I was interrogating Lotus because I was curious about her secrets. After I said that I knew her family wanted to kill her she was shocked that I knew about it. After a bit of annoying conversation I’m glad that I can finally start learning the truth.

“How do you know that my family wants you dead?”

“I’m not the one answering questions right now. Hurry up and tell me why they want you dead or I’ll fulfill their wish.”

“O-okay I’ll tell you. It’s nothing complicated, they just consider me a danger to the family.”

“This is starting to get really annoying! I know they want you dead and I can guess many reasons why! What I want to know is why they hate you enough to kill you! Is it because you betrayed the head of the family? Succession rights? Or do you just have some heavy blackmail on them?”

She seemed to be scared by my outburst and I could barely hear her say, “It’s complicated to explain.”

Does this girl not realize the situation she’s in? I’m clearly strong enough to kill her and escape without anyone figuring out it was me. Does she need to see more of my magical capabilities? If so I guess I can just teleport to the forest near the shrine I used to live at. The bears there are considered certain death to most people who meet them after all.

Since I already have her pinned against the wall I was easily able to teleport her to the shrine. She started to look around confused while I searched around the forest using Air magic and Shadow magic. Searching with Air magic is only usable when there’s an airflow and searching with Shadow magic is only usable when there are shadows to look through, so a combination of both is the best way to search areas. It didn’t take long before I found a few bears hiding in a cave so I teleported us near the bears.

When Lotus saw them she instantly started screaming, which is logical considering she’s confused on how we’re here and she doesn’t know that I can easily kill them. I used Explosion magic to quickly kill them, accidentally burning my shirt off because I was standing too close. While trying to still seem threatening I spoke to Lotus, “As you just saw I can easily kill bears and I can easily kill you without anyone figuring out it was me. So it would really be in your best interest to tell me what I want to know before I get too annoyed.”

Lotus desperately started to reason with me. “I can’t tell you! I have a curse on me inherited through my family that prevents me from talking about its details. That curse is why my family wants me dead.”

Well my annoyance was immediately replaced with interest. Now I really want to know what the curse is and why her family would want to kill her because of it. It might be interesting to try to experiment with it, I do have an infinite supply of magic power that I can use to mess around with after all.

Since it’s a curse inherited through a family it was probably placed by a Shadow Spirit a long time ago. Shadow magic does deal with the supernatural after all. If it wasn’t placed by a Shadow Spirit, Shadow magic might still be able to affect the curse at least.

At first I just tried to get rid of the curse but every spell I could imagine ended up not working. I then tried changing the rules of the curse by creating a new one that would combine with the existing one. Some of the new rules may replace the old ones but it might also just do nothing. All I really care about is hearing the details of the curse so I just focused my magic power on creating a temporary curse that made it impossible for her to keep secrets. I don't know enough about curses to make it stick to her so instead I'll just apply the curse to the area around us.

I casted the spell and the area around us instantly darkened as the spell started to affect the surrounding area. I could feel all of my magic power constantly disappear and then reappear as I absorbed more mana from the surroundings. I also felt a slight urge to speak only my true thoughts without hiding anything. “I made that curse of yours allow you to tell what it is. So I want the next thing you say to be the full story of why your family wants you dead.”

“That’s impossible to do! My family already tried getting many talented mages to get rid of the curse and they all failed.”

“Well as I said, I only temporarily changed the way your curse works. I didn't actually get rid of it. I’ve asked you too many times by now to tell me the truth and I'm tired of hearing excuses so just stop being stubborn and tell me everything. We’re in the middle of one of the most dangerous forests in the world so nobody can overhear your secret either.”

“Fine! My secret is that I’m a Vampire.” She seemed surprised that she was actually able to say anything, but I was more concerned if she was insane.

“You do know that Vampires are fairy tales made up to keep kids from talking to strangers at night, right?”

“Of course I know that, I’m not an idiot. The mage that cursed us took that fairytale as inspiration for his curse. In order to survive I have to suck up people’s magic power by sucking it up through their blood. However, when I suck up the magic power it kills the victim and before you say I should drink the blood of animals I already tried that. Animals do constantly absorb magic power, but their bodies don't actually circulate it in their blood like humans until they become extremely dangerous."

“Well I can see why your family would want you dead, but why did they only recently try to kill you? It would make much more sense to kill you as a harmless baby before you can harm anyone."

“My family has always known about the curse because it arises every few generations. Usually the people born with it are killed immediately, but my father didn’t want to kill me because I was his first child. He was able to keep me alive by having me drink the magic power of convicted criminals and that’s how I lived until my father died a month ago.

“When he died my mother tried to kill me because she considered me a beast that would attack innocents whenever I was hungry. I ran away and sought shelter with Leila’s parents because they were great friends with my father. They don't know the true reason of why my family tried to kill me because the curse prevents us from talking about it, but they still decided to help me get revenge and become the next head of the family.”

This curse sounds needlessly complicated and I have my doubts that her father would protect her. Surely he could have just had his wife give birth to another child? I guess I can't really understand his actions without knowing his thoughts and what emotions he felt. It's not like everyone would be willing to kill their own child just because the child might kill an innocent person in the future.

Anyway, I certainly wasn’t expecting to find a secret this interesting just by being at school. Making a vampire the next head of a noble house sounds kind of fun so I might help her out a bit. But first, I want a few more of my questions answered. Mainly how often she needs to drink magic power and what she’s been doing to get her fill of magic power ever since she fled her home.

When I finished gathering my thoughts I realized that Lotus had disappeared. I would have noticed her leaving the radius of my spell that alters the curse's rules so where did she go? My question was soon answered when I felt two fangs pierce my shoulder.

Topgun1908

Probably won't be another chapter for a while because school keeps making me write multiple essays every week alongside normal homework.