunt for a meal. Since we already toured the town and know how to somewhat go around it we should go slow and live lazily”

“I believe that is a good idea master. Bringing to much attention to ourselves could be detrimental to our objective of integrating into society”

“You say that now but yesterday you wanted to make a ruckus almost all the time”

“I can’t help it master! It angers me so much when any of those trash dared act like that in front of you!”

“Yea, yea I know let’s get going”

The reason why they were in no rush to make money or get fame was quite simple. The inn they were staying at was cheap and they had no need for normal food. Not to mention their bodies are as dangerous as weapons and their skin is as though as armour. All things considered, their monetary expenses were close to none. Fame, on the other hand, was considered detrimental instead of helpful. Fame would bring unwanted eyes looking around. Their peaceful life would become troublesome if someone were to guess their true nature.

“Hey mia lets take this one, it looks simple enough”

“I see, master has good eyes, this one is indeed simple and the reward is not bad for its difficulty, let’s take it. However, what are we going to do about our tail?”

“Don’t worry about them, if we do anything now it could become troublesome so as long as they don’t try anything funny there is no need for us to do anything about them”

“as you will”

Indeed. Lilith’s group had travelled from the inn to the guild and were checking for requests about gathering herbs. However, while walking they noticed a peculiar aura following them around. For them, it felt like having stepped on dog shit and having to deal with the odour while walking. Uncomfortable but not unbearable.

The quest they had taken was a simple herb gathering quest for a herb called life bloom. A simple flower with a high vitality that was mostly used for healing medicine. In this world, potions do exist. however, those that can make them are rare just like the materials needed for them. Because of this, they are extremely expensive. Medicine, on the other hand, is far simple but not as potent.

Since people still need a way to treat wounds and illnesses medicine is constantly in high demand. Thanks to this gathering quest for medicinal herbs are up all year. The reward may not be much but it’s fair for its difficulty as an even a child could perform them. Well, that is as long as they aren’t unlucky and end up facing a beast in the process.

“Okay everyone, let’s do this! To make it a bit interesting let’s make it a contest. However, gathers the most will get brushed! The rules are simple: you are not allowed to interfere with other participants, and you are not allowed to use any superhuman abilities. With that said let’s go!”

“Yes!” Woof!, Miew!, Twit!

And so they all went their separate ways into the forest to look for herbs. Silver, Shadow, and Sapphire love to be brushed by Lilith and even Mia likes to act spoiled and have her hair combed. Of course, Lilith also likes to have her hair combed by Mia so she is also participating. Normally, at the end of the day, all of them would get their fur feathers and hair brushed and combed so one would think this competition is stupid. However, the real meaning is that they will get to enjoy the feeling for longer than usual.

The competition was intense as all of them did their best to restrain themselves. Running at mas human speed, jumping has high as normal humans could, cutting the plants with a small knife instead of their razor-sharp claws. All of this to try and look normal but to no matter how anyone looked at them, they were all superhuman. How could they run like that for hours without sweating even a little!? If you think about them it’s like seeing a bucket known as common sense with a bunch of holes. As they tried to patch that didn’t mean the bucket wouldn’t leak anymore.

“Okay, everyone is here so let’s see the results. First Mia, has twenty units, second Silver has twenty-three units, Shadow managed to get nineteen units and Sapphire is impressive with twenty nine-units. But this is my win! Look I got thirty-two units!”

As everyone showed their finding Lilith couldn’t help but give them a wide grin. A unit for them was a cluster of ten. So, in reality, they had gathered a lot and even that was an understatement. If they had gone all out the poor plant might have gotten completely wiped out of this forest. Thankfully, Sapphire and co were in their small forms so they couldn’t carry all that much not to mention they weren’t displaying their full power.

As for how did Lilith manage to win it is because of her instincts. As they weren’t allowed to use superhuman speed or strength, instead she used superhuman sight. Because she is a vampire she is extremely sensitive to life force and since life bloom has a lot of vitality it was like a beacon in her eyes.

“Defeated. I won’t be able to enjoy extra time with master” whimper, whimper, whimper

All the losers had fallen to the ground as if this was the end of the world. Because Lilith is a huge softy for her family she couldn’t take it so in the end despite being the winner they all got extra brush and comb time. However, before that, they went to the guild. After all, they had to deliver the goods they had gathered. It was getting a bit dark as the sun was setting but for our group that made no difference as they could see even better at night.

Soon enough they reached the guild and delivered the absurd amount they had gathered. It was so much that the poor receptionist froze for a moment. However, it didn’t take long for a professional to wake up from the shock and with a smile, he proceeded to count the amount and give the proper reward.

“Master the bugs are still on our backs, and they are getting closer. It’s starting to bother me how disrespectful they are being”

“Yea, I am starting to get annoyed too, they stink. How about we lure them out and see what they want? Maybe they will leave us alone after that”

As a plan had been set they kept walking towards their inn. When they were about halfway there they -mistakenly- took a wrong turn and ended in a back ally, a dead end. Of course, this was all an act and if those who were following them were to be professionals they would notice. Unfortunately for them.

“Hey young miss, are you lost?”

“If that is the case we could help you out you know? After all, we are nice uncles”

“We only ask that you entertain us for a while. Hehe”

“You see, we get lonely sometimes”

“Don’t worry, we won’t be too rough… maybe”

Five filthy men entered the ally not long after. All of them looked like trash, literally. Their clothes were completely dirty and their stench was horrible. They had poorly trimmed beards and moustaches, and it was clear they didn’t take care of their teeth either as the few they had left were either yellow, green or black. In their hand’s rusty weapons that couldn’t cut anything as their edges were as dull as a brick wall. Their eyes held lustful gazes most pointed at Mia and one at Lilith. Trash incarnate, that is what they were.

The men took a few steps forward, two of them fiddling with their pants trying to get them off. Their mouth’s started drooling as they couldn’t contain their lust. Mia was at her limit, she wanted to kill them all and leave nothing behind, however, Lilith was stoping her for some reason.

“You girls should have accepted boss’ protection hehe”

“You idiot, why did you tell them that?”

“Does it matter? We will kill them after we have our fun anyway”

And with that Lilith gave the signal. She wanted to know who was behind this and she was thinking about how to make them spit it but these idiots had said it on their own. Mia was like a bullet and in an instant beheaded two of them. She could have killed all five but she knew that Shadow and co wanted to participate as well. Even in their small forms, they were quite strong and in no time all the thugs had died.

“Mia, behead them. Let send their boss a message. It might gather some attention but I don’t care. Dealing with idiots like this often would be even more bothersome”

“As you will”

It didn’t take long for the message to be ready. It consisted of five mummified heads on stakes. The bodies were incinerated with Mia’s magic and the heads had been mummified by Silver and co. Lilith wanted to help too but her family refused to let her touch such filth. In the end, she could do nothing but watch as they worked. After finishing they all went back to the inn for a night of rest. It’s not like they actually need it but staying up at night would be suspicious not to mention that Lilith had taken a liking to taking long naps during the day as well as sleeping eight hours during the night. With that one problem was solved but even more, would soon come.