POV: Lucia

Jared leads me to our private chambers and looks a bit agitated.

"So, Lucia, talk. What is going on."

"Talk about what? About how much I love you?"

"That can wait. I want to know what you are planning. First, you say that you don't want to have anyone else in our relationship and the next thing I hear is that you want us to marry Iris. So, speak."

"...I don't know what to tell you. I don't really understand how I feel about it myself."

"Then try to explain it as well as you can."

"I'll try. If I could, I want to just keep you to myself, run away from this world, leave all of this mess behind and just enjoy my life with you by my side. But I have to accept the reality that this is probably not an option if we want to achieve our goals."

"And what has that to do with Iris?"

"...We have to face reality. Even with all the classes we somehow gained by pure chance, we're not particularly powerful. As we are, we're barely as strong as a normal caster our age would be, and the exp penalty doesn't do that any favor. So... I feel it is in our best interest to use my skill and get us more powerful allies this way. And if I have to share you with someone else, I would prefer it to at least be someone I know and can agree with."

"Or we can just be adults about this and NOT use the questionable deal-with-the-devil type powers. That is just asking for unnecessary trouble."

"I would really prefer that but how would we gather more power then? As we are right now, we won't really get anywhere."

Whether it is getting rid of the artifact or building our own little realm doesn't matter. We need more power.

Currently, I am a queen in name only, and the one I'm married to isn't even recognized as a king. That definitely has to change!

It doesn't have to be the whole world but I want at least to give this kingdom to Jared as a present.

I mean, we're vampires, what else would be a more appropriate gift?

Wait, why... do I even feel revolted by the thought of being ruled by a human? Is it because I've become a vampire? Or... is it just a continuation of my previous life? Is it just that I hate being told what to do all the time, just the way it has been?

I don't know...

Suddenly, Jared pats me on the head, "Don't worry your pretty head about this, I have a plan. I might not always know what I'm doing, but I have a plan. Just trust me on this."

So do I, but I want to surprise you with the result. I hope it will please you.

I can't bear the thought of disappointing you...

"And what is this plan, Jared?"

"Sorry, but it has to stay a secret for a few more days. I need to deal with a... traitor first."

"And you think they may listen to us?", he just nods, "Gotcha, I'll wait."

"Until then", he continues, "mind filling me in on what you know about familiars? Earlier it seemed like you knew a few critical things about it that I was missing."

"Huh? Uh, sure. You heard how I said to Iris that we can give absolute orders to them, right?"

"Yeah, also can we please avoid abusing that feature? I need them to act in our best interest on their own, we can't really afford to micromanage them all the time, once we lose their trust by overwriting their will."

"Well, that was actually a lie - or at least half of one."

"What do you mean?"

"Just check the skill again."

"Did you just mean the doubled CHA part?"

"Correct. It is the same as with normal people. You still need to make a convincing argument or command enough authority when ordering them around, the outcome of that depends only to a small part on your CHA stat. Except with our familiars, there the CHA stat counts double. Even with that bonus, you still need an advantage of a couple of thousand CHA points if you want your orders to be absolute, just on stats alone."

"I see... and here I was worried I had turned them into mindless slaves or something."

"No, not yet at least. Haven't you checked the options for the [Familiar] skill in your menu yet?"

"There was no tab for it under skills. So, no."

"Well... it is a bit misplaced..."

Don't tell me, he hasn't checked that yet...

He facepalms, "How misplaced are we talking?"

"First you go to 'Music' - I didn't have that one before, you have to tell me what all those songs are when we have some time. Then switch to its 'Settings', there to 'Output', 'Misc.' and finally 'Familiars'. Quite easy to find, really."

"Easy? That is the last place I'd search for that!"

"Really? I found it almost natural."

"...I'll... just file that under the usual glitchy interaction of getting a new menu option and ignore the implications."

He checks through the 'Familiar' tab for a while. If I read his face correctly, he doesn't seem too happy with the options.

I don't think I'd ever want to make use of them either. I mean, they are our familiars and should be happy to be of use to us but any of the transformative options sound like they'd make them dumber or at least less independent. And if I wanted a dummy around whose every breath I have to dictate, I would've asked that Darius buffoon to join us.

But if I were allowed to make only one absolute order, I would order Chloe to keep her hands away from Jared and to stop trying to seduce him. She should find other ways to make herself useful to us! He is mine and mine alone!

...guess I have to make sure of that the old-fashioned way.

Why did I just have the feeling like a shiver ran down my spine? 

Click

Ah, Jared has disabled the whole Familiar menu, that must've been it.

And he even password protected it, even if I wanted to, I couldn't use those features anymore behind his back. Does this impact me in any way?

No, they wouldn't have changed much, this isn't a big loss.

"That is not for you, Lucia, but for me. I had enough skill accidents already."

"Don't worry, Jared, I trust you."

"Doesn't matter, I don't trust those skills. I just don't want any of those things to happen to our friends. I've... already made three of them familiars without knowing how to. If the threshold for any of the transformations is just as low..."

"Ah, don't worry about it, I understand you."

Well, in my case, making Iris a familiar was on purpose.

"I understand your reservations about most of the options but what is the issue with Blood Dolls?"

"I only looked at the first two and then just said no to all of them. I want my familiars to work with me and I doubt blood-addicted abominations can think clear enough to do that. And in general, all of those options sound like they'd break the trust they should have in us."

"Alright, if you say so, I'll respect your decision."

"Thank you, Lucia."

I don't really care about the changeling but I must know how Jared feels about her. Ideally, I want to remove her from the group. As she is right now, she isn't just a danger to herself but to our whole group.

"There's one more thing that is bothering me, Jared. What... is your relationship with Chloe? Aside from being our familiar, what is she to you?"

"Nothing much. She has shown me my way around here, showed me the combat basics. I wouldn't say she is anything besides a comrade in arms now. Why, did she make you somehow jealous?"

"Maybe a little bit. We... don't really get along. But it sounded like you were a bit more to her than just a trainee."

"Then she is mistaken. I've already told her as much."

"Is that so? I don't know. To me, it seemed like she was... a bit off."

"Yeah, that is all. I would prefer if you two get along but at a minimum please avoid causing each other any permanent harm, okay? You've nothing to worry about from her."

"I will try my best but no promises beyond that."

"That is enough for me. Oh, and if you ever plan to get into a cat fight, can you invite me to watch?"

"Pervert!"

Jared doesn't seem in the slightest worried about Chloe's condition. Did he not notice or does he not care? He must know, right? It is very obvious. Even if she hides behind her shapeshifter mask, you can clearly see what is going on.

I probably shouldn't get involved there. She isn't my problem.

Or is she? Isn't she also my property now?

...I don't like losing my property.

"Jared, when... this is all over... will you return to your world?"

"I have no such plans nor any confirmations whether it is possible or not. But if it is, I wouldn't go there without you. Not that there is really anything I want to go back to. Maybe we could go there as a holiday trip or catch up on our honeymoon."

"I think... I'd like that. Just you and me traveling through the world with not a care about what happens elsewhere."

POV: Jared

After talking with Lucia, I need to cool my head off, so I go to create a show over the flood monsters earning me finally Summoner level 7, 1342/4103 towards 8. Now 2774 max MP, still no new threshold reached there.

When I return, three new people have arrived and are talking with Lucia: a butler and 1d4 two maids. Or at least some that want to work for us in those positions. They have a sheet of paper from Therese that vouches for them.

Against my expectation, the butler is not called any variation of Sebastian but Edward. The maids are Carmen and Tina.

Lucia and I interview and approve them. The butler also agrees to teach Carl a bit on the side.

Aside from Tina being a High Elf, they aren't really noteworthy. As a High Elf, she has an interesting skill.

Now I want to commit science about how that interacts with our marriage.

No, bad Jared, bad. You've only five minutes ago established why you shouldn't do that.

Demon Lord, Vampire Progenitor, Monster Core, Demon Lord part two electric boogaloo, and now this... can just for once pass a week without the temptation of unethical power? Please? What, no? Argh, fuck you, fate!

Anyway... the three servants will also be living here with Carmen and Tina sharing a room. Before that, they have to take care of a few things and will start working tomorrow.

Lucia asks me, "So with the housekeeping out of the way, what else do we have to take care of?"

"I don't think there is much left to do for now. There shouldn't be much regular day-to-day paperwork that we're required to take care of. The fortress has functioned for centuries without a lord, and if some kind of essential lord work had piled up for that long, the fortress would've crumbled by now. Eventually, I want Carl to take care of the simple paperwork for us, so we can concentrate on the big changes and training for the dungeon."

"Wouldn't it help to make him a familiar? That way he has more time in the day for learning about those things."

"I'm not too keen on using that ability for every single thing, we have a strict limit as to how many familiars we can have. I still don't understand how we got Iris as a familiar without rising the level of Vampire Lord. My best guess is that each of us has the three familiar limit, so we can currently have six total. Also, I have the feeling like I can't overwrite the slave status with the familiar status, but I have no proof until we try."

"So you want to focus on collecting combatants as familiars for now?"

"Correct. Also, it would isolate Anna even more. We can't risk making her a familiar as it may automatically fail her as a hero, and I think she deserves her chance to qualify as a true hero. Right now, she is kind of 'alone' in our group as the only one that needs or even can sleep. But she has at least Carl to relate to. If we carelessly make him a familiar she'd lose yet another friend, and she doesn't have many of those here."

"I see. But if the need arises, it would be okay?"

"Yeah, I guess so. But I'd like to avoid it if possible. Little kids might react worse to being made a familiar, and there was already a huge difference in how well even adults like Chloe took it compared to Marca or Geoffrey. The latter were fine, Chloe not so much."

"Oh, speaking of, do you know what the limit in the familiar status is?"

"How many skills we have shared with our familiars as well as the maximum. It should currently read one of one."

"Ah, well... for me it is zero of one but also shows that we have shared [Sleepless] with them."

"What, really?"

"Yeah, does that mean we can give our familiars a second power up already?"

"It seems like it. Doubling the number of skills we can share is definitely a lucky break."

Iris thinks for a bit, "Can't we use that then to give them Cure Magic? That skill is the only reason Iris would have to take a specific class, we could save a Class Core that way."

"Can we? I assume we can currently only allocate one of your skills but if you can select from my skills as well, then go for it. Or do you have a better idea?"

"Not yet at least. Let me try that first. ...no, sorry, it won't let me use that."

"Figures. And Vampire Lord level 20 is far in the future, by then our needs will have probably changed. Now, what else could we give them..."

"Eventually, I want them to have [Ageless] so we don't have to worry about old age taking them from us. I assume we'll spend many years in the dungeon just for training, and it would be a shame if that work just went to waste."

"I think we'll reach the threshold for the next set of shared skills before that becomes an issue, Jared."

"Yeah, that is likely. How about [Affinity Magic]? They may not have caster classes but at least Chloe and Iris have MP and MAG around where I started. They could generate some decent extra exp by casting rain spells on the flood monsters. Worst case, they can stun or weaken bosses with status side effects."

"Hmm... fine, for Iris I'll agree to that. ...but then it says that I can't share magic skills with familiars..."

"Weird, the skill didn't list any restrictions of what can be shared. Is the system confused between familiars and summons? The latter can't gain magic skills either."

"Well, they aren't too different. Both are subservient to you."

Stupid system... now, what other options do we have...

Lucia thinks out loud, "Claws would also be useless for them... Only things I can think of are [Enhanced Regeneration], [Supernatural Toughness] and [Ageless]."

"You know what, let's give them [Ageless] now. Maybe we can tempt an important or influential person with that form of eternal life into serving us."

"Huh, I didn't think you'd be open to that option, Jared."

"Why not? I have literally made the choice to become a vampire by my own will, even if my diet requires me to hurt people. I was okay with that, and still am even if I shouldn't be. Often unrelated people have to pay the price for decisions made by those in power, have their well-being compromised. I'm not saying that this is okay, I'm just saying that this is how the world works. I'm no almighty god, I just have a limited set of skills and I will use them if it brings us closer to our goal."

"If that is so, then why are you against making full use of [Familiar] or [Unholy Matrimony]?"

"I do not feel that transforming our familiars into other beings, effectively monsters, would accomplish anything that brings us closer to our goals, they might even come to hate us or drive the rest of humanity further away from us. I enjoy their presence, I don't want just mindless yes-men. Listen, Lucia, given enough time, we can empower our familiars until they satisfy our needs, but no matter what you do, you can't teach a rock to think."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"But adding more familiars is okay to me. We get servants or helpers, they get some skills as payment. It is just a business transaction, really."

"That's... an interesting way to look at it."

"As for additional spouses... Call me a hypocrite if you want, but I'm not comfortable with the idea of getting 'mind controlled' into loving someone. Even if it worked only on emotions that already exist, we don't know that."

"How is that different from us right now?"

I grab Lucia's hand, "If I had to be honest with myself, I was already attracted to you anyway, just held back because... you know, I'm undead and you were not, that is just all kinds of disturbing. The accident just removed the last barriers of hesitation."

"I understand. Don't worry, I'll not press that issue any further or ask for another addition."

"And now I'm worried that you'll just drag someone into this without consulting me..."

"What!? I would never!"

"Really?"

"...maybe."

"I thought as much."

I take her in my arms, "We have established the boundaries, right? Don't overdo it. One vampire hunt was already enough for me, I don't want a repeat."

"Yeah..."

3QGN73

So now you know: if Jared and Lucia were doing a dark side speedrun they could abduct everyone that has the [Selfless] skill and forcefully marry them, then abuse the free class selections they'd get through Lucia's [Unholy Matrimony]. Since they don't profit from titles, they wouldn't get turned into vampires through the progenitor title.

Of course, just because they don't, doesn't automatically make them good people

Speaking of not good: earlier I thought I can handle the buildup towards arc 2 proper by chapter 60. Yeah, more like 90 by my current count. So that is its own arc then.