Of course Lily couldn't just get up and go look, the maid that had come to dress her... Ophelia? she believed her name to be, had taken Lia's place as her watchful guardian for the night. Which basically meant just sleeping at the window, she supposed she could sneak into the manor itself rather than out of it. But that would not accomplish anything other than possibly catching Bethany in the act of defiling her servant. That... hm, why did that make her chest feel so hot? Not with embarrassment but instead with... rage. It felt as if fire was attempting to climb up her lungs and out her throat.
Lily turned to her side, grumbling inwardly. Did children go through puberty early? Oh no... puberty! She hadn't even thought about that until now, she had the mind of an adult but that would mean nothing to the hormones that would rage when she did go through such a process. She briefly considered if it was a bad idea for her to become such a talented mage... she didn't want to imagine what she could do with the ability to rip apart a forest when she going through the emotional turmoil of being a teenager.
Perhaps she could find something... to combat it? She couldn't sleep so she might as well search through skills. She thought and accessed the endless list of different skills. She activated [Quick Processing] and began to search through the skills. She very quickly realized how fruitless this task was when she found the 8th skill that focused on being able to eat anything to survive. She did briefly consider [Dirt Eater], if only to ensure that if she ever found herself in a bad situation that she could survive merely off the dirt around her. However she threw that idea away when she read that it did not make the dirt taste any better and merely made it so her body could survive off of it.
System, why are there so many skills that do the same thing? Lily instructed the System with a thought, and quickly got an answer.
The System... cared about fairness? Equal footing? How... weird. It was unexpected but perhaps this would help her. System, can skills be organized by type?
Well that made things easy, she smiled as she laid in bed, turning back over to laying on her back. System, organize skills by... Mental Protection. She had briefly considered Mental Control but assumed that would return results she did not want... although perhaps such skills would be useful... maybe in the future. She shook her head, she couldn't fall down that line of thought. She began to look over the list in front of her.
That one! She quickly looked closer at [Emotion Lock].
Emotion Lock: The ability to lock your emotions in whichever state you desire, this allows you to turn off emotions or ensure that specific emotions are always at their peak.
That was perfect, she could simply lock the annoying emotions to being off. She felt prideful in how smart she was to look for such a skill before her emotions became an issue. It was pricy, more than [Quick Processing] had been but she had the Skill Points to burn. Even with the purchase of both [Quick Processing] and [Lifestyle Magic] she had over four hundred Skill Points. She quickly focused on buying the skill.
Lily stared at the notification... what? Incompatible with something it was censoring?? Something she had the System wasn't showing her? How did that work! It was her skills, she should know them all! Of course... she still was still unsure where her ability to [Inspect] came from, she lacked the normal skill and none had seemed to be able to notice when she used it. Perhaps this was related? It irritated her, she disliked being in the dark even more so about her own abilities. What kind of Skill made her unable to protect herself against emotional changes? One that affected her emotions.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Perhaps that is why I keep having these weird thoughts... she thought as she laid there, if some skill affected her emotions it wasn't far fetched to assume it affected her desires... it was scary, was she truly Lily still? How much had this world altered her without her knowledge, if her emotions and desires could be affected so could her memories... that meant... what if Alice, what if those were fake memories? A sick game played on her by some higher power? Or if they were real... what if Alice's memories of her were gone? What if... No! She couldn't fall down this rabbit hole of dread and wondering. It didn't serve her any purpose to worry about such things...
That's what she told herself, that she shouldn't worry about things outside of her control, but she couldn't help but turn so her back was to the maid sleeping in her room, as she silently began to cry into her pillow. She had been so strong thus far but now... she felt so truly alone. She just wanted to hear Alice's laugh, to hold her in her arms. It had been so long, her chest twisted in pain as her sobs began to make a light amount of noise. She couldn't... if the maid heard it would be an entire incident. She had... she had to be strong.
Greta was a simple woman, she got up before the twin suns rose up in the sky and began her chores. Which primarily consisted of gathering eggs from her farm and beginning on breakfast. The farm she lived on was a humble one, but successful enough that her and her family enjoyed a degree of finer things, at least as far as it went for the peasantry. This included being able to have their own bottles of Wine. Greta always enjoyed sipping on a cup of wine as she watched the sunlight flow across her fields and lit up the nearby Lightlash Manor.
However this morning was different, there was a chill in the air not normal to this time of year, and light on their land as it slowly crawled seemed dimmer than she was used to. When she saw it she screamed, dropping her cup causing wine to splash across the porch of her home. Wine that held the same color as the blood that dripped from her plants. Her entire field was bleeding, it looked as if a massacre had occurred.
Her husband Issen quickly came to her side, before letting out his own scream when he saw the fields. His hands trembled, but he knew he had to be strong for his wife. "Greta get inside, don't let the children see." He instructed before he grabbed his plow and approached the fields.
It had been a long time since Issen had seen so much blood, not since his younger days fighting monsters for the crown. He stepped into the field, looking at his harvest. It was ruined, he wasn't sue how they would survive, they didn't struggle but an entire field ruined like this? It was- Oh. His gaze turned slowly back looking at the vine stabbed into his spine, it dripped with new crimson, his own blood mixing in as the blood from the plants flowed into him. He had to... he had to prot- no... he had to save... save his family yes, and they could only be saved... by joining with him. The vine pushed deeper, stretching out his skin as it slithered into his body
His body jerked, turning to the house once more, as it slowly began to shamble over. The mind was the first part of him to truly die, so he didn't register the scream from the house that had occurred. After all, his son found orders to be challenges and had found his way to a window to watch.
Issen's fist slammed into the door to open it and found... resistance, odd. His body wiggled violently, before it slammed again, but yet again it did not open. His mouth opened, as the creature inside fiddled with his vocal chords, rubbing them, squeezing them causing gasps and groans before it found how to produce proper sound. "Leetttt meee innnnnn."
It was crude, some sounds dragged and vibrated as they came out, two fists now slammed against the door, it groaned and creaked under the pressure. Shatter! The sound of glass breaking filled the morning air. Issen's head snapped to the side, he began to move, shuffling around the house. Sure enough he saw his family rushing away, Greta was carrying his daughter.
He held up his hand, and then the skin began to stretch, twist, and then it ripped open as a vine shot his forearm forward, splattering his blood across the grass as his hand grabbed onto Greta's leg, suddenly yanking her back making her fall face forward into the ground, his daughter screamed yet all he did was drag. Greta let go of her child, she said something he couldn't make out... but then his son grabbed his daughters hand and they ran.
That was fine, they were small, no meat on them. They wouldn't make for good fertilizer... not like his wife.
Lily could feel something was off, it was in the air as she walked through the halls. Maids whispered in hushed tones and became extraordinarily quiet once they saw her. Of course when she questioned such behavior she was waved off, told her that it was nothing but maid gossip about the latest fads from the capital. Lily didn't trust it for a moment, the maids were always prying into her opinion on such things. She had no clue why, she always brushed it off as something beneath her.
But now they were hiding something from her and she intended to find out what, and there was only one way to do so.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The sound of her knuckles striking wood echoed throughout the hallway, there was a groan and then the door opened. Bethany stood, notably in a state of undress and two maid dresses on the floor behind her. Lily made note of that, she glared at her magical teacher. "[Vampire], are you truly only getting up now?"
Bethany chuckled at that, leaning down and tapping Lily on the nose to much of her chagrin, "No my little student, I am getting up well past noon, your incessant knocking awoke me and my fair bed guests. So tell me, what has you so desperate to wake me?"
Lily's glare increased but then softened, she sighed and looked to the side, "The maids are hiding something from me, I figured you would know what was so important it had to be kept a secret from their young lady."
The [vampire] did not react at first, simply staring at her and then she smiled. She pushed her face out of the room, "Well how can I say no to such an earnest request." She said before pausing, she looked down the hall her eyes narrowing as she sniffed at the air, and then... sighed. "Do you absolutely want to know young Lightlash, I'm afraid you won't enjoy the answer."
"Tell me, I have no interest in your games nor any prattle." Lily snapped, she would not have even this vampire treat like a defenseless child.
"There's the smell of blood across the manor, young blood. Children, full of fear."