Chapter 03 - A Big and Warm Family?

Staying up all night was easy for me as a half-vampire, so I read the whole diary and wrote down the important stuff. Still, I took a nap when morning came after returning the book and soon woke up when I heard the sound of wooden swords colliding against each other.It was only six in the morning, but I had to give it to my older brothers they were pretty hard-working. The captain of the guards of the house was watching them train against each other.The first and the second son were facing each other with wooden swords, the first son was called Jacques and he wielded his sword with a single hand and thrust the weapon forward with precision and power. He had a serious face while doing so, one that didn't emit any emotion. He had short blond hair and green eyes… he was almost ten years old.His opponent was Gerald, a boy who was a year younger and was holding his wooden sword with both hands while showing an annoyed expression. The thrust attacks came at difficult angles, so he had a hard time blocking them, even while using both of his hands. He had light brown hair and green eyes and by the look of things, despite being younger, he hated to lose to Jacques.The other two were dueling as well, but they were a lot less impressive. For one, their attacks weren't as heavy, and for another, the third kid, Remi didn't seem to be taking the duel that seriously. He was seven years old only, but he seemed pretty skilled. While the fourth son, Ulric who was six years old, was trying his best to attack him, Remi easily sidestepped and then swung down his sword slowly and hit him in the head without causing any real damage. Ulric looked annoyed too, but more frustrated than anything.Remi had red hair which was a bit long, and Ulric had black hair, but both of them had green eyes… all of the boys in the family had the green eyes of their father, but only Ulric had his black hair as well."Here it is…"Once he got tired of only defending, Gerald jumped with all his might and then swung down his sword. It was a skill… Jacques blocked the attack with his weapon, but the power soon forced him to jump to the side since he only used one hand. Before they could continue, the captain stepped forward and chopped Gerald's head."I said: no skills."Gerald crouched down while holding his head and groaning… the captain could be working for their father, but he was still their training instructor, he had the authority to do that. They knew it better that complaining would only make things harder for them."... I just wanted to defeat him at least once before he leaves.""If you could use your brain and were less hot-headed, you could have done that a long time ago."While Gerald was being scolded, Jacques assumed his resting position and began to recover without dropping his guard. The kid had a good head for combat and he was humble enough not to try to feel proud of defeating his younger brothers. Overall, he seemed like a good kid.Still, his calm expression changed to one of annoyance and a bit of disgust when he noticed me looking at them through the window. Jacques was a good kid at heart, but he hated me, only me because I was a half-vampire.'Well, I guess it can't be helped… he wants to join the Holy Order, after all.'I read about them… The Holy Order was a faction of followers and descendants of the founder of the order who became famous for hunting unholy creatures and abyssals. They are made of paladins, priests, and similar people. Jacques' mother and Rayner's first wife is a high priest in that order. Her father is the leader of the order as well and he was a legendary figure that many called the Holy Knight, a title that only the leader of the order had. Jacques wants to follow in his footsteps and become a paladin.At first, I thought that their religion was just like all the others, but when I heard them praying once, I felt a bit weird. I also felt a bit of a holy aura in the chapel when they prayed. So, it seemed legit… I couldn't do more research about it because even when they talk about their religion, I feel a bit tired. The founder was treated as something like a saint and a legendary hero. The interesting thing was the fact that the legend says that he never grew old or got injured in battle. In any case, in their eyes, I was an inexcusable existence.'Well, they do hunt the unholy beings, and I guess I am half of it.'Aside from his hatred toward me, Jacques was a perfect son… perfect to the point that he would give his place as heir to the second son in order to focus on the Holy Order. Many groups like that had this kind of thing about not being fond of worldly possessions. If he had become the head of the family, he would have been that influential.In any case, the year just started, and since Jacques was ten years old, he will be attending the Knights Academy. I had heard about that too, but I wasn't interested. Going to school again? No thanks. Having to attend a school in another world? Crazy concept, I know.In any case, the youngest, Ulric also gained his first class when he was five years old, so it looks like the tradition in the family changed a bit in order to make the members stronger from an early age. If I were to follow in Rayner's footsteps, I would have the chance to get my first class pretty soon, in just two years. If that weren't possible, I would have to leave this place when I was around ten years old.The nobles of the Bastion Empire have control over most dungeons that offer the most basic combat classes in the Empire, but not all of them. The adventurers' guilds had some of them under their control and had no intention of selling them, but they only accepted kids who were only ten years old at minimum.'I have to find a workaround for this… nobles and those who serve them have some extra time to get stronger, but if I have to wait until I am ten years old, then my life here from five to ten will be even more difficult.'I left the window of my room when everyone began to look at me with the usual disgusted eyes and then I checked the notes based on what I had learned. Albert didn't talk much about the other classes he gained, but the Warrior class was something like this based on my research.Warrior - Hardness: Obtain one point of experience per point of damage suffered.Parameter: Health - Increases your health by ten points per level.Active: Bash - A powerful strike that causes damage equal to your strength and can stun the target when causing more than one-third of their total health as damage. Cost: 10 StaminaActive: Headbutt - Harden your head before attacking the target, if you hit their forehead, you can stun the target for a second. Cost: 05 Health and 10 stamina.Obtaining new classes grants people the chance to obtain more parameters in which they can upgrade and get stronger. Still, how was that possible just by doing some fighting in dungeons? I had to research more…A few days later, Jacques left the home with some luggage to go to the knights' academy. During the day, even Rayner showed up to take him there after most of the family said bye to him. I wasn't informed of the day, so my presence wasn't required.Still, I saw, through the window my sisters showing up as well. I rarely saw them… to be honest, I only saw my brothers because they trained in the garden. They were all basically smaller versions of their mothers."Men, Rayner sure can't keep it in his pants, huh? Being able to have four wives, cheat on them with a vampire, and still none of them left...This man is a genius. A modern-day Prometheus."Aside from four older brothers, I had five older sisters as well. I imagined that soon more siblings would show up, but there were no signs of that in the last three years. Perhaps that was a good thing since there were enough people in that house who hated me. Being the tenth kid in that house was enough… it would be even more troublesome if my standing became lesser than the younger ones. Being disrespected by them would be hard to deal with.The first daughter is Adelin she is the eldest sister of Remi and she is too serious, unlike her brother, she has long straight black hair and green eyes. She was nine years old, but she moved quite elegantly.The second daughter is the twin sister of Gerald, her name was Gethianna. I heard her a few times saying that she wanted to become a mage, but no one confirmed that. When it comes to kids of nobles, girls also usually had to follow a path determined by their parents. She also had curly brown hair and green eyes, but unlike her brother, she didn't mind being considered less elegant than her elder sister. She was eight years old.The third daughter is the younger sister of Jaques and she also wants to become a high priest like her mother, her name was Iri. She was also blonde and had green eyes, but her hair was insanely long like she never had cut it in her whole life.The fourth daughter and fifth daughter are twins called Lizzie and Linnet. On the few times I had dined with the family, they made sure to keep kicking my legs the whole time… it didn't hurt, but it certainly was annoying. They are five years old and the younger sisters of Ulric.I tried not to pay much attention to either of them since they also treated me like air, but after seeing only them for over three years, it was kind of hard not to memorize their names and appearances.In any case, there was one fewer person in the house to look at me in disgust. Perhaps there was good enough reason to celebrate it, or perhaps not, since Jacques wanted to become a paladin and he might return one day and kill me since I am half-vampire."All right… let's do some serious research about the things that I can do aside from becoming cannon fodder to propel the family's name. The name is cool and all, but not enough for me to sacrifice myself for it. Actually, this family name is just too strong."In the end, I was determined to read a book a day in order to find some tips on how to bypass the system rules… or at least avoid a life as a soldier. I knew that only those who had noble blood could become knights, and as a half-human, that was impossible for me. All knights in the empire were one hundred percent human.Since my future depended on it, I did exactly that, read a book a day and wrote down the most important pieces of information. I found information about all kinds of classes and what they could do, but I didn't find a single clue about how I could bypass the system… if it were easy, someone would have found it ages ago.While I was thinking about that and doing my research, two years passed in the blink of an eye and I was called to talk with my father for the first time in his office… We had never talked before and he was a man of few words, so he probably won't spend much time with idle chat.