Chapter 40: Study

As Alucard walked upon the dimly lit, relatively empty stone path towards the guildhall, he could not help but ponder over what had just transpired.

Luckily for him, he had a mask on to hide his expressions, if it were not for that then he didn't think he would be able to keep up his act. Talking to people in such a way was just as taxing as it was annoying in his mind. Of course, all he was trying to do was extract as much information as possible from Havel, and to that end, he was willing to do anything.

All things considered, he was a fairly mediocre teacher in his eyes, but considering it was his first time, he wasn't too bad, still certainly the best option he had.

To Alucard, he was nothing but a tool. It was a mutual relationship. Havel used him as a tool to get closer to and please Raven, while Alucard used him as a tool to further himself. There was no guilt to be had.

On the other hand, Raven himself was a far more interesting man. No matter how he looked at him, he couldn't decipher him at all nor why a librarian like him would have taken such an interest in a man such as he.

When he was outside of Raven's watchful eye, he began acting differently. That was even exemplified as his fatigue took hold of him— he began acting far less professional. It made him wonder why a seemingly simple library assistant such as Havel would hold Raven in such a high regard.

He shook his tired skull once more trying to rack his head around what happened, and before he even knew it, he had already reached the foot of the guild hall's lit, swinging doors.

There was light shining from the inside along with the sounds of conversations.

'People are still awake?' He wondered as he let himself in.

There he saw the now all too familiar sight of the vast guildhall, only it was distinctly cleaner from any other time he could remember.

The entrance itself was notably emptier than it has ever been, there were only a few tables occupied and only some of them were in conversation.

The front desk was still fully occupied with staff looking over towards the few adventurers while others were cleaning the slight hints of a mess still remaining on the floor.

He walked inside and up the stairs and did not notice anything other than the simple look in his direction from both fellow adventurers and staff. It was the first time he felt like he was not the center of attention when entering, which he assumed to be due to the dead state of everyone currently in it.

'It seems like even these adventurers have their limits when it comes down to late-night celebrations,' Alucard thought to himself as he climbed the stairway to the floor above. The hallway leading towards his room was dimly lit with torches, and the sound of heavy snoring was leaking through the closed doors.

As Alucard entered his room, he could not help but let out a deep breath before sitting on the table in the corner, leaning back to relax.

That was when he noticed hints of knocking coming from the window, and his attention was drawn.

Any normal man would have thought it to be the wind, but the still masked, smirking Alucard had something else in mind.

"I'm sorry if I was late my lord, hope you were not waiting too long," He opened the blinds only to meet a small, flying figure with purple wings.

"No need to worry Luck, you were right on time. So, did you manage to find anything?" Alucard whispered, closing the blinds once again and walked back towards his seat in the near corner, Luck trailing close behind as he spoke.

"No my lord, past the fifth floor, there was some sort of magic barrier, I couldn't fly past it…"

"Should have figured," Alucard sighed, slightly disappointed. "Well, did you find anything of interest in the first five floors?"

"I'm afraid not my lord… I truly found nothing of interest other than books that I could not read nor understand… I'm only proficient in tomes of the fairy tongue, which I found non-there to be seen… But, as I went up in floors, I believe that there were more books classified as "spell books,"."

"I see… Well, good work Luck, that's truly been a help," He smiled, leading to Luck fluttering around in joy.

"It's me who should be grateful that you let me free and help you instead of staying in the pocket!"

'This makes sense, Havel told me there were no spell books on the first floor. So, the higher the floor the more complex the spells… I have much to experiment on, whether or not I can both learn this new world magic and my system magic at the same time and if these Ki-arts are something I could replicate… But in the pursuit of that, I can't get anywhere without one thing…'

Alucard sat up straight and removed his mask, setting it to the side, revealing his silver hair and piercing crimson gaze— he knew it was going to be a long time since he would need that again.

And, from under his thick cloak, he pulled out several crumpled paper and set them flat on the table. As they uncrumpled, they revealed what could only be described as writing, only that writing was greatly different from anything the hovering Luck had ever seen.

"My Lord, what… What is that?" Luck asked.

"This? This is English, a special language no one of this world knows…"

"Oh! Oh wow!" Luck gazed in wonder at such foreign yet beautiful text. "As expected of my lord! Was this what you were doing in the washroom and why you took so long?"

"Indeed, I have no need to go there, I just used the time to write notes from what my teacher was saying into words I can understand and refer back to. I'd rather not reveal that I can write in an unknown language."

"Ahhhh! I see!" Luck nodded. "But, my lord, sorry if this is not my place to ask, but shouldn't you go to sleep and rest? You worked hard today and the sun will soon shine." Luck seemed genuinely concerned, yet Alucard could not help but smile at his suggestion.

"Don't worry Luck, I'm a vampire, I don't tire like many others do nor do I need sleep. It will be good practice for me to get used to this new self of this world. I'm going to stay up and study sleepless for as long as it takes, I'm gonna learn this language in no time, speedrunning has always been my specialty…" Alucard organized the papers on his desk in a way that was best for him, and he brought out that book that Havel had lent him and set it on the table.

He was fully aware that what he was about to do will be more than challenging, but it must be done in order to break out of his human habits and to further his plans of living in this new world.

"My lord… What's speedrunning?"

♦ ♦ ♦

Three days had past since Alucard's first visit to the library, and in those three days he had not slept a single time.

In the late nights and when the sun was shining, he could always be found in his room with papers and books in hand, deep into his studies while Luck would be sleeping to rest his living, non-undead self.

And, when the sun began to set, he would leave the empty guild hall to visit the library once more, where he and Havel would continue their lessons.

It was an experience that drained Alucard more than he could ever imagine, not physically but mentally. His body did not tire, but his mind was not accustomed to working at all times.

Still, he persevered and he felt like the results were more than worth it.

He had made much progress in that time. Although he only felt slightly more comfortable in his own body, he now felt comfortable reading the levels of the posted requests on the message boards along with some details, yet not proficient enough to read an entire book.

Other than the mental fatigue, there seemed to be one other consequence… He felt his hunger grow exponentially faster. And it was no simple hunger, when he tried to satiate it by hunting animals around the city, he found it to be no use.

It was a time that Alucard knew would come, a time of both risk and happiness. It was once again time to consume human blood...