As soon as the clock struck 8, Lucian was aroused from his sleep by a repeated banging sound on his bedroom door.
"Lucian? Time to get up!"
Still exhausted, Lucian pulled the covers over his head to drown out the noise.
"Sigh… I knew this little bit wouldn't have much chance of waking you up."
Materializing a key from her pocket, Stella unlocked his bedroom door as if she'd done this countless times.
(Kerchunk)
Upon unlocking the door, Stella entered the room, only to see Lucian's entire body hidden beneath his blanket.
"Don't you get tired of doing this?" She asked aloud, but Lucian didn't respond.
Either he was asleep or faking it.
Stella was undoubtedly sure it was the latter.
Ever since Lucian had stayed over, she'd found out just how much Lucian hated waking up.
It wasn't this bad in the past, but it seemed worse now.
But… It didn't matter much.
After all, there was no way Stella would let him skip school just because Lucian wanted to sleep in.
Walking over to his bedside, Stella ripped the blanket off Lucian's face, exposing him to the light coming through the window.
"Kyaa! The light! It burns!"
Stella watched Lucian's poor acting with a deadpan expression.
"What are you, some vampire? If you don't hurry, we'll be late."
Lucian took another pillow and covered his face.
"I'm tired, and I think I'm not feeling well… Can I skip today?" Lucian pleaded in a muffled voice.
Stella effortlessly pulled the pillow off Lucian's face and shook her head.
"Today's the sports festival; you know you can't do that."
"Ughh…" Lucian groaned in protest.
"Fine, if you win a medal, I'll allow you to skip going to the gym for one week; how about that?"
Lucian frowned.
"You know I can't win one with my physical ability, and furthermore… Even if I win and skip the gym, you'll train me one-on-one instead. That's worse!"
Stella looked away as if having had her plan seen through.
"How about this… If you don't come, I'll privately train you on top of your regular work."
Lucian looked at his fiance with a fearful look.
"You're a monster."
"Only when I need to be," Stella responded with a wink.
Having finished her objective, she turned around and left the room.
"Remember, you must get ready and eat within the next half an hour!" Stella announced as she closed the door behind her.
After Stella left the room, Lucian pulled himself up and sat cross-legged on the bed.
"Any updates, Alecia?"
"Nothing out of the usual master. The maids and butlers haven't been doing anything remotely suspicious."
It had been a few days since Lucian had arrived at Stella's place, and during this time, he tried to investigate everyone in the mansion, but frankly, he was stuck at an impasse.
None of the people he was investigating had done anything that could have ousted them as the perpetrator of the events.
None of them had anything to do with this, gave up after their first attempt, or…
"Or… They had already put their plans into motion and did not need further communications."
The latter was the worst possible outcome for Lucian.
That meant he had nothing to go off of and was forced to stay wary 24/7 of any potential threats.
If he didn't have Alecia backing him up, he was sure he would have collapsed from exhaustion by now.
However, out of their possible chances to attack, Lucian was sure the sports festival would be at the top of their list.
Getting out of bed, he walked to his closet and pulled out a duffel bag conveniently hidden beneath a pile of clothes.
Opening it, he produced a blood bag, which he greedily chugged.
"BAHH!"
Exhaling ecstatically, Lucian crumpled the blood bag and tossed it back into the duffel bag before hiding it again.
"As expected, this is nothing compared to blood straight from the source, but it's not bad."
After not tasting fresh blood for a while, Lucian started experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
Frankly, he wanted nothing more than to return to his usual nightly hunts, but given his current circumstances, it was nigh impossible.
Even for the simple act of 'farming expo, he had to sneak out using [Shadow Cloak] during lunch break to have 'friendly chats' with the neighbourhood thugs and even then, he had trouble draining their blood due to the whole issue of disposing of their bloodless corpses given the time constraints.
Lucian only had two more slots for abilities anyways, so he was getting increasingly picky with the abilities he plundered.
Among the many corpses he created, he only found one ability that truly caught his eye: an E-rank ability with the power to create and manipulate strings using one's body.
[New Ability: Arachne's Thread]
[Ability Description: Create extremely durable threads from your body.]
[Cost: 1 Ability energy for every 50 cm of thread produced.]
Considering its possible synergy with [Iron Skin] and [Blood Poison], Lucian felt it would work well as his primary weapon during fights.
Given that it was something that was produced by his body, as long as the threads were connecting to him, he would be able to increase their already durable structure with [Iron Skin] and even lace them with corrode his targets with the acidic nature of his [Blood Poison].
Lucian went through the troubles of going out of his way to dispose of the corpse properly, but frankly, he felt the trade-off was more than worth it.
This brought Lucian's available abilities slots down from 5 to 1, which left him quite indecisive about the nature of his last ability.
Lucian knew that his [Plunder] ability was only level 1, but he didn't know how to level it up or even what it would do if he levelled it up.
So for all he knew, this would be the last ability he could theoretically steal.
He didn't want to take some mediocre ability and regret it later.
Upon finishing getting up, he walked down the spiralling staircase, only to be greeted by the sight of Stella and her parents enjoying their breakfast in the dining room.
Instead of their usual school uniform, Stella and Lucian wore matching tracksuits with the school's logo.
"Lucian, you're finally here! You took way too long! Hurry up and eat!"
Watching his daughter henpeck her fiance, Bruce smiled apologetically towards Lucian while Roseanne lightly chuckled.
"Ah, if we are in a rush, I can skip breakfast; I'm not ready to eat right now."
Before Stella could respond, Roseanne shook her head and pointed towards a heaping pile of food that was supposedly left there for Lucian.
"Today's a big day, and you need your energy! Growing boys like you need your calories, so skipping meals is no good, you know!"
"My stomach doesn't feel good right now…"
Lucian could almost feel the stomachache that a portion that large would cause.
Seeing Lucian's pained expression, Bruce turned to his wife.
"Rose, if Lucian's not feeling well, forcing food down his throat isn't good. We wouldn't want him to experience stomach pains during an event suddenly."
"But, he needs his energy…."
"How about packing him a big meal then? If he's feeling hungry, he can eat it there."
"Okay…"
Lucian's complexion brightened up, and he threw Bruce a thankful look.
However, Bruce lightly shook his head as if to say, 'Don't mention it.'
Upon finishing her meal, Stella grabbed her bag and created a portal to their school.
"I'll see you two later!" Stella bid farewell to her parents as she pulled Lucian by his arm into the portal.
"Good luck, you two."
"Have fun!"
Stella's parents waved as Lucian and Stella stepped through the portal.
"I'll try..." Lucian replied as the portal closed behind them.
What greeted the two of them was not the usual school grounds but a building decked out with balloons and colourful banners.
The school festival had begun.