A little while after I cleared things up with Orphne, she ended up leaving after touching my belly a bit more.

The way she did it was quite cute, little a child touching her mother's belly checking for the baby inside.

I was able to finish my work without any further interruptions. Well, outside interruptions. I caught myself touching my belly more than once while working.

I confirmed the materials I had requested were properly stored in boxes for delivery and the request forms stuck on top. A casual survey confirmed that everything was accounted for and properly signed. Taking the boxes and putting them into my bag, I signed the receipt for each and handed them to the night watch sitting bored behind the guild's counter.

Once I waved goodbye to the last few subordinates still at the guild, I went to go back home.

But before I could do that, there was a small gathering in front of the guild building. Quite a few fairies had come together, many were drinking and enjoying various treats.

"Oh! Scarlet! I had heard the news from Orphne!"

The first one to notice me exiting the building was Aurae.

"Heard what?"

"The baby! I was not even aware vampires could even have babies! It is such wonderful news!"

The other fairies gathered around me once they heard the elder fairy's words and gave me their own congratulations.

Looking closer, all of the fairies around were ones I had known to some degree or another. Aurae, some of the other elders, Orphne was there along with her subordinates, Anthousai, and many others I had interacted with over the course of the last few months.

"Can, can I touch it?"

"Sure."

As expected, Aurae asked the same thing Orphne asked when she first found out.

"This is incredible! You are having six babies then?"

(Is every fairy going to make that joke?)

"No, just one. You're feeling my abs. The baby bump isn't big enough to be felt yet."

"Oooh. I see. Even still, this is quite the joyous occasion!"

"It is! It is!"

"Yea! Yea!"

The other fairies made quite the noise expressing how happily they took the news. It was to the degree that a few people came to have a look, but ended up returning to their original business once they realized it was the fairies responsible for it all.

Two or three at a time, they fluttered over to feel for the baby. Even when we all knew that it wasn't possible yet, they still wanted to try it for themselves. And I couldn't stop them. Most likely, a part of me was hoping that one of them might notice something which all the rest of us had missed. That they could tell me what I needed to do to feel the bump for myself.

But of course, the embryo had barely been implanted. I knew in my head that there was no way there would be a detectable bump for at least two or three months.

That was true. It was entirely true. But just because it was true and that there was no chance that any of them would detect a bump, the warm feeling of them trying wouldn't stop coming. So I let the fairies keep coming.

 

"Do you think it's fine for me to keep having long baths like this?"

"I don't know Master."

Claret looked up at me as she was lean into my chest while we enjoyed our nightly soaks in the bath.

To be frank, I had no idea what sort of things were good or bad for Alicia's new body.

The fairies didn't really know, as they seemed to deal with pregnancies amongst themselves without much thought. I needed to talk to someone who knew more.

"Well, I guess it's better safe than sorry for now."

We had already been soaking for a little while as I relaxed before the thought came to me, so I should endeavour to be more careful from here on. At least until I got a proper okay from someone who knew better.

Getting out of the bath, I quickly dried myself and got dressed in my usual attire before heading to the fountain.

"Let's go get something to eat."

"Yes Master!"

Putting a hand onto my shoulder, my ever loyal companion teleported along with me to the hundred first floor fountain room. Now in a dusty room with nothing but footprints on the floor, we headed off to the dungeon proper to see what the next floor was like while I hoped that the inhabitants were the sort to provide some delicious blood.

The floor itself was a mountain type. The entrance of the floor had a rocky path that climbed up a craggy mountain with high walls on either side, like a valley carved in the face of the cliff side. Even from here I could see how the path meandered around, split and joined, and even disappeared. If experience from similar floors were telling, then those terminated as dead ends or caverns which lead to other points along the way.

As floors like this tended to use the all sides of the mountain surface, even being able to see a bit of the path ahead meant very little, and the distance made it almost impossible to distinguish the rock face from a path wedged in the crevice of a rock formation higher up.

Giving up on any attempt at trying to figure the path out, I took off, eager to see what sort of food I could find on this floor. Floors like this tended to be pretty good when it came to good prey, but they also had a decent chance of harbouring golems. It would be annoying if that was all I could find, but hopefully that wasn't the case.

Probably the two most annoying things about floors like this was the constant positive grade of the slope the path took along with the narrowness of the fighting space.

The rocky path, while reasonably smooth and mostly free of large debris, was only as wide as three people with their arms apart. It might sound like it's actually pretty wide, but it was hardly any better than a cave and floors like this tended to have larger monsters, making the space more of an enemy than a friend for agility style fighters like myself.

And the skies wasn't my friend here either.

When I looked up at the painfully blue ceiling, it was easy to see all those winged creatures that soared above. If I tried to get above the outer wall to either skip parts of the path or to avoid a monster's attack, I'd probably be mobbed by those things above.

That was a risk I absolutely didn't want to take.

(Especially right now.)

My hand casually touched my belly once again.

Somehow, now that I was certain of a physical part where Alicia's soul now resided, the fear of injury had somehow grown.

Before getting injured really wasn't too big of a deal. At worst it was a loss of combat capability for a short while. Actually, the worst was the fact that Alicia was forced to experience pain.

But now, Alicia wasn't likely to experience any pain until she was born, which all signs suggesting that she was asleep and would stay that way for the time being. On the other hand, if I was injured in the wrong way, she would die.

Alicia in her current state was entirely helpless.

The fact that I was here on this floor was already a bit risky, with the monsters being mostly unknowns so far.

(If what shows up turns out to be bad news, I'm gonna run for it.)

Having highly nutritious meals was important for Alicia's proper growth, but if it was at the risk of her life, it wouldn't be worth it in the slightest.

But as long as the monsters here wasn't too bad, it would be worth using this as my new farming spot. Good meals and a decent level meant that I would be killing two birds with one stone. Levelling up in the end was still something important, and going most of a year without doing that was just plain a bad idea.

Even worse, once Alicia was born, it was likely that it would be very difficult to make time to gain any more levels until she becomes capable of at least avoiding enemy attacks.

(Or just not needing to stay by my side all the time, actually.)

As things stood, staying away from Alicia to clear dungeon floors wouldn't be an option until she could feed without my help, or at least go for a significant amount of time without feeding.

(So basically no levelling until her teeth grow in huh? Isn't that like a year or something? It's not two, is it?)

For that matter, I had no idea how long human babies took before they could survive on solid food, or even just mushy baby food. And even if I knew that, there was no telling the same applied to vampires.

The fact that I spawned as an adult was really causing some unexpected problems. If I at least had parents, I could ask them. Or at least rely on the memories of my early life in this world.

(Well, as long as nothing bad happens before then. Hopefully there won't be any major problems for a few more years. Then I could...)

"Master!"

"Wha...?!"

Suddenly there was a strong tug on my neck, causing me to lose my balance as my body was pulled backwards quite violently.

But before I could complain about the rough treatment, there was a sudden burst of light and heat across my face as a stream of flames ran past my eyes.

I hit the ground with my favourite familiar using her own body as a cushion, but I was hardly in a situation to worry about that. Looking down between my huge valley, there was a huge reptile with dark red scales taking up most of the valley beyond.

The body was similar to a most typical household lizards, except it had a bit of a long neck and narrow head, ending in a sharp, pointed mouth. Aside from its size, the other unique feature of the overgrown lizard was the fact that it had a pair of wings on its back, held open but pointed downwards. Most likely it was some sort of threatening posture, like a cat curling its spine to make itself look bigger.

I checked my lower left corner of my vision, but there wasn't anything there but rough stone in the shade.

(Damnit!)

It was my first battle since Alicia went to sleep and I messed things up twice already.

I pushed off the ground and rolled to the side before slamming my palm into the rock to lift my body up to my feet again. The monster took a step towards me, its attention focused on me rather than Claret who was on the ground, and probably mostly invisible to the creature at this point.

The monster took in a large breath and opened its jaws wide, as if it wanted to show off its shiny white rows of sharp teeth.

I kicked off the ground, creating even more distance between Claret and myself right as, together with a loud roar, another burst of flames rushed past, as if a carbon copy of those world war flame throwers.

The blast only lasted a second, but it was clear how much power was behind the bright yellow flames.

Without slowing down, I rushed towards the creature, throwing up a large ball of ice towards it, obscuring my figure behind it. From the edge of the projectile I could see the reptile raise a claw, and in an instant the flying iceberg was sliced into four pieces.

But I never expected the attack to do any real damage in the first place, so with a snap of my fingers, the still cold fragments of ice exploded, engulfing the monster in a chilly mist. Thanks to the mist being especially dense, I could no longer see my target, but that didn't matter.

I fired off a wide spray of water from one hand while a super cooled gale soared from the other. The water instantly froze and became sharp fragments of hail that bombarded the overgrown lizard, breaking up and some of it clinging to the crevices between its scales.

A burst of flames shot out as I circled around the monster, but it quickly stopped, much faster than before.

I continued to let out the relentless barrage like some sort of insane snow machine until the surrounding ground was covered in a fine layer of sleet and the air above was filled with diamond dust.

Feeling out the reptilian monster with my aura, I roughly gauged its shape within the still persistent icy haze. Its movements had dramatically slowed, though I wasn't sure if it was because the creature was cold blooded or because it the temperature drop simply made it difficult for anything to move in general.

But that didn't matter to me. I was easily able to pinpoint its head and I leaped up into the air.

With my claws extended, I jabbed all of them into the monster's ribs in between its shoulder blades.

The lizard roared out in pain, but instead of relenting, I closed my fingers, causing the claws made from my own mana to cut through more flesh and more securely hold me in place.

The creature reared its body and shook its shoulders, swinging its wings wildly as it tried to dislodge me. Of course such weak and slow attempts at bucking me off didn't stand a chance at working if I didn't allow it to.

Instead, I moved even closer until I sank my fangs into its neck.

The rich taste of dark chocolate and chili peppers filled my mouth as I closed my eyes in bliss. The sweet bitterness and spice of the two separate tastes melded so incredibly well in my mouth I almost moaned. But if I did, then the rich flavour of this blood would stop, so I held on the best I could until the taste ended on its own.

I was reluctant, but had no choice but to let go. No matter how much I tried to suck, nothing else came from the monster.

Releasing my claws, I licked my finger tips for the last traces of the creature's blood.

At this point I was sure, this floor was a good one to pick. Even if all the other monsters on this floor weren't things that would fill my belly, this one monster alone would make it worth it.

"Master!"

As I climbed off of the overgrown lizard, my ever faithful familiar called out to me.

"Are you fine? What happened to you?"

"Huh? Oh. Umm...I was just in thought. Sorry."

"No no! You don't need to apologize! It's my fault for realizing so late that you didn't notice this monster!"

(What the hell is this girl talking about?)

"I'm apologizing because I have to. I was careless, and you saved me. That's the truth. Alright?"

"...Yesh Mashtah!"

For some reason, those words made my little dark spirit drip tears down her cheeks and slurred her words. But it didn't look like they were sad tears, so I just turned away from her and took a look at the remains of my prey.

"Hmmm..."

It had been quite a while since I had last used this skill on my own, but knowing more about what it was I had just faced would be a good thing.

[Lesser Fire Dragon. Level 264.]

There was a bit of a level jump, but aside from that...

"A dragon huh? So one finally appeared."

It was no wonder that this thing tasted so good.

"A dragon?! This is the first time I've seen one."

"Do you know much about dragons?"

"No. Just that they're very strong monsters."

"Well, this one's a lesser fire, so that means there's got to be at least a greater at some point."

It really made me wonder what kind of level the other dragons had. Would one be over level 300? 400?

(A level 400 dragon? That's pretty scary actually.)

I hadn't even seen something over level 300 yet, so the idea of something still being over a hundred levels above me was quite a scary one. And if such a thing was inside of this dungeon, then there wouldn't be any space for negotiations aside from with our fists.

(I'd die. I'd seriously die if I found something like that as I am.)

That being the case, the chances of finding something like that anytime in the near future was basically nonexistent as long as I didn't try to break the rules of the dungeon. Well, even if I did, there was a good chance something like that wouldn't happen. The worst I ever got was getting mobbed by the monsters of the same floor, and that basically stopped when I returned to the proper path.

That said, it wouldn't be wrong to call that event a bit of a personal trauma.

Thankfully it was when I was still alone, so there wasn't a single witness to that event. As long as I never mentioned it, it would never come up in a conversation.

As I was wrapped up in my thoughts, the dragon's body disappeared, absorbed back into the dungeon. All that it left was a sheet of scaly hide larger than myself, as well as a fist sized mana crystal.

As for what I would use them for, I wasn't sure, but it would be a waste to leave them be.

"Hmm..."

I tapped my belly just below my rib cage.

I felt pretty good at this point. That one monster had done a good job filling me up, so I wouldn't feel too hungry for a while.

Going back so quickly wouldn't be too bad, but at the same time I didn't exactly want to leave so soon.

"Let's go a bit further before heading back Claret."

"Y, yesh Master!"

It looked like my favourite spirit was still trying to wipe the tears from her face.

 

"Aaah! That was an annoying one."

That was the first thing I ended up saying as I squeezed the neck of the dragon I had just killed. Under my left arm was the severed neck of the deep blue scaled monster.

As I was kinda full, I opted for a different way to kill this monster, but perhaps in doing so, the fight itself ended up getting pretty annoying.

The most valuable thing monsters offered me was their blood. Not something solid like their hide or internal organs, as was the case for the other races. For undead and constructs, it didn't really matter how I fought, but because the living were filled with blood pumping through their bodies, I generally wanted to fight in a way which preserved as much of it in my prey as I could.

The easiest way to do that was to just make my only direct attack be the one which I sucked out the target's blood.

But if I wanted to preserve the blood for later, then I'd have to find a different way to do things. The fact that these dragons' blood was especially nice meant that those little pools of blood that was being absorbed into the ground was particularly heart wrenching.

It was like spending a lot of money on a really nice cup of coffee first thing in the morning, only for someone to bump you and cause half of it to spill onto the floor before you could put the non-spill lid on. It didn't feel like simply losing part of your drink. That caffeine, that precious precious caffeine had been stolen from you.

*drip...drip...*

"Huh?"

I looked down.

Despite how tightly I held the neck of this dragon, blood was still dripping from the point where the head was originally connected.

"Gah! Damnit! Then how about this?"

With a wave of my free hand, the craggy stones below my feet merged into a flat sheet, then rose up in the shape of a massive bowl. The bowl's walls continued to rise until it turned into a giant vase.

Pushing out my aura and encompassing this dragon's cooling body, I lifted the scaled mass of meat into the air with the neck stump hanging directly over the vase.

The moment I let go of the neck, the blood which had been backed up in the creature's body freely flowed down as if attracted by gravity and went to fill the vase up.

At the same time, I made a few more vases of the same size and lined them up. Right before the first vase was filled, I switched it with a new one.

The sight of some of the blood spilling in the brief gap in between the two containers made me bite my lip in frustration. But being an intelligent creature that is capable of learning from her mistakes, I cupped my hands below the dragon's neck the next time I needed to swap containers and caught the blood which missed the lips of both vases.

Since it wasn't really a large amount, I brought my hands to my lips and licked from the small pool that had gathered in my palms.

It was only a little bit of blood, but even then, that minty chocolate goodness felt so incredibly refreshing.

Despite how annoying it was to fight, now that I got a taste of its blood, everything seemed like it was worth the effort.

The first dragon was quite easy to deal with. Between the ice mist and freezing attacks, the monster was both blinded and unable to move well. While these things didn't seem to exactly be ectothermic as the monster didn't stop moving entirely when chilled, it did slow down quite a bit, making keeping ahead of its attack quite easy.

But this blue dragon seemed to maintain a lower body temperature. Combined with the high pressure water jets from its mouth along with the fact that it was naturally surrounded by a cold aura with icicles generated and used as attacks, it meant that the method I took against the lesser fire dragon was mostly useless against this one.

In the end, I simply mounted the back of its neck and hooked my claws at its throat. Using as much strength as I could muster in that position, I pulled my mana based claws right through the scales that protected the dragon's neck and severed its head while being bombarded with heavy javelins made from ice.

The bruises along my back and shoulders still hurt a bit, but the fact that that was all it managed to do when I opened myself so badly was a bit of a surprise. It made me wonder if it was because of my stats or my robes simply worked that well as armour.

Most likely it was a combination of the two.

(Ah, another thing to be thankful of to those fairies.)

It really was human to need the from others to accomplish things. Even when they aren't there to help you directly, you still received their help.

Though I was a vampire, not human, the thought stayed the same.

Once the last drips of blood freed themselves from the heavy corpse, I flung the useless dragon body away and turned to that which was much more important.

Licking my fingers was a bit of a pain, so instead I levitated a large orb of blood right from one of the vases and brought it to my face. Pucking out my lips, I sucked from the orb directly until it shrank like a balloon having its air stolen.

"Ah, this really is great!"

This dragon blood, despite the difference in species, was quite a treat. It was pure decadence, and I didn't care what others said. Even dessert could make a great meal as long as it fulfilled your nutritional needs.

I pushed forward and collected the materials and blood from one more monster before turning back for the night.

"Ah, this really is so nice."

I mumbled to myself as I enjoyed the flavour which gathered between my cheeks as I sucked from a blood orb I had formed from the third monster I had defeated.

"Mint chocolate for the lesser water dragon, and orange chocolate for the lesser wind dragon. I wonder what the lesser earth dragon tastes like? Hopefully there'll be lesser dark and light dragons as well."

Pausing for a moment, I retracted my previous statement.

(...maybe not the light one actually.)

I continued my way back, my XP counter filling quite satisfyingly.

But perhaps the best part of all, was this new way to drink blood I had discovered. It wasn't perfect, but was pretty fun and felt like the sort of thing which any vampire should aspire to learn.