Their training, or whatever Victor had planned for them would start the next day, but despite that, the door to their chamber opened with their new master standing there, even before Frei managed to acquaint himself with his other two room mates.

"You, come with me." He pointed at Nitarja while licking his lips, the purpose of his visit apparent.

"Yes, master." Nitarja had little choice but to stand up and walk in tow, following Victor out of the chamber. On her way, their eyes met and Frei could almost read the meaning in her azure blue peepers.

Don't do anything stupid.

He nodded, wishing good luck to her, as she was going to need a huge chunk of it. He did not know what exactly had Victor in mind, but it might be something really nasty considering what he was.

Wait, this could not be in the original game, wasn't the whole adventure going south? Or was there some expansion pack for perverts? Frei doubted it. Pestering reality probably began showing its teeth no matter how much the game mechanics were trying to hold it back.

Regardless of the cause, he could do nothing as any action would result in their standing with Victor worsening. The standard profile of a pet loving maniac was to treat good pets well, throwing them out only after they no longer felt novel or amusing, thus Nitarja should be safe for some time. Victor would not bother with so many steps if he wanted to simply drain Nitarja of her blood.

Despite that, Frei clenched his fists as he was already too emotionally invested in her to just act as if nothing happened.

"It will be fine, master will not kill her." Surprisingly, one of the two room mates seemed to be quite perceptive and guessed how he felt right away. Frei looked at him, meeting his brown eyes. A human with short brown hair and forgettable face was exactly what would one expect to find in their group that should mingle well with humans. Well, based on the judgement of their master, Victor.

"I am alright, you are quite a perceptive man." He wanted to say boy, but minded that most young people did not like to be called young, it would be unfortunate to ruin the promising conversation by a reckless blunder.

"Yeah I am, compared to Ratel here, Ejay" He extended his hand to Frei and nodded his head in the direction of the last occupant of their room, a Beastkin(badger) woman that was curled on top of her bed. Frei shook Ejay's hand briefly and his eyes shifted in the direction of the third person in the room.

Looking at her robust, sinewy body, Frei thought that Ejay's term was quite fitting. The women seemed to be closer to the African version of a badger, honey badger, or in short ratel, than to its counterparts living in colder environments. She had white hair, but it turned black roughly around her ears, the black then continued with fine, black fur along the sides and back of her neck. Her ears were practically covered by it and Frei was unable to tell if she had human-like ears or not. Although there were parts of her body where there was fur, most parts of her body were that of a human, her appearance still leaning more to the human side if compared to a beast. Yet, the beast-like feeling she gave off was a notch stronger than Nitarja.

"Who are you calling that? I do have a name." She growled in response, flashing her red eyes at both of them and Frei noticed that she had strong claws instead of nails on her hands.

"But you have not yet told me Ratel, so I have nothing else to call you with." Ejay wanted to provoke a response, but the woman seemed quite stubborn, as if she had mirrored even the ratel's personality, not only its physique.

With their third companion not participating in their discussion, Frei ended up talking with just Ejay and found out that he was in fact a resident of Waldorf that had been kidnapped by the slavers. Frei wondered how humans were able to hold vampires at bay and found out that vampires were unable to act openly, because they were afraid of angels that would act, if their actions were too brazen.

The angels could not act if vampires were not doing anything bad, afraid to receive a penalty for not being righteous and vampires could not be too brutal unless they wanted to lose the protection of doubt. They needed to keep some innocent vampires among them to fend off the angels.This situation kept some kind of balance between vampires, humans and angels in this region.

After the long debate, both of them fell asleep.

The next morning, Frei opened his eyes and remembered he had been in a similar situation when he first arrived to the Arcane Universe, but this time, his master Victor was much stronger than him, making the two cases incomparable.

The door opened and Nitarja walked in, she headed to her bed and laid down with a sigh, there was a while of heavy silence following her arrival.

"Are you alright? You do not look . . too damaged." Frei asked carefully, not sure what actually happened to her.

"Mmm, alright." Nitarja responded, her voice steady.

"Of course she looks fine, they heal you after they are done." Ratel's voice mixed in unexpectedly, her wild looking head turning to face Nitarja. "You are tough."

"Have you been there?" Nitarja asked back casually like they were talking about where to go on a vacation.

"Yeah, but I had it worse. I bit off his dick." Ratel sneered. "He did not like it."

Frei's hand unconsciously wandered to his own equipment.

"Has he healed already? I am ready for another bite." She continued and Frei could only stare at her stupefied. Actually, he could not, averting his gaze from her the second her red eyes moved in his direction.

Soon, the door creaked and the one they had been speaking about entered the room with elated expression.

"Time to go, today's task is simple, your group will go to Waldorf and learn a dark attribute spell, but no one must recognize you for what you are. That is all, come back only after your mission has been completed. If you take longer than one month, you will die." Victor said and left the room as if he had lost interest.

Quest Log

"That is doable." Ejay said with optimistic smile on his face.

"I guess you are the boss, you have said that you lived in Waldorf." Frei pointed out.

"Right, but I have to disguise myself, people will know what have happened the moment they see me. They will immediately put two and two together that I am with vampires now." Ejay walked around the room, while dressing up.

"They know that this is a vampire castle? That is odd." Frei would have stormed the castle if he was on the city's side.

"They are not strong enough to purge the castle and angels won't help them as long as the count surrounds himself with innocent people. Angels fear hurting innocent people like a plague, they are forbidden to harm innocents." Ejay checked his outfit once again and put on a gray coat on top of it.

"So complicated." Frei sighed and mimicked others who were putting on clothes that would shield them from the sun. Frei had no idea how they were supposed to be inconspicuous while being dressed like scarecrows. "You know, are you sure they will not notice?"

"We will keep most of our clothes in our bags, moving only when the clouds obstruct the sun." Ejay explained, it looked like he had become the partly leader without fail judging by the confidence in his words.

"And what if there is a clear sky?" Frei asked, imagining them carrying all the stuff along the way.

"Then we wait."

Fortunately, it was cloudy and they could set off right away. Frei did not know if it was really a fortune, or the dark magic of the local vampire count, but he was grateful that they did not have to stay holed up in their room.

"Actually, the life of a vampire might not be that bad." Ejay mused while they were traveling to the city gates and Frei found it disturbing how fast the guy adapted to their new roles.

"Are you serious? I will kill him and free myself the moment I am strong enough." Frei whispered, not content with being a blood slave for life, How could Ejay accept it so easily?

"He does not know right?" Ratel had a bitter smile on her face.

"What?" Frei kept turning from Ejay to Ratel, not liking how they looked at him.

"If you kill a vampire, all his subordinate lesser vampires die." Ejay dropped a bomb and Frei's eyes widened.

Impossible! How was he going to rescue Nitarja now?! The world spun around him as he began to feel nauseous.

"That is why there are many branches of vampires, if all of them were linked to the count, some angel would just heroically sacrifice himself to kill the count and all the vampires with him. Victor and all other vampires have under them only about thirty lesser vampires each." While they talked, the massive stone gate of Waldorf was nearing them, until they stood just a few hundred meters away.

Frei just followed his three companions, thinking how to solve the problem, but it was a really tough nut to crack. Victor could kill Nitarja with one word and he could not kill him, because that would kill her as well. In addition, the moment he found out that he could not command Frei, Victor would definitely get rid of him.

"The only solution is to find some miraculous magic, or to separate Victor from his blood slaves, lure him into the wilderness and bury him there for eternity." Frei mumbled with stone face.

"Damn, that does not sound easy at all."

At the gate, they found out that the guards were using silver on all the passing citizens to smoke out vampires and Ejay had to find a hasty excuse for them to turn around and leave. The guards were clearly suspicious, but not eager to fight with vampires in case they really found some.

"What about targeting the sewer system in poor parts of the city? We can sneak in through it." Frei tried to offer his piece of wisdom.

"That would be nice, but people of the slums just throw stuff on the street and wait for it to be washed away by rain. Good luck finding a sewer there." Ejay laughed and Frei's face distorted with disgust.

"Your face looks quite sour." He heard a rough voice from behind him and felt something cold on the back of his neck. Frei swiftly turned around and stared at the perpetrator who had just nudged him with something.

"Nitarja?!" She held some small stick in her hand, the stick looked conspicuously similar to the one the soldiers used to test people at the gate. "You have. . ?!"

"Huh, that is weird." Ratel snorted, as if disappointed by some kind of joke that had not gone well. "The shit does not even work, to think we have turned around because of it."

"Strange, the soldiers tested people with the thing, they were just amateurs." Nitarja shook her head and pressed the point against her other hand, disappointed by what had been certainly intended as a joke to lighten the mood.

"Agh." She shouted in pain and the smell of burned flesh suddenly rose from her hand when the point of the stick burned her skin as if it was hot iron. She quickly began waving her hurting hand and dropped the stick.

"What?!" The others looked at Frei as one, questioning what they had just witnessed.

"Impossible, you could not have cheated Victor. What are you?" Ratel asked the question everyone had on their mind.

"Don't! Do not say anything! Everything you say will be reported to Victor when we complete the mission regardless of our will!" Ejay said hastily, but it was too late to unsee what had been seen.

Frei could but let out a heavy sigh. They knew, so when they report next, Victor would know as well, he would just command them to report and that would be it.

"Let's just complete the mission, I will think of something." He tried to sound confident, but felt like a cornered rat with no options left.