Xiao Xun couldn't accept it for a moment, 'What...just happened?'
Although he has already completed several missions, he has always advocated an 'efficiency and alienation' approach, he has almost always not been in the world long enough to become deeply involved in it, and always used different tricks to fulfill the beneficiary's wish in the most quick and superficial way.
Thanks to this, he, in all his years of different lives, has not yet become inhuman.
He looked at his completely alienated healed body, his skin had become so pale that he could see the blue veins on most parts of his body.
His leg, which until last night was dark purple and swollen suddenly looked as thin as before, pale as an office's wall.
[This means you wasted your third and last chance to system shop in this world for nothing, right?]
"Shut up."
When Edmund stared into the space as always, Cecil didn't have the gall to complain.
As a matter of fact, he hoped a little bit that Edmund would space out for longer, a few days would be preferred.
When he finished scolding his system, Xiao Xun looked around to find Cecil lying on the bed with his eyes open, motionless like a statue.
'Is he paying dead?'
[Maybe he's just shy after making you 'this'?]
Even if he called himself a vampire, the generic race name would always be inaccurate. There are countless worlds and hench- countless species of vampires, with different abilities and weaknesses.
Xiao Xun called himself a vampire because he now seems to drink blood and have fangs, but it is very likely that he will find out that these 'vampires' have to, for example, breakdance on a rainbow once a month.
Nothing is improbable enough when talking about infinity. Xiao Xun decided to reach out to the boy first, it was his duty as an adult.
"I'm not mad."
Cecil snapped out of his stasis instantly, "really?"
"I'm actually very happy, you helped me to get better."
Cecil hesitated, clearly worried about saying something that would anger him.
"But," Xiao Xun tried to fish some benefits for himself, "It will be very difficult for me to manage now that I don't know what to do, I will need someone to teach me how to be strong."
Cecil raised his hand as if begging the teacher to choose him for the task. "I can do it! I can do it really well!"
"Is that so~? Thank you, Cecil, you're so kind."
Ha ha, children are easy.
[You do not seem too bothered by the fact that you are no longer human.]
'It's even better like that."
In all the magical worlds he got to stay in, humans were always the worst race. Weak and selfish, always somehow sticking their nose up in the sky and other people's business at the same time.
As someone who was originally a human, Xiao Xun could say outright: Humans suck.
The real benefit of becoming a vampire, now at least, is that he'll be able to learn Cecil's power more easily.
Xiao Xun really loved learning, and fulfilling sick wishes in different worlds only turned this love into an obsession; It was his only pleasure day and night. The only benefit of the forced labor he experienced was that he got to learn about more subjects than most humans could even imagine.
He worried at first that he wouldn't be able to learn Cecil's power and that his rescue would be in vain, that he would have to beg for help from him when the plot began, completely helpless. Now, Cecil gave him the greatest gift he could hope for.
"Em, Edmund?" Cecil tried to avoid making eye contact with him as he blushed.
Xiao Xun was much more patient with him than usual this morning: "Did something happen? Do you need anything?"
"It just... It just I just turned you into… something, I'm sorry."
"Everything's fine, I've told you already."
"It's just..." He suddenly ran to get a knife.
Xiao Xun was momentarily relieved when he saw that he hadn't gone crazy and tried to attack him at random all of a sudden- instead, he tried to show Edmund his reflection; Mirrors were very expensive in this day and age and had to be coated with silver, it made a lot of sense that there weren't any in the house they stole. Even so, Xiao Xun decided to get one soon, in order not to create similar misunderstandings in the future.
He looked at his reflection as Cecil asked: Apart from his sharp teeth, the rest of his facial features became more delicate. His light blond hair, gray eyes and now his shockingly white skin made him look almost transparent.
Aside from the blue blood veins that were very visible all over his skin, he quite liked the new look.
"It's fine, Cecil, don't worry yourself with..."
Cecil quietly pointed the knife's reflection a little downwards, towards his neck.
He was horrified to discover the blue veins on his face became arranged in some supernatural way to a sort of collar around his neck.
[Ha ha! It looks like your body tries to choke you! Fucking hilarious!]
"I'm so sorry, Edmund, I accidentally made you my familiar."
A familiar.
The beautiful name for a servant in a fantasy world, often bound by a contract that he did not choose to sign and cannot free himself from.
Less of a companion, more of an attachment to another person.
Or in this case, a vampire.
"I'll- I'll be really nice to you! I'll cook and clean and do anything like before!"
Xiao Xun was getting a little tired of the child's poor vocabulary.
He smiled at him "It's fine, like I already said- I don't care about it. I just want you to teach me to be strong so I can protect our home."
ֵ[You are so two-faced, do you feel no shame in deceiving an innocent child?]
'Talk less, research more about how to get out of this familiar thing and the general race in the book world.'
Before he didn't know what kind of power Cecil possessed or whether it was an anomaly, there was no point in letting the system search in what was so much information that it couldn't possibly be put into any size of book.
Now there is a specific race and a specific name of the contract, and luckily the system doesn't need to read every stupid grief history in the world to get to the root of the matter.
He had to know everything: origin, story, ways of coping.
[Why can not we just search Cecil? That would be so much easier.]
'It feels unfair to him.'
The system was speechless, [You tortured people to death literally up until a month ago, but here you draw the line in terms of morality?]
'Shut up and do your job, I have a lot of ways to make you remember you're my subordinate.'
He turned to Cecil again, "We can still eat plain, right? Can you make breakfast?"
He nodded excitedly and ran to make preparations while the system began to read the requested passage from the book world:
[Vampires, a bloodthirsty race with the greatest talent for magic. There are different types of sub-races, each with different abilities. The most prominent among them are hypnosis, control of fluid flow, control of dreams and control of bodies. Among the hierarchical races, and all, without exception, have a strong sense of pride and superiority.]
Xiao Xun looked at Cecil anxiously looking for eggs, giving him an apologetic smile every few seconds, looks more like a maid worried about being fired than a race with a sense of superiority. 'Are we sure he's a vampire?'
[We could know for sure if you would agree to interrogate him.]
He left it for now, 'Familiar?'
[Yes, I think we have already met.]
"Stop joking, you know what I meant.'
[A contract between a high vampire and a low vampire can only be made of the same race, which binds the life of the low vampire in the high vampire. which obliges him, in exchange for the blood thanks to which the contract was signed, to listen and perform any action that the high vampire commands him to do. Since blood is always transferred in the first hug, the contract is always formed. The contract is compensation for the unnatural act of transferring strong blood to the weak.]
'Does this mean that as long as I am stronger than him the contract is void?'
[That sounds right... it is just not stated anywhere.]
[If I were you, I would start flattering him. Now everything is fine when he is a sweet little boy, but who knows how he will treat you in a decade. You are now completely dependent on him, he can make your mission go wrong with a single command.Again, I would also research everything about him...]
'Not going to happen.'
As someone who was the sole successor of one of the world's largest conglomerates, there was hardly a person who approached him without fully investigating his personal life. The climax was when his private math teacher turned out to be a secret agent from a rival company, who tried to extract company secrets from him with the help of his favorite cookies.
He was ashamed to admit that he had fallen for it.
He didn't want to give anyone a similar feeling of betrayal, especially not this boy with the twinkling eyes.
He has no problem murdering or torturing; He'd done it dozens of times before, but to make someone feel betrayed the way he did, after they'd developed a close relationship? He wouldn't do it unless there was no other way, it was the last wall of his very few morals.
Having said all that, living well will indeed be critical to the plot. Xiao Xun walked towards Cecil, who was already waiting for him with breakfast he excitedly prepared, like a little maid on her first day.
"Wow Cecil! it looks amazing! You've improved so much, thank you!" He kissed his cheek, making him almost cry with happiness.
Ha~ as he said before, kids are so easy~