Time passed and I heard Kala and Yaten go back to their room. Singular room, it seems. The suspicious people left the building and soon left my hearing range, so I focused mostly on the book. Oddly, I don't need to sleep as long as I switch between my human and vampire sides often enough. I imagine whenever I'm in one side, the other is effectively sleeping or something. Well, it works well enough regardless of how it actually works.
Obtained Skill: Magic Circle Creation
From what I've figured out about the magic circle so far from the book, the candles actually weren't a part of it, they were just used so that the user can see what they were doing. Thankfully, my home has modern electric wiring and lights and such, so that wasn't necessary. Speaking of which, the interior of this building seems to have magic lighting all over in the form of a magic circle and some sort of stone in the middle of it. Touching the stone will make the stone light up or turn itself off if it was already on. Seems convenient enough.
Magic circles are rather complex. I wonder how people managed to figure this out in the first place? Probably by accident.
As I went through the book, the guild became quieter and quieter, as people went to bed. As movement became scarce, I heard a couple of people enter the building and go up the stairs to the floor I was on. I put away the book as they neared my room, and then I switched…
…Back to my human side. As my vampire side can look a bit odd, I usually use my human side when interacting with other people. For the time being, probably better to keep my vampire side a secret.
The door to my room unlocked and a pair entered, and suddenly bindings appeared around me and wrapped me up. I tried to talk, but no sound would come out of my mouth. Some sorts of Skills? Interesting. One of them picked me up and jumped out of the window while the other followed.
"The higher ups seem rather interested in you, young lady. I don't know if that's lucky or unlucky for you." The one carrying me, who seems to be a woman, said, as they ran through the streets.
The other one, seemed to be a man, stayed mostly quiet, and soon we ended up at a door in an alleyway. The man knocked on the door. Hold on, we're here already? Give me a moment, I haven't prepared myself yet.
"Delivery!" The woman holding me threw me at someone else who was there, who caught me. Hey, treat the kidnapped maiden a bit more gently! At this point, the hood of my hoodie went over my head, covering it. Oh yeah, been wearing a hoodie over a dress the whole time. Also cozy socks. Forgot to mention it. Probably looks weird to the people of this world.
"Put her with the other kids?" The man holding me asked.
"No, boss wants her. Bring her upstairs."
The man who was now holding me brought me upstairs. I feel like meeting with the boss would be a problem, so when he was alone in the hallway upstairs, I changed back to my vampire side.
And then I used one of my other vampire powers and transformed into a little bat. The bindings couldn't handle the change so they kinda just collapsed. I then transformed back and bit into the surprised man's neck and sucked some of his blood. He was rather quickly dead so I moved away from his body and prepared for the others.
Thankfully, my clothes somehow disappear when I transform into a bat, and appear when I transform back to my vampire body. It's one of those things that feels very much like magic in my world, even more so than being able to transform.
Judging by the sounds of others' movements, they were alerted to the disturbance awfully quickly. I need to get used to this world of Skills.
I moved to the wall next to the stairs and extended my nails into my vampiric claws mode. I stabbed the first person to start to go through in the next with it, then kicked them down making the body fall into others who were going up the stairs. The blood that came out of the body was inexplicably not falling, but was just floating in the air. Was this some sort of skill? Why?
…Well, the blood was right in front of me anyways, so I took it into my mouth and drank it. At that point I noticed something: This was me. I willed a bunch of the blood to come into my mouth as I swallowed it. Some sort of blood control Skill? This wasn't an ability I had before. I'd check, but I can't let myself get too distracted at the moment. Notifications will automatically go on hold if I'm in battle, which is convenient.
I quickly moved back behind the wall as shots were fired. Looks like some magic attacks as well as crossbow bolts? Why do vampire hunters always have crossbows anyways? Rather annoying. …Well, these folks probably aren't vampire hunters.
I could hear people from upstairs coming down, and a door from this floor was opening. Probably the boss? Remaining here is going to be dangerous, so I quickly moved to the stairs going down and jumped over the small crowd there… only to get hit in the stomach.
By what? Probably some sort of spell, I couldn't tell. I ended up lying on the halfway point between the two floors. A sword came down on top of me, which I managed to block with my claws. I then turned my feet into claws too and scratched the sword holder's arm, causing it to back away. Yeah, my feet can turn into claws too. It's too bad about my cozy socks though.
I took the opening to stab my claws into her abdomen, then pulled away before she could swing back. I used my newfound powers to will the blood coming out of her into a sharp point, and thrusted it towards her neck. Getting a more proper look, this was the woman who carried me here. Well, she's dead now. There was only one more person on the stairs now, someone who was holding a crossbow. I char—
—Got punched right in the face. Wait, why? How? Who? When? Where? I looked up and saw him, the quiet man. He didn't just not talk, but his movements didn't make any sound at all. Skill? Probably. Everything in this world is Skills, right?
I dodged a crossbow bolt with ease and jumped towards its wielder, kicking them in the neck with my foot claws out. Did you know the neck is a pretty vulnerable part of the human body? That's why I aim towards there a lot. To avoid the quiet man, I can only go back up stairs. Something about him was creeping me out; I wanted away as soon as possible.
As I jumped up the stairs, I had the blood of the fallen go with me, and had a bit of a snack at the top. As long as I drank a bit of each of their blood, I can get their skills, right? I think that's how it works. Unfortunately, what was awaiting at the top of the stairs was the boss.
It was a lady with a sword in each hand. "You've been causing quite some trouble for a little kid. I was just going to ask you a few questions, but it seems there's no way out other than your death."
Boss woman in front, quiet man in back. I'm taking my chances with the woman in front. I dash forwards, swinging a claw at her. She plays it safe and blocks the attack while I move past her. Seeing the carnage I've brought, playing it safe made sense.
On the other side was an archer and a big guy in a lot of armour. I dodged a few arrows as I made it over there, and focused my attacks on the big guy. My hand-claw went straight through the chain covering his neck, but failed to pierce his actual neck. What the heck? His skin is tougher than his armour? I guess this is the effect of high HP.
The guy grabbed my arm, then swung me hard onto the ground. Ow… Then he did it again, this time breaking me through the floor. I landed on my back on the floor below, then I saw the man take a jump.
No, no, no, no, no. I quickly rolled out of the way before he could land on me, and started to attack him again, this time being more careful so that he couldn't grab me. With how HP works, even if I couldn't pierce him, he was still taking damage. However, it didn't take long until the boss lady jumped down as well. Now that she's here, I needed to take some distance. At this point, maybe I should just run away… or maybe the quiet guy is just standing by the exit so I can't do just that. When did he get there anyways?
The archer, however, didn't come down. The hole was too small to shoot through too effectively, and actually jumping down would be suicide among the melee, so they was basically out of the fight for now. Until they use the stairs anyways. I need to take down at least one of these two before that happens, and the boss lady seems like she can't take as much, so I aimed at her.
Except she came at me first. She dashed towards me with what seemed like an impossible spin attack where she never looked away during. This must be one of those Arts. I should look into that after this.
I dodged backwards, and saw a part of the ground glow. Did I just step onto a magic circle? Either way, I didn't have the time to see what it did and counterattacked the art as quickly as possible. She managed to get her swords back into position to block before my claws could quite reach her, so while her swords were occupied, I gave her a kick, but she managed to jump back to avoid it. While I was in the middle of delivering that kick, the big guy grabbed onto my leg. Before he could really do anything, however, I quickly turned into a bat then turned back and I was out of his grasp. If only I thought of doing that before.
Even thinking that could give myself some time was in vain, as the lady thrusted forward with a sword and managed to cut my back. I ignored the pain as I charged towards the lady, trying to keep my distance from the man so the two can't attack whenever I try to attack. This bought me a second as the lady went back onto the defensive, but only that. If I had some blood, I could probably manipulate it for an advantage, but…
…Wait, I had blood. I have a lot of blood. I had blood flow out of my back wound and moved it towards the big guy while I kept the boss lady occupied. I forced the blood down his throat and filled his lungs with it, drowning him. Oddly, I can manipulate my blood within his body, but I can't manipulate other people's blood while it's still in their body. I tried, it would've been an easy victory. I was running low on reserve blood for this, but it was reserve blood anyways.
Seeing the guy helplessly drowning seemed to anger the lady as she went on much more aggressively than before. I was getting cut a bunch trying to defend against her sword strikes with my claws, but I found an opening in her mindless offense and stabbed her in the chest… while she also managed to stab me at the same time.
Still, this was my victory. She died from the attack, and I drank her blood and used it to heal my wounds, something I could do from my previous world. Next is… the quiet man was gone, at least I couldn't see him on the floor. I couldn't hear the archer either, maybe they both escaped?
I started to walk towards the exit but my feet stumbled and I fell as I turned back into my human side. It's been a while since I had a fight like that, it seems it exhausted my body. I couldn't keep my eyes open for much longer before I fell asleep.
I think the length of this chapter was good. There are authors out there who has much longer chapters, yours, I feel, including this chapter, would be considered short. Still, this chapter was great, your action writing is quite good, the fight was nicely done. Looking forwards to more!
Thanks for the chapter!
Thank you for your comments. The length bit was more in comparison to my other chapters, although yes, I recognize my chapters in generally are fairly short. I guess having somewhat consistent lengths probably won't work that well.
I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter and the action writing in particular. Tried to make sure everybody was doing something, or had a reason not to, at all times during the fight. Although I could've probably had more Skills involved.
In any case, continuing to write future chapters. I hope you enjoy them too when I get them out.
@Meophist It's been so long since I've written an action scene, I'm coming up to my first fight in my story. If its halve as good as this, I'll be happy.
Being consistent in length is good, but don't try and restrain yourself to keep to it. It's okay to have longer chapters sometimes. :)