The Reincarnated Vampire Just Wants To Enjoy Her New Life

Chapter 59 – Sharing and Caring

(Shit shit shit!)

With Claret happily clinging onto my shoulders again, we were flying through the skies again as quickly as I could manage. Alicia was giving out constant exclamations as she enjoyed being able to see the environment while Claret gave me directions back towards the wagon.

It seemed the little seven year old didn't have any fear of heights thankfully. Most likely it was because she had no learned recognition of what height looked like. She wasn't able to connect the feeling of height she had learned with what she was seeing.

Well, that was better for me, as she wasn't scared at all with us flying so quickly while occasionally skimming the tops of some of the hills.

As we got close, I activate [Materialize] before dropping down near Mint's wagon.

"Miss Scarlet!"

Just as I landed, Mint yelled out and everyone gathered immediately from positions further around. It looked like they had already closed camp and was ready to move out at any moment.

"What in god's name happened?!"

"That's right! We woke up and we couldn't find you anywhere!"

"The imps were crying out so much! There must've been a huge horde of them fighting nearby!"

(It figured that they'd go for the main topic right off the bat.)

"Ah, umm, sorry. That was my fault."

"Your fault?"

"Ah, ummm, well, I was checking something out, and accidentally killed an imp. And after that..."

"Haaa. Well, it seems like you got out of that fine. I suppose that's a testament to your strength? It's good that everything went well, but please be careful next time. When imps call for reinforcements, you never know how many may show up. Some of the groups can also become distracted by other targets and cause collateral damage even when you purposely try to draw them away from friendlies as well."

"Ah, umm, alright. I'll be careful."

I wasn't at fault. I wasn't at fault in regards to this, but it was a good thing to know. But it really wasn't my fault. It was entirely an accident that I fell on one of them after all.

With that, we grouped up and made our way through the rest of the craggy hills, emerging out the other side as the sky was starting to turn a different colour. It seemed like normally they were able to cross the hills while the sun was still high in the sky, so I apologized once again for delaying everything.

We set up camp a small distance away from the hills, and like before, I volunteered to handle the full night watch. While the others protested since I had not only been up all day to help with the day escort but even had less sleep because I ended up with the last watch the night before and was the only one to fight monsters on top of that. They backed off once I insisted that it was in apology for making a mess of things the day before and waking everybody up because of my fight in the morning.

They didn't seem very satisfied with my argument, but I continued to press my point until they all gave up. It wasn't like we hadn't been doing this the entire time up to then anyways.

After everyone went to bed, I was laying on my back while staring at the stars. Claret laid her head on my belly as I slowly stroked her hair.

"Ah, yea. I figured I'd do something to put me in their good graces."

The dark spirit pointed out that theory when I whispered my answer out.

Considering how things were now, it was probably impossible for me to keep my secrets from these two. No, even more than that, considering the kind of things we said to each other the morning before, I didn't want to keep these sort of things secret from them.

Claret trembled on my belly. She probably wasn't angry or sad because I kept a secret from her. No, I was pretty sure that wasn't the reason.

That was a completely different direction than what I planned.

<...>

(Aaaand in a single sentence I feel like I just stepped on a kitten.)

I confirmed Alicia's thoughts.

It seemed like Claret's anger towards my predecessor's death touched even something as far separated as the entire organization even after so many years.

Thinking back, I lead a pretty useless life. I've never had anything but an ordinary dead-end job, never dated anyone, I wasn't even that close to my parents by the time I died. In fact, the only remarkable thing I could put a claim on was that I had died from overwork while pursuing my dream. A dream that was clearly dead even before I was.

Frankly, it was a pretty depressing life when I thought about it. It wasn't like I was even satisfied with anything about it. That was probably what made me try developing my own game. Not like I really enjoyed it in the end though. And by the time I had realized that, I had gotten to the point that I had gambled too much to just throw it away.

It was nothing but a hobby of mine back then. Looking up random things that caught my eye. Learning about how things worked, how they were made. The internet was really a blessing and I felt like I really took advantage of it. To have thought that so much of that random knowledge would have come to use for me.

Well, it wasn't like a ton of that knowledge wasn't useless even in my new life though. Knowing four ways to make a primitive house and seven ways to start a fire was completely useless when I could do both in seconds with magic.

But if I had to pick, then it was better that I did spend that time doing it. The fact that it was enjoyable was a nice bonus. Rather, since it was enjoyable, I wouldn't have stopped doing so even if people told me that such knowledge wouldn't ever come in handy.

<...If I died right after you did, would I have been able to live my next life by your side Master?>

As we were talking, Claret suddenly spouted out something way darker than I had expected. Her body trembled, and something wet seeped through my robes.

Sitting up, I smacked the tearful spirit across the head, then firmly held her shoulders as I looked into her eyes.

I pulled Claret into my chest, muffling any words she tried to say.

I stroked Claret's head as she nodded. After a few moments, she poked her face out of my crevice and gave me a bright smile.

I froze at her words. She was talking about the previous Scarlet again. The only other previous me I was consciously aware of was the one that died broke and all alone, with all his dreams shattered. I gritted my teeth.

(I'm not that Scarlet. I'm my own person. I'm a different person. Any similarities are either coincidences or just common traits.)

The very idea that there was a ghost of another person guiding my thoughts and actions didn't sit well with me. It was like depriving me of my free will. Maybe, maybe it was because of the few things I actually had, my own freedom was the one thing I had never lost in my previous life. Because of that, the very thought of having even that taken away, or denied entirely, irked me.

(But its not her fault. She didn't mean anything malicious by what she said, in fact she probably thought of it as a compliment.)

I averted my eyes and just continued to stroke her hair.

<'Administrator'?>

<...?>

It looked like I was being a bit too abstract in how I was explaining things.

<...if you put it that way, I suppose.>

I wasn't very satisfied with such an idea, but the basic premise was true. At the very least, I did have the power to completely mess up this world. Not like I would ever do that though.

I gave the dark spirit a quick kiss on the forehead as I continued to brush her hair. Claret froze on the spot as her face turned like a boiled octopus. The moment when I thought she unfroze and recovered, the dark spirit gave me a dopey smile before burying her face in between my cleavage.

(Super effective, huh?)

That was probably something I should keep up my sleeve for the future.

That was right. I couldn't think or focus on anything, and was mostly just stumbling around with the world's biggest hangover. While I fed on that hydra because I was desperate to get rid of the pain, to think that it actually fixed everything.

(Huh?)

Looking through my updated skill list, I found out what it was that I had to give my thanks to.

I was really thankful for that hydra. Not only did it give me the best meal in a while, but it fixed the very problem I was having at the time.

If that guard guy way back when didn't get distracted by the person in front of me, I most likely wouldn't have had the chance to do anything at all. Fundamentally it all started by a single stroke of luck.

I was in complete agreement with Alicia.

Claret extracted herself from my arms and did a slow twirl, ending in a cute pose.

(Is it just a coincidence that they're black robes just like what I'm wearing?)

I didn't really know what to think about her words. This life aside, I really doubted the previous Scarlet had a choice as to what race she was.

Following that, Alicia and I spent the next day and a half listening to Claret's first hand accounts of many of the previous Scarlet's adventures. It was a bit scary how absent-minded she seemed to have been at times.

On the other hand, her philanthropy was pretty awe inspiring. It made sense why she was considered a saint, even if sometimes the results were purely accidental, or obviously selfishly motivated. I had definitely done a few acts of generosity, but they paled in sheer scale to the other Scarlet. And that didn't even take into consideration the sheer number of them either, though she had a few hundred years to do them, so it wasn't fair to compare.

But Claret sang her praise so enthusiastically that it was quite difficult to get her to stop or at least skip some of the stories. The way she said all the stories in second person as if she was telling me what I myself had done was in particular annoying, but I gave up trying to get her to stop after the seventh time.

Some things she was good at, but treating me as someone different from the other Scarlet was so beyond her that it felt like the sun would engulf the world before that would happen.

With another internal sigh, I pulled myself out from the tarps in the back of the wagon late in the evening when the adventurer girl tried to wake me.

It seemed like our destination was in sight, and so there wasn't any point in me resting for a night watch that wouldn't happen.

Unfortunately that didn't stop Claret's quite extended story time, nor Alicia egging her on to tell her next story.

Once again I sighed internally.

I wouldn't have minded it so much if the dark spirit at least wouldn't tell the stories as if they were my personal exploits.

Ninetailed_Furball

Hi everybody! It's your usual furball again!  (/◕ヮ◕)/

So how was that? Kinda a slow chapter, but it was full of things I needed to get done and explained.

Was it maybe a bit slow? I have a bad habit in drawing things out I think, especially by describing everything in maybe too much detail?

Anyways, Labyrinth City Knossos is in sight! What's going to happen here? What about it's dungeon! What mysteries await?

The real spoiler is that I haven't figured it all out yet. (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

See ya! (≧∇≦)/