Chapter 21
The next morning was rather uneventful.
Asmodeus was currently standing in his walk-in wardrobe. He had completed his skincare and applied his new sunscreen.
He stepped into the balcony.
“Finally, no more problems from sunlight. But…”
“Why does my skin look slightly duller than before? My veins looked more highlighted…”
*knock knock
“Young master,” William called, “The breakfast is ready, please come down to eat.”
“Okay!” Asmodeus replied, then stared at his skin one last time. “I'll find out later. Where is my shirt now?”
Asmodeus found Cassandra in the dining room and tackle hugged her.
“Mom!”
“Morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?” Cassandra immediately patted his head.
“Yep!”
Vincent joined them shortly after, and he too got tackle hugged by Asmodeus.
“Dad!”
“Hello, puffer fish.” Vincent ruffled his hair.
“Dad, no. I combed just now. You're mean.”
“Oh, yeah? Then let me live up to the name.” Vincent ruffled his hair some more.
“No!”
“Let the kid go, Vince.” Cassandra said as she pulled Asmodeus in her arms.
She had successfully stolen Asmodeus from Vincent.
Both the parents had a hearty laugh at Asmodeus trying to salvage whatever was left of his hairstyle and pouting with his cheek puffed.
“Dad, when are you gonna give me the work?”
“After breakfast.”
“Okay…”
The breakfast was rather eventful with Asmodeus trying to guard his food from Lucy with a water spray.
After the breakfast, Asmodeus followed Vincent to his study.
“Here.” Vincent said, handing him two files, “These are two different suppliers. Compare them and text me later, whom you'd choose and why.”
“And after that?” Asmodeus asked, receiving the papers.
“Complete this first, kiddo. We'll decide the later part later.”
“And my ice cream?”
“You'll get it if you did a good job.”
“Yay!”
“Alright then, puffer fish. See you in the evening.” Vincent said, ruffling Asmodeus’ hair.
“Dad, not again.”
Asmodeus went to his study to complete the work, while carrying Vincent's office chair along with the files.
He read both the files, while making note of what each provides.
“It looks so messy on paper…”
Asmodeus opened his laptop, and started making a spreadsheet for the reports.
“A is charging more than B, why?”
“Oh… they have less defects.”
An hour later,
“Well, the warranty is same.”
“Oh, B produces 36 lakh panels while A only produces 4 lakh…”
“That doesn't seem right.”
“...” He read the profiles once again.
“B has it in annual, not monthly. I'm stupid.”
“Now I have to divide it.”
“... 3 lakh credits per month.”
“What about A?”
“Oh, 5 lakh credits per month. Then A wins here too.”
Another hour later,
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Supplier A has higher pricing but fewer defective panels, and shorter delivery time. The warranty is the same, so there isn't much reason to choose B, except price.”
“And if Dad suddenly needs more LED panels, A would be ready to deliver faster.”
“Great. A is better than B”
“I again forgot which is the greater than sign. I have to type the whole sentence now…”
“But, why would anybody choose B? B shouldn't be existing if A is so much better.”
“I'll ask Dad after he comes home.”
Asmodeus wrote the question on his palm, so he won't forget. He then picked up his phone.
“Lemme text Dad.”
[Dad, I'd choose supplier A. They have higher price but better quality and shorter delivery time. Also, they can deliver more stuff if you need them.]
Then he took a photo of the spreadsheet he had prepared on his laptop.
“Should I convert it to pdf? Nah, too much of hard work.”
Once he sent the image along with the message, Asmodeus decided that it was time for him to spin in the chair.
“Why does spinning around feel so good?”
“...”
“I guess I had an agenda for today.”
“Right, I gotta visit the subspace and learn about nether.”
“Yesterday I was interrupted by sunscreen.”
“I need to come up with an excuse for it to not happen.”
*ding
Asmodeus checked his phone while spinning, it was Vincent, who had texted back.
[Good, I'll hear the rest this evening. And put those files back on my table.] Vincent had typed.
[OK.] Asmodeus replied.
[And also put my chair back.]
[No!
And how do you know I took it?]
[I'm your father, kid. I've known you for nineteen years. Now put it back.]
[But it's paternal property.]
[That is not how inheritance works, Asmo.
Leave my chair back alone.]
[Okay.
Bring me ice cream in the evening.]
[*thumbs up emoji*] Vincent had just sent that.
“Why does he always send this?”
Asmodeus turned his phone off and leaned in the chair.
Somewhere in his office, Vincent was happy that a two hour work was paid in ice cream worth 25 credits.
While Asmodeus continued playing with his Dad's chair.
“No wonder Dad likes this. I wanna keep it.”
“But I guess I should return it.”
“...”
“After one more spin.”
One more spin became two more and then Asmodeus lost the count.
At some point Lucy joined him in the spin.
She lay on top of Asmodeus, covering him entirely.
“Lucy wanna go faster?”
“Mrew.”
“Faster it is!”
Nearly half an hour later, Lucy had heard the sound of her food put into her food bowl and bolted out of the room.
“Lucy likes food more than me…”
“Damned cat, eats all day doesn't pay rent.”
“Wait, I do the same.”
“...”
“I'm a cat. But I turned into a vampire. So maybe a vat?”
“...”
“Anyway, let me return the files.”
He had completely forgotten about the chair.
After putting the files on Vincent's table and returning to his bedroom, Asmodeus lay on his bed, playing with his ring.
“Now that the work is done, I can try to learn about nether.”
“That place is weird. I can touch and read books but apparently, my body is still here in the real world.”
“Either I'm physically going there—after all, I could bring a clock and a tablet there, and I wasn't naked when I entered—so it has to be physical.”
“However if that was the case Mom and Dad couldn't have been able to shake me out of there.”
“But isn't a subspace always physical?”
“Wait…”
“Did Christopher ever even call it a subspace?”
“I don't remember. I was the one who thought it was a subspace.”
“...”
“I assumed it was a subspace, It wasn't confirmed.”
“Then what is it? And why can only I go there?”
“No. Crow nowhere mentioned that only I alone could go there. That too is an assumption.”
“WHY THE HELL DOES THIS THING NOT COME WITH A MANUAL‽”
“Whatever, I'll just have to go there and figure it out myself.”
“But I might be disturbed for lunch…, should I go there after the lunch?”
“...”
“Ahh… I guess laying down and closing my eyes will fool people to think I'm sleeping and I can stay in subspace…”
“But it is no longer a subspace.”
“...”
“Fine, Crow-space.”
Asmodeus followed his plan accordingly. He turned on his side and closed his eyes.
“Ring, take me there.”
The ring obeyed.
“Great I'm here. And now comes the hard part. Searching through Crow-books.”
“I'm already tired just thinking about it.”
[What is the best sweet dish.]
“...”
“I have no comments.”
[Difference between humans and vampires.]
“Fangs. And I still don't have them.”
[How to become a Tier 10 like me.]
“Hit your head against a wall.”
[Blood spear arts.]
“But I wanna learn blood rose. Hell, just blood petal would be enough.”
[How to cultivate nether.]
“Finally found something useful.”
[Hello to you descendent. If I were you I'd also be curious about nether. So I decided to write this book on it.
Well, feeling nether isn't hard. But controlling it sure is.
And that is why you need to learn to focus better.
Now I'll teach you some techniques to increase your focus.]
“Skip.”
[Don't skip this part.]
“Skip, Skip.”
Asmodeus flipped through the book. Searching for the page, where the techniques ended and nether explanation would begin.
“Why the hell is there no index here? And there aren't even page numbers.”
“Are vampires taxed on page numbers that there are none here?”
He finally found the topic he was searching for.
[Very well. After all those exercises, we are ready.]
“Yep. I obediently followed all the exercises. I'm such a good person.”
[Now to control nether, you need to think about it.]
“...”
“That's it?”
[It isn't that simple. You need to feel nether and try to control it with your thoughts.
If you get distracted even a slight bit, the nether can harm you instead.]
“Wait, that's why you gave those exercises. Sorry, Crow, I doubted you.” Asmodeus bowed his head to the book.
“Alright, let's do your exercises.”
He flipped the book back to the beginning where Christopher had written the exercises.
[First of all, I would like to assume you have terrible concentration so that no matter what kind of person my decendent is, they can start without any problems.]
“Crow prepared for it for my kind.”
[Let's start.
Now I want you to choose any book of your liking. Then read and understand it without rereading more than twice.
Choose something easy so it's not the wording that might cause you trouble but only your attention span.]
“I'll fail before trying, and I have zero doubts in that.”
“But, Crow, you yourself cannot stay on a single topic.”
“... whatever.”
“Alright, let's pick up a random book and read that.”
Asmodeus searched through the library to find any book that would interest him.
After who knows how long, Asmodeus finally found something interesting.
[How to use fangs to drink blood.]
“Let's see if there are any methods for vampires without fangs.”
[As a vampire, blood is really necessary for you. So you need to know how to drink it properly.
I don't know how humans can produce blood, but vampires cannot.]
“Dr. Needles says bone marrow. And as an excuse, he poked my butt.”
“And there is no pain there anymore.”
[In Velacia, we used to produce blood using the blood using a plant called Bloodvein, and that is where the word ‘blood’ came from.
But humans have a different meaning for blood. And it was a bit hard for me to get myself familiar with this.]
“Wait a second, so the word ‘blood’ being same for both species is just a coincidence?”
“That means for vampires ‘blood’ means that drink from a plant while for humans it is what our body makes to transport oxygen.”
“And the wording is just a coincidence.”
[Now, let me teach you how to drink blood. First, extend your fangs. Then…]
“I don't have fangs, how do I extend it?” Asmodeus frowned.
“Will me imagining it work?”
[Then, suck the blood through your fangs.]
“...”
“Crow, what about a disabled vampire like me?”
Asmodeus flipped the pages to check if a vampire without fangs can drink blood.
“It's nowhere to be found. Let's try imagining it.”
“...”
Asmodeus tried imagining extending his fangs. Unfortunately, it didn't work.
“I can't. You know what, let's try outside Crow-space, maybe it's similar to blood manipulation.”
“Anyway, read without rereading more than twice challenge completed. What's next Crow?”
Asmodeus put the current book aside and picked up the previous book.
[Once you can do that, we can go to the next step. Here I want you to concentrate on one thing. It can be anything, a book, a chair, wall, anything.
Just choose it and keep looking at it. It's a boring activity, so your mind will want to wander. You have to bring your attention back to the object.
When I first started out, I was just as bad. So don't…]
“Alright, alright. I don't care so much to know what happened when you first started.”
“Now what do I choose?”
“Hmm… Crow did a good job with the ceiling, so I'll admire that.”
“I need to keep looking at it.”
“No other thoughts.”
‘...’
‘...’
Asmodeus lasted a second before his thoughts drifted around.
‘How do I explain Mom and Dad about becoming a vampire?’
‘Also, if I'm a vampire, it makes sense that I'd not have blood. Dr. Needle had no job staring my butt.’
‘Wait, what result is he even gonna get from a vampire bone marrow?’
‘Do vampires even have bone marrow?’
‘Also, why is the results taking so long? It's been almost four days now.”
‘What the hell are they even doing with it?’
‘Wait, why am I even thinking about all this, I was supposed to watch the ceiling.’
“Arrh, damn it. I failed so miserably.”
“Why can I not sit without thinking?”
“...”
“Have I ever sat without a thought or work?”
“...”
“Now that I think about it, never. I would be scrolling videos or playing with Lucy or talking with Mom and Dad or studying or literally anything.”
“I don't think I've just sat down to look at something and just that thing.”
“...”
“I'm gonna go mad if I keep doing this.” Asmodeus scratched his head.
“That's enough for today, ring, take me back.”
And just like that, Asmodeus was back on his bed.
“Okay, now about those fangs.”
Asmodeus stood in front of the mirror in his wardrobe. He clenched his fists at his sides and threw his head back toward the ceiling.
“EXTEND YOURSELF FANGS!!”, he screeched.
The only one who answered was…
*knock knock
“Young master, are you alright?”
…William, who had come to call him down for his lunch.
As for the fangs, they didn't obey him.
“Huh? Oh… yeah. I- I'm fine William.” Asmodeus’ face flushed with embarrassment.
“Very well. Please come down for your lunch.”
“O- okay.”
Asmodeus emerged out of his wardrobe, still red from self-awareness, while William was now an expert at not laughing.
Throughout their journey to the dining room, William had just one thought,
‘Perhaps I should suggest that Master Vincent soundproof Young Master's room.’
‘It may prove beneficial for everyone involved.’