Just as Zayne was holding his head in confusion and bewilderment, the door to his workroom opened, and Luna walked in holding a stool and a small plate with two sandwiches on it.

"Why'd you keep shouting? Are you talking to someone?" Luna set the plate down on the desktop and used the stool to sit down next to Zayne. "Here's your sandwich by the way."

"Oh, thanks... wait." Zayne reflexively thanked her, but then he raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "What's with the sandwich?"

Luna tilted her head. "Didn't you ask me to make you one?"

"Huh...?" he combed through his recent memories, and remembered that he did tell her something like that. "I meant that as a joke, though? Like that meme about women and sandwiches..."

"I know." Luna took one of the sandwiches and took a bite, smiling in satisfaction at her work. "Ahy worsh em de ki--"

"Don't talk when your mouth's full."

Luna gulped down the food in her mouth, cleared her throat then said, "I was in the kitchen anyway, and I was hungry too, so..."

"Oh." Zayne nodded in understanding, turning his attention toward the remaining sandwich.

Since he didn't remember buying any meat patties when they went out grocery shopping, the patty sandwiched between two ordinary pieces of white bread was likely made by hand, using the ground pork they bought because it was on sale. Zayne salivated at the tantalizing scent the meat gave off. The cheese, melted to perfection was a nice touch.

Although Zayne didn't like that Luna added some lettuce and tomatoes to it, even though she knew he didn't like them.

Luna slapped Zayne's hand as he tried to take them out. "Eat your goddamn veggies, Zayne. It's really hard for me to manage your diet as is. You can't just eat meat all the time."

"Tch..." he clicked his tongue. Reluctantly, he bit into the sandwich that still had the goddamn lettuce and tomatoes in it. The meat's juices...

In any case, it tasted great. Zayne lacked the words to describe how he felt, despite the relative simplicity of the dish.

This was why he wrote Dark Fantasy, and not some gourmet novel.

"How is it?" Luna asked as her lips formed a smug grin.

"... it's delicious," Zayne answered, despite the annoyance he felt at her cockiness. "Thanks, by the way."

"You're very welcome." Luna nodded in satisfaction. It felt good to have her cooking complimented, even when she didn't really put too much effort into it. As her lover returned to devouring the sandwich she'd made, the thick book on top of the desk caught her eye. "What's this? A dictionary?"

"Warkayver shent ich."

"Don't talk when your mouth's full." Luna put her half-eaten sandwich back on the plate, dusted her hands off, and took the tome into her hands. "Archiver sent it, huh. The one who always sent you so much money?"

Zayne nodded, his mouth still full.

"Huh." Luna eyed the book curiously, running her hands through the plain black cover. She opened it and was surprised to find that it was completely empty. "Huh? What are you supposed to do with this?"

Zayne gulped down the last bite of his sandwich, then explained the exchange he'd had with Archiver, even showing her the messages he got and sent.

"Getting reincarnated into the world of the book...?"

"Yep." he nodded. "You cool with that?"

"I don't mind." Luna shrugged indifferently. "As long as you don't write smut about what we do."

'Yeah, figured she wouldn't like that.'

"Of course, I'd never do that." Zayne feigned ignorance.

"Good." Luna nodded then stroked her chin in thought. "So my character is a vampire."

"Yep. I still have to make it up though, since they didn't exist in my book's world."

"Oh, I can help with that. I read a lot of web novels with vampires in them."

"Oh, so you like vampires?"

"Yep." Luna nodded, thinking back to all the fantasies she'd had of Zayne biting into her neck.

"So, you mean like, Twili--"

"Not that one." Luna covered his mouth, a serious look on her face. "We don't talk about that one."

Zayne nodded meekly, finding her blatant hate of a certain famous novel strange, but intimidating.

"So, want some help?" Luna asked, taking her hands off his mouth.

"Sure." Zayne nodded. "But, I don't want them to be too OP, okay? Races that are too powerful wreck the balance of my book's world, and I don't like that."

'That's why I only introduced races other than humans in the latter half when their advantages weren't too relevant.'

Zayne took out a notebook from a drawer and opened it to the first page that didn't already have writing on it.

"What's that?" Luna eyed the notebook.

"It's my settings notebook. I don't like doing it digitally, so I write it out manually like this."

"With your shitty penmanship?"

"Shut up." Zayne took out a pen and wrote the header "Race: Vampire" on the uppermost part of the page. "Alright, let's look it up online first."

Even though he wasn't an avid reader of vampire novels, he still encountered them in certain novels from time to time. His knowledge of them couldn't compare to the internet's though, so he was going to look it up first.

"Ooh, I like this. Telepathy and mind reading. Add that." Luna nudged Zayne excitedly. Since the character based on her was a vampire, she would naturally be invested in this.

"Rejected. Too OP." he instantly shot it down.

'There's a bit of politics in my book, so mind reading is too much. Telepathy might be okay though... let's put it as a maybe.'

"What about telekinesis?"

"Hm. Okay, since the MC has that ability too." Zayne nodded. "Hypnosis seems to be common too... but it's too OP."

"Why don't you just limit it to only being able to hypnotize mentally unstable people? A novel I read did that." Luna suggested.

"Good idea." he added it to the notebook.

"... make them super beautiful too. Like, just ethereal and all that." Luna whispered.

"Do you still need that? You're pretty enough..." Zayne said, but still added it to the list. Luna's character would be the only vampire anyway, so it wouldn't matter. He looked back to the computer screen, and said, "Regeneration seems to be a staple too."

"Yep. You can't have vampires that don't regenerate. Otherwise, people are going to throw a fit." Luna nodded knowingly.

"Fine..." Zayne thought that the ability was somewhat too powerful, but he decided to add it in anyway. Albeit, with a few nerfs based on some other stuff he'd read.

"What about supernatural physical abilities?"

"Rejected. Too OP." Zayne shook his head as his brows furrowed. "But, I'll make it so that they have higher max physical stats and physical stat growth rates."

"Mm." Luna nodded, turning back to the screen. "What about shapeshifting?"

"Hmm..."

"C'mon, you can't tell me that it's too OP again." Luna rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"It is OP, in certain situations. But I'll still include it. With some nerfs."

"Sure," Luna smirked. "Poison immunity?"

"Seems fine." Zayne nodded, jotting it down.

"Dream manipulation?"

"Rejected. Something else has that."

"Pyrokinesis?"

"Rejected. Elemental Magic exists, so it's redundant."

"So Electrokinesis is out too... what about levitation?"

"Can't they just levitate by using telekinesis on themselves? My main character did that." Zayne raised an eyebrow.

"Different." Luna shook her head.

"Whatever." Zayne added it.

"Oh, what about mist-form?"

"Rejected. Too unbalanced. You'd practically counter every swordsman's killing move."

"Cell manipulation?"

"Rejected. Healing magic exists."

"Necromancy...?"

"Rejected. It's already covered in Demonic Arts."

"Blood Rising. How about that?"

"Rejected. Too unbalanced."

"You're just rejecting everything!" Luna grabbed Zayne's collar and shook him. She couldn't allow him to make her character weak.

"Gah! Hey, stop!" he yelled as he tried to free himself. "It's not like I'm rejecting them to piss you off! Some of these are just straight up too OP!"

"Grrr..." Lune let go of Zayne, but her expression was still one of annoyance. "What about weaknesses? Vampires have a lot of weaknesses. You're going to balance that too, right?"

"O-of course I will..." he straightened out his shirt as he looked back to the screen looking at the list of weaknesses vampires usually had. He frowned, "Some of these are really stupid."

"Like what?"

"Like, not being able to enter a house unless invited? The hell is that? There's this one about reflections and getting your heart stabbed. The reflections aside, everyone dies when their heart gets stabbed!"

"Haha." Luna couldn't help but giggle. She was of the same opinion. "Just don't include them then."

"Naturally." Zayne inspected the list again, opting out the religious symbol, garlic, dead man's blood, and werewolf bites. They were either dumb weaknesses or were not applicable in his world. "Oh, this silver weakness is okay. Except I need to pick a different metal, since silver is a common metal used for coins in my world."

"What about fire?"

"Who isn't weak to fire. Fire fucking hurts," he said dryly. "But I could make vampires weak to heat? Like me."

"Nope. Don't do that." Luna pinched Zayne's arm. "I'm gonna be a vampire, right? Why would you make someone who likes hot weather weak against it?"

"Fine fine..." Zayne decided to include sunlight as a weakness, but scratched out and made some tweaks.

"What about holy water?"

"Not applicable. The religions in my GMAG are all shams created to scam money out of people. Or, they were initially created to act as spiritual support for people, but over time they grew corrupt behind the scenes. They don't have the power to make holy water." he explained.

"Hm..." Luna looked at the list again, then sighed. "That's pretty much it for special abilities and weaknesses then. What about the turning-people-into-vampires thing?"

"I already have an idea on how to balance that." Zayne sniffed in pride. "The vampires in GMAG can only turn people into vampires if their blood types are the same."

"Oh... wait, but I'm AB negative!" Luna exclaimed. Her blood type was one of the rarest blood types in the world, with only 1% being AB-.

"Exactly! It's so balanced!" Zayne threw his head back and started laughing.

"Fuck your balance!" Luna tried to snatch the notebook, but Zayne moved it away in time.

"Hey! Screw off." Zayne hugged the notebook to his chest as he eyed Luna warily. "No one can write in this but me."

"What the hell...?" Luna backed off, creeped out by her lover's actions.

"Well, moving on..." Zayne proceeded to write down a bunch of ideas he'd had from the very start. Once he was done, he showed it to Luna. "Whaddaya think?"

"Hm..." Luna took a peek at it, frowned, then took the notebook before Zayne could stop her. "It'd be better with these..."

"Hey!" Zayne tried to snatch it away from her, but Luna used her foot to keep him away as she wrote. He could obviously take it back if he were a bit more forceful, but he and Luna both knew that he wouldn't go that far.

In the end, Zayne just gave up and sat back down as he sighed. "Don't make it too OP, okay?"

"I'm not writing something weird. Just some quality of life changes with the racial stuff. Also, I'm adding a different take on the blood pact thing." Luna explained, trying to placate her sulking boyfriend.

Once, she was done, she gave it back to Zayne.

"Blood Consort, huh..." Zayne eyed the notebook page. Luna used her own pen, so he could easily pick out which parts she wrote out. Although the difference in penmanship quality was enough to do that.

He crossed out some things and made some amendments, then showed it to her again.

 

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Race: True Vampire

+20 stat limit for physical stats.
+20% physical stat growth rate.

Born very beautiful or whatever. Has smooth, pearly white skin, luscious pink lips, and silky silver-white hair.

Special Abilities:

[Sanguine Arts]
Magic runs through their veins, so they do not need blood to function.
Blood can be used as a catalyst for Vampire-only spells.
Using up all their blood is not a problem.
Using up all of their mana can be dangerous, though.

[Telekinesis]
---

[Immortality]
Stop aging after turning 50 30 years old.

[Levitation]
Can levitate.
Requires mental concentration. No mana or stamina costs.
Movespeed scales with AGI stat.

[Vampiric Hypnosis]
Able to hypnotize sentient creatures. The victim must be mentally unstable. (i.e due to fear, trauma, etc etc.)
Animals can be hypnotized even without mental instability.

[Vampiric Regeneration]
Same with [Regeneration], but blood regens especially fast. Stamina included.
Nerf: Brain or heart(Which functions as a mana-core) being pierced or cut is fatal. Cannot regenerate in these instances.

[Vampiric Shapeshifting]
Can morph forearms to create claw thingies.
Morph into a single bat or dog. or cat. Fur color and patterns can be freely controlled.

[Vampiric Immunity]
Immune to Mind Control, Mental degradation, and Berserk aspects.
Immune to the negative effects of any substance consumed. Like beer and shit. The vampire can choose to deactivate this anytime.

[Vampiric Senses]
Same with [Enhanced Senses], but can sense blood stuff too.

[Night Hunter]
---

[Blood Contract]
By drinking a vampire's blood, a sentient creature can become a lesser vampire and gain:
[Sanguine Arts], [Immortality (Minor)], (Minor) versions of [Vampiric] skills, [Night Hunter (Minor)], and [Blood Drinking]
The bond functions the same as a [Soul Bond].
Vampire weaknesses are also inherited.
The Vampire's combat and ability experiences are inherited as Bloodline Memories.
Nerf: Can only be used on sentient life with the same blood type as the vampire

[Blood Consort]
Can only be used once in the vampire's lifetime. Turn a sentient creature of the opposite sex into a 'Consort'. (With their consent.)

The Consort inherits: [Immortality], [Levitation], all [Vampiric] skills, [Night Hunter], and [Blood Contract].
The Consort's race changes to [Half-True Vampire], and vampiric weaknesses are not inherited, but all Bloodline Memories are.
The Consort receives a +20% to physical stats when they are nearby their vampire.
The vampire must temporarily drink blood from the consort. Once every week minimum. Drinking 100ml of blood is enough to sustain the vampire for a week, without needing food or water.
When one dies, so does the other. the vampire dies, the consort will die shortly after.
The Vampire and the Consort's link is similar to that of a [Soul Bond], except the two are designated as equals.

[Blood Drinking]
Drinking blood is an intimate affair, rather than for sustenance. Vampires will desire the blood of people they are attracted to.
Drinking blood can also help heal any wound and restore stamina.
Drinking blood temporarily increases the vampire's sensitivity and arousal.
Nerf: There is also a possibility that the vampire will become lethargic instead, and would want to take a nap.
Flavor text: Eyes turn red when emotions intensify. Or when hungry.

Weaknesses:

[Top-tier metals]
Vampires are especially weak against Chimeradite and Divinium.
Their Aura as well as any protective measures they take are nullified by an attack from the metals. They are also unable to wear armor that makes use of them.

[Sunlight]
Direct sunlight causes incredible discomfort. Does not apply to True Vampires.

[Running Water] - Cant take showers lol.

[Divine Symbols] - Real ones. From real God(s).

[Garlic] - Garlic tastes and smells like shit. But it's okay when it's used for cooking.

---

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'What the hell? Actually, isn't this still too OP?' Zayne thought as he looked at the page again.

In the end, he decided to continue balancing it later. When Luna wasn't around.

"You bastard!" Luna tried to snatch away the notebook again, but failed. "Why did you change the stamina regeneration part!?"

"Are you kidding me? Of course I'd change that! If we had infinite stamina, when would my fictional self get some rest!? We'd bang like rabbits all day!"

"And what's wrong with that! Don't you like it!?"

"How would the narrative progress if we're fucking all the damn time!" Zayne turned his head away, unwilling to talk about this anymore. He put the notebook under his butt and sat on it, so Luna couldn't get to it anymore.

"Then why did you nerf the blood-drinking part!? It was perfectly balanced!"

"I need to give my fictional self some leeway too! This way, I'll just make it so you fall asleep every time I need you to!"

"Grrr..." Luna growled in frustration. She didn't understand why Zayne tried to escape from sex so much. From Luna's knowledge and the stories she heard from her friends, guys practically couldn't stop begging for it! They were always ready! "And what's this part? Why are there missing descriptions?"

"This notebook is for my eyes only, I don't need to make it presentable. It's just to remind me what stuff does. There's another race with the same ability, so I don't need to write it again." he shrugged.

"Then..." Luna brought her face close, scrutinizing Zayne's reaction. "What about that part with the blood consort? Why'd you change it...?"

"..." Zayne paused in hesitation. "Cuz I don't like the idea of you dying."

"It's not like I like it either?"

"Still." Zayne turned away. He took out a different notebook from the drawer.

"..." Luna pouted in frustration at Zayne's refusal to give her an answer, but her attention was drawn towards the new notebook he took out. It was significantly thinner than the other one. "What's that for?"

"This is my settings notebook for characters," he explained. "I write down their stats here. Also, some keywords to remind me what type of personality they have. Oh, and I also write down how I plan to kill them off."

"Oh... wait a minute." Luna's eyes furrowed in confusion. "Even if I didn't read it, I checked the novel's page sometimes. It didn't have the LitRPG tag, right?"

"Yep." Zayne nodded. "These stats are just for me. I don't show them in the story."

With the large number of characters in his novel — which took nine years to complete — he naturally couldn't remember every single one. He also couldn't remember how strong they were.

That's why, despite the fact that his story wasn't a LitRPG, he'd made stats for them. This made comparing and contrasting their strengths and abilities easier.

His readers weren't aware of this at all, though.

"I see..." Luna nodded, despite not really understanding it too much. She peeked over Zayne's shoulder and nudged him. "Make me super strong."

"Nope." Zayne immediately answered.

"Why!?"

"You're a character that shows up in the beginning!"

Zayne used his left hand to push Luna away as he used his other hand to fill out Luna's stat page and add some flavor text. Since he was fixing up character stat pages anyway, he went ahead and made one for himself as well. Although it was basically just an edited version of Grant's page, except the flavor text was gone.

After all, he didn't need to remind himself what kind of person he was.

"There! All don-- huh?"

His exclamation was interrupted by a blinding light radiating from the thick book on the desktop.

"Wh-what!?" Luna squinted her eyes, trying to get a better look.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!"

He didn't know what was going on, but he didn't want to stick around to find out.

Adrenaline pumped into Zayne's veins as he lifted Luna into his arms and kicked down the door to get out of the room.

Unfortunately, he couldn't outrun... whatever it was he was trying to outrun.

With another, much more blinding flash of light, Zayne and Luna vanished into thin air.

All of the settings notebooks disappeared with them.

 

---

 

The thick black book, still in the same place, stopped giving off light. It then opened up, all on its own.

Words started appearing on the previously blank page.

[And so the story begins...]

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