My actions after learning that I was a vampire were swift.
I'd been born a noble, my appearance would probably grow into something striking, and I'd been convinced I'd won the lottery of life — only to suddenly find myself standing at the edge of a cliff.
I had to find some way to hide the fact that I was a vampire.
To do that, I needed to rethink Skills — something I'd never paid much attention to before.
I'd harbored a slight fascination with magic, so I'd done a little practice, but other than that, I'd never been all that interested in Skills.
If something convenient came along, sure, I'd grab it — that was the extent of it.
I'd been born a noble, so even without Skills, I figured I could get by just fine.
But that kind of thinking was no longer an option.
I had to acquire a Skill that could mask the fact that I was a vampire.
If Appraisal existed as a Skill, then there had to be some Skill that could interfere with it.
The question was how to obtain that Skill.
I tried spending Skill Points to acquire it, the same way I'd gotten Appraisal, but it didn't work.
Apparently, this method required me to name the exact Skill correctly before the System would respond.
But I didn't know what the Skill was called.
I tried all sorts of variations — "Appraisal Interference," "Interference," and so on — but nothing hit.
I had to figure out the Skill's name somehow.
Above all else, I needed information.
And for that, I needed books.
Eavesdropping on the servants' conversations wasn't going to yield much useful information.
It was all gossip about the spider.
Sure, I was curious about that too, but right now I had more pressing concerns. If I wanted current events, eavesdropping was fine, but for actual knowledge, books were the way to go.
That was the policy I settled on: I would be active at night, after everyone else had fallen asleep.
During the day, the servants kept a close watch on me, and I couldn't risk any suspicious behavior.
But as someone who was naturally nocturnal, sneaking around at night was child's play.
The Sleep Resistance Skill also quietly helped with that.
Come to think of it, I'd been nocturnal because I was a vampire. Looking back with that in mind, there were plenty of signs I'd missed — how my mind would drift into a fog during the day, how my throat would rumble at the sight of a dead bandit. The clues had been there all along.
That said, I'd never actually drunk blood since I was born, and sunlight didn't turn me to ash.
Was the ecology of vampires in this world different from those on Earth?
If there were any books about vampires, I'd need to read those too.
I slipped out of my room quietly.
I'd never shown it in front of others, but I could already stand and walk. Unlocking a door without a key was trivially easy.
This was a large mansion, and I had no idea where the study was located.
On top of that, not everyone was asleep — there were guards posted for nighttime security.
I moved quietly, staying out of sight, checking each room methodically, searching for the study.
If I started getting physically tired, I would turn back, return to my room, and pretend to be asleep without a care in the world.
I repeated this routine over several days.
And thanks to doing just that, I acquired the Skill "Stealth."
Was it the kind of Skill that reduced one's presence? In my current situation, it was an incredible blessing.
My "Dark Vision" Skill also rose to Level 3.
Whether I'd been born with it or simply never noticed before, I couldn't say, but apparently I'd always had Dark Vision.
And finally, I found the study I was looking for.
From then on, I made it a daily habit to visit the study and devour books.
At first, I struggled because I couldn't read the writing, but knowing my life was on the line gave me plenty of motivation.
Decoding the rules behind what looked like gibberish from scratch would have taken an absurd amount of time, but fortunately, the study also had children's books. From those, I was able to learn the writing system of this world relatively quickly.
They were fairly old picture books — perhaps ones my father had read when he was a child. The content skewed toward stories for boys as well.
While I was learning to read, my Dark Vision rose to Level 6, and Sleep Resistance reached Level 2.
Stealth climbed to Level 3, and I also learned two new Skills: Silent Movement and Presence Detection.
I was steadily accumulating an assassin's skillset.
From there, I moved on to reading books one after another without pause.
The books in this world often didn't have titles on the cover.
Because of that, it was impossible to tell at a glance what any given book was about.
I had no choice but to keep reading through them until I found what I was looking for.
Perhaps because of that relentless reading, I also acquired the Skills Concentration, Memory, Arithmetic Processing, and Parallel Thinking.
Having this many Skills as an infant was, by any measure, abnormal.
I was pretty sure I'd overdone it.
But there was no other way if I wanted to survive.
As long as I could hide my vampire nature during the Appraisal ceremony, I'd just have to tolerate standing out a bit too much.
And so my days continued — halfheartedly enduring the daytime hours, then holing up in the study every night.
The spider situation had drawn a number of important guests to stay at our household recently, which made reaching the study increasingly difficult.
More people meant a greater risk of being discovered.
There were even times when I had to give up and turn back before reaching the study.
What an annoying spider.
But lately, I'd been thinking about that spider more and more.
Its behavior felt strangely... human.
It would ruthlessly annihilate the bandits, yet turn around and heal the townspeople.
Mother called it a Holy Beast, but having seen it firsthand, I got the impression of something more like an evil Monster with a human will residing inside it.
Could it be — no way — could that thing be a Reincarnator like me?
No, that couldn't be.
That was way too far-fetched, even for me.
《Proficiency has reached a certain threshold. Skill "Prediction LV1" acquired》