Reincarnated as the Vampire Princess' Familiar-Chapter 12 - 11 - The burden of being special

Ayra told me the second bite would hurt less than the first... Bullshit! My body burns exactly like the first time! But maybe... that's just my pathetic physical endurance! Clotilde Valakys is right, I definitely need to improve my mastery of Vis magic, or I'll never compete at high levels and will be stuck in this dump—the Lunae Novae dormitory—forever!

I've never left my room until now, but if I want to learn the secrets of Vis magic, I have to! After all, talking about it with more experienced familiars can only help me. Of course, from the few glances and quick greetings I've exchanged with them so far... they don't seem very sociable. Or rather, they are, but not with me. Why? Maybe because I'm the new guy? Back in the human world, I changed two schools and three football teams, and I never had trouble fitting in or making new friends. Why should it be different here?

«How's it going, Hulk?» A guy stops to greet Gerard while he and I are walking down the stairs from the twelfth floor—where our room is—heading to the dining hall on the third floor. I guess that nickname comes from his enormous muscle mass. In fact, if he painted his skin green, he'd look exactly like the Incredible Hulk.

«Training together tomorrow, Hulk? If you want, I can ask my master for permission!» another guy suggests to Gerard.

He seems to be really popular; from what little I've seen, despite his threatening appearance, he's actually a nice guy—friendly and easygoing. It doesn't surprise me that he's so well-liked here. Besides those two familiars, many others have stopped to chat with him or just give him a quick hello, yet... no one has even spoken to me or given me a glance, as if I don't exist. I don't get it... I mean, if I were hanging out with the number 1 ranking, I could understand, but we're dead last and second to last in the rankings, both of us barely here for any time—what did I do to deserve this treatment?

My doubt is answered as soon as we reach the third floor, just before entering the dining hall.

«Hulk, aren't you ashamed to be walking around with one of them?» a guy, barely older than me, with spiky black hair and a tribal tattoo on the right side of his face, asks Gerard with disdain.

One of them? What does that mean?

I'm about to ask, but Gerard beats me to it. «He's not one of them, Luke! He's a familiar, just like us!»

«A familiar...» Luke repeats. With a swift move, the guy reaches out and grabs my tunic. He pulls, and... -SHRRRIP. With a sharp motion, he rips the top of my tunic off, tossing it to the ground with contempt, exposing my bare chest to the hundreds of familiars in the dining hall.

A heavy silence falls, broken only by murmurs in the background.

«Does this look like the body of a familiar?!» Luke snaps at Gerard and everyone present. Then, he grabs a piece of his own tunic, ripping it off like he did with mine, with the same contempt.

My eyes widen, frozen in horror. His body, slightly more muscular than mine, is covered in an innumerable number of scars, but unlike Gerard's. Those of Levreshka Valakys's familiar are mostly lash marks, but Luke's... entire pieces of skin are shredded from his abdomen, his veins swollen and blackened—likely from the many electric shocks he's endured—and a scar shaped like a 'D', which looks like it was carved with a large blade near his heart.

«This... this is the body of a familiar!» Luke continues, his tone growing more irritated and resentful. He points at the 'D'-shaped scar. «This brand... the brand of the Dulcar family, it was carved into my skin by that bastard Count Markus Dulcar right after I became his familiar...» Then, he adds, staring directly at Gerard. «Hulk, I remember your body the first night you arrived here. It was covered in blood from the lashings of that devil with pink hair, you couldn't even lie on the cot because those wounds burned so much, and now... look at this guy's body! Everyone, look at it!»

The gazes of everyone present fall heavily on me, on my unmarked skin, except for a few bruises from my fight with Gerard and Angelica.

«The only marks he has are the ones we gave him, the familiars! This, because, in the eyes of the vampires, he's special, not scum like us! Last night, my master punished me just because I'm not a predestined familiar like Princess Ayra Valakys's pet. How many of you have had the same happen?! How many of you have been tormented, tortured, just because you're not like Lyon?! Just because you're not... 'predestined'?»

One by one, most of the people raise their hands, some timidly, others more energetically, adding curses and insults aimed at their vampire masters and me. As if all of this were truly my fault, as if I somehow bear the responsibility for the tortures they've endured. Their gazes are filled with hatred, almost threatening, and they give me the impression they want to jump on me at any moment.

«Do you realize the bullshit you're saying?!» I snap, irritated by his absurd accusations. «I'm human, just like you, just like all of them! I didn't choose to be a predestined familiar, and I find it ridiculous that you want to blame me for all your misfortunes! But if insulting me and stirring up the whole dorm makes you feel better... go ahead! I don't have the time or the desire to waste my time with your whims!»

«My whims?!» Luke snaps, his face twisted with rage. «You call these 'whims'?!» he shouts, pointing to a particular wound, a long, relatively fresh cut that runs from his side to his armpit. «You're the cause of this, Lyon Valakys!»

«Your master is the cause of that, you idiot, not me!» I reply, just as upset. «If you want to blame someone, blame him!»

«Lyon, enough!» Gerard puts his hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me down.

«Luke Dulcar, the same goes for you!» interrupts another familiar, pushing through the crowd. It's a girl whose beauty hasn't been marred by this world's cruelty, with long, smooth brown hair and blue eyes like the sea. «The vampires already make our existence hell, we don't need to make it worse ourselves!»

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«Tsk...» After a disapproving grimace, Luke vanishes into the crowd.