I'm starting to doubt my eyes.

 

I just woke up from my earlier breakdown and well, hmm...

I'm surrounded by wolves. A pack is sleeping around me. The campfire extinguished and the moon high up in the sky.

 

What's going on here? Why would a pack of wolves see a person and be like 'Let's sleep around this guy'. The normal route should be 'let's eat this guy'. Damn it.

 

I carefully observe them. They look like grey wolves to me, the size of large dogs. The closest is larger than the others, darker fur too. It's sleeping soundly 2 meters away while the rest are spread out.

I think it's the pack leader. The alpha wolf.

 

—What to do now?

 

I have no idea how to get myself out of this. I took the bandits by surprise but now...  now if they wake up I'm surrounded. There is no escape.

 

On another hand, I notice bloodied remains with tattered clothes gathered under a tree. I don't feel disgusted by the sight, just guilt because I killed that girl. Something else catches my attention.

I could somewhat differentiate the bones, I count 5 corpses. The 5th one had some brown hair too, same color as the one that ran away.

 

Shit, did the wolves eat her?

 

I guess it makes sense, considering she fleed without weapons into the woods at night. My 6th sense whispers it is but natural. The law of the jungle.

 

"Sigh..."

 

I sense a beating heart thump faster and my head snaps to the front. Cunning eyes are looking at me. The alpha is awake.

 

"Woo?"

 

We stare at each other. I swear I gleam intelligence in its eyes but more than that I'm starting to get nervous. The pack is waking up.

I'm surrounded by a dozen. All awake and looking at me. The alpha approaches me slowly and I crouch up, nails elongated and shadows gathering at my hands.

 

I'll hit it as soon as it jumps on me and run to the nearest tree.

 

My instincts are unusually relaxed and 6th sense not giving me danger warnings. It... it barks?

 

"Huff huff!"

 

Its tail is wagging excitedly like a dog and I'm stupified. I feel no ill intentions and it just approaches me before sniffing my feet and licking them.

 

My nails retract. I feel confused.

 

"Go-good boy?" I raise a palm and it barks again. The pack wanders around, some napping while others look around. Some cubs are playing together.

 

"Friend?"

 

The word slips my tongue as I lock eyes with the alpha. It huffs and licks my foot.

Something in me, a deep feeling made the word pop in my head.

 

I start looking at the other wolves, locking eyes with some of them. They bark or howl in response.

 

Friend

Kin

Protect

Happy

Friend

Rest

... and so on...

 

I was genuinely surprised. I fell back on my butt and the alpha, now as tall as my head started licking me. It tickles.

 

"Haha, sto-stop!"

 

I start rubbing its head and eventually manage to push it back.

 

"Did you protect me while I slept?"

 

I speak out loud. It made some sense. That or they came for the food and just left me alone...

 

"Woof!"

 

It barks like a dog, eyes containing an ambiguous meaning that I could translate to the word friend or kin.

 

"I guess it's because I'm half vampire?"

 

I feel thankful for that for the first time. Was I a human these friendly wolves would be eating me now instead of the corpses. Yeah, better not think about that.

Alpha, the original name I came up with, tilts its head and barks. Some cubs start approaching me cautiously. Looking at the flickering shadows around me. One jumps at them and they dissipate, it howls and I think it's showing off to the others.

 

Am I really able to understand these wild animals? I'm somewhat feeling both amazed and afraid of such prospects. Though looking at the cubs I smile unknowingly. However...

 

"Did you kill the woman?" I point at the corpse and ask.

 

I don't know if Alpha gets what I mean but it huffs excitedly.

 

Prey. Food

 

Its eyes relay the meaning and I feel bad for the woman. Though I decide to accept it. The wolves hunted to eat and it just happened the prey was the woman this time.

A voice in the back of my mind whispers again it is the nature of things. She would have killed them too if she could. It is nothing more than the law of the jungle and I choose to accept it.

 

Some wolves start feeding at the remains and I opt to ignore such a scene for now. The memory of me killing these people is still fresh in my mind. I did not want to see them eating the corpse of the girl I killed.

 

Maybe the bandits would have died at the hands of this pack too? Or the other way around.

 

It was my coping mechanism but I force myself to be pragmatic. I would have died had I been a human.

I feel nothing at the thought of killing but if I keep my hunger in check I can stay rational and decide how to feed on blood.

Keep the morality of Earth on Earth. This world is dangerous and killing a few bad people is not wrong.

 

"Indeed... " I nod to myself.

 

Alpha grabs my attention as I feel a new intent being conveyed to me.

 

Join

 

Join? Is it asking me to join its pack or does it want to join me?

I don't have to think long about it because something answered me.

 

A literal grey window popped up in the center of my vision. Holographic and semi-transparent. I'm taken aback.

 

"What the..."

 

I wave a hand at it and it phases through. I look around and it stays fixated in the center of my vision. I try a couple of other things and my imagination assists me in reaching an answer.

 

"A fantasy system?" It feels stupid.

 

A cub places its paws on my feet so I rub its head with my fingers.

I read what's in this grey window. A question, red in color:

 

Tame Alpha Grey Lupus? (Y/N)

 

So Alpha's species is called Lupus? I don't know what to do. Clicking on the window does nothing but when I think about yes—

—The text dissolves into red motes and Alpha barks in happiness.

 

"Woof!"

 

The entire pack approaches us and all the Lupi sit,

 

"Awooo!"

 

A group howl at the moon ensues as I recall that legend saying wolves howled at the moon because they wanted its cheese. The cubs howl cutely too.

 

"Awou, I guess." I shrug before focusing back on the window. Everyone huffs excitedly at me.

 

A new one popped up in vision with the message 'Alpha is now your familiar'

What's interesting is that this message was inside a window labeled Logs. Other tabs were next to it called Status and Skills.

I'm feeling excited about the prospects and I start reading these logs.

 

---

 

"I see... So I needed to sleep."

 

I managed to understand some information from the logs.

One of the earliest messages in it said: ????? configured. Sleep to enable. And another one was: ????? enabled: think to display.

And just like it said I can show or hide this grey panel with my thoughts. It feels like a nice system. Although it needed me to sleep to get enabled, like a windoesn't update needed a computer restart.

 

Anyways, I focus on the other tabs, on Status and it becomes the active one.

 

"Huh..." I rub my chin.

 

The first thing I see are four bars, different in color and arranged one under the other:

 

• The first is a green bar labeled Health:100%
• The second, a yellow one labeled Stamina: 99%
• The third, blue and labeled Mana: 99%
• The last, blood red and labeled Power: 95%

 

Aside from confirming that Mana did indeed exist, I felt a sour taste on my tongue as my intuition, alongside the color, told me what the Power bar signified.

It is a direct indication of my hunger. It is nearly full too because I fed on the girl's blood.

 

I sigh, I hope she, no— I hope Zhonya rests in peace. But I'm also hoping criminals have women among them. I think male's blood smell and tastes bad because I genuinely find it disgusting to bite a man and suck his blood.

 

I think this is not because I'm just a dhampir but because I personally find it repelling. I liked women in my previous life and I still do. That's why I find thinking about their blood pleasant.

Just imagining biting into a woman's soft flesh and drinking her blood makes me salivate and a little horny. Although I'm completely rational now.

This means that as long as I keep my power bar full, my hunger will stay at bay and I will not act like a wild irrational beast, killing everything in sight.

 

Ugh... I'm over the fact that I killed bandits but Zhonya... Well, I have no idea why she entered the forest, I smell no human scent which means civilization is far, so I think she knew of the dangers. Maybe something else would have killed her.

 

Yep. I stop thinking about it and decide to finally get over it. What is done is done and I can use this to learn of the future. I shouldn't feel bad about killing people but about harming innocents. I don't want to hinder my survival in this new world.

 

But anyways, my status panel had some other interesting stuff so I start reading them as more cubs approach me. What are these cute furr balls?! Go to your mother(s)!

 

---

 

—[

• Name : Luther Blake
• Race : Dhampir (human x vampire)
• Age : 19 - Height : 1.95m (approximates)

—

• Vitality : [ + + + + ]
• Endurance : [ + + + ]
• Spirit : [ + + ]
• Attunement : [ + + ] (Dark, Neutral)

—[

• • Vitality : Health Regeneration, resilience to physical damage & life span.
  • Endurance : Stamina capacity & physical damage resistance.
  • Spirit : Mana capacity & psychic damage resistance.
  • Attunement : Elemental magic attunement.
  • Major Magic Elements : Dark, Light, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Neutral.

// note : Stat ranks are per race so their effects may differ from one race to another.

• ]—    

]—

 

---

 

This is very useful. So I'm slightly taller than my last life and now I'm a half human half vampire.

This notation meant that Dhampirs can be half vampire half something else. Because if not so it would have just said half vampire.

If so—

— I hope I can meet a female Elf.

 

I shake my head and think about the other stats.

 

I expected to see numerical stats like in a game but this is much better, a star ranking is more realistic. I am in a fantasy but real world after all.

My vitality is at 4 stars, which I guess is high because my wounds heal abnormally fast.

My endurance is 3 stars and If I can correlate it with the 4 of my vitality I'm fairly certain I can run a lot more than I could in my previous life. My muscles are a good indicator too. They look more defined now as well, I think it's due to my power being near full.

As for resistance and resilience, I'm fairly certain the first is how much my body can endure before taking damage while the latter is how fast I can recover after suffering damage.

 

I don't know the average stats of normal people, other dhampirs, or just humans. But What I'm interested in are the other two ones.

 

Spirit and Attunement. These, like mana, prove the existence of magic. My shadow magic that I have been using is part of this dark magic too It seems, because I have an attunement to it. I don't know about neutral but the name implies it should be anything without an element.

My spirit is at rank two so I at least have mana. It would have been a bummer if I had no mana at all.

 

Anyways, I don't know about my life span, mentioned in Vitality, but my intuition is giving me okay signals that I'll live longer than 100 years. Aren't vampires immortal usually? So I'm half immortal. Whatever that means.

 

But oh well, I switch focus to the remaining tab, and the window changes to Skills.

It's a long list of greyed-out names with the words 'Skill points: 2' at the top of it. I can spend them to unlock skills then?

 

I skim through and I find an interesting one, called 'Stat Increase' and it costs a single point. It doesn't feel like a skill though.

A description expanded below the name as I focused on it.

 

— Cost: 1 sp. Diminishing return when increasing the same stat multiple times.

 

"Hmm..."

 

I tap on a cub's head.

So It's a sink for points to increase the ranking of my stats. The description implies that a single point won't give me a direct increase in rank but I'll need to put multiples in it.

Not gonna risk my two points, not before knowing how to get more.

 

It was kind of disappointing, the rest of the list. Almost everything costs more than two points. I only found a single skill I could unlock. Labeled 'Blood Manipulation [ + ]'

I focus and it expands,

 

—Cost: 1 sp. Rank: 0. Allow the manipulation of blood. Efficacy increases with rank.

 

I think of unlocking it and the text turns red, rank changing from 0 to 1 before the skill falls to the bottom of my list. Where I also find 'Shadow Manipulation [ + + ]'

 

"Interesting..."

 

A new skill suddenly appears on the list...

 

...One I immediately unlock.