Sean didn’t miss the old world.
That was boring. He’d have turned into an office worker who worked from nine to five and would have gradually lost his will to live on. If he’d been left to his devices, maybe he would have had his throat ripped out by a vampire or something else.
There were far too many cues that he hadn’t picked up on before but was only now realizing it. He wouldn’t have even bothered to pick up on them before. They were so nonsensical that anyone sane wouldn’t believe it until they were faced with the grim truth.
Sean?
He’d faced it a long time ago. He’d realized there were monsters and what his family did back in Veidrheim. Only recently did he find out that Clara had been a vampire. He hadn’t recovered from that. Rather, there was no need to recover from it.
She was a vampire, but… so what?
She was still Clara, was she not?
“It’s a caveat of the profession.”
Clara’s voice resounded through his head.
What was her profession? Was she some bigshot like Aunt Charlie said she was? She could be wrong but her experience was far greater than that of his. Hell, not like he had anything that could be called ‘experience’. He’d killed some giants, mostly through luck. He was used to killing anything that wasn’t a human.
The same would apply to monsters but that didn’t mean he knew.
A sword didn’t know the intricacies of how someone was killed or what the things it was killing were. Sean was like that. He could kill but that didn’t mean he knew them. Clara was a vampire, that Evans fellow was a vampire and there were the mindless ones. He’d heard of them from his father’s teachings hidden in fairy tales.
He was alone like he always wanted to be.
“It’s ironic,” he said to himself, staring down at the water and the reflection of the sun in it. The soft breeze of spring refreshed him as he breathed the air into his lungs. He filled it once and kept it there for a few seconds, then he let it out.
Sitting on the grass and staring at the creek flow was relaxing. He could hear the sound of water flowing with no birds around to distract him —that was nature. He never fancied the sound of living things but the things that weren’t alive? The trees rustling in the wind and water? They were beautiful.
The buzzing of insects, the chirping of birds, and the roars of beasts —they were unwelcome, tiring, and annoying.
On this side, there weren’t many trees compared to the other one but there were still plenty. They often swung as the wind blew on them.
“I missed them and the moment I see them, I get annoyed,” he mumbled underneath his breath and lied down on the grass, staring up at the sky. Clouds floated through the skies and one of them covered the sun behind itself.
The voices…
They came at the worst times but ended up being gone when he needed them most —when he needed to be reminded of ‘who he was’.
Sean crawled up into a sitting position and raised a finger. He ejected the Mana from his fingertips. Computation made it easier as he was finally acquainted with the Mana Circles that were used for the Mana Disc Spell. It was just like a Mana Ball now, created with a simple mental command. Then the Push Component came into play and sent it flying at the water.
It cut into the water and slid deep into it, letting it splash. Some droplets got on him, sitting only a meter away from the water and all. Getting any closer would mean he’d be sitting on mud and not the grass. It was refreshing.
That reminded him, though.
He hadn’t taken a shower in forever.
Sean looked at the water. It would be cold but it couldn’t be that bad. The water looked deep enough he could be submerged up to his hips but not quite enough for him to drown. He couldn’t swim but much of the fear he had of water was if he was on something like a boat. Getting in was slightly different, but even then, going in there alone, without someone to save him was practically suicide.
While he had spent a good amount of time in Veidrheim, the dirt and grime from then were gone. Otherwise, he’d have been caked in blood from his fight with Helthur.
How many days had it even been?
On the first night, he’d returned to the complex and was attacked by a ghost. Then he spent the day at Mr. Ishida’s after being saved by Oliver.
After that, he took a trip to Chris’s home and met Liz there. They then ran into the vampire in Clara’s home and he managed to get home and got drunk. The next morning, he woke up and moped for a while. Liz was brought home and that night, they raided the Haven.
That was last night.
So it had only been two days.
It felt like forever.
Life had become too adventurous, without a moment’s rest in-between. There was rest but it didn’t let him relax. It was taxing on his mind.
He didn’t mind the new reality he lived in. It was more interesting and he wouldn’t become some office worker chained to a desk for hours. But he did wish that he could take a break from it, even if it was only a slight amount.
It was almost evening and he was still wide awake —a side-effect of staying up all night for something dumb. But he was glad. He didn’t have to mope nor ‘hate’ the vampires all day anymore. He knew she was alive, even if she was a ‘monster’.
Quite frankly, he could spend all day here, staring at nothing and just overall… doing nothing. It was relaxing to laze around again, after all these years. High school and university were full of pressure. So was the new world he now lived in.
“Sean Morris, right?” asked a person from the other side of the bridge quite loudly, sitting there casually. It was a guy wearing a white tank top and loose pants, with a buzz cut. He looked short, shorter than even Sean himself who wasn’t really a big guy. There was a grin on his face and he could see bulging muscles —he definitely worked out, or not. It was hard to tell after the System.
The creek was on the backyard equivalent of the Morris manor so whoever got in here must be someone who had business, whether that be good or bad. The fact that he didn’t recognize the boy was an issue. Its width wasn’t much, only about four or so meters.
Who was he?
He wasn’t there a moment ago, Sean was sure.
“Yeah,” he said, staring at him. Trying not to be noticed, he used an Appraisal on him. It was rude to slip away in the middle of a conversation so he took care to listen to whatever he said next.
Skill ‘Appraisal’ has been activated!
Name: Hugh Winter
Class: Warrior Lvl 6
Title(s): N/A
Mana: 240/240