Chapter 3: Hub World

"Thanks so much Veronica! This is so helpful!" Rose exclaimed joyfully. Veronica saw her and just smiled seeing how cute the girl was acting.

"It's no problem, now you best be on your way, the sooner you start your job as a hunter the better prepared you will be for in the future" Veronica told the small girl who immediately went to her system and pressed the fast travel tab pressing on the hub world getting a countdown timer from the system starting from 10.

"I'll see you next time Veronica!' Rose exclaimed to Veronica, Veronica nodding to her with a bright warm smile, before remembering something important.

"What's your name?" she asked, but not before the countdown reached zero, making Rose disappear in a flash of blue light, ending up in the middle of a well-lit town square with streetlamps and a large fountain and closed down market stalls in the middle of the night.

She was amazed, she had never seen such a mysterious place, a mediaeval era city, but it had street lights? She looked around, her eerie glowing red eyes illuminating the darkness she currently stood in, conveniently one of the only patches of shadow in the city.

"You're late" a voice said behind her. She turned quickly jumping back, her stand getting ready to fight.

"Woah, Woah, I'm not here to fight you, I'm here to help you get used to the city and your new job" the man explained. He was a tall man with long dark hair as he sat on the fountain ledge, dressed in heavy armour that looks like it would fit a paladin.

"My name is Koujou, I'm a warrior hunter that volunteered to help you get used to things around here before letting you go out on your own, and you are?" The man, who introduced himself as Koujou said to the girl and then later asked the girl her name. Ii

"I am Rose, Rose Tepes, nice to meet you Koujou, I hope we get to know each other and become friends." Rose had replied to Koujou with a cute smile showing off her rather large fangs.

"A vampire huh? Haven't seen many of you guys around here lately, they usually coop up and sleep all day instead of running around baking in the sun" Koujou said, rather enthusiastic about meeting a vampire.

"Oh? How many are there, do you know Koujou?" questioned Rose, excited about possibly meeting more vampires like her already after just arriving.

"No, sadly I don't young lady, sorry about that, for now though I recommend you getting to an inn and eating, or at least sleeping for tonight and I'll give you a tour of the entire city tomorrow, be prepared because the city is pretty big!" Koujou exclaimed, Rose being taken aback by his straightforward nature.

"I would Koujou, but I have no money to afford a room in an inn nor food" Rose explained to Koujou as he was thinking for a long time before turning to speak to her again.

"Did you get the gift package for newbies, everyone gets one." he explained to Rose, as she checks her system's inventory, finding an item in her inventory labelled 'gift box'. She tapped the image of the box and it materialized right in front of her, putting her hand out as it lands in her hand and she opens it.

The contents of the package were basic light gear, a sword, and a pouch of coins that was rather heavy, a gold coin falling out of the top of the pouch.

"Is this the money here?" Rose questioned to which Koujou was happy to answer.

"The golden coins are Aurum, silver is Argentum, and copper is Aeris, and theres a fourth one being holy coins, or Sancti. The silver is worth 100 coppers, the gold is worth 500 silvers, and the holy coins are worth 1000 gold coins respectively. This is the denarius system and the official way of saying it, but most people will just call these gold, silver, copper, and holy coins." Koujou answered to Rose, Rose being satisfied with the answer.

"Alright let me check how much I got from this pouch." Rose said, opening it, seeing 2 gold coins, 15 silvers and 50 coppers smiling seeing how much they gave her.

"Will this be enough?" asked Rose.

"More than enough, you could have multiple buffets tonight if you wanted to, that's double the amount that a normal hunter usually gets in those!" Koujou exclaimed in false outrage of the favouritism by the gods that gave her the box.

Rose started laughing at Koujou's antics, enjoying the company of her new friend.

"So, where is this inn? I'm starving and want to sleep in a soft bed tonight and then tomorrow I can get that tour yeah?" Rose has told him, already trusting her new friend, why wouldn't she? He wouldn't have had to act so friendly if he wanted to do her harm, she was a newbie adventurer and he was a long-time pro. She couldn't compare to how much experience he has.

"Come on, follow me I'll lead you to the inn, it's just a few streets away." Koujou said, taking her hand with surprising speed even to her vampire eyes and headed to the inn to check in for the night.

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The next day

Rose woke up feeling groggy, did she really have to drink all of that ale? She promised herself to never drink again. Rose got up and went to the dining area in the inn, it looking more like a pub than a dining area. She looked around and took in the sight around her.

There were drunken men already at the bar, who probably never left and just sat at the counter drinking the night away having fun. She walked up to one of the empty tables and sat down, a woman coming over to take her order as she ordered some breakfast, this not being normal sausage and eggs seeing as she was very thirsty.

To be honest with herself, she was incredibly nervous to actually drink blood, she was a human before so it wasn't normal for her to do that, but she was confident that if it were animal blood, she could probably stomach it, or at least try it to hold herself over until she was willing to try blood from a human.

The waitress left the table, asking the chef if they had any animal blood seeing as they didn't really get vampires at the inn and they don't want to cut open one of the staff members. The waitress came back to the table.

"Uhm, the head chef sent out a request for a hunter to hunt a few monsters, it'll be a few minutes but we can guarantee you fresh blood after the wait, I hope this is okay." she quickly said to the young vampire.

"It is fine as long as I don't wait here forever, seeing as I can actually do that ironically." said Rose with a grin. The waitress left quickly not forgetting to do a bow before.

"That was.. Odd." Rose said silently to herself.

"What was odd?" someone asked appearing behind her suddenly. Rose jumped a bit getting scared from the sudden intrusion, looking behind her to find Koujou.

"STOP SNEAKING UP ON ME LIKE THAT YOU ASSHOLE!" Rose angrily yelling at Koujou, making everyone turn to look their way, Rose noticing this and making Koujou sit down in the seat in front of her.

"Quite the scene you caused little miss, I would swear you love the attention that you get when you do it" chuckled Koujou, earning a hateful glare from Rose.

"What are you doing here?" asked Rose curiously.

"Why I was here to pick you up for your tour and decided to sit down and have breakfast with a lovely lady" Koujou flirted earning a glare deadlier than the first one.

"I'm waiting on my food, it should be here soon I need to feed." said Rose, feeling a curling pain in her stomach from not feeding even once yet since she became a vampire.

"I could always let you drink from me you know.' Koujou spoke, Rose making a disgusted face.

"And get a disease? No way." She said as Koujou acted heartbroken before They kept talking before long their food was brought to them, Koujou ordered a steak with a baked potato and bread with ale. And for rose, a huge boar was plopped down on the table by a huge hunter that smiled at the little girl.

Rose froze, how was she supposed to drink all of this?? Nevertheless, she built up the courage to bite down on the neck, warm thick blood filling her mouth, the taste like candy to her as she dug in without restraint after tasting it. "Whoa there Rose, don't drink it all in one bite, haha!" Koujou laughing at his own joke as she was latched to the giant boar, easily draining multiple litres in the matter of a minute. Koujou smiled at the sight of his friend thoroughly enjoying her meal, draining the boar dry into boar jerky.