The Reincarnated Vampire Just Wants to Enjoy Her New Life

Chapter 125: Busy Paper Work

After returning back to the fountain room, I teleported back to the 85th floor where all my things still were.

As I had some time before morning, I opted to use that to move my things.

There wasn't too much to move, as most of my things were inside of my bag like usual. With the virtually unlimited capacity, I had very little reason to not carry everything with me. Unless if my bag was stolen or broken, it was the safest and most convenient place for me to store things.

That said, both of those things were possibilities, even though I doubted that any random mugger would be able to steal my bag.

Once I did a quick inventory of things I needed to move, I went back to the 101st floor and went to work cleaning the place up. As it was still only a recently reached fountain room, the room was still covered in dust.

Once I was happy with the condition of the room, I headed back to the 85th floor. Grabbing my large items, I moved them to the 101st floor fountain room one at a time.

As for the setup, it ended up being mostly the same as it had always been.

The bed and couch near one wall, the storage shelves opposing them, and the bath tub near, but distinctly apart from the fountain.

And as always, despite the size of all the items there was still a lot of free space in the room.

All the while, I continued to levitate the orb of blood I had created earlier and had it follow me as I worked, occasionally sucking a mouthful as a tiny snack.

But by the time I was done moving everything, the orb had gotten cold and developed a thin film of dried blood on the outer surface. It wasn't very pleasant to put my lips to anymore.

(Oh well.)

At that point I simply finished drinking the orb and threw away the hardened outer shell. I didn't even want to consider chewing the hardened blood. I couldn't see the texture being that nice, and I didn't have some sort of shortage of blood in the first place.

(But that orb's pretty nice. It's quite habit forming.)

Since I had some time left, I pulled out the sample paper from my bag and played around with a few ideas, seeing if I could get a printing press working for this sort of paper or not.

The next few days went by pretty quickly.

Work was work as usual, but the interruptions came more often than usual.

New spread about my pregnancy and a lot of people came visiting, usually during work hours at that. Pretty much everyone wanted to have a touch, though I was glad that at least some people refrained themselves, especially when they heard that it was too early to even feel anything.

I hoped that people wouldn't keep bugging me about feeling my belly though. It wasn't like I had suddenly turned into a public exhibit because I had a baby inside of me now. Hell, something like half the world's population had the potential to go through the same experience, and quite a few of the women here had gone through it.

Just because I was a vampire didn't mean that it was any different. At least as best as I could tell.

The advice the experienced mothers did give me was nice though. Though Elli in particular seemed to be quite surprised by my pregnancy and asked for confirmation twice. Though in the end her advice was quite nice, as she had gone through the process three times herself.

Though I didn't know what to say when she joked how she was so good at surviving the process that she even outlived her kids and her husband.

(Morning sickness huh?)

Of all the things to watch out for that the other mothers had mentioned, that was probably the thing which worried me the most for the time being. Things like back pain, poor balance from the change of the centre of gravity, cramps, constipation, frequent urination, I couldn't help but think that either they wouldn't happen to me, or they were things which I wouldn't have to worry about for a while.

I mean, I couldn't even pee, so it wasn't even possible for me to worry about that.

The morning sickness was the same, in theory at least. As far as I knew, I was incapable of regurgitation. And I had tried. Or at least, I had gone through the process. Nothing had come up before though, so I had no reason to think that it would in the future.

But I could experience the feeling of morning sickness at the very least. The thought was a bit unpleasant, but it was probably a minor thing. Hopefully. The other mothers ended up hand waving it as not a big deal in the end. It was nothing compared to the cramps apparently.

Well, in the end, those were still things for the future. Most symptoms wouldn't even start until a month or two into pregnancy, let alone the ones that would only appear after the weight of the baby started to impact the mother's daily life.

In terms of my life after the sun had finally fled the skies, I had managed to build several prototypes of printing presses. The two most promising designs were a vertical press, and a roller style. The vertical press seemed to be much more reliable, but was slower at each press as the whole imprint had to be raised and lowered to both apply new ink and to be pressed against the paper.

Not like I had paper to test the system out with, as the presses were made with the larger sized sheets that Edgeworth was expected to supply.

But that was to end soon.

I managed to get ahead enough to open up a break day for the next day. Though I didn't need an entire day, I figured I'd might as well spend any remaining time to enjoy myself.

My bag was filled with a large assortments of supplies, enough for a thousand to go on for at least a month. My only worry was that since none of it was preserved, that it wouldn't actually last a month, but at least a significant amount of salt was included as part of the supplies which were to be sold. The villagers of Edgeworth could preserve the food themselves so that none of it would go to waste.

With the cargo gathered through the Hunter's Guild firmly confirmed and all business at home attended to, including a gift I baked as a way to kill some time before early morning came, I took to the skies and enjoyed my flight.

My business at Edgeworth ended up going quite smoothly.

The villagers were able to produce a bit over a thousand sheets of paper, and it seemed like the speed could be increased further as they got used to it. Materials wasn't really an issue as the milkweed grew far in excess of how much they would ordinarily use in the first place.

If anything, the main bottleneck was either the time needed to process the raw milkweed into the lightly bleached fibres to be made into paper, or the quantity of paper mills. The first the villagers could do something about, but the latter I would have to deal with.

But for the time being, it wasn't a big deal. A thousand pages of A2 paper in a single week was more than sufficient for my own purposes. One such sheet would easily make 16 request forms, possibly even 32.

Of course, that was presuming that people could fill out the request form well enough on the first try. If I had to keep correcting every form, this wasn't going to be enough.

Fortunately, in theory, the paper could be recycled, so if I needed even more, even if the furnishes ended up being the main bottleneck, all I would have to do was expand the paper mill.

Speaking of the mill, I swapped out the mithril screws for steel ones. The colour had definitely changed from a pearlescent white to a reflective silver, but I just explained it as a modification to further improve the presses. The fifteen percent addition of chromium should prevent it from any significant rust buildup for at least a decade of regular use.

In theory at least. Metallurgy wasn't exactly one of my strong suits.

After counting and confirming the paper locked up in the hidden safe at the mill, I moved on to Mint's store and took out all the supplies I had collected.

Meat, grains, fruits, and vegetables of all sorts, along with a few jars of honey, I singlehandedly filled up Mint's store's display area with foodstuff. In the end, there was even a bunch of wooden boxes left in front of the building.

It was a month's worth of food for a thousand after all.

Though there wasn't even a thousand people in the village. At most it was half that, but likely even less.

The shock on the villagers' faces was quite apparent as they looked on the mountain of foodstuff that couldn't even be contained in one of the biggest buildings of the poor settlement. The fact that this was the payment for only a week's work didn't seem to quite sink in yet.

At best, Alan, Mint's son, was probably the only one who was still in a coherent frame of mind as the villagers stared at the crates of supplies. Thanks to that, I was able to secure a place to leave my gift for the time being, fruit topped shortcakes. Enough for the entire village.

That, and a reminder that the foodstuff will go bad if they don't preserve it properly.

With him bowing down as he thanked me for everything, I quickly made my escape.

I knew what sort of thing was coming, and that there was no way I would be allowed to go home without joining in on their celebrations. It wouldn't be so bad, but the people here didn't know I was a vampire at all. That fact alone made it hard for me to join in on any celebrations with the villagers, as they would insist on me partaking on a feast or something, and my refusal of any food or drink would no doubt be interpreted poorly.

The fact that I would have to explain it as my biology could only make things even more problematic.

So instead, I made haste and exited the village before anyone recovered well enough from the shock to stop me.

And the moment I was outside and out of sight, I went invisible, and kicked off the ground, making way to the sky as quickly as [Float] and [Wind Magic] could take me.

It was unfortunate that even at the best of my ability, I could only fly half as quickly using these two skills together than I could while using my own wings and [Flight] while only cruising.

But when I thought about using Elli's shawl to fly in the day, my immediate thought was 'nope!'

Despite everything, it was still early afternoon as I got close to the dense cloud of fluffballs that filled the air above and around the fairy side of the country.

Like usual, the moment they noticed me approaching, they came like a zerg swarm.

"Wah! You guys! Geez, again?"

They pressed their fluffy little bodies against my own, rubbing through my robes like a cat trying to impart their scent on their favourite owner before being pushed off by the next.

"Ahahaha! Fine! Here!"

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of fluffballs that tried to get my attention, I threw a bunch of mini mana treats around. The initial wave scattered and raced after the treats, but that only gave me a few seconds of respite before the next wave hit, forcing me to try to distract them with another throw of mana treats.

I couldn't help but wonder if maybe my actions weren't actually helping but making things worse in the long run, until a trio of fluffballs teamed up to rub my cheeks.

There was no way I could resist feeding them when they acted like little kittens.

Three, five, eight, twelve, at some point I lost count of how many handfuls of mana treats I had tossed out. In the end, I was feeling a little lightheaded from how low my MP tank had gotten.

(That was...probably a bit much.)

More likely, it was probably more than just a bit, but it wasn't like there was any real chance of me getting into combat anytime soon.

After feeding only a small fraction of the virtually countless fluffballs that now inhabited our little nation, I slowly made my way down.

(Some food should do me quite well.)

The cure to everything was food after all. I looked forward to drinking some more dragon blood.

As I partially engaged [Materialize] and pondered about which jar I should pull out, there was a slight tug on my shoulders.

"Don't worry. I'll get you your mana treat in a bit. It's just still a bit early."

"Yes Master!"

I lightly pat the head of my cute little familiar. This girl ever got sulky when she saw her fellows being fed when she herself didn't get any.

But as I got close to the dungeon entrance, there was an entourage of fairies there for some reason.

"Ah! Scarlet!"

"Hi Aurae. Is something up?"

The fairy elder I was most familiar with called me out and broke out from the group.

"I thought it was you, with how the spirits were all stirred up."

"Yea, well, they are so cute."

A few of them wiggled out from my sleeves, and flew up to join the others in the sky. Though I could still feel even more still rubbing against my skin under my robes.

"Well, they are. But only you can make so many of them move just by showing up."

"Ah, erm, well..."

I tried to scratch my cheek while responding, but one of the little fluffballs rose up in the gap and hugged my finger, causing me to pat the little thing instead.

It was true. Every time I moved around, a whole bunch of them would show up, begging for attention. I had hardly noticed this fact before, but ever since the fairies had decided to move in full force, it was like I had a bag of catnip tied to me as I came ashore of an island full of cats.

"Anyways, are you free tonight?"

"I guess. Is something going on?"

"There is, actually. But...you look a little pale. Well paler than you usually are."

"Ah, well, you know. There's so many spirits, and I only have so much mana haha..."

My eyes turned away. It was my fault. I knew that. I should have a bit more self restraint, even though there aren't any obvious threats around, being this defenceless was probably bad.

No, definitely bad, as there were still people after my life.

While I couldn't give up making mana treats, I really needed to hold back and at least avoid letting my MP from getting so low. And maybe prioritizing on refilling myself rather than waiting until I got home.

"Not good! Not good! You're a mana being carrying a baby! You need to keep your MP high!"

A fairy I didn't recognize rushed up from behind Aurae and tried to drive in her point by rubbing my belly.

The fact that she continued to touch my belly and didn't once look at me in the eyes suggested that regardless of her point, her priorities lay elsewhere.

I grabbed the back of her shirt and pried the little fairy off of me and gave her a look before turning to the elder I actually knew.

"What does she mean by that?"

"We don't know much about vampires, but for spirits at least, their MP is just as important to them as their HP. Letting their MP run down weakens them quite a bit, and running out of mana is the same to them as running out of HP."

"That's...pretty scary then. Does that mean that other races don't feel weak after using up their MP?"

(The symptoms I've suffered after depleting my MP was signs of something that bad?!)

"We feel lightheaded, but that's about it. And we fairies are much more sensitive in regards to mana than the other races."

"I...see..."

It seemed like I still had very little grasps of what it meant to be a mana based life form. Even when I was told I was such a thing when I barely knew the fairies, I hadn't really thought much of it. Just that it changed a bit about my physical origin.

But to think that it had such drastic implications...

"Then I guess..."

I touched my own belly. Even though I couldn't feel any difference now as I could the last time I had touched my belly this morning, it felt like there was a greater weight involved.

"That's right. While we don't know for sure, if you let your MP go down too low, it might risk the life of your baby."

The elder's words caused an icy stone drop to the pit of my stomach. The very thought of having a miscarriage...the thought of losing Alicia after getting so close to being able to look her in the eyes...

My breath started to race as my heart's pounding rose up in my ears.

As fast as I could I reached into my bag and pulled out the first jar of blood I could and quickly drank from it, not caring that I was spilling something so valuable and staining my robes. Only when I had finally finished, that I was able to calm down.

I licked some of the salted caramel and dark chocolate flavours off of my hands before dowsing my body in some water to at least stop the blood from becoming a permanent decoration to my favourite clothes.

A quick check of my status confirmed that my MP was now full. My HP too, though I had no doubt of that, I checked it as well just in case.

"Well, don't worry about it that much. Just be a bit careful. We don't really know for sure after all."

"Huh? How come?"

"None of us had ever heard of a vampire pregnancy before. Your kind are pretty rare on this side of the abyssal chasm."

"Then...how do you know that running out of MP is so dangerous for me?"

"The spirits. They die when they run out of MP."

"Ah."

Aurae had mentioned that before. That was what was so terrible about what the elves did to the fluffballs.

"I see. So the spirits can have miscarriages if their MP gets too low huh?"

"No. That doesn't happen."

"Huh? How come?"

"Spirits don't get pregnant. They don't multiply that way, unlike all the rest of the races."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense."

It kinda did, but there was something that bugged me about that statement.

"Anyways! About that! So you're free tonight?"

"I guess."

(Ah, she got bored of the topic. These fairies really have an issue when it comes to attention span.)

"So! Come! Come! This way!"

I followed Aurae and the other fairies to the town square. In a slightly larger space between five huge trees hung the crystal mansion where all the elders live. The thing had grown quite enormous since I had last seen it. Its footprint hadn't grown at all, still measuring out as wide as a sixteen wheeler's trailer, but now it stood as tall as a five story building.

Its shape, along with the fact that it was entirely made of that weird crystal that the fairies liked, meant that it looked like a cross between a fairy tale castle and a floating palace. It really made me wish that either it was bigger, or that I was fairy sized.

Surrounding the mansion was the town's largest communal grounds, or at least the closest thing to one that the fairies had as they didn't really care much where they screwed around at. But when formal occasions happened, this was where they did it apparently.

And apparently there was some sort of formal occasion happening this day as well that I hadn't heard of.

"So, what's going on exactly?"

"Shhh! Shhh! It's a secret!"

"""Shhhh!"""

Whatever it was they were planning, it seemed I had to play along. Well, it wasn't like being surprised by these little guys was a problem. It did make me speculate what sort of thing they wanted to surprise me with, but that was as far as I got when the sight of something strange entered view.

Alvaldi was here, along with several of the titans I had befriended. When they noticed me staring, a few of them gave a hearty wave. One of them accidentally bumped the tree they were standing near, causing the crystal mansion to shake as one of its supports connecting to that tree threatened to snap.

I waved back, but for some reason the group refused to move from their position. It also looked like they were hiding something behind them.

As interesting as that was, nearby, quite a few of the others from the dark settlement was also around for some reason.

While a few of them seemed to come to this side on occasion, having so many was quite unusual. In fact, I spotted all the elders and chieftains aside from Harja, the dragonkin leader. She still didn't really acknowledge my position, or me in general, but hadn't caused any real ruckus about it so I've just left it be.

I didn't need to be friends with everyone, and it was only natural that some people wouldn't like me. It was just unfortunate that one of them was basically one of my coworkers as one of the main leaders of the nation.