Chapter 24
“Go on William, what did Dr. Needles say?”
“Dr. Nathan.” William corrected, “he said you might have pure red cell aplasia.”
“... I have no idea what you are speaking about, William.”
William explained, “Dr. Nathan explained that your bone marrow was not preparing enough red blood cells. And that it might have other underlying conditions.”
“Like what?”
“...” William looked away, “autoimmune, a viral disease or even…”
“Go on, William.”
“...” William hesitated for a few seconds before reluctantly admitting, “... cancer.”
Asmodeus’ expression darkened.
“Oh.”
“Is it as serious as it sounds?”
“Hopefully not. But when I asked, Dr. Nathan just said he cannot say anything before further tests.”
“I see.”
“Though,” William dejectedly added, “he did have haste in his voice. He wanted me to take you to the hospital as soon as possible. Tomorrow, if we can.”
Asmodeus collapsed into Vincent's chair. He gripped the armrest so hard, he could feel his knuckles go numb.
“Young master!” William moved closer to Asmodeus.
“That sounds bad.” Asmodeus muttered under his breath. All colour drained off his face.
“William,” he continued. “Did he say that it was cancer?”
“No. Thankfully, he didn't.” William's voice reduced to whisper. “But- but he did say that it could be. And that they need more tests.”
“I see.”
Both didn't speak for a while.
“Can people survive this?” Asmodeus asked, his gaze fixed on the floor.
“I hope so too, young master.”
“...”
Asmodeus’ eyes were now sharp, focused.
“He said it'd be better if I went tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Then we'll go tomorrow.”
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“Do Mom and Dad know?” he continued.
“I was about to call them after informing you.”
“Don't call them now. Tell them after they come home.”
“But-”
“William,” Asmodeus’ voice barely rose. “If you tell them now, they'll be worried the entire time.”
“They won't even be able to focus on work, even though right now all the possibilities are just guesses and not confirmed.”
“And I don't want Mom and Dad to be worried while travelling, or even working.”
‘Young master…
Why are you like this?’
“As you wish, young master. I'll inform them after they come back.”
“Thank you, William. And do tell them that I told you to hold on.”
“You sure?”
“Yep, totally. Also, I don't think I can explain it to them without making it sound worse than it is. So I'll be relying on you.” Asmodeus smiled pitifully.
“Very well, young master.”
“And don't make it sound like it's very serious alright?”
“I'll try my best.” William's voice was now barely above a whisper.
For a while a disturbing silence settled down upon the study.
Neither man spoke. Their eyes focused nothing in particular.
Both were worried but their thoughts differed marginally.
‘Why is young master's condition worsening? What exactly is going on?’
‘Is it perhaps due to me becoming a vampire? After all, all of this started after I fed the ring my blood.’
‘How do I explain it to master and madam?’
‘Christopher explained that the Vampires used to make a drink out of some plant and that is why they call it blood. And I need red blood cells for oxygen.
Does that mean, my bone marrow stopped producing it because vampires literally cannot do so biologically?’
‘Were there any signs that we missed? When exactly did young master start falling sick?
He's good at hiding stuff under humor. Did he ever jokingly mention something? How can I miss his health signs when I'm literally seeing him everyday? What is wrong with me?’
‘Mom and Dad must know about the vampire stuff. I need to tell them or they might worry about wrong thing.
It's better for William to explain the medical stuff while I explain them about turning into a vampire.’
Asmodeus finally broke the silence that settled upon the study.
“William, can I ask you to not disturb me for a while? I need some time to think.”
“Of course. I'll let everyone know not to enter your study.”
“That'd be great.” Asmodeus forced a smile.
The moment William left, the grim expression returned to his face.
“I need to know more about vampires. I can't keep myself from entering Crow-space just because I'm scared.”
“Hey ring, take me there.”
Just as he commanded the ring, he found himself in it.
The same two doors.
The same library.
Everything was as is. Except, he wasn't.
“Where is that book on vampire physiology?”
“Ah! Found it.”
He flipped across the book, searching where he had last read it.
[Though, as one goes higher in tiers, they learn how to control the amount of nether in the blood.
You'd currently have very little nether, so you don't have to worry about explosion.]
“Right after this Crow had character development and refused to tell me about nether.”
“And I stopped reading it so I could learn blood manipulation.”
“Maybe the book says something about bone marrow and all…”
[Well, as I was saying, nether can be learned from another book.
I'll also not go ahead with blood manipulation as this book isn't about it.
Now we can continue with why blood is important.]
“Hmhm. Go ahead.”
[At first, I wasn't able to find any bloodvein. Then my beloved wife or at that time, my neighbour, told me that she had never heard of that name.
It scared me a lot. Then I inquired if she knew about blood.
She laughed and told me that it is common sense. From her I learned that humans, like those special animals on Velacia, could produce their own blood. It was very similar to the stories I'd read in folklore books.]
“Anything about why vampires can't do that?”
[But I could never learn of why vampires couldn't do the same.
Perhaps, vampires could do so before but Ulnerdin took it away from us when he was heart broken by the bias he faced and moved further away from us in the sky.]
“The who?” Asmodeus looked utterly confused.
“Who the hell is Ul- Yuu- how do I pronounce it?”
“Uh… whatever. Tell me what the hell he has to do with vampires not having bone marrow?”
“Oi ex-vampy, is that part of your religion or something?”
[Though, I'm not that religious So I didn't really put much effort remembering all the stories, when I lived in Velacia.
Also, Rosenvein consisted mostly of Ulnerdials and so I've only heard that long ago, he was hurt and heart broken. That is why he distanced himself.
He was disheartened by his mother Velacia's indifferent to his sorrow and her punishment is borne by us vampires.
But Omeritals believe that he was always rebellious and…]
“Who wrote this beautiful drama? It has good plot but I've no interest in joining a cult.”
“I just wanna know if my condition matches vampires or if I'm actually going to die.”
Asmodeus sighed the sigh of a man who searched the entire internet to get information about mining only to learn about gardening.
“Let's skip it a bit.”
[Now that I've explained whatever I know about blood, I'd like to explain about strength of a vampire.]
“That's all about blood?”
“Maybe, people then didn't even have a concept of bone marrow. “
“These vampires sound like early humans. So it makes sense that they didn't know much about themselves.”
“This was a wasted trip.”
“Ring, take me back.”
Asmodeus returned to his study with a disappointed expression.
“I learned nothing useful...”
He stared at his To-Do list.
[To-do:
Learn how to make petals out of blood.
Learn how to control nether.
Access black market and get blood.
Confess to Mom and Dad.
Get ready for second year.]
“It needs changes now…”
[To-do:
Confess to Mom and Dad about being a vampire.
Meet Dr. Needles and ask if it's mild or if I'm gonna die.
Go through all the tests and hope needles aren't involved.
Learn how to make petals out of blood.
Learn how to control nether.
Access black market and get blood.
Get ready for second year.]
“I don't know if I'll even have a second year.”
“Hopefully I still need those highlighters. I might as well get 10 different pens, if I can.”
He smiled at his updated list.