“Hoh, spartoi. They are quite powerful undead. As always, your actions are inexplicable to me. Fuh hah hah.”
When she went to brag to the count, he complimented her. Just as he said, the spartoi had total stats comparable to Blanc’s when she had first turned into a vampire. Normally, she wouldn’t have been able to [Subordinate] them since they’d resist it. [Control] and [Subordinate] required a large gap in power in order to succeed.
“Incidentally, did you not impart any of your blood to the bats? If the new spartoi were given it first, I would not be surprised if they were dissatisfied.”
“Huh, really?”
When she opened her cape to look at them, they looked back at her with their cute little eyes as though to ask “Yes, what is it?” They didn’t seem bothered in the least. But still, just as the count was saying, the bats had been doing their best all along, so giving blood to the skeletons first was kinda unfair.
“But I’d need a lot of LP for all of them…”
“A needless concern; should my aid be required, I shall lend it. Simply do what you must without hesitation. I am also interested in the outcome.”
If the count said he would support her, then she should just do it. A chance like this was unlikely to come again; he might change his mind as soon as the day changed, so if she was gonna go for it, it had to be now.
“Okay, here goes nothing…”
Just like before, Blanc bit into her finger with a fang, then let each bat lap up a drop of blood. After every bat had gulped it down, she gently set them down in the center of the throne room and stepped back to observe the results.“Guh…”
Almost immediately, she was overcome with the sensation that came from her LP being drained. She was ready for it this time, so she didn’t shamefully fall to her knees again, but she lost as much LP as she had before.
<<Your followers have fulfilled the conditions for reincarnation. Initializing reincarnation.>>
A black mist appeared that completely obscured the bats from sight. There weren’t any noises like there had been with the skeletons, but the mist steadily expanded. There was so much that it could have covered up a few humans in addition to the bats.
“Since there was an announcement, the reincarnation must’ve succeeded… But nothing is coming out…”
“Be silent and watch. Look, the haze is clearing up.”
While she thought Ah, is it “haze,” not “mist”?, she watched the haze dissipate as the count said. What sat there where the haze had been were definitely not bats.
“Who are they?! And how come there are only three of them?!”
“Hoh. Intriguing, intriguing… It appears that three bats reincarnated into a single mormo. A single bat was too weak by itself.”
“‘Mormo’?”
“Indeed. A type of vampire that specializes in transformation.”
“A vampire!”
There were three beautiful women seated on the floor, mostly human-looking but with pale faces. They were stark naked.
“Um, count…?”
“Fuh hah hah. What a helpless child you are. Fret not; clothing shall be prepared.”
“Thankies!”
Even after being given clothes, they didn’t know how to wear them, so they simply tilted their heads while holding up the clothes in their hands. Blanc helped them each get dressed and stood them up, but they immediately squatted back down.
“They were bats until just now; they are unused to standing on two legs. They must now practice walking, using their hands… well, all human movement.”
“Ohh, I see…”
“Aaau… ueeh… en.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s my responsibility to make sure you can all do everything by yourselves.”
“While you can glean their intent as your followers, they also cannot speak. This was their first time trying to use words.”
Now that he mentioned it, he was totally right. There was no way bats could speak. However, they had always listened to her talk, and she had always understood their thoughts, so they did know words. In which case, it shouldn’t take long until they could handle conversations.
＊
After that, Blanc spent her time helping her followers learn to walk and speak. Occasionally, she would take the spartoi to the underground lake and beyond, letting them defeat lizardmen in order to earn XP. At the count’s suggestion, she used some XP to teach the mormos [Body Control] and [Nimble], which dramatically improved their movements. Before long, their training sessions ended, and the XP being earned went toward teaching the spartoi the same skills.
When she had the mormos fight lizardmen, they earned almost no XP at all. She realized that each mormo contained three bats of invested XP. Though she only gave them basic race-limited skills, they had an abundance of them, so they each were essentially three times Blanc’s level. Obviously they would earn no XP from lizardmen.
“So like, they’re way the hell stronger than I am, so good thing there isn’t some kinda mutiny system… There isn’t, right?”
“They are completely bound by [Subordinate], so it cannot be done. Even if that were not the case, the one who raised them and gave them blood to allow them to reincarnate was none other than you. Their wills hold not even an inkling of rebellion.”
“Ooh. Alrighty then.”
“More importantly, as I said before, mormos are a race that excel in transformation. You would benefit from testing it. It is a master’s duty to fully comprehend the servants’ capabilities.”
She checked and they could all learn the [Transform] skill. Maybe due to the fact that they had learned so many skills, all their trees were full of new entries.
“Hey you guys, what kinds of things can you turn into with the [Transform] skill? Let’s try it out.”
The three immediately nodded their heads, after which they vanished in a black haze, or rather a black mist. After a few seconds, the mist cleared, and standing there were three Blancs.
“Whoa! It’s me! That’s so awesome!”
When she went to check the skill again, [Transform] had become a skill tree, and the skill under it was [Change Individual]. This skill allowed the caster to adopt the appearance of someone whose blood had been ingested. The effect would persist until the user canceled it or they were hit by some kind of offensive action. The reason they could [Transform] into Blanc was probably because they had consumed her blood when they reincarnated.
Next, the three of them used [Transform] to turn into bats. Each one split into three bats.
“Why do they look familiar… Oh, you’re the bats from before reincarnation! Aw, I missed you guys… Ah, what happens if one of the bats dies when they’re transformed?”
“In all likelihood, when they revert, they would lose a third of their vitality. When turning into multiple organisms, I believe that as long as one body survives, after canceling the [Transform] and resting, a complete recovery is possible.”
“You sure know everything, coach!”
“Fuh hah hah! How long do you believe I have been a vampire? My title of ‘count’ is not just for appearances!”
The mormos could also use [Transform] to turn into wolves. For now, those were their only options, but as long as they sucked the blood of enemies weaker than they were, they could increase their list of [Transform] options that way.
“That means I’m weaker than these girls are…”
That kind of put Blanc out, but after the mormos all pat her on the back sympathetically, she felt even more pathetic, so she decided to get over it.
“Ah, I forgot! I need to give you all names. The spartois too.”
Blanc wasn’t that great at thinking up names. Though that should have been obvious from looking at her own name.
“All right, I’ll start with the mormos. You’ll be Azalea. You’re Carmine. And then you’re Magenta. For the spartoi, you’re Vermilion, you’re Crimson, and you’re Scarlet.”
They were all names having to do with red. Blanc thought it was a pretty neat idea for something she came up with. And since her own name was also based on a color, it was cool that they all followed the same theme.
“But man, our power level has really beefed up now. It’s about time we take over a country… or maybe not quite yet, but a city at least might be doable, how about it?”
Oh right, this was the topic that started everything.
TL note: The mormo isn’t classically considered a vampire, but it seems to have turned into a type of vampire in modern times, perhaps in the literary pursuit of finding monsters to use in stories that aren’t the typical mainstream ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormo
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