The vampire and the catalyst

With nothing better to do until his training session with Failure tomorrow, he flips the page and starts to read the next diary entry.

'Dear Diary,

The sky is gray...'

'Dear Diary,

Time moves so slowly...'

'Dear Diary,'

Hours passed, hours which Kai spent immersed in the life of princess Ethania. The diary entries he read gave him a pretty good insight of what she was like when she was alive and, well, before she became a tree.

If he had to describe her, he would say she had the elegance of a Goddess but the mouth of a sailor. The princess who everyone sought after was secretly putting on a graceful and refined front, no one would want their princess and future queen to be have a crude and vulgar way of speaking after all.

Even though she was crude, the rumours about her being kind and caring were absolutely true. Her benevolence and kindness is the reason the kingdom prospered, why there was no famine, no rebellions, she was the embodiment of benevolence. She also cared deeply for the knight who ran away with her, Sir Constance. She loved him like she would her own family, which he basically was as he was her knight since she was seven, him being twelve respectively.

By the time Eye of the moon set his eyes... eye?

By the time Eye of the moon set his sight on Ethania, she was seventeen while Sir Constance was twenty-two. Kai thought it was a bit strange for a who knows how old god to lust after a seventeen year old, but maybe its a common occurence in this world. She really did deeply care for Constance though, but she wrote in her diary that it might be partly due to the guilt she feels for accidently making Sir Constance abandon his family to go with her.

'Dear Diary,

His face is paler. Ever since we got attacked four nights ago by that damn spider, Con has been getting worse... He thinks I don't notice, but I do. His quick grimaces, him stifling his coughs, the unnatural colour in his veins. That bitch of a spider must have been venomous.

It's all my fault, it was my turn to take watch, but I fell asleep. Its all my fault, and the worst part is that by the time I woke up Con had already killed the mother. How such a huge creature snuck up on me I shall never know, even just one of its legs is much taller than me. Even just imagining what it could've done to me if not for Con makes me shiver.

It's only a matter of time before Con's body fails him, and I'll be alone. I don't want to be alone, being alone is scary, but so is being surrounded by people. I don't know what I want anymore, my thoughts are overwhelming and it just confuses me. It hurts to think about, but what hurts even more is that I don't know which will make me feel worse, losing Con... or being alone.'

Damn, that's some deep stuff... Kai closes the diary, looking up at the artificial sky of the dome as he feels the painted sun's rays shine down on him, giving a nice colour to his skin.

I miss the real sun...

With a sigh, Kai pushes himself off the ground and to the hole where he buried the diary. He placed the decrepit mess of papers tenderly in the hole and used his hands to bury the diary, the dirt covering his tracks.

Wiping his dirty hands on his bodysuit, Kai turns away from the bright pink tree and starts making his way back to the centre of the Dome.

Due to preparations for war going on, he didn't have much to do compared to everyone else, All he could do was try to stay out of everyone else's way.

Just like before, the moon monkeys were making traps, the stags treating the wounded, the wolves scouting, even the boars were setting up defensive bulwarks. There were also many other moon beasts moving around the Dome, but those beasts were the most common.

Of course, Kai could do something productive, but he didn't have many options. Using Will of the Kaiser without Umbra just screams bad idea, training with his dagger just feels ineffective as whenever he wields it, it feels as if it doesn't suit him.

He could just go back and read the diary, but three hours have passed and Ethania was quite a big fan of writing a whole bunch of nothing.

Well, not really nothing, just nothing useful...

Even worse, he didn't have anyone to talk to either. Aldred was constantly busy trying to find the spy, Umbra was always out with the scouting party, as was Wa'rak. Failure said he was busy, Noelle has been missing since her most recent loss to Wa'rak, presumably meditating under a waterfall, or whatever a woman like her would do.

The Ever-changing said they would speak to him sometime before the end of the tutorial, meaning Kai had to be patient to talk to his master, and John seemed like a nice enough guy, but Kai didn't think he was close enough with the man to just hang out, be only met the big guy today after all.

After process of elimination, that leaves only one person...

"Hey Kai, what are you up to?"

Speak of the devil... or... vampire.

Kai smiles as he turns to face Sofia, the woman standing behind him. She had her long red hair tied up in a bun, which was currently hanging on the back of her head. She had the sleeves of her bodysuit puller up to her elbows, exposing her pale arms to the sunlight of the Dome. Honestly, Sofia really did remind Kai of a vampire, the only feature that could confirm it would be the fangs, but Kai hasn't seen any hiding in her mouth.

Not yet anyway...

"Nothing much, just got back from sleeping under a nice pink tree, you might like it, it's a peaceful place."

"Sounds exciting." She snorts as she walks towards Kai, taking a place by his side as they walk through the Dome, watching the surroundings as they do.

"Well, what were you doing that was so exciting then, Miss Vampire?"

Sofia jabs Kai in his ribs with a finger, causing him to let out a yelp. She glares at him, then let's out a chuckles and speaks.

"Tsk, seems Noelle has been neglecting training you, you're starting to get cheeky."

Kai tenderly places a finger on his chest where Sofia jabbed him, a soft smile on his face.

"I was always cheeky, I just know when I should and shouldn't be, it's a talent of mine. Speaking of Noelle, where is she? I haven't seen her in a while."

Sofia gazes up at the roof of the Dome, without looking down, she answers.

"The gray wolf brought us to some underground tunnel area with a wooden door. The only thing being that no matter how hard Noelle or I tried, we couldn't move it even a centimetre. Then when the wolf tried, an exhale from his snout was all that was needed to open it.

Either it had some sort of magic used to lock it, or that wolf exhaling is more powerful than me. I would much rather believe its the former, but I wouldn't be surprised if its the latter."

Damn... Kai knew the Aldred was strong, but he still had no idea of the wolf's full abilities. Aldred could wipe out over a dozen quater moon abominations and four gibbous moon ones without even breaking a sweat.

On the one hand, it's great that the moon beasts have someone on their side who can basically win the war by themselves. On the other hand though...

How strong would the Demon of the dark side have to be to be able to fight the beast for one-hundred years straight?

Honestly, the power scaling in this world is straight messed up. What sort of tutorial has thousand of years old beasts about to have a war? And how am I able to kill the abominations, they should be way stronger than me. It's all too confusing.

Pushing away those thoughts, Kai thinks back to the conversation he had yesterday with Aldred and Failure and realises where Noelle and Sofia must've been.

"Oh, Aldred brought you to the treasury, what was it like?"

Sofia raises an eyebrow, giving him a side glance, she asks:

"How do you know about it? Oh nevermind, you have 'That Bastards scent' after all, no wonder you're the wolf's little pet, I'm sure anyone would love to have a cute little boy like you as a pet, even if that anyone is a wolf who could kill you in a second."

She snickers as they continue to walk, various moon beasts walking past them, each doing something different and probably extremely important in preparation for the upcoming weeks.

Kai scowls slightly, but it doesn't last long.

"Well excuse me for being important, it seems you're just a side character in this whole scenario."

Another jab to the ribs winds Kai, making him decide to stop messing with Sofia...

... For now.

"Now, if you would so kindly let me continue. He opened the door and let us both pick one thing from the treasury. Noelle picked a charm of some kind, but she didn't share what it did. As for me-"

A bow made of the same type of wood as the monstrous trees outside the Dome. It looked light, but still sturdy enough to knock someone out if it hit someone on the head if Sofia swung it hard enough.

It had small little swirls engraved onto it all its body, and the string seemed to have a slight silver glow to it.

Kai blinked a few times, then asked:

"You're an archer? I thought you just used a sword or something..."

Sofia smiles and tugs on the bowstring slightly, testing it. She then lowers it and looks back up at Kai.

"Yeah, I got given one at the start of this stage, but I ran out of arrows so I just abandoned it. My teammate on the other hand had this blade, but they died when fighting a quater moon lion. It was a terrifying creature. Pitch black, a pair of wings on its back and it had a stinger on its tail, that's how my teammate died. Impaled right through the chest, no chance to react."

Kai winced at the description, but Noelle seems indifferent to the whole thing.

So she wasn't that close to them...

"So, yeah, they got killed and I ran, my innate ability helping with that part. After I was sure I lost the beast, I returned and... borrowed the blade, not like they were going to use it anymore anyway."

A bit brutal, but I guess she's right.

"Soon after I got the blade, I ran out of arrows so I abandoned the bow. And that's the end of the story."

Kai frowned, looking at the bow in the red haired woman's hands.

"Are you not just going to run out of arrows again? Is it not kind of a waste?"

Sofia smirked, and another thing appeared out of thin air. A brown quiver appeared on her back, filled to the brim with sharp arrows, each arrow head reflecting the sunlight.

"The big wolf was kind enough to let me take the bow and quiver. After all, taking just the bow would be like having cereal without milk, a waste. Plus, the quiver let's me use Mana to create new arrows, so realistically it's more useful than the bow."

"Handy." Kai nods in approval, but then he thinks back to something he has and checks his status.

Item: Abominable bracers of the gibbous moon (Rare)

Bracers created from the hardened flesh of an unnamed abomination. This item grants the wielder +3 Strength, +3 Dexterity and a bonus to their archery based on those same stats.

Well... It does say a boost in archery with Strength and Dexterity, and they would probably help Sofia a lot more than me, I don't plan on becoming an archer any time soon anyway...

She would also be in debt to me... no, why would I care if she's in my debt, that would just make me uncomfortable. If she just makes sure I don't die I'm sure it would be a completely fair trade...

After much internal deliberation, weighing the pros and cons and and a little speech convincing himself that it's worth it, Kai sighed and asked:

"Exactly how good are you with a bow?"

Sofia grinned and lifted up her bow, giving it a soft kiss on its wooden body.

"Why tell when I can show, why don't we go into the forest and have ourselves a little hunt?"