Vampire's Slice Of Life

[Warning: 'That' being is in close proximity.]

[Encounter with said entity can result in death.]

Lucas yawned and lay down atop a tree, ignoring the system's warning.

It was just warning him and not doing anything else. This meant that the system was unsure of what the outcome would be and was looking forward to what would happen.

If Lucas could curse the system, he would've done so already. But this accursed bastard could read his thoughts and hence he kept his thought process limited to his subconscious where the system couldn't intrude.

It took a lot of effort to learn the skill of keeping thoughts limited to the subconscious. His thoughts slipped many times and were read by the system, but while training, he would use absurd thoughts and confuse the system.

The absurdity was so high that at one point, the system thought he had gone mad and gave him a potion. That was an expensive and rare one as it made him feel refreshed and cleansed his body of any impurities and fatigue.

Lucas didn't feel that alive for many years and was glad that he could outsmart the system for once.

'He should be here any minute…'

Lucas placed a hat on his face and actively tried to sleep on the tree's branch which was by a dungeon's entrance. Faking it was not an option as the entity he was about to face could easily make it out.

A few minutes later, he was in deep sleep and the system turned silent as well.

…..

In a bustling Inn of a rich neighborhood in Semohr, two Giants along with two normal-sized humanoid figures made their way inside the cafeteria.

The normal-sized ones were Ji and Sheng, the demon and werewolf duo Ojas had introduced to Lith, while the two Giants were random mercenaries hired under Lith's name.

People from Gunther's faction were known by most of the people. It could attract quite some trouble if they were to enter this area with Ji and Sheng.

This neighborhood was close to the chief and the other high ranking elders' residential area, and was popular for its high quality alcoholic beverages.

Ji and Sheng were here to investigate a select few suspicious elders from the chief's faction.

…And it did not take them even a few steps inside the Inn to find something odd.

Two burly Giants, almost four storey tall and with rough ginger beard, were drawing dark color sigils in mid air and talking together in a somewhat serious tone.

The sigils weren't bright and eye-catching. Nobody would've been able to notice them had they not been staring at them with a motive of finding something like Ji and Sheng.

The demon-werewolf duo decided to play it cool and ordered a few drinks for themselves.

They chatted with the two Giant mercenaries about useless adventure tales and pretended to have a good time while staring at the ginger beard Giants through the corner of their eyes.

A few minutes passed.

The dark colored sigils slithered their way to the two Giants' arms and etched themselves on it like tattoos.

With his keen eyesight and demon physique, Ji could feel that those tattoos were a hundred percent demonic ones.

The flash of red light in the two Giants' eyes further solidified his conclusion.

Having finished a transaction of some sort, the two parted ways. One went upstairs in the Inn to his room while the other left the building.

It would be too suspicious to follow these people right now, and having prepared beforehand, Ji held his collar and whispered in it.

"Ojas… the guy's coming. Keep an eye out for the tattoo on his hand."

"Beep. Beep."

A low voice was heard by Ji through his collar and he let go of it.

The communication tool the two were using was an artifact that was sort of like a mini phone. It was a one way communication tool and from the other side, there could only appear two responses: "Beep. Beep." And "Beeeep."

The former meant ok while the latter meant repeat. That's about it.

This was Ojas's idea as he knew how the situation would unfold.

Ji's job was done and he went back to pretending to have fun. From here on, Ojas would take over.

…..

"He's coming."

In a soft tone, while randomly walking on the street with two Giant mercenaries, Ojas said to his dragon subordinate.

A ginger beard Giant could be seen walking down the street. He was a head taller than most and wasn't that hard to find.

Ojas and his group sneakily followed him.

The man first walked inside an artifact shop and met a few people. He shared the sigils with them, then went to a nearby tavern and repeated the same thing.

Eventually, the man walked out of Semohr and in a random forest nearby, kneeled before a tree.

From afar, as Ojas watched him with knitted brows, he thought, 'What is he doing?'

The man joined his hands into a praying gesture and began reciting unknown things before the tree.

Soon, at a visible speed, his body began aging.

Ojas's eyebrows jumped in surprise, but being a professional stalker, he remained in place and recorded a video of the man.

In five minutes, the man's body turned into a husk, then after ten minutes, even his bones had turned into dust.

'It's so strange…'

'I need to report this to Gunther and the Prince as soon as possible. In the meantime, I'll go see how others with the sigils are doing.'

With that, Ojas set off.

…..

In front of a dungeon's entrance, Lith appeared out of thin air, with the Giant girl in tow and his aunt on his back.

The moment he stepped foot on the ground, a line of words appeared in his vision as a mechanical voice stated:

[Ding!]

[A system user is nearby.]

Lith raised an eyebrow in surprise. 'Another system user?'

His memory was sharp. He remembered the day Lucifer had gone on a rampage in Raizen. There was a system user limply lying on the ground.

That was around two hundred something years ago, and the system was telling him that in two centuries, another system user had popped up? Now this was surprising and slightly concerning.

To Lith's rhetorical question, an answer was given by the system.

[This is the same system user Host had asked to mark.]

'Oh. So it's not just anybody, but that guy…'

It made sense now.

'…But why's he here?'

The world was a big place and anyone could anywhere they wanted. What were the odds of meeting the same person twice in this world?

Lith looked around to see where the guy was and quickly found him fast asleep on a tree branch.

That guy wore ordinary adventurer robes, had raven black hair and a well built warrior-like physique.

He was more ripped than Lith himself, but of course, that only meant his muscles were used repeatedly and nothing else.

Aesthetically speaking, the more ripped one was didn't mean the better they looked. Lith's physique and looks were still unparalleled.

Looking at that sleeping guy for a while, Lith racked his brains and wondered why he was here.

Quickly, he got an answer to this question.

All the continents of the world were unstable at this point of time.

It was only this place that was somewhat peaceful and had a good amount of dungeons.

This guy was also resting beside a dungeon gate, so the only reason he was here was to be in a safe shelter, away from the wars, probably.

It was a hypothesis. There was no evidence, but that's the only reason Lith could come up with.

'What do I do about him? Ignore and go to the dungeon? Or see what his system is upto and mess with him?'

After some thinking, Lith decided to kidnap him.

He was planning to see him in the future, but now that he had appeared right at his doorstep, ignoring him wouldn't be nice.

There also was no reason for Lith to mess with his system. The one this dude had might be an inferior one, given how it didn't detect him yet and alert him of danger.

Lith walked up to the guy and picked him up like a sack of potatoes on his shoulder. Despite the burly physique, he was as light as a feather to him.

He walked towards the Giant girl, then picked her up, and along with the sleepy Mayzin on his back, walked inside the dungeon.

The moment they entered, Lith saw a few berserk beasts squeaking and rushing his way.

His hands were full, holding people, and this was not good.

SQUEAK—! A human-sized large rat with red eyes charged at Lith with a loud squeak. There was an army of smaller, cat-sized rats beside him, and if something wasn't done about them, Lith was going to be… mildly injured… or not. He wasn't too sure whether this would result in a minor scratch or a minor bite.

In any case, even though he won't be harmed, the same couldn't be said about the Giant girl in tow.

Lith channeled some Lightning energy in his palms and sent it within the system guy's body, making it twitch and fall down on the ground.

The guy soon groaned and rubbed his head as he got up.

Immediately, a series of words rang in his mind and appeared in front of his eyes.

[Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Berserk Grand Rats are coming at you!]

[Quest: Survive the onslaught (B+) has progressed!]

[Information: Survive this wave of Grand Rats.]

[Penalty: A minor realm setback.]

[Warning: Teleportation is restricted!]

[Warning: Do not give an opening to 'that' being to attack you!]

In his subconscious, Lucas was clicking his tongue and cursing this bastard system.

While on the outside, he thought, 'Okay… that's just a few Grand Rats. Not too big of a problem. It should be done in a minute.'

Without looking back to who was there, Lucas took out his sword and charged at the rat leader.

Lith watched him make swift movements and thought, 'Not bad. Those movements are almost as fluid as mine.'

He wasn't bothered in the slightest and seemed like someone watching a performance in a theater.

Half an incense stick's burning time later, the guy was done killing the rats and cleaned the area.

Lith looked at him and said, "Good job. You're capable of clearing this dungeon, it seems."

The guy turned around and gave Lith a slight nod.

"Fantastic. Let's have you clear it then. My hands are full at the moment, but don't worry, if there's a need, I'll assist you."

With that, they set out to see the Giant girl's aunt trapped inside the dungeon, and albeit reluctantly, Lucas began killing the monsters for Lith.