"Meet your family... Lina?" Aldritch called out softly.
"Yes, master." Lina answered and stepped out of the shadowy room into the light casted by the moon coming through the window.
Since Aldritch was sitting with the window to his right, Lina appeared beside him on the left and bowed with one knee.
'She still does that, huh?' Aldritch thought to himself. It was fun earlier, but maybe it was time to have her stop. Lina was the first to become part of his family, so naturally she was to hold some level of power in future... well, depending on how things went.
Aldritch could see the jerk from Ingrid's body language as she wasn't expecting someone to suddenly appear. At that same moment, Olgud appeared behind her and locked the door, drawing another reaction from her as she just found out there was another one.
"Don't be so surprised, besides, you should have noticed them already as soon as you entered the room, after all, they weren't even trying their best to hide themselves." Aldritch said, knowing fully well that it wasn't exactly true, since the two has actually attempted to hide themselves once they sensed that their master brought someone who they suspected to be human.
"Master." Olgud said, going to his knees before Aldritch stopped him midway.
"Enough. You don't need to do that every time, a simple bow would suffice, or so... Ingrid here will teach you two more on it later." Aldritch said to Lina and Olgud.
"Go on, have a chat and some get together." Aldritch said before turning his attention elsewhere, looking at his system.
...
.
[Name: Aldritch Mondragon Hellsing]
[age: 22]
[Rank: Ordinary]
[Race: Vampire]
[Evolution: Blooded Vampire]
..
[Blood Bank: 10]
[BP: 27]
..
[HP: ====]
[SP: 60/60]
..
[Strength: 12]
[Agility: 19]
[Dexterity: 11]
[Vitality: 10]
[Intelligence: 10]
..
[Family (Hellsing)]
[Race: Vampire]
[Evolution: Blood Sucker]
[Racial Skills: {Blood Manipulation (Lvl 1} {Minor Compulsion Lvl 1} {Healing Factor}]
[Loyalty: 70]
.
'Olgud has the highest loyalty.' Aldritch was sincerely surprised, since he thought that would be Lina, but even then, the margin was so tight it was basically the same. As for Ingrid, her loyalty being at 70 was understandable.
Apart from that, he also noticed that he couldn't access their skills, but he could still see their racial skills which was good enough. He could always just enquire about their other skills if needed.
'None of them can turn people into vampires, I thought they'd all have the ability to do so.' He thought to himself. Then again, seeing as the higher the evolutionary rank they were, the more racial skills they possessed, he was certain they'd access the ability to do so once they reached the same rank as he currently was.
'Then again, how do they evolve, can they really do so on their own? System?' Aldritch asked.
[Those under your family without the help of the system can undergo evolution on their own, though the requirement may be different from yours. Alternatively, you can also aid in their evolution through the system]
'I see.' Aldritch knew that there were other ways for a vampire to evolve, like age and other means, but then there were strict requirements and rules governing such evolutions.
'That means I can always aid their evolution... but before that, I have to think of developing myself first, I can think about this another time.'
Aldritch's focus returned back to those before him as they were involved in their conversation.
"The magic tower has come up with a means to evaluate a person's strength using a ranking system. Actually, it's not that they developed these ranks or anything, they just found a way to access the records from what already is, using mechanisms influenced by rules of the other world.
Word has it that the strongest human and his party of great powers of the kingdom all died to go through the gate to the other world and back. When they returned, they brought back several things and information, and amongst those things was what enabled the magicians to create the device that can tell a person's strength.
Their sacrifice was great and helped us advance further..." She kept explaining different things.
Aldritch who listened from the side was shocked to see that they were communicating. Even though he told them to get along, he wasn't expecting communication at all, actually, he just set the stage up for some drama, but to his surprise, things didn't seem to go the way he initially thought they would.
'Did they gain the ability to communicate because of me? I really don't understand.'
Listening to Ingrid, Lina was intrigued, she wanted to know what rank she was and how strong she was.
"So, what rank are you?" Lina asked.
"Last I checked, I didn't have any aptitude in magic, more like the littlest, and of course, my rank would be ordinary, I'm yet to set foot into the actual rankings that matter."
"What do you think my rank is?" Lina asked.
"There's no way I'd know that, you'd have to visit the magic tower to test it yourself, but... I doubt you'd be able to do that." Ingrid said, looking at Lina with a faint smile.
"Of course, humans will attack me on sight."
"Correct."
Listening to them, Aldritch couldn't help but expose to all of them what their ranks were, well, except Ingrid who already know hers.
No one questioned him on how he knew this, but Aldritch could see the inquisitive eyes Ingrid cast on him, after all, he wasn't supposed to be able to figure out something like that without the help of the tool used by the magic tower.
"Umm, master Aldritch, may I, have a word with you?" Ingrid requested. She appeared to be even more submissive than before after her interaction with Lina and Olgud.
Aldritch understood her words well, so he asked Olgud and Lina to excuse them. Both of them were yet to feed, so he left them to it with a firm warning to be as discrete as possible and not to overdo it or kill anyone. "If you run into trouble and involve the authorities here, I won't come to your rescue. Go on then."
"So, what do you wish to talk about?"