"Ah! No! I mean, yes! I mean, kinda? No! I mean, that's not important! I wasn't trying to eat you!"

"Ehehe. I'd be happy if I was tasty. What did I taste like?"

"I said I wasn't trying to eat you! I don't drink people's blood!"

Backing off, I did my best to deny her insinuations, but I couldn't shake her taste out of my mind no matter how hard I tried.

That flavour that was like some sort of strawberry candy. Maybe a gummie bear? It wasn't exactly a five star restaurant flavour, but at the same time not some dollar store discount treat. Like a premium strawberry flavoured gummie bear then?

I shook my head again. I couldn't think of people in terms of flavour. They had nothing to do with flavour in the first place! Orphne was my friend. She wasn't something to eat!

"You're just one giant bundle of surprises, aren't you Scarlet?"

"I guess I can take that as a compliment?"

Desperate to move away from that subject, I turned my attention to Aurae while I quickly enveloped Orphne with some healing magic to remove all traces my fang mark.

"Ooh! So warm!"

And I did my best to ignore the little creature and concentrated on the elder instead.

"Manipulating the soul is supposed to be the domain of the gods. At the very least, I've never heard of anyone successfully doing so, there there isn't any shortage of attempts."

Thinking about it for even a moment, that all made sense. If manipulating the soul was so easy, the consequences of it would be disastrous. At the very least, there would be a massive amount of protection against soul tampering without consent.

Even as the simplest example, necromancy was it. And as appealing as reviving the dead could be to the average person, necromancy was also connected with both undead slavery and theft of souls from the living.

As to how much the former was possible beyond normal undead I've found in dungeons so far, I didn't know. The latter on the other hand, I've already done it several times. [Soul Siphon] was a skill that did that exactly. It wasn't something I could allow another to learn.

A bit unnerved by that thought, I quickly checked the data on it and confirmed that there was no obvious way to learn it. At least through any means I was aware of. Even having another vampire suck my blood wouldn't do it, as from the best I knew, vampires couldn't steal the skills of another vampire.

It wasn't foolproof, but for now it was the best I could do until I learned more about this system.

"You'll keep this a secret, right?"

"As best as I can. I now see why you wanted the room cleared out. But why allow me to witness it?"

"I figured I could trust you on it. We're both fellow elders of this little country of ours, and you'd be pretty curious when Orphne woke up and I stayed quiet about it."

"In other words, by making me your accomplice, you want me to keep the others from asking questions."

"Right."

It felt dangerously like blackmail, but it was better to have Arurae on my side when it came to this rather than the opposite.

"Speaking of...Orphne!"

"Yes Elder!"

The little fairy went from pouting while doing weird poses on my hand to attract my attention as I actively ignored them to floating at attention facing the elder.

"How much do you remember after being stabbed?"

"Umm...things got dark. Everything was black, and cold. It felt like I was bound up and couldn't fly. But then after a while, everything felt warm. I think I saw my body for a little bit, but then everything went dark? Everything hurt a bit too, but then I woke up."

"I see."

"What a weird dream huh?"

Despite worrying that she seemed to remember most of what had happened, even if it was a bit abstracted, Orphne showed no signs of any negative after effects of this day's events. The bright smile she gave us released the tightness around my chest.

"You're relieved of your duty starting immediately."

"Re, relieved?! I'm fired?!"

(That was sudden!)

I felt bad for her. She went through such a difficult thing, yet she woke up only to find out she was immediately unemployed. If I was in her position, I'd be pretty worried about my livelihood. Did she have any skills outside of fighting even?

"How am I supposed to buy any treats?!"

(I want a refund on my emotions!)

To have thought that Orphne's priority was entirely on getting treats to eat was...actually quite expected.

From my experience, Orphne really only thought much about treats and having fun in the first place. It was what the fairies spent more than 90% of their time pursuing in the first place.

Aside from a few oddballs who managed to do the thing they loved, most fairies only worked because they had to. Though in the end it felt like everyone did manage to get jobs which were related to things they enjoyed.

Orphne liked to fight, and got a job as something akin to a knight after all.

"You can get Scarlet to make it then. We agreed that you are now her belonging."

"Wait a sec! I didn't agree to that!"

"I'm your slave now?"

"Wait! No, that's not...!"

I immediately tried to refute those statements, until I looked at Orphne and saw how her eyes were shining with the light of the full moons.

"That means I can eat your treats and play with you all the time?"

"Well, not all the time, but I guess a bunch?"

Realizing what I had gotten myself into, I started to dread my future.

"Yay! I'm Scarlet's slave now!"

This must have been the first time ever for someone to celebrate being turned into a slave. I didn't even want a slave in the first place. I was just using the wording of ownership to force my argument so Aurae wouldn't feel the need to interfere with saving Orphne's life.

While there wasn't anything I could do with my ownership of the excited little fairy's life, there was something I couldn't let slip. Especially this early in all of this.

"Orphne, you might belong to me, but you're not my slave. Alright?"

"Huh? But then how would I get to eat your treats?"

(Seriously, this girl.)

"You don't need to be my slave to eat my treats."

"Really? Yay! Scarlet's treats!"

"Anyways, you'll serve me now, but that doesn't mean that you'll lose your freedom. You're not my slave. Alright?"

"Okay Scarlet!"

Interrupting her little dance, I made sure to confirm it all.

It was probably just semantics at this point, but I wanted to make a clear and distinct line on this front.

"By the way, can I have some of those treats too?"

"...Sure. The next time I make some."

"Yes!"

The disappointing elder made a guts pose as she quietly affirmed her victory.

It took quite the willpower to avoid sighing at all this.

 

"Scarlet! I'm hungry!"

"Huh? Oh, my bad."

I looked up from my work.

Ever since that day, I've been spending quite an amount of time putting together the distillery needed to make the vodka I had promised Harja.

The promises I had made to the others weren't so difficult to deal with, most of them anyways.

Geirskogul and his fellow imps just wanted a bunch of treats. The quantity asked for was a bit daunting, but I managed and they gorged out that night.

There wasn't much special to speak of aside from the fact that Orphne was involved as well. But that was merely because she's taken to following me.

That in itself wasn't really unexpected. She was unemployed for the most part. The closest thing to a job she had was to do what I said, but I didn't really have much to ask of her in the first place. I had Claret already, and even she didn't get much to do as things stood.

It wasn't like either of them could do any paperwork in the first place. They were good in a fight, but that only meant that they could help me when I entered the dungeon to get things, but that didn't happen very often in the first place.

I was starting to get low on blood, but it didn't take much time to fill up my blood jars in the first place.

No, extracting the blood itself honestly took the bulk of the time. Waiting for monster blood to drip out of a wound took an annoying amount of time, and I hadn't had much luck speeding it up beyond simply squeezing their bodies while they were suspended in the air.

If only I could target the blood directly and force it all out of the body, but none of the spells I've devised could manage that without a serious amount of effort concentrating on separating the blood from any other fluids. It just wasn't very productive compared to just letting multiple monsters hang and have them drip their blood at the same time.

It was a problem I've been thinking about here and there, but so far, I've been a bit too occupied by other things to implement any real solution.

In the end, it was a minor problem on the level of convenience in the first place.

Anyways, with Geirskogul sated, and the debt to Aurae settled even before I started, I've been working on paying back Harja.

Since I've already made concrete promises with her, actually doing it wasn't difficult, just time consuming.

Fundamentally, I had to make a proper distillery that could handle the entire process of making vodka all the way from the initial raw ingredients. The process of making the vodka itself wasn't difficult, and once I had finished the hardware, I just needed to make the initial batch of a few barrels along with teaching one of her subordinates how to operate the equipment and I was home free.

Aside from that, there was the problem with both Frigg and Alvaldi. Alvaldi had sent a few of his subordinates, and while they hadn't managed to contribute much, I did want to give something back as thanks. Most likely it would just be a feast like with Geirskogul in the end. The titans seemed to enjoy having my fried rice, which was convenient since it was a dish that scaled up quite well.

Frigg on the other hand, I had no idea what I could do for her and her people. I owed her something proper due to her greater involvement as well.

And finally Elli...

I shuddered at the thought.

It wasn't like I hated the idea of wearing clothes which Elli picked out or designed. The set she made for me, the slightly stylized traditional dokkalfar outfit was actually quite nice when I ended up wearing it. But being forced to wear the things she chose on the other hand...

The thought was a bit terrifying.

I wasn't really someone who was fashion conscious in the first place. I had no idea what to do when it came to fashion, though I did like wearing things which looked good.

And I liked what Elli originally had made for me.

But that was that and this was this. I had no idea what she had in store for me this time, nor the process she was going to put me through in regards to it. She was pretty vague when it came to what she wanted to ask from me at the time, and I hadn't exactly picked up the courage to ask, despite living in the same house.

It was only a matter of time before I would have to own up to that promise though.

Hopefully she'd let me go easy and settle for just one outfit, and something which wouldn't make me look like some sort of stripper.

Actually, despite how revealing the usual dokkalfar outfits were, it didn't give them a look like some sort of exotic dancer as one would expect. Sure, they summer clothes didn't cover their limbs much and had quite the prominent midriff, but instead it kinda felt like they were hot weather outfits or something. Just not desert clothes, but maybe a rain forest or something? Either way, somewhere hot but had a decent amount of cover from the sun.

Aurae had told me once that the dokkalfar mostly inhabited the southern marshlands, so maybe I was hitting it quite on the head with that theory.

It was a bit odd that they didn't seem to be too cold this winter, but that might just be related to cold resistance? I certainly had no trouble adapting to the hot or cold despite wearing the same clothes all year.

But at the same time, the dokkalfar did change outfits when it started to get cooler. The clothes were of the same style where it was basically just long pieces of cloth wound around their bodies, but they did add more layers and covered up most of their exposed skin.

It wasn't nearly thick enough to look warm, but maybe it was enough after their usual cold resistance? There was the possibility they were all enchanted to keep them warm as well.

"Scarlet! Stop dozing off! I'm hungry!"

"Ah, sorry about that."

It seemed like I ended up wasting too much time in my thoughts. This tag along fairy got pretty grouchy when she was hungry after all.

To be honest, it was hard to keep up. I wasn't used to dealing with food more often than once a day, since that was all I and Claret needed. We just had one big meal and was fine for the rest of the day.

Feeding Orphne three times a day was a bit of a pain, but she did sleep at night, so it kinda made up for it I guess?

That was probably a bad way to say it, but only having to mind her for part of the day did make having her follow me around all the time easier to deal with.

Orphne wasn't a bad person. It was just...she was distracting.

Unlike Claret who always followed me everywhere, the little fairy got bored easily. And a bored fairy wasn't something you wanted near you.

But something worse than a bored fairy was a hungry fairy being made to wait for her meal.

I took a few moments to think about what to make.

Most desserts were better made over the course of an hour or more, but making Orphne wait that long wouldn't be very good for my sanity, so they were out. I really need to remember to premake her meals, since there was no downside to keeping them stored in a pocket dimension like I did with my own meals.

Along with a pair of bowls, I pulled out a handful of ingredients. Wheat flour, milk, a vanilla bean, an egg, some oil, a lemon, and some honey.

First, I separated the white and yolk of the egg and put them in separate bowls. Next I added the oil and lemon juice to the bowl with the egg whites, then added the flour, milk and crushed vanilla to the bowl with the yolk.

Taking out a wire whisk I had made, I used telekinesis to hold it inside the bowl of egg white and spun it as fast as I could without splattering any of the contents. While that was going on, I quickly mixed the contents of the other bowl with a second whisk.

When I was done combining the yolk mix, I went back to the white mix and added the honey, a little at a time as the whites fluffed up.

After a few minutes of stirring, when the whites had been whipped into shape well enough that it was capable of defying gravity. At this point, I slowly added the two bowls together, carefully folding the mix to avoid crumbling the air packed inside.

Once uniform, I heated up a pan and lowered the mix onto it. Allowing it to nicely brown, I flipped it once before taking it off the heat and transferring the tall and fluffy circle to a plate.

I scattered a mixed handful of berries on top then drowned the entire thing in condensed tree sap before stabbing the entire thing with the smallest fork I had.

"Here you go. A souffle pancake."

"Yay! I love you Scarlet! Mwah!"

"Yes yes. Enjoy."

Despite the fact that Orphne was the first person to kiss me in memory, I couldn't say I actually felt anything in regards to the peck she did to my cheek.

Instead, I basked in the warm feeling as I watched the little fairy grab the fork with both hands and swung it around, deftly cutting into the incredibly tall and fluffy pancake before lifting a slice to her mouth.

"Mmmm! It's so good!"

"I'm glad to hear that."

Leaning back, I continued to watch my new companion eat her heart out.

The one thing that continued to strike me as odd was the fact that the fairies used eating utensils the relative size of short spears, rather than ones that could be used easily by one hand.

The only explanation I got in regards to that was that utensils that small made eating most food nearly impossible. Due to the small size of fairies, it seemed that cutting up any normal food to the size that they could easily be manipulated with utensils that small tended to ruin most meals, both aesthetically and in texture.

I could understand the importance of both, as they were things which I placed a good amount of importance when cooking myself.

That said, it was still surreal watching Orphne wield that fork like an actual spear. The fact that she was skilled with actual spears was showing up here made things even weirder.

But that aside, none of that did anything to diminish that look of bliss as she ate the pancake which was bigger than her entire body.

I still had no idea how fairies did it.

But then again, magic existed in this world, and that was an easy enough explanation I suppose.

Hardly a satisfying one, but anything involving magic wouldn't be very satisfying for someone who originally grew up expecting a scientific explanation for everything.

Then again, I've been using magic for years without it feeling strange at all beyond the initial rush of it. Maybe it means that I had just adapted that much.

Maybe that was a good thing, even if it meant that I was losing everything which made up the old me.

Probably.

At least, it would be good for Alicia. She would have a lot to get used to when she was born.

The change from human to vampire was a bigger one than one would initially expect.

I could only hope that she would take the change better than I did. At the very least, I could help her the entire way.

Before I knew it, my hand had gone to my belly and was gently stroking it.

It wouldn't be long before Alicia and I were able to meet again. Even without everyone around me talking about it, I knew I was almost read to give birth.

Soon.