Sadly, alcohol didn´t stay in my body for too long, if it even induced the desired effect in the first place. Markus was fairly drunk while we stood in front of a wooden door, mere minutes after the lord left the restroom whith me sobering up quite fast already. During that time, I obviously changed clothes but I didn’t wipe all blood or wine away on purpose. I had to look good after all.

The alcohol in my bloodstream vanished completely after several minutes of further waiting, but that wasn’t something that others knew yet. I still walked a bit unsteady as I opened the door inwards and entered the study, followed by Markus. Without greeting the lord of the mansion, I strolled towards a nearby sofa and threw myself on it. I yawned loudly as I watched the reactions in the room.

Markus wasn’t even looking towards me, but rather to another bottle he saw on one of the shelves. The lord on the other hand stared at me in displeasure. I found it rather hilarious that he invited a vampire into his mansion and expected good behaviour, but kept my enjoyment hidden.

“Since when are you two best friends? Have a seat, Markus.” The lord said and looked at Markus sternly. Promptly afterwards, Markus followed his command and sat down in front of his desk, just opposite of him.

“Probably since I kicked him in the face. Did you know that he is an alcoholic?” Markus’ gaze always went back to the bottle on the shelf, much to the displeasure of his master. I could only smile at his behaviour and already thought of ways to use his alcoholism to my advantage. Maybe I should tell them about the ‘Beerfest’ where one must drink as much as possible.

“Yes, I do know … he is still a very capable subordinate, despite his faults. In any case, I do believe that we had a rather … rocky start. How about we forget what happened so far.” He seemed genuinely concerned about my impression of him which was strangely irritating in my opinion.

“I don’t even know your name ... but on the other hand you saved me, so why not?” He furrowed his brows as I yawned once more. He was getting a little bit angry now but surprisingly didn’t complain about my rude behaviour yet.

“My apologies. My name is Arthur White.” He puffed his chest out a little bit and seemed overly proud about his name. I thought this was the pride of nobility, so I completely ignored his body language for now. Instead, I focused on his weird family name.

“White?” I furrowed my brows and looked at him. Maybe he was married into this family because he certainly didn’t fit that name. He wore a black suit, had raven black hair and rather dark skin.

“Is there any problem?” said he as he noticed my questioning gaze. We did have a lot of problems. He acted as if he was superior to me which I did absolutely hate to my bones.

“No … No, not at all.” While Arthur and I were staring at each other, both unwilling to look away, Markus retrieved a bottle of wine. It wasn’t the one that stood on the shelve and I didn’t know where exactly he got that from as I haven’t seen him stand up at all. A bit bewildered, I resumed the conversation with the lord. “So … why am I here?”

“To serve me.” My mouth opened on its own and didn’t really close right away. I was baffled by his audacity, but also by his personality itself. Either he must have had a death wish, or he really believed that I would follow him like a loyal dog.

“Yeah … no.” I shook my head in disappointment. There was no way I would serve him just like that and he should know it.

“It was prophesied that you will serve the one who saves you from your prison.” He said as he grabbed the bottle from Markus and put it away at a safe distance. Their relationship was … cute. If they wanted to marry, I would glady organize everything.

“Is that so? That changes things then … “ there was only one person who was able to send a prophecy like this to Solaris and I didn’t doubt that he made it with good intentions for once. And so, I chose to humour Arthur’s request at least until it got boring. Or I found something better. Or anyone of them got on my nerves. “Alright, I will serve you will all my might. But what am I supposed to do? Clean the house?”

“I want you to join my army. You seem rather capable in that regard.” I could only raise an eyebrow at the absurdity of his proposal. A vampire in the army seemed impossible to me, especially because I couldn’t do things in daylight. And yet, it also sounded quite fascinating.

“Gladly, may I request to be able to work with whomever I deem fit and get along with?” I stared at Markus who was tilting his chair rather dangerously and nearly fell backwards. At least he still had the intelligence to shut up.

“Alright, you are free to make your own unit, which will be given orders directly by me. Is that alright?” Alright? I could choose the soldiers I wanted, had every freedom I needed for now and could basically do whatever I wanted, including planning Arthur´s eventual downfall if I desired. If there was ever any order I didn’t want to comply with, I could just ignore it because by then, my soldiers would be loyal to me and nobody else.

“What about additional benefits?” I still didn’t want to sell myself undervalue, even when the offer was nearly perfect.

“You will get paid.” With what? Seeds? Money? Apples? And how many apples? Questions over questions, but if I got too little payment, I could just borrow a bit if I needed money. Naturally without ever paying it back …

“Social security? Pension? Healthcare?” I said, rather jokingly. There was no way there wasn’t any healthcare in the army.

“What are these things?” He seemed genuinely interested, while I was just astonished. I mean, what happened to an amputee who couldn’t fight anymore after a war? Would he still get paid afterwards? The answer to the question wasn’t strictly necessary for me, so I chose to switch topics rather swiftly.

“… Just give me some time to read every book you have before I start. My knowledge about the current state of affairs is rather underwhelming.” That was basically what I really wanted. I didn’t even need to join the army if I found something that was more interesting in these books as I could just escape this place. But I did need knowledge about this world in general, the inhabitants and this country.

“Hmm, alright. The study is downstairs, have a maid guide you there.” As everything was dealt with, I stood up and saluted rather relaxed. After kicking the legs of Markus’ chair and made him fall backwards, I left the room rather satisfied with Markus rolling on the floor quite angrily and Arthur rather disappointed. From the beginning, I wanted to make clear that although I agreed to his proposal, I wasn’t a person that was easy to deal with. The more he thought that I was crazy and kept his distance from me, the better. The door slammed shut behind me loudly and I grinned as I saw a maid whose eyes were wide open. Nevertheless, she did guide me to the study after I politely asked her to.

As soon as I entered the large room, she excused herself sloppily and ran away. I didn’t do anything, and yet she was scared of me, probably because of my red eyes. As soon as she was out of sight, I closed the door behind me, this time quietly and looked around. The walls were packed with bookshelves, filled to the brim with books that I never read before. I swiftly went through some of the titles and grinned rather happily. In here was everything I needed. From geography to books about the political situation, family trees and much, much more.

At first, I started placing every book in a corner of the room and sorted them by knowledge. Basic knowledge was put on top, the more advanced ones were found at the bottom of the large pile. This took me nearly the whole night with very few interruptions. One of these was probably a rather small maid that entered the room in the middle of the night and just stared at my work. I wasted no time with her, so she simply left after a few minutes.

Still, although I already got on the nerves of the inhabitants of this mansion, I finished sorting the books successfully. Something was missing though. This room had a desk with a rather comfortable chair, but in the end, it was just a chair. And so, I stormed out of the room again and nearly bumped into the same maid that visited me previously.

“Aren´t you supposed to be asleep at this time?” I was damn sure that humans slept at night, so I could only suspect that her sleeping schedule had something to do with me.

“I was asked to fulfil your wishes.” She meant spying on me, that much was obvious. Well, she could spy on me as much as she wanted. There was nothing materialistic I had to hide in the first place. And if she expected to gain any information about me by spying on how I read books, she was welcome to try. Instead, I was rather happy about this development as it also meant that I could ask her to do mundane things for me.

“Come with me.” I immediately went upstairs again and soon found myself in front of Arthur´s working room.

“The servants are forbidden from entering this room.” She told me a stupid rule with such a straight face, that I nearly burst out laughing.

“Never heard about this rule.” I said, knowing full well that I wouldn’t follow such a rule.

“That´s why I´m telling you now.” She became more anxious and even started to look around as if someone was spying on us. The spy is spyed upon … how cute.

“Yeah, but I don’t follow your orders, you see? I only follow Arthur´s orders and he is nowhere around here to tell me that I can´t go into this room.” And as such, I opened the door and instantly found my prey. It was the sofa I laid on earlier this night. As it was rather comfortable, I chose this as my reading place. I just had to change its location and as such, I began to push it towards the door. Wood scraped against wood, making rather loud noises. Not that I cared though.

“You are waking everyone up!” The maid seemed to panic and I tilted my head in wonder. I could understand her problem, but I honestly didn’t care enough. It was either their sleep or my reading place. It was obvious what I would choose. As soon as I began pushing the sofa again, she stepped in the way. “Stop this at once.”

“Nah. But if you are so concerned about your lord´s sleep, why not help me carry this thing?” This way, we would both have what we wanted. In all honestly, I just didn’t want to listen to her nagging anymore.

“Do you know how heavy this is?” She said and stared at me in disbelieve.

“Yeah?” I mean, I was already pushing it towards the door, so I should be able to judge how heavy the sofa was. Without waiting for her reply, I began pushing again. She still didn’t move, but that didn’t stop me at all. Instead, she was just pushed along with it. After a few metres, she gave up and let me do as I desired. Luckily, the door was wide enough for the sofa to pass through and as such, the only obstacle I had to overcome was a completely wasted Markus in the hallway, apparently woken up by the complaints of the maid. The others stayed suspiciously silent and didn’t really want to come out of their room. Even Arthur was missing.

“Hey … you … you´re not supp … supposed to … “ I didn’t know how much he drank, but it was clearly too much. I was lucky that I stopped pushing the sofa as soon as he staggered out of his room. In this case, he didn’t puke on the sofa, but rather on the floor.

“Eww. Can you do me a favour, Markus?” In disgust, I held my nose and breathed through my mouth.

“Wha … what is …” Was it really just alcohol he drank or was there something else he took? This question was rather difficult to answer for me, but one look at the overly concerned maid showed me that it wasn’t just alcohol abuse he was doing regularly.

“Can you strip for me?” I smiled as I said that and even leaned forwards, although I knew that this wouldn’t help much.

“You … not … my type.” That was rude. Being rejected by a drunkard who took other drugs certainly did hurt my pride. Was I that ugly?

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I can give you the best night you will ever have.” I said and beamed happily.

As a reply, he shrugged and began to undress, while I climbed over the sofa towards him. I was already by his side as soon as he began to pull his pants down. Luckily, he wore underwear, so I didn’t have to awkwardly look away while I kicked his legs. Drunk people were really kind simpletons, and so he promptly lost the balance and fell forwards, right where I pushed him. He inelegantly fell into his own puke, swiping away the majority of it in the process. Shortly afterwards, I grabbed his ankles and dragged him back into his room, where I left him in his misery. Back in the hallway, I threw the rest of his clothing on top of his puke and stared at it.

“Hey, maid … maid?” She was nowhere to be found, leaving me with a problem that I was unwilling to solve. Should I clean it up, risking touching it? Or should I just let it stay there hoping that nothing would come onto my sofa? In the end, I chose the latter and pushed my trophy over the puke, satisfied that the sofa didn’t touch the floor at that location. Luckily, there was no further obstacle on my way downwards, except the stairs obviously. This part probably took me the longest, but I did successfully pull the sofa down while damaging it just slightly. The wooden stair on the other hand fared way worse, but that wasn’t my problem, was it?