"Y- Say that last part again."

"From this day forth, with my blood and vitality flowing in those veins, you are now the most powerful vampire to ever live."

"You're pranking me right? This is some sort of sick joke?" Kazuma felt his heart beat many times faster, his legs began to bounce in his seat and breathing got difficult. In this screwed up world he had learned quick not to get too hopeful over any one situation. Though hearing those words made it hard to keep calm.

"I assure you, this is no joke. But make no mistake, I do this, not out of the kindness of my heart, or out of some sense of pity over your overt weakness."

'Is this really happening!? Am I finally gonna get the edgy badass powers I should have started with!?'

"In exchange for these abilities I want you to promise me one thing."

"Psshhhh yeah man anything you need!"

"The death of that crimson demon upstart!"

"What!? You want me to kill Megumin?"

"No you brainless wit! The one responsible for my exile! You have an interest in this too, earth boy."

"What? How could you-"

"I'm in your head now. This is all taking place in your psyche. Everything you know, I know. And when you awake, all of my combat knowledge will transfer to you as well."

"Wait hold on, you said that I'd be interested in this whole quest for vengeance you wanna send me on."

"I have no doubt in my mind that this girl, this witch of the crimson demon is working in league with the new Devil King."

"So you DO know about it."

"Very little I'm afraid. Rumors had circulated that the Devil King had been defeated years ago. I never believed them, until a child of the crimson demon, younger than your friend, came to my home and destroyed everything I had ever worked to achieve. She was sending her magic to his castle. It was not unlike a general, portioning a piece of their mana to keep up the barrier."

"How do you know it's not just the same one?"

"I don't for sure, but the fact that I've never heard of this particular girl before, or the fact that we had a truce, combined with the rumors, leads to the fact that a new regime must have sprung up somehow."

"Do you know ANYTHING about this possible new Devil King?"

"No, that's why your only choice is to hunt after this girl. Or any other new generals that might be skulking around somewhere."

"But that's stupid, if you couldn't beat her, how am I supposed to beat her with your powers?"

"By doing what you adventurers do best. Something I should have never have forgotten. Staying hungry."

"What!? You mean I gotta starve? What does that have-"

"I MEAN WANTING TO GET STRONGER YOU IDIOT!"

"AAgh! Yeah! OKay! I get it now!"

"Now wake up, beat Verdia into submission, and extract all the information he has."

"Heh, you got it."

"Oh and, you're a Vampire now, do carry yourself with some tact from now on."

"Don't worry, I know how to keep it cool. With these powers it's nothing but being a badass from now on!"

'Perhaps this was a bad idea'

"Just wake up already."

Wake up

Wake up


Wake up

"Wake up! Kazuma please! Wake up!"

"Crazy demon girl! He's not asleep! He's not getting back up! Crawl to safety!"

Megumin could barely take in the chaotic scene with tears beginning to well up in her eyes. Aqua was quickly knocked unconscious after Kazuma's 'death' took everyone by surprise. Front line fighters from the town began to join in, buying whatever seconds they could, hoping that their champion would arrive from his latest quest in the Knick of time.

Despite their efforts, it was a quickly passed around fact that the former generals, now no longer holding up the barrier to the Devil King's castle, were deadlier than before. And with the suspected new Devil King on the throne, their power did not wane, as was customary of a world without an active King.

"Come on y- Kazuma?"

Her party leader was no longer on the ground next to her. When she wiped away at her eyes, they widened. With the gaping chest wound closing up as if it was no issue, Kazuma Satou stood tall, a far more confident air about him.

"Megumin. Are you okay?"

She almost cried again, this time tears of joy, maybe laying near Aqua's unconscious body healed him somehow? It was all she could come up with at the moment.

"Yeah…I'm ok. Darkness is still fighting him. We need to get out of here, I don't think we can beat him."

"Heh, do me a favor and watch."

'The old creep was right! It's just like when I learned a skill, I KNOW how to use these new abilities like if they've been mine to begin with!'

"Verdia!"

"Huh?! WHAT!?" The Dullahan stopped his relentless assault on the blonde crusader in shock.

"Did you miss me?"

"Ahh, I see now. I must not have knocked that priest out as hard as I thought. Guess I'll have to finish the job if I want to see you stay dead."

"Not quite. I admit, you're pretty strong, but you're nothing compared to a REAL monster!"

"Huh?"

Kazuma disappeared in a puff a dark smoke, Darkness quickly realized where she'd seen this exact thing before. A large group of bats flew through Verdia, easily dodging his manic swinging as his senses were overwhelmed.

When the bats came together, they reformed Kazuma's body, a red glowing orb in his right hand.

'Oh crap I forgot to come up with cool move names! Why didn't Sanguine have any already made!? Uhhh, crimson Venus? No. Death ball! Even worse! Ah I don't got time for this!'

"RED SUN!"

'How original Kazuma…'

The orb in his hand grew to the size of an oversized beach ball, several feet in diameter. As it expanded, the colors within tossed and turned from a rich dark red to a nearly white color.

"AAAAGH! BUT THIS IS BLOOD MAGIC!"

"Now vanish with a crimson echo."

'Oh now THAT was a cool line!'

The orb expanded further, and as it did, so did its temperature. The ground below scorched, Verdia's armor began to melt away.

"ARE YOU TURNING AROUND!? IS THIS THING GONNA EXPLODE!?"

"Goodbye."

Not bothering to see what he was about to unleash, Kazuma snapped his fingers, causing the orb to erupt in many directions. Thin lasers of light poked through erratically and spread violently, the sound of the explosion was akin to an energetic thunderclap and less of an actual bomb.

Unfortunately, it was far too close, and blasted him a good 10 feet away, leaving a burning red mark on his back.

'I'm gonna pretend like that didn't happen'

The onlooking adventurers all shared a pitiful look, but it soon turned to cheering, as in its wake, nothing was left. A burned out crater was all that remained of the former general.

Dusting himself off with a hint of shame, he stared to admire his work.

'Wait.'

YOU ABSOLUTE FOOL

'I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO KILL HIM!'

Kazuma let out a sigh, but shrugged his shoulders. At the end of the day, there were bound to be more leads he could follow. But he'd have to be the luckiest man in the world for there to be a second general living in close proximity of the town.

"Megumin, how's Aqua?"

"Kazuma, your eyes!"

"Huh?"

'Oh that's right, I probably look a bit different'

Using a nearby puddle of water to admire himself in, it wasn't too much of a drastic change. His skin had lost a bit of color to it, his hair a shade darker, a point to his ears, and most of all, his eyes had changed color to those of brilliant rubies.

'Hmm, I hope no one mistakes me for Megumin's brother or something. Aside from that I kinda dig this!'

"Kazuma, that power you displayed. Aqua's spell did not work…did it?" Darkness, now barely clothed at all, asked.

"No, it didn't."

"At first I wondered if you had been completely taken over in some way, but after watching you attempting to look cool and be humiliatingly knocked off your feet, I knew it was you."

"Jeez, way to bring a guy down you masochist!"

"I am not a masochist!"

"Uh Huh sure."

"Well, I guess it is you after all." Darkness smiled.

"Of course it's me! Hey Megumin, what do you think?"

She looked him over before weakly raising a thumbs up, which he returned.

'Megumin's totally into this kinda stuff, of course she'd be on board. The only one I'll have any problem with is…'


"NO WAY! LET GO OF ME! DON'T WORRY KAZUMA, I'M GOING IN THAT HEAD OF YOURS AND KILLING THAT BASTARD!"

"Calm down you idiot! You're making everyone here stare at us!"

After waking up and being given the news that Kazuma was indeed turned into a vampire by the "old creep in his head" Aqua reacted in the way she felt she should as a goddess.

"You really expect me to be okay with this!? Me!? Working alongside a VAMPIRE!?"

"Didn't I say to shut up!?"

"Tch, Kazuma, you don't get it do you? You're not fully human anymore. You're not even alive."

"Well, yeah I guessed that."

"Almost all of my spells as a priest do nothing but harm you. I can't heal you, buff you, I can't even give you mana without hurting you. My turn undead spells are pretty much unusable if you're anywhere in the area too."

"Tch. That's not a bad point. We're completely incompatible on the same team."

'But still…oddly enough, the idea of us not being on the same team kind of bothers me. Despite it all, she IS still the one I've known the longest'

Keep her

'Huh? Hello?'

I told you before, now that you're a full vampire, I can communicate with you, albeit with greater effort

'Greater effort? You're just a spirit in my psyche, how can you put in effort at all?'

I am an entity of pure magic now. Surviving off of the smallest amounts of mana I left for myself when transferring myself into you. Even speaking like this uses that mana

'This is feeling very familiar, I could have sworn there was a manga I read that had a set up like this'

Your memories are pathetic, your past life a wasted cesspool

'Oh, okay thanks. Dickhead, I was just trying to lighten the mood. Are you going to say anything actually useful?'

One of the three reasons I chose you was because of your connection to Aqua. She will be an invaluable asset to destroying the child

'We're all just game pieces to you aren't we?'

You speak as if you have a choice

"Wait, what was the other reasons?"

One of them was because you're a virgin. The transference ritual requires a virgin for my full power to be carried over

'Why did I even ask?'

Kazuma exhaled heavily, realizing that everyone was staring at him.

"Kazuma?"

"Oh! Uh. Look, Aqua. Even if your spells hurt me, I still think we should stay together. I mean, your buffs will still work on Megumin and Darkness, and your specialty being undead is great, cause my new powers are perfect for fighting non undead! Instead of viewing each other like we're opposing forces, we should be looking at the situation like we're covering our bases, ya know what I mean?"

Aqua pondered over it for a bit. She already knew what she actually wanted. There was no way she'd ever actually admit that she liked Kazuma's companionship, or outright say that she didn't mind his transformation. She felt tied to her "duties" as a goddess, accepting things like undead, it didn't sit right.

But she's never actually had someone she cared about turn out to be one either.

"Yeah, I think you're right. B-but I don't like it! Now you're even worse than a neet! You're a bloodsucking neet!"

"What did you say!?"

"You heard me! You know Kazuma, it's just like you to become a vampire anyway. Staying inside all day, avoiding the sun, creeping around at night and being overall kinda unpleasant."

"Oh is that the way it's gonna be!?"

Darkness and Megumin couldn't help but smile as they began to yell and jerk each other around. They were a bit scared that Aqua wouldn't be accepting of this revelation at all, judging by her last reaction to an undead townsperson. However, it looks like things just might be okay after all.

"Kazuma Satou and party, please come to the front!"

'Oh it's so obvious what this is gonna be!' Kazuma thought to himself, fingers pinched around Aquas cheeks, already smiling in anticipation.

"For Kazuma and his parties amazing achievement in defeating Verdia, they have been rewarded 300 million eris!"

"Th-th-threemmmmm" His mind turned to a microwave at hearing the number.

"Hey rich boy, how about a round for the whole house!"

"Yeah Kazuma!"

'No wait a minute'

"Huddle up!"

"What is it Kazuma?"

"We got to think about how we're gonna spend this! I've seen this on ea- in my town pretty often. You can lose everything if you don't have a plan."

"Haha! it's simple Drakula, we just split it evenly and-"

"Imma stop you there, don't call me Drakula! And second, I killed him when no one else could!"

"Because of your demon powers!"

"Yeah yeah cry about it some more. Either way, I say we just safeguard this somewhere until we can find a nice ass place to buy, like a mansion or castle!"

"It's not a bad idea, but you're gonna need a bit more to buy a mansion, and a lot more if you actually want to buy a castle." Megumin added.

"Which is why we just sorta survive off of this for a little while and go after other high bounties."

Aqua was the only one who seemed iffy on the idea, she wanted to simply splurge all of it on booze and luxuries. But the idea of having a mansion spoke to her soul.

"Alright we'll do it your way. But until that happens we're using that money to buy rooms at the nicest inn in town."


'I have to admit, if it wasn't for the creepy voice in my head forcing me to adventure, I think I'd live the rest of my life doing something like this. Rich life rocks!'

Kazuma, to the chagrin of the evil spirit lurking within him, was getting a vip massage at the inn him and his party decided to stay at.

Who are you speaking to?

'What the? I'm just thinking to myself, would you be a dear and not listen to everything in my head?'

It's noon and you haven't done anything all day

'You know, I'm starting to wonder how you'd actually compel me to do anything I don't wanna do'

Very simple, give it a couple hours and you will see your folly

Kazuma did not like the sound of that, and already began to regret his arrogant mindset.

'Ok wait, since we have time, mind explaining the do's and don'ts of being a vampire? Like the nitty gritty details?'

The first should be obvious, holy magic and sunlight are dangerous. However, my blood is far stronger than any normal vampire, sunlight will burn and sting at your flesh, but it will take prolonged exposure to kill. Same goes for holy magic, your resistance will be at an adequate level to survive repeated attacks

'Well that's good to know. How about my body?'

You are stuck in that body forever, you will never age, and you cannot die through natural means

"Hmgh!"

"Did I hurt you sir?"

"N-no! Not at all, keep going."

Surprising?

'Being stuck in this age, with this body, forever? I don't think I know how I feel about that right now. Or immortality'

To natural causes. Disease, poisons and venoms. You don't need to eat, no need of water, and no need to breathe

'I can hold my breathe infinitely? That's pretty cool. But wait a minute, can I still eat foods and drink booze?'

Yes, but you gain no sustenance, and you will not feel the effects of alcohol, no matter how strong

"Hmpgh!"

"Are you sure I'm not hurting you?"

"Yes! I-I'm sure."

"Sir there's tears in your eyes, I can be a bit more gentle if you need."

"No…no need."

'Aw man this sucks! I can't age, I can't even get drunk! The sun hurts me!'

You killed Verdia, a general of the Devil King, with one attack. Out of the dozens in your arsenal, which all could have killed him in one. Single. Attack

'The sacrifices I make for power!'

Pathetic. Regardless, you will also be unable to feel the affects of winter, or ice magic in general, however fire will have an increased effectiveness on your flesh

'Hmm, strong against ice types, weak to fire'

Aside from our ability to see clearly in the dark, there's not much else. Though I will reveal more as it becomes apparent

'Apparent? I do feel like I'm missing something, ah what the hell, that can wait'


A few hours later the part met at the guild for what Kazuma referred to as "Linner", while Aqua took a gander at the job board. Now motivated to make money quick so that they could buy their mansion, a prospect which sounded better every hour.

"Hey Kazuma, are you okay? You're staring at me."

"..."

"Kazuma!"

"Ah. Sorry, I'm having trouble focusing."

"Maybe cause you're so hungry. You've already eaten 2 full course meals!"

"But that doesn't make sense, I shouldn't need to eat but…I can't help but feel like I'm hungry somehow. I need something but I can't tell. It's just."

He went back to staring at Megumin.

Bwahahahaha! Your behavior is not unlike newly turned lesser vampires

'What gives!? You said I didn't need to eat or drink, but I can't get this out of my mind, and I feel like Megumin HAS it somehow'

I never said you didn't need to drink. I said you didn't need water

'What else could you be…I'm a fucking idiot!'

How observant