Just in case, I checked all the hairs, but the results only made things worse.

The hairs didn't match up. There were at least three different people's hairs here, and I couldn't tell which ones belong to Alicia.

Out of curiosity, I looked around and confirmed that there were even more hairs of various colours and lengths tucked away in hard to clean corners. There was even some white ones that were much shorter than my own hair, though I couldn't discount the possibility that they really were my own and simply were cut short somehow. I didn't have the energy to confirm it either way.

It was unfortunate, but I was out of the easy way to get Alicia's genes. Or any way to get her genes.

While I doubted that she would have cared much about it, I personally wanted her to retain as much of her own genes as she could. At the very least as a memento of her previous life.

All I had was a sheet of paper that didn't even have anything about my previous life written on it. To make matters worse, the ones after my life seemed to be able to track it, so even taking it out of my bag wasn't possible.

I couldn't really say that I had much worth remembering regarding my previous life, but the fact that I didn't have any physical mementos at all was a bit sad. It made me cling to that torn sheet of paper even more despite the danger it brought. And that was despite the fact that it was only a memento of my death and reincarnation, not my previous life.

Even if she didn't feel it was necessary, it was better for Alicia to have some sort of physical memento of the events that brought us together.

I wanted her to have such a memento.

Her life might have been difficult before we met. No, maybe even after we started living together, but all my memories with her were precious.

But maybe, I was just afraid.

Afraid that if she didn't have a physical connection to her past, that she would chose to discard it entirely and start anew.

As I had.

But I lacked fond memories of my past life. It was nothing but greys and blacks. What little colour I had managed to eke out was completely overshadowed by my death, negating anything and everything I had hoped to have earned. To have gained.

It was probably just me being overly pessimistic, but I couldn't help but hesitate when it came to confirming Alicia's wishes.

Or rather, it was pretty cheap of me to withhold getting her opinion on the matter. It would have to happen someday, but not asking her now at the beginning was dirty.

Because I already knew what her answer was going to be. She would accept whatever she thought would be easiest on me and take whatever burden all on her own little body. If I had nothing prepared for her, she'd ask for whatever was conveniently available. If I had already prepared the closest thing to her original body as I could, she'd accept that as little additional work needed to be done anymore.

*Sigh*

For now, I could only put that line of thought aside. Differentiating Alicia's genes from everyone else's in this dungeon was next to impossible and I wanted to her to get her new body as soon as possible. The longer I waited, the more risk came to her. If something happened to me, she'd be lost as well.

Instead, I went to the master skill list, made a copy of the [Breeding] skill, and went to examining it.

 

I spent the next week alternating between visiting everyone outside and spending my time in the dungeon.

Outside I mostly screwed around with the fluffballs and the fairies, though I also asked a ton of questions to both Orphne and Aurae. The massive gaps I had in common knowledge were quickly filled thanks to them.

In the middle of one of the first lessons, I half-heartedly mentioned that if they wore a teacher's outfit, they'd complete the image. As I should have figured beforehand, I ended up being hassled about what that was, and I gave a simplified explanation of what such an outfit looked like.

The next day, both Orphne and Aurae were sporting tight dress shirts, miniskirts, dress shoes with low heels, spectacles, and even a pointing stick to complete the look. Together with their smug faces as they taught me the basics made me realize just how well they made the sexy teacher look work without actually looking very sexy.

That said, the colour scheme was a bit wrong as Orphne went for a light green top and brown skirt while Aurae wore a bright pink top and navy blue skirt.

Though somewhat successful, I did my best to avoid looking up their skirts whenever they flew above me.

Despite all that, the lessons were quite helpful, even if the two got distracted quite often or went on weird tangents almost constantly. What the information they did give me was quite useful.

"In the beginning, there were the six races of light created by the gods to live in their world. The humans, dwarves, beastkin, elves,spirits, and us fairies."

"Yup! Especially the spirits and us!"

"The dwarves short but stout people who come from the caves in the northern mountains of Hyperborea..."

"It's too cold outside, and too hot inside. And stinky. And loud. But they have tasty mushrooms! But Elder Vodnik eats too many of them."

(That's where that elder got that weird addition from?!)

"And they mine the mountains to expand their cities and many of them are artisans."

"They're sparkly and pretty, but not as pretty as what we make!"

"The humans look a lot like vampires like you and are from the plains of Elysia..."

"It's smelly and dirty in their cities. And not nearly enough flowers or trees!"

(Was it that smelly? Though the flowers and trees bit was true. I didn't even see a park in any of the cities.)

"They like their big cities with huge walls and make a lot of children."

"Like really a lot! Most of them have more than one kid a decade! It's unbelievable! Also do you know why they make so many walls? Isn't that annoying?"

"The beastkins look similar to humans but have the ears and tails of various animals, and are from the jungles of Themiscyra..."

"It's so hot and wet there! Oh! But the flowers are nice."

(That was the first decent thing she said about any of their homes.)

"They like to compete and are pretty strong. Also they have a lot of kids. Even more than the humans."

"Lots and lots of kids! How do they even remember which ones are theirs when they have so many?"

"The elves have long ears like vampires and are from the forests of Arcadia like us fairies..."

"..."

(Huh?)

"They're...ugh."

"..."

"Wait wait wait! Do you guys hate the elves that much?"

This treatment of them seemed a bit excessive, though I didn't know just how broad their issues with the elves were.

"Not all of them are bad..."

"Some are nice..."

"But..."

"But..."

"The spirits?"

"Yea. So many of them don't care for the spirits properly. Not all of them, but too many."

"Yea yea! So many bad elves! And they're noisy too! And yell at us too much! And don't like fun! And don't make good food! And they treat the spirits badly! And yell at us! And their food is terrible!"

"I see..."

There was some weird emphasis along the way, but I let it slide. It really felt like the problems between fairies and elves were pretty deeply rooted.

"Moving on, next is us fairies. We also came from Arcadia like the elves."

"Yea! Arcadia's great! Lots of trees! Lots of flowers! Lots of spirits! Ah! But we brought the spirits here, and the trees here are so big! The flowers are nice too! Your home's great!"

"Thanks."

It was nice to have my backyard complimented like that, even if I had virtually nothing to do with it beyond proximity.

"Lastly are the spirits. Well, they came from all over the light lands."

"Yup! They can be born anywhere! Though more of them are born where the mana's strong, like here!"

Just like I had, these little fluffballs were creatures that were born spontaneously out of virtually nowhere. All they need was just a bit of mana concentrated in one spot and a new fluffball was brought into the world.

(I kinda want to witness it for myself.)

It would be nice if I got lucky.

"After the light races were brought to the world, there's conflicting stories, but the dark races soon came after. Either some evil god created them to spread discord across the world, or the light races fought amongst themselves too much and the dark feelings created the dark races."

(While the backstory for the light races were pretty vague, both theories for the dark races were even more so.)

"There's the demons, titans, dragonkin, dark elves, imps, and vampires."

"Eeeevil! They're all eeevil! Except you! You're a vampire but you're nicer than anyone we know!"

"Thanks?"

"The titans are large dark people who come from the northern hills of Jotunheim."

"They're huge! Like this huge! Really!"

Orphne stretched her arms out in an attempt to emphasize how big the titans were. Except she did it horizontally rather than vertically.

(Are they also really wide, or is she just screwing it up?)

"The demons are horned dark people and come from the western wastelands of Valaskialf."

"They look weird! They have red skin! Red!"

(Those sound just like stereotypical demons. Were their creators even trying?)

"The dragonkin, well, you've already met one. They come from the volcanoes of Muspelheim."

"Not fun! Not fun at all!"

(...Well, Magni couldn't stand these fairies either, so it's no real surprise Orphne felt that way about his kind.)

"The dark elves look like normal elves but have black skin and live in the haunted forest of Svartalfheim."

"They're just as bad as real elves! No fun! No fun at all!"

(Or rather, they're entirely the evil counterpart of the light race elves? Or maybe an offshoot?)

"Near the dark elves, are the the imps. They look like human babies, but have little horns and wings on their backs and fly like us fairies. They're from the swamps of Idavoll."

"Cheap knockoffs! We should sue them!"

(Wait?! Fairies are copyrighted?!)

"And lastly there's the vampires like yourself. They can be born anywhere in the dark lands, since they are born from the land's mana just like the spirits."

"Like spirits! But big and mean! Except you! You're really nice!"

"Thanks...no wait, we're like spirits? What do you mean?"

"It's just like what Orphne said. Vampires are just like spirits, but of the dark races. All the dark races are like that."

"All of them? Then, each dark race is a dark version of the light races?"

"Exactly. All of them are."

(That explains a few things.)

It wasn't so obvious as Aurae explained them, but thinking back, it was easy to make comparisons between the races. Dragonkin were basically scaly beastkin, the dark elves were just dark...elves, and imps sounded like deformed fairies. That was already half the races. If I knew more about the others, I could figure probably point to more similarities.

My eyes went to Orphne who somehow got bored already and was flying circles around Aurae who tried to followe her movements with her eyes.

(Ah, she got dizzy and fell over!)

If the dark races were manifestations of the darkness within the light races in the past, it was easy to see why they were equivalents.

That said...

(These fairies? Having darkness?)

It was hard to imagine. But considering how poorly they look at the elves, there must have been some darkness somewhere despite how little they showed in their everyday lives.

(But what's even more difficult to imagine is...)

My eyes rose up and was filled with a literal swarm of fluffballs flittering around overhead. Their numbers had increased in numbers exponentially. It really seemed like an entire nation's worth of fluffballs were coming to take up shop around here.

But the fluffballs were innocent creatures. I couldn't imagine any living creature, especially an intelligent one like the, being even capable of harbouring any darkness within them at all.

(...)

Not the fluffballs, but Claret. Despite how happy she often was, she had a lot of darkness hidden inside. I had seen it come out more than enough times to have no doubt about it.

(So is that possible then?)

"Hey, are there a lot of greater spirits in this world?"

"No, not really."

Orphne stopped pointing and laughing at Aurae who was slowly spinning on the spot upside down. Her skirt had inverted and with her legs sprawled out she was completely showing.

(So she wears pink huh?)

"I think there's only a few dozen in the entire world. It's really rare for a spirit to awaken."

"I see."

If their numbers were that low, then it was hard to imagine them being solely responsible for the creation of us vampires. If that was the case, then the evil god theory sounded a lot more credible. Such a being would have reason to make equivalents of every race after all.

"Huh? Wait a sec."

"Yes?"

"I can kinda see all the other races, but how are vampires the dark equivalent of spirits? We're nothing alike."

"Huh? You're really similar."

(How?!)

"I don't follow."

"Both spirits and vampires are born from mana and return to pure mana when they die. You both also feed on mana as well."

"I feed on blood, not mana."

"Blood is where mana is most concentrated in the ten races. Only mana crystals have a higher concentration, but only monsters have those."

"Then..."

"Vampires are the dark race version of spirits."

Aurae's explanation was quite convincing. If the reason why I drank blood was for the mana, then it completely bypassed the entire question of why I could drink more than my body's weight in a single day. As long as the water in the blood was exhaled, there wasn't that much more left in blood for my body to deal with. And what little was left beyond the mana, it was possible that my body had ways to deal with in the first place.

That was why my body didn't excrete any waste. There was hardly any in the first place, and there was probably a more efficient way to do it that I simply hadn't noticed.

"But, my body is physical, unlike the spirits! Wouldn't ghosts or phantoms be closer to their dark counterparts?"

"Ghosts and phantoms are both monsters. And spirits have the [materialize] skill. Once they use that, their bodies become almost identical to a vampire's."

"But..."

My mind was reeling. It was just so strange to think of myself as an existence that was incredibly close to these fluffballs.

Maybe I was just looking at it the wrong way. It wasn't the fluffballs vampires were similar to, but it was the greater spirits like Claret we were similar to.

"Even still, it's incredible that you were able to get along with the spirits so well."

"How come?"

They were scared of me at first, but it didn't take long to befriend them, and they've been following me ever since. Aside from inside dungeons, but that was it.

"Vampires are known to eat spirits. I've heard that they're the vampires' favourite prey."

"Wh, what?!"

It was unbelievable! How could anyone eat such cute things!

"I don't know the details too well, but maybe it's because you're both mana based beings?"

"But..."

"Well, we fairies are half mana based creatures ourselves, so we normally don't like vampires even more than the other dark races."

"Except the dark elves! They're eeevil!"

"Because our kind eat your kind?"

"Apparently vampires like to prey on us fairies even more than the other light races. Though the spirits are at the top of the list."

I couldn't do it at least. Even more than feeding off of any other intelligent being, both the fairies and fluffballs were races I couldn't eat even if I was desperate for a meal. I'd rather learn to suck raw mana out of the ground than do that.

"Well, don't worry about it. You're a good vampire, so none of us are scared of you!"

"Nope! You're really really nice! And you make great treats! Both for the spirits and us!"

Both fairies approached me and hugged my face.

My nose got a little ticklish from their skirts rubbing against it, but otherwise they did a great job of making me feel better.

It was nice being reminded that it was possible to transcend racial stereotyping.

These fairies, as well as the fluffballs, had accepted me for who I was. They knew what I was, yet had no problems with it. It wasn't like in the other lands where I was constantly afraid of being found out.

This really was my home. Not just the physical location, but the people as well.

After that, I was taught more about the various races, the geography, the nations, and even a little bit of theology. Though I couldn't help but think that a lot of the information I was being fed was highly biased, it was far better than staying completely ignorant of the major subjects.

 

About a week after I had finally returned home, I was called to that tailor I had requested a commission from.

"Hey! Anthousai! We're here!"

"Ooh! You're here, you're here!"

The same fairy came out of her junk pile shaped home wearing a different, yet still absurd dress. This time it was a black bear one-piece with a white belly complete with a hood roughly in the shape of a bear head.

"Ooh, so it's all ready now Scarlet!"

"All of it?! Seriously?"

"Ooh, it's nothing. All it took was to stay up all week. *Fwah!*"

(Seriously? She forgoed sleep just to get it done? Is that my fault?)

"You really didn't have to go that far to get it done. I wasn't in a hurry or anything."

"Ooh, but I wanted to. Hunter spider silk is so nice to work with. Here here. Try it all out now!"

The weirdly dressed fairy pulled out a puffy bundle of cloth from her home. Something white and small partially emerged from the bundle.

"Wai wait!"

Panicking over what I suspected it to be, I cast [shadow magic] to envelope us so that people wouldn't see what I suspected was my new underwear, or me being forced nude to put it on, as I strongly suspected this fairy was going to try.

In addition, I created a light source above with [fire magic].

"Ooh? What's this?"

"Umm, a dressing room I guess? Don't go flashing someone else's underwear in public, alright?"

"Ooh? Flashing?"

The tailor tilted her head to the side.

(Is she unaware of what the word means, or is she unaware of how often these fairies flash their underwear?)

"Ooh, well, let's get started then! Orphne?"

"Okay!"

"Huh?!"

Unexpectedly, the attack came from a direction I hadn't anticipated. The fraction of a second I froze was enough for everything to go dark as something was flipped over my head.

Anthousai hadn't moved at all, so the only other possibility was that Orphne had flipped my robes over my head.

"Aaaand go!"

As I grabbed at the black cloth over my head, something grabbed my pants and they were slipped right off in an instant as if they were prelubed or something.

"Wha?!"

My hands reached down for my pants but my reaction was delayed by my confusion and they were already out of reach before I had moved. With my robes still covering my head I didn't stand much of a chance of finding them.

"Ooh, now here goes!"

My legs were tugged closer together and something incredibly smooth and velvety was pulled up them. In virtually an instant what was pulled up without me being able to see had been snugly secured on my hips.

"Ooh, perfect!"

A tiny hand slapped my butt.

"Ahh!"

I tried to reach for it but it had withdrawn already.

"Ooh, now the top!"

"No, wait!"

But despite my protests my robes were promptly pulled off and my shirt with it as they tag teamed me.

My face was burning due to my treatment and I repeatedly blinked to get used to the sudden brightness caused from being unveiled.

"Ooh! Go!"

"Huh?"

The fairies pulled at my arms and quickly something incredibly silky was pressed against my chest before pulling my mounds up and something was secured on my back.

In the time it took my eyes to get used to the light, the two fairies were floating in front of me evaluating the underwear they had forced onto me.

"Ooh! You look amazing with these!"

When I glanced down, I was mesmerized at the straps and cups that comprised the visible parts of my new top. They were made of lace. Entirely of pure white lace that had a strange, rainbow sheen to it. The patterning was simply incredible. The straps were decorated with winding ivy with little amaryllis flowers growing out of it here and there. There seemed to also be another type of flower embroidered into the cups, but it was impossible to see exactly what they were while wearing them.

The feel itself was incredible as well. The material was so soft and gentle on the skin, yet I could feel how they supported my chest through the pressure on my shoulders and back.

I thrust my chest out a bit and felt as my mounds bounced up, but when they fell down again, the cups properly caught them and eased their fall before forcing them to rest much faster and more smoothly than if I wasn't wearing a bra.

It was my first time wearing one, and it's only been a few seconds, yet I couldn't see myself ever going back to a chest wrap again. That thing was so restrictive and uncomfortable. This bra wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing ever, but the loss of comfort was quite minor compared to the stability my chest had gained.

"Ooh, you like them? Have a look too!"

Anthousai snapped her fingers and blobs of water gathered in front of me. The globules flattened out and formed a full length mirror, allowing me to see how I looked with the underwear she and Orphne has forced me to wear so suddenly.

While the lace revealed my skin a bit, the embroidering had properly covered what needed to be covered when it came to the bra. And I finally saw that each cup had a cactus flower design sewn into them.

It was pretty flashy and very embarrassing, but not to the point that I would refuse it. Anthousai worked so hard on it that I felt bad even considering asking her to make it plainer.

At least it was going to be covered by the rest of my clothes, so the fact that it was so fancy wasn't really an issue.

But when my eyes were drawn further down to see the lower underwear I had been forced to put on, my face burned hot like someone lit it with a torch.

"Wha...wha...wha?!"

The entire thing was made of lace, barely concealing anything. If it wasn't for a big flower on the front and centre, it wouldn't have functioned as actual underwear at all. The flower itself appeared to be a lotus, but it barely covered me at all. If I had a beaver, it would have been completely exposed though.

Or rather, the fact that I didn't have one would be exposed if anyone ever saw me in just my underwear.

Just in case, I turned around to see how bad it was from behind.

The burning sensation in my face felt like it had slightly increased in intensity, but at the same time, I was relieved it wasn't as bad as I thought it could be.

There was another, bigger lotus covering my behind, but aside from that the rest was pure lace that showed way more than it hid.

This bottom really functioned at the very minimum specs when it came to underwear.

But despite that, I couldn't get over how it also felt so good against my skin. The bottom was also pure white with a strange rainbow shimmer.

"Ooh, you like? You like?"

"It feels good, but it's pretty embarrassing. It shows way too much."

"Ooh, but you have a lot to show though?"

"I don't want to show it!"

It didn't matter if I had a little or a lot, it was embarrassing to show.

"Is that the robes?"

I pointed at the black piece of cloth that the fairy was still holding.

"Ooh, yes. Wear it! Wear it!"

She unravelled it and passed my arms through its sleeves and draped it across my shoulders.

I quickly buttoned up the front so I could be spared from being thought of as some exhibitionist.

"This is...!"

When I finally gathered the courage to look at myself through the water mirror that was still suspended in front of me, I gasped at what I saw.

The robes I had put on was relatively simple in its overall design. For the most part, it was the same as my old one, but refined in many ways. The fit and weave were leagues above what I had managed, and despite being only a single layer thick, it felt like it blocked the light even better than my previous robes.

But way beyond the practical aspects, was the design.

All along all the hems, the black robes was covered in little sparkling gems of all colours.

If I had to say, it looked just like the little fluffballs dancing around during the feast about a week ago.

For the first time in my life, I came to understand the concept of falling in love with an article of clothing.