[Brian POV]
I noticed my summon came back down stairs followed by Lucia. They don’t seem extremely happy, so I can make a guess, but better to confirm it anyway.
“So, how did it go?” I asked.
“I can’t cure her. I’m sorry.” Vampire Lady said to me.
“I see, that’s too bad. Do you know what the problem is?” I asked.
“Her blood magic is high in level and that makes the curse stronger. I believe Vampire Lord is capable of curing it.” My summon told me. “But I’m capable of lessening her symptoms.” She added.
“Permanently? Or for a short time?”
“Only for around three days.” She said.
“I see. In that case I’ll leave you with Lucia, if you don’t mind.” I said to my summon.
“No. You can’t do that.” Lucia argued.
“I’m fine with it, Master.” Vampire Lady gave her permission.
“It’s the best option.” I told Lucia. “With that you can keep your curse in check until I get a stronger vampire that can fully cure you.”
“But you’ll lose a summon.” She argued.
“Really? That’s what you are worried about? I have enough summons. And in all honesty, Vampire Lady doesn’t have the combat strength of some of my other ones. She would likely be just a glorified blood drainer.” I told Lucia. “No offense.” I added as I turned my eyes to Vampire Lady.
“Non taken, Master. I know I can’t match up to the power Master’s other summons have.” She answered.
Well, now with a Blue-Eyes in my arsenal, I really don’t know what monster can stand a chance. How powerful are S-rank monsters anyway? Can Blue-Eyes solo one? Or would they be equal in strength?
| Mission: Cure the Dhampirs |
| Goal: Cure dhampirs of their blood curses |
| Reward: Grants a random Vampire card for each cured dhampir |
| This mission is repeatable. You can gain the reward only once per person |
Even the system agrees I should do this. With that I know I’m right. System is Law. System is God.
After that, I unsummon Vampire Lady and gave her card to Lucia.
“But,” She was trying to argue.
“Just give in.” I told her. “You won’t win this argument. Unless you want to leave your party and live with me, I won’t leave this house without you taking this card.”
I probably would actually leave, but I can try these underhanded tactics.
“Fine, I’ll take it.” She gave in and received the card.
“Make sure to summon her every day to help you.” I told Lucia. I don’t want her to just hold onto that card for nothing.
“Ok. I will.” She agreed to that part quite easily.
—
“Well, I guess there is nothing more here for me to do for today. I’ll be off then.” I said to Lucia and got up from the table to leave.
“I see. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Please show up at the guild.” She said as I was leaving.
“Sure. I can do that.” I answered.
With that, I took to the streets.
—
The streets were still quiet. I guess people who work outside the walls haven’t returned yet. I think if I make my way straight to the Watchman manor, I’ll arrive there by snack time. I hope they won’t mind my intrusion too much.
On the way, a few people stopped me and thanked me for saving the town. Being famous comes with its downsides, I guess.
As I made it to the manor gates, the guards greeted me and let me in without any questions. Is this really fine?
At the door, I met with Nicole. So she is up at this time. I really shouldn’t make fun of her. I’m sure she is a hard working individual. Even if she stays up late and wakes up late. A mansion needs nighttime maids. At least I would assume so.
“Welcome back, Lord Brian.” She greeted me.
“Hello Nicole. I'm back. Are Christina and Alice here?” I responded.
“Madam and Miss are in the back garden. It is a nice day.” She told me.
“It sure is. Would it be fine if I join them?” I asked.
“I’m sure they would enjoy it.” She told me. “Please follow me.”
Nicole turned to walk around the manor. I followed behind her.
—
“Brian!” Alice called out when she saw me following Nicole. Christina also turned around to look at me.
“Hi Alice, I’m back.” I answered.
“Welcome back, sir Brian.” Christina greeted me.
“Sorry to intrude on your tea time.” I said to the duo.
“It’s fine. When did you get up?” Christina asked.
“This morning.” I answered. “And after some checks they let me go.”
“Then why didn’t you come straight here?” Alice asked.
“I was hanging out with Lucia.” I told her.
“Why? You should have come straight here.” She argued. Don’t act like a jealous girlfriend.
“She was the one to do the final check on me, so I just ended up going with her.” I told Alice.
“I should ask Mana to teach me a spell I can use to check you up so I can do it myself.” Alice argued. Does something like ‘Dark Scan’ even exist? I really have no clue.
“Stop that you two.” Christina interrupted. “Brian, please sit down. You just got up from a coma so don’t over exert yourself.”
“It wasn’t a coma you know.” I said back while I took a seat at the table. By the time I had, a cup of tea was waiting for me. When did they have time to set it out? For baron’s maids, these girls are over specs. They seem like they could be working in a ducal manor.
“So, how much did you level up?” Alice asked.
“Twenty levels.” I answered.
“20? Really? I only got six levels.” She responded. Six is still a lot.
“Were you fine afterwards? Did you feel sick?” I asked.
“I got a little temperature, but it went away after I slept.” She told me.
“Well, at least one of us got off easy.” I joked and took a sip of tea. I’m not sure which is better, this one or the one made by Lucia. Does Lucia use water magic to make the tea that good or is she just talented in the strangest things.
—
“Sir Brian, allow me to officially thank you for saving this town.” Christina was bowing before me.
“Don’t worry about it. I did it because I could.” I told her. “And I didn’t do it alone.”
“But without you, people wouldn’t have gathered in time.” She said. “You are the reason no one died and no damage was inflicted.”
“Then you should thank the system. I wouldn’t have known about it without the system mission I got.” I said.
“Of course I did. But you are the messenger. Without you, we wouldn’t have heard of it before it was too late.” She argued.
“Just stop. Please.” I tried to hold her back. “I understand you want to thank me and everything, but this is too much. Just say ‘thank you’ like the people in town. It’s enough.”
“Then I will. Thank you.” Christina said to me.
“Thank you, Brian.” Alice added.
“Sure. I would say ‘anytime’, but I really don’t want this town to face another attack.” I responded.
“Let’s hope we stay safe.” Christina said.
“Everything will be fine.” Alice added. “As long as Brian is here, nothing can hurt us.”
“I don’t think you should say things like that Alice. It’s called a jinx. You will end up cursing the town. Something will attack as soon as I leave if you keep saying things like that.”
Now I feel like I’m cursing the town myself. Honestly. Why does this town have to have a prophecy about a behemoth? It really will attack as soon as I leave, won’t it?
Let’s hope not.
—
After tea, I went to the guest room I was staying in. Both to relax and try out my telekinesis skill. If it really works like I think it does, it will be super useful.
(Laura, how should I do this?)
(You need a practice object first. Something small that won’t break if it falls would be ideal.)
Something small? And doesn’t break if dropped. Sounds like a job for a card. But who would I let float around?
Beaver Warrior, do you want to fly? Actually, that’s an order. And it’s just your card that will be flying.
(So now that I have a ‘willing’ test subject, how do I actually do this?) I asked Laura.
(Just focus on the thing you want to move and how you want it to move. I’ll take care of the mana control for you.) Laura told me. So she’ll do the difficult part. Good.
Now, fly!
I can feel the mana moving inside me as I try to have the card achieve liftoff. And a few seconds later, the card is no longer touching my hand. It’s floating above it.
Immediate success. Thank you Laura. Now, let’s move it around a bit.
As I want to move the card to the left, it goes left. I want it to the right, it goes right. Seems simple enough. Let’s try to move it faster.
… It fell. I wasn’t trying to go that fast.
(Master’s mana control can’t keep up.) Laura told me.
(Oh, well I guess then no flying with telekinesis, yet.)
(I wouldn’t recommend it.)
(And I guess I can’t use it for defense, either.)
(We will get better with it. Won’t we, Master.) Laura encouraged me.
(Of course. Add telekinesis practice to the daily agenda.) I told Laura. This is a skill I should try to master. It seems extremely useful, as soon as my mana can keep up.
I spent a little more time practicing with telekinesis and just lounging around, until Nicole came to get me for dinner.
Okay, I have a few questions. I was curious about the Book of Secret Arts card that Brian got a few of a while back, and after looking it up, I figure you'd stick with something close to the original effect of powering up spell casters (maybe magic in general). But that got me thinking - what about one of the other 'book' cards? Not all of them have effects so easily translatable to the system and story you have going, so could any of those, potentially, summon an actual book that could be read, and perhaps with the proper research and understanding LEARN a useful technique / skill from the book without it needing to be installed?
You mentioned that Brian has zero elemental affinity or whatever, so he can't use those cards which increase the affinity (literal card effect being increasing stats of monsters with corresponding attributes), right? Could he use a DNA transplant card to temporarily gain an attribute (literal card effect is you declare an attribute, all face up monsters become that attribute)? Maybe throw one in a toploader, just so he has a trump card to use, even if he used it semi regularly at the end of a day, and only to practice some basic spells from all the elements on rotation, I'm sure there would be times where some of them would be useful.
I may have either glossed over it, or just forgotten if it was mentioned, but are there any requirements to learn skills, or can you just learn a related skill by doing, in any case? For example, could Brian, say, summon one of those Legendary Jujitsu Masters he got, and have it teach him some Jujitsu? Because I assume the legendary master would make a pretty good teacher.
Can the monsters he summons grow? Whether physically, or skill wise? Or be altered permanently (or semi-permanently, there's always cards that can fix things)? In examples, if he had a baby dragon card, and summoned it, and trained it for a thousand years, would it grow stronger, and become a thousand dragon? If he never summons Dark Magician, and keeps summoning Dark Magician Girl, could she train to become as strong, or stronger than base Dark Magician? Could a "human" monster be turned into an, I don't know, vampire or werewolf or something by something native to that world, and not a card effect? Would that count as damage, and be healed by a toploader when they return to their card? Would the effect last until they entered the toploader's death cycle, would they resist the effect entirely in the first place, or would the fact that something like vampire or werewolf has both drawbacks and gains mean the effect isn't counted as wholly negative, and not "healed" by default? If the monsters can even gain skills, can they gain ones unrelated to their original design? For example, what would happen if a monster conquered and/or founded a dungeon? I mean, in that last case, I'd expect the credit to just go to the summoner, but you get my point; they're in a situation where normally a sentient being would be given a skill, would they get one?
God, I love the timing of this comment. Not to spoil anything, but we get some book shenanigans' in the next chapter, so I guess part of that question will be answered then.
Brian cannot get an attribute with DNA transplant. Mostly because I say so, but also because DNA transplant would just shift all affinity a person has to that single attribute, so with Brian having zero in all attributes, concentrating it all into a single attribute would be useless.
Then for the skill learning. Yes, Brian could have summons teach him different techniques and then get skills for them. You get a skill either when the system decides you are good enough at something, or by leveling up and getting it. Learning something like Jujitsu could take a long time even with a legendary master teaching you. Getting the level 1 would likely take between 2 weeks to 2 months, and the higher levels would be even more difficult and take more time. So after a year of training 2 hours daily with a legendary master, Brian would likely have a level 3 or 4 skill. Perhaps 5 if he is a natural.
Then for the monster growth. Yes, they can grow with time. But to truly grow, they would need outside influence, like gaining exp in combat or learning new things from a teacher or from books. So yes, with time DMG could surpass DM, but she would likely need some outside source for new spells or other training techniques.
And then, for the transformation of summons into a different thing. Yes it could technically happen and the change would last until they 'die'. If they recover thanks to a toploader, they would be back to 'normal'. But the origin of the change would have to be majorly powerful to effect them in the first place.
For the conquering (or eliminating, as I said in the series) the monsters could do it, and they would turn into a permanent part of the world, similar to how Brian that was just a visitor that came through a dimensional crack became a permanent part of the world when he touched and eliminated the rogue dungeon core. The system would accept them and make them a part of the world. But rogue dungeons aren't common enough to have something like that happen on a larger scale and making a summon permanent without one could also be done in easier ways. Like installing a monster card into a human and letting the monster gain complete control over that human's body.
Also don't apologize for a long comment. Comments like these are what make this series what it is. Without them this series would be a lot worse, as I just suck in coming up with certain things and I'm blind to some opportunities.
@nro_8 Just curious, but can Vampire Lady turn other humans into Vampires? And if yes, would those humans be loyal to Vampire Lady or Braian? Also: I remember that the Spell Book & Sorcerer type monsters could cast magic In YuGiOh Anime. For example, Yugi used his Elf with the combination of a Spell to increase a White Dragon’s Atk power in the anime. If my logic doesn’t fail me, sorcerer type monsters should be capable of things that go beyond their actual level. If we take Time Magician being capable of turning Dark Magician into a Sage with his ability, then a lot of things are obviously going to be quite OP lol
@Gledis Vampire Lady cannot, but Vampire Lord and Vampire Genesis could do that. And no, the new vampires would hold 0 royalty towards Brian or Vampire Genesis/Lord.
And yeah, there will be a lot of those "only in anime does this work" moments in the series.
@nro_8 😭: “Vamp Lady, I can feel your pain… Hopefully in her next FanFic she can create an army of Vampires
.”