Chapter 3 - Become a Mage (3)

I had come to attend a university lecture to fill my attendance requirements, but naturally, I didn't have the luxury of actually paying attention to the class.

"Kim Yohan."

"Yeees."

Yohan sat in a suitably secluded seat, raising his hand and answering the professor's attendance check while pondering the current situation.

"........."

Thinking about it wouldn't solve anything, but I couldn't exactly just sit around doing nothing. Yesterday, I had been too scared and overwhelmed to do anything, so I had simply left it alone. But now, I needed to investigate things myself, even if only a little.

I looked down at the Invisible Vampire that was probably sleeping inside the Grimoire in my bag.

Questions arose in my mind.

It understood what I said and moved according to my signals, but normal communication was impossible. I had no idea whether it was actually under my control or what it wanted.

…Was it even a vampire in the first place?

Naturally, becoming invisible might be one of a vampire's abilities, but this creature was different from the aristocratic image of vampires depicted in legends.

I cautiously took out the Grimoire and opened the first page.

[This book was written by a survivor of the Ninth Crusade and an investigator of magic, recording the magic he learned while being held captive in Damascus.]

'…The Ninth Crusade. What year was that?'

I searched the internet on my smartphone, and the information I wanted came up.

The Ninth Crusade ended in 1272.

And the aristocratic image of vampires began spreading rapidly after 1477, following the death of Vlad III of the Principality of Wallachia, who had been rumored to be a vampire.

In other words, considering when the book was written, the vampire mentioned in The Mysteries of the Worm wasn't the aristocratic Dracula, but literally a monster that craved the blood and flesh of humans and beasts.

I also learned that there were words such as strigoi and vârcolac for creatures like this, but that wasn't important information.

Well, they did share the characteristic of being weak to sunlight and active at night. So they did fit the popular image of vampires.

[The one who becomes the master of the Grimoire 'The Mysteries of the Worm' becomes the master of the 'Invisible Vampire,' a Familiar comparable to the 'Invisible Monster' once commanded by the Poet of Madness, Abdul Alhazred.]

But Abdul Alhazred? And what was this Invisible Monster?

Judging from the name, he seemed to be an Arab.

It was depressing that I couldn't simply laugh it off as some ridiculous medieval Grimoire nerd's setting.

'Help me, Google!'

Once again, I searched the internet. Surprisingly, I found something I knew about.

'Cthulhu Mythos.'

Basically, it was a dark cosmic horror genre where an insanely powerful space octopus appeared and humanity was brutally toyed with by terrifying Outer Gods.

I had never actually read the mythology or any of the original novels, but since it was a genre popular among enthusiasts, it appeared frequently in novels and manga, so I knew the basics.

Abdul Alhazred — a character from the Cthulhu Mythos. A prophet of the Outer Gods and the author of the original Al Azif, the book known as the Necronomicon. He was eaten to death by an Invisible Monster in broad daylight on a street in Damascus.

I fell silent after reading about Abdul Alhazred's end.

Being eaten by the monster he had commanded in broad daylight… That was some very useful information.

I closed the Grimoire again and put it back into my bag.

I wished everything could have been a dream. No, being in the Philosophy Department was already giving me a headache because I had to prepare for my future career. And now I was supposed to live in fear, trembling because I didn't know when some invisible monster bastard might kill me?

"............"

Just then, the professor, who had the typical "I am a professor" authority practically plastered across his face, glanced at me and suddenly raised his voice. Ever since I had confronted him once over the issue of buying a textbook, he had been giving me hell whenever he saw me.

"Raise your hand if you didn't bring your textbook."

I rolled my eyes once and raised my hand. As if he had caught me red-handed, he immediately began lecturing me.

"You're adults, not elementary school students, and yet you can't even bring a single book required for class. It's truly pathetic, absolutely pathetic. And you young men these days…."

If you don't have it, you just listen without it.

I wondered why I had to put up with something like this at a university where I was paying tuition, not elementary school, but since he was a professor for my major, I kept my mouth shut.

That didn't stop me from getting irritated, though.

I remembered the man who had died last night.

'Think good thoughts. Think good thoughts.'

Then I thought of the Invisible Vampire sleeping in the Grimoire, and even that thought came to a halt.

The class would be over soon. I should just eat lunch.

…And the moment I consoled myself like that—

Slaaash—

The professor's neck was torn apart.

"-!?"

The culprit was, of course, the Invisible Vampire, which had somehow emerged from the Grimoire and revealed its true form.

Its body was invisible to everyone else as it sank its teeth into the professor's neck and tore into him.

Crack—!

It happened so quickly that my eyes widened as I stared blankly at the scene.

Thud—

The professor's head fell, rolled across the floor, and sprayed blood everywhere. Unable to comprehend what had happened but reacting instinctively, screams erupted throughout the lecture hall.

"Aaaaaaaaah!"

I blended into the students fleeing the room and naturally ran down the hallway before entering the bathroom.

I hid inside a toilet stall and clutched my head.

'Why the hell did you kill him this time!? I was thinking good thoughts!'

Step—

I glared at the Invisible Vampire that had followed me inside after causing trouble entirely on its own.

"Grrrr…."

A dissatisfied growl came from its mouth.

Then another sound followed from its stomach.

Grrrrrrr….

"What…?"

Cursing at my own stupidity and complacency, I muttered—

"…Fuck."

Even if it was a creature of fantasy magic, a monster was still a living organism. Naturally, it needed food. The creature was hungry.

It hadn't finished eating at the place where the man had been killed yesterday.

Because I had fled the scene, and it had followed me, its master and the owner of the Grimoire.

It had endured its hunger until—

It sensed my thought about lunchtime and started eating.

But this time, too, the meal had been interrupted because I left the area.

"……….."

I remembered the end of Abdul Alhazred, who had been eaten by his own Familiar.

I calmed my trembling body, stood up, immediately left the university, and went to a butcher shop. There was no time to waste.

A vampire. A monster that craved blood and flesh.

It obviously couldn't keep killing people every time it needed to eat. That would be murder, and it would attract far too much attention.

The man's and the professor's deaths had been accidents, but the moment I started feeding it human beings as food, I would become an undeniable serial killer.

…That would be an absolute last resort.

Unlike later vampire fiction, which portrayed vampires as craving only human blood, early vampire folklore made no distinction between humans and beasts.

I needed to find meat to feed it instead.

So I grabbed whatever I could find at the butcher shop—pork, chicken—

"Ugh—!"

My hand hesitated for a moment in front of a pack of beef, but—

I put it in the basket anyway! I had some money saved from my part-time job, so I could manage for the time being.

With trembling hands, I carried a bag filled with packs of meat in both hands.

I returned home, put the meat into a large basin, and held it out to the Invisible Vampire.

"Please eat it…."

"Gyaa?"

The creature brought its face close to the meat in the bowl and sniffed it, then turned its head as if something was missing.

"Gaa!"

'Don't be picky about side dishes just because you're a monster!'

My brows furrowed involuntarily.

'Is meat alone not enough? Do I need to go buy something like blood sausage?'

Logically speaking, getting blood packs would be difficult. And my own blood was even more out of the question. If I tried to feed something this size with my blood, I'd end up wasting away.

I opened the refrigerator to get some water, just to calm myself down. I spotted a carton of milk.

Maybe because I was in such an urgent situation, something… something… started turning over in my head.

I hadn't read it in some specialized book, but I had seen it in manga: milk was supposedly blood that had been transformed.

A cow's blood was transformed into milk.

There were even passages in Catholic texts that equated milk with blood.

I poured the milk over the raw meat in the bowl.

Pure white blood and meat.

I held the bowl out again. The Invisible Vampire sniffed it, then buried its face in the bowl and began eating the milk-soaked meat!

Chomp~ Chomp~!

"Gyaaah~!"

The creature lifted its head and gave me a pleased cry before devouring the rest of the meat.

It almost sounded like it was saying, 'Thank you for the meal.'

"Ha… haha…."

Whether it was because of the relief of having survived or because the situation was so absurd, I found myself laughing.

"….Yeah, eat up."

Fine, let's admit it. Even if I hadn't known what it really was, I had bought the Grimoire, taken ownership of this bizarre magical creature called the Invisible Vampire, and become its master.

I could no longer return to the life I had lived before buying the Grimoire yesterday.

I couldn't live an ordinary life. If I remained ordinary, I wouldn't survive.

No more passively being afraid, running away, and panicking.

I would stop doing that.

The moment I took the iron-covered book into my hands—

As if reading its master's will, the Grimoire opened, revealing magical knowledge.

If I couldn't understand it, then I simply had to become something capable of understanding it.

I had no choice but to become a wizard.

.

.

.

And a short while later.

I threw this piece-of-junk Grimoire onto the floor.

Clang—!

"No! What's the Planetary Day!? Solomon's magic? Pentagrams? What the hell is Ars Paulina!?"

My head spun from all the medieval traditional magic nonsense.

"Where's Fireball!? Where's Chain Lightning!?"

Honestly, saying I hadn't expected a fantasy archmage who could throw fireballs from his hands would have been a lie.