“Charlie, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Master Luke.”

  “Why… did you say you usually call me your husband?”

  Her face went crimson, bright enough to rival a ripe tomato. She covered her cheeks with both hands.

  “Y-you know, Master Luke.”

  Know what?

  Charlie lifted one trembling hand, her blush somehow deepening. “Ever since the moment you… asked me to marry you.”

  He froze. What?

  For a second Luke honestly thought she was joking, but one look at her expression told him she was painfully serious.

  Marriage? I asked her to marry me?!

  Artemis’s laughter echoed in his mind like an audience waiting for the punchline.

  Charlie pointed to the ring on her finger. “I-I accepted your proposal right away, Master Luke.”

  She accepted it right away? Wait, but that was just the gear item I gave her. No… she thought it was a marriage proposal.

  “Even though you caught me off guard, I said yes. I like you so much, Master Luke.”

  The words hit him like a lightning bolt. Oh… this is a catastrophic misunderstanding.

  Artemis burst into hysterical laughter, her voice vibrating through the room.

  Luke started pacing. Shut up, loudmouth. Stop laughing!

  'At long last! The day has come! The day the hopelessly dense one gets run over by the truck of ignored feelings!' Artemis didn’t finish because Luke snapped the pendant, silencing her mid mockery.

  “Charlie,” he said carefully as he approached her, “what do you mean we’re married? And what do you mean you… like me?”

  She covered her face again, mortified. “I… I’m your wife, Master Luke. And I… I care about you. Very much.”

  Oh no. It really is what it sounds like. Wait… all those times…

  Memory after memory slammed into him. Every moment they spent together the past year, how she looked after him, how she sometimes tried to carry him away from danger, how she’d watch him sleep, how she’d get shy whenever he took his shirt off to check an injury…

  “Holy shit, I’ve been married for a year without knowing!” he blurted.

  He stared at her.

  “Charlie, I…”

  “I know, Master Luke,” she whispered. “I realized you didn’t feel quite the same way.” She looked down at the ring. “But I still love you, Master Luke.”

  It really was an avalanche crashing down on him. His closest friend this whole time had felt that way about him.

  ‘Well, well, well, the dense one finally gets it, huh?’ Artemis chimed smugly in his mind.

  So that’s why you kept calling me dense?

  ‘Obviously.’

  I’m not dense.

  ‘Oh, really? Sorry, what do you call being married for a whole year without noticing? Please enlighten me, Mister Totally Not Dense.’

  I knew Charlie cared about me. I just didn’t think it was… that kind of thing. I thought it was like siblings, like two best friends.

  ‘Congratulations. It is sibling love. You know, like in Game of Thrones. So yes, incest.’

  Luke dragged a hand down his face. “Charlie, this really caught me off guard.”

  ‘So off guard it overshadowed the whole “she’s a vampire now” thing. Impressive. Look at you sweating.’

  “Ch-Charlie, I don’t know how to answer this. I never… thought about anything like this before,” he admitted. “I always saw you like a sister…”

  “I come from Greek culture. All the best stories are incest stor” Artemis began before being silenced instantly.

  “It’s all right, Master Luke. I understand,” Charlie said softly. “You have so much on your mind. Going back to your family, finding out what happened to your mother.” Her gaze dropped. “But…”

  Her face flushed again. “Even knowing it wasn’t mutual, I always thought of myself as your w-wife, Master Luke.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  ***

  Luke walked through the streets of Camlann with Charlie trailing just behind him, her gaze darting from one thing to another with wide-eyed curiosity. The crowd pressed in on all sides, brushing against her before she could even react. Every touch made her flinch. More than once, Luke caught the glint of steel as she instinctively reached for her sword.

  He ended up taking her hand just to keep her grounded. She relaxed almost instantly, and through their bond he felt the burst of quiet happiness that simple gesture gave her. It was warmer, clearer than anything he’d sensed from her before.

  It wasn’t just touch overwhelming her. Her hearing, her sight, everything was sharper now. Luke had no idea what her senses had been like when she was a skeleton, but whatever they were, this was on a completely different level. Rank E already heightened every perception, and her vampiric nature pushed it even further. The world must have felt deafening, blinding, enormous.

  He had planned to teleport straight to Maine, but that clearly wasn’t happening. He postponed the return for a few hours and waited for nightfall before taking Charlie outside again. It was safer for her, and calmer.

  Samael’s explanations echoed in his mind. Vampires were technically a form of undead, but more alive than dead. They needed sustenance. They could starve. Their organs functioned the same as any human’s, they could breathe, eat, taste. But their bodies didn’t require those organs to stay alive. If Charlie fell into a lake, she could simply shut off her lungs and sink without drowning. The same went for her heart. A built in form of mimicry, Samael said. A way for vampires to blend in with humans when needed.

  Her eyes were the only giveaway. A human looking face, normal skin tone… but those red irises ruined any chance of passing as mortal. Except apparently that wasn’t permanent. Samael clarified that a vampire’s eyes only turned red under two conditions: when fighting and using vampiric skills, or when suffering the Vampiric Hunger. Once fed, their eyes returned to their natural color.

  If that worked the same for Charlie, then hiding in human society wouldn’t be impossible.

  Hoping to gather more details, Luke used Identify on her bloodline again. A new description surfaced.

  [Bloodline of the Vespertilio Vampire]: The noble blood of the Vespertilio flows through your veins. Beyond the standard powers of vampirism, this bloodline grants rare abilities inherited from the legendary Vespertilio clan, famed for mastering the elusive Path of the Vampiric Beast. This unique heritage deepens your connection to primal instincts, unlocking powers that blend predatory ferocity with supernatural elegance, a legacy both revered and feared across the multiverse.

  Luke dismissed the window, his thoughts drifting back to Charlie’s hand in his. She squeezed it slightly, still drinking in every sound and color around her like the world was brand new.

  In a way, it was.

  ***

  Luke and Charlie stepped into a clothing shop. He was still getting used to the economy of the New World. The villagers from the military outpost had given him ten silver coins, which apparently amounted to ten thousand crowns. Supposedly the equivalent of ten thousand dollars, but he still missed actual cash… or even Bastion’s weird currency. Metal coins felt like a downgrade.

  “Welcome, may you both have a wonderful evening in Camlann,” the attendant greeted.

  “You too,” Luke replied awkwardly, not entirely sure how people were supposed to greet each other here.

  Charlie hid behind him, nervous. The entire shop specialized in women’s clothing.

  “We’re here to buy some clothes for her. But we’re terrible at navigating life in the New World. We’re new arrivals from the modern society,” Luke explained.

  “What an honor,” the woman said warmly as two more attendants approached. “We’ll be happy to help you two adapt.”

  “Is she your sister? She’s very beautiful. Her hair is stunning,” the attendant asked.

  “No,” Luke began. “She’s my…”

  “Wife!” Charlie blurted. “H-he’s my husband. You can’t flirt with him or talk too much with him.”

  Luke froze on the spot.

  “I-I mean, I’m not his wife. Not yet. I mean…” She spiraled immediately into confusion.

  “You have an adorable girlfriend,” the attendant told Luke with a knowing smile.

  “Yes…” he answered, because what else was he supposed to say?

  As the attendants moved away to gather options, Luke leaned toward Charlie. “Charlie…”

  “I still don’t know how to talk properly, Master Luke,” she whispered. “I just said what I always said, but then I got confused.”

  “It’s fine. But what do you mean by ‘always said’? You said that all the time?”

  “Yes. To every woman who approached.”

  The only difference before was that she didn’t have a voice.

  Luke stood at the corner of the shop while Charlie and the attendants enthusiastically collected outfits for her to try. He returned to Samael’s letter, rereading it. Each time he went through it, he caught something new.

  “Are vampires immortal? Yes and no,” the letter said. “A vampire’s immortality is their greatest strength and also their greatest weakness.”

  When Luke first read that part, he thought vampirism was a shortcut to immortality. Easier than climbing through the system’s ranks. But he understood now it wasn’t that simple. It was a double edged sword.

  “Vampires are inherently immortal beings, even a level 1 vampire. Meaning a vampire could outlive you even if you reached Rank E on the path toward divinity. However… they are not truly immortal.”

  That was the problem. And he had seen the flaw firsthand through Charlie.

  “Vampires lose HP over time, the same way humans feel hunger and need to eat. Once their HP hits zero, they start to wither and die. See where I’m going with this? They’re immortal, sure, but a level 1 vampire with fifty HP is much closer to death than a level 1 human. Humans don’t bleed HP just for existing. Vampires do. That’s why, like every other race with a system, they desperately want to level up. They have to keep their Blood Core filled with blood. A vampire always prioritizes having a massive HP pool. The more HP they have, the longer they can survive during starvation or scarcity. And every time they evolve their rank, their max HP increases, pushing them further from death. Call their immortality a ‘pseudo immortality.’”

  Luke lowered the letter, absorbing every line. This HP decay… that was the Vampiric Hunger. The force that ate away at a vampire from the inside, consuming HP as fuel. And the deeper the hunger, the more it robbed them mentally, stripping rationality layer by layer until nothing remained but the instincts of a beast.

  A vampire was a prisoner of its own appetite. Only feeding could silence it. He opened Charlie’s status window again. Her health bar continued to tick down, point by point. One HP gone roughly every ten minutes. He did the math.

  If she didn’t feed at all, she’d die within a month.

  But that was the early stage of hunger. The weakest version. He knew enough about debuffs to know that conditions escalated. Hunger would intensify, HP loss would accelerate, and Charlie’s clarity of mind would crumble long before her body failed.

  The safe window, then, wasn’t a month. Not even close.

  Therefore, the safe method Luke deduced was that Charlie would have to feed on blood at least once every three days, until he fully understood how the Vampiric Hunger and the Blood Core actually worked.

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