Vampire Love Life

Chapter 02 – First Steps-1

Chapter 02 – First Steps

I opened my eyes.

When I came to, I was lying on a patch of grass under the shade of a tree.

Sitting up, I had a look around.

I was in the middle of a forest. The trees were pretty big, but I could see the dark blue sky easily in the many breaks in the canopy.

Through one particularly large break, I could see the peak of a large mountain. I repeatedly blinked, confirming and reconfirming what I could see surrounding that peak.

...For some reason I could see the stars even though it was the day.

...For some reason there were three suns, each a different colour.

...For suns, they weren't that bright. I was forced to squint, but I didn't get bright spots in my eyes for looking directly at them.

Still, it was a strange feeling to see a red, green, and blue sun rather than a single yellow sun.

As weird as it was, such a thing was a minor point for me right now. It was much more important for me to get my bearings.

The last thing I remembered was confirming the form entry in that weird office after slipping out of that strange line.

(That's right! I reincarnated!)

I quickly looked down to confirm my new body, but my excitement was quickly washed away with confusion.

The view as I tried to look down at my hands was pretty alien to me. The various shapes and sizes didn't match up with anything I was used to. My hands were tiny, and my limbs were slender. On top of that, it looked a bit like someone stuck their butt in front of me, but at an impossible angle.

A quick glance around me confirmed that I was alone, so I raised my hands and grabbed hold of the bulbous mounds that were blocking my sight.

I could feel my fingers sinking into the soft flesh as I squeezed.

My mind reeled. This feeling that was foreign to me was clearly being transmitted to my brain.

Hoping against hope, I put a hand between my legs and felt around, but that last desperate wish was shattered when a completely alien sensation started to signal my brain.

No longer having the energy to keep myself propped up, I flop back down onto my back and stare at the sky.

Now that I was looking at it more properly, the sky was strangely dark looking. It was more of a dark blue with some splotches of colour here and there, along with all the stars and three suns. It was hard to imagine it was the midday sky, but everything below that suggested it was so.

The vegetation around me didn't look too different from Earth, but the sky, and of course my own body was.

I looked at my own hands. They were tiny and so frail looking. My arms were like sticks. It wasn't like there wasn't any meat on them, but even the bones underneath were small. My fingers overlapped when I wrapped them around my wrist. I couldn't do that before. They wouldn't even touch.

There was so much I didn't know about myself or this world.

No, in a sense, I didn't know anything yet. It was possible almost all my knowledge and common sense didn't apply in this world. There wasn't anyone around me to help either, so I was stuck figuring it all out on my own.

Being dropped into the wilderness with nothing to my name, I had to start with survival in mind.

Rather, I didn't even have a name, now that I thought about it. I could certainly use the name from my last life, but considering how much changed about me, it didn't feel right.

Well, my name didn't matter if I didn't have anyone to call me by.

I dug into my memories, and found some stale, half-baked knowledge about survival that I picked up randomly online at some point.

"When it comes to survival in the wilderness, always keep the rules of three in mind" I mumbled to myself.

The cute, high pitched voice that reached my ears made my back itch. It felt so unnatural for such a sound to come out of my mouth, but I had to get used to that.

(The rules of three state that you can only survive for three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food, and three months without hope)

Well, I was breathing fine, so I had already cleared the first step. The second was my next concern. Shelter didn't refer to a structure hide in, but rather something to generally protect yourself from the elements. In other words, clothes. Something I was really lacking in.

I looked at my bare skin and sighed. If I was looking at this body from the third person, I'd have been pretty excited, but the first person perspective ruined it for me.

The three hours without shelter most likely referred to suffering from exposure and freezing to death, but I wasn't cold in the slightest. The environment didn't feel particularly warm, but I didn't feel cold despite that. Even still, I did want to protect my dignity at least, even if nobody was around to strip me of my modesty.

After that, water was next on the list, and food after that. There was no harm in looking for all three at the same time, but it was important to properly prioritize.

With that thought in my mind, I quickly rose up, and almost came crashing down just as fast.

My centre of gravity had drastically changed, making it more difficult to stay balanced. Not only that, but my legs were further apart than in my last life, making my steps awkward.

To think simply standing was so difficult in a new body. I wondered how much of that was attributed to my differing s*x and how much was simply because it was a new body.

I took a few careful steps to confirm my new balance before taking a look around.

There really wasn't much remarkable about my surroundings. I was surrounded by trees, ferns and bushes grew scattered all around, with patches of grass marking where the light of the sun filtered through the broken canopy.

To my side, though, there was one thing that was out of place. Aside from myself, of course.

That was a flimsy piece of white something that didn't look natural at all.

I picked it up and had a glance, to reveal that it was that sheet of paper that I grabbed right before I was transported to this new world. The top of it was ripped off so my old portrait wasn't on it, nor was the first few settings.

The first line was torn, making it hard to read, but I made out the words [s*x: Female]. The entries below that were the appearance settings I went straight to after I selected my species. It was pretty obvious I skipped that line because my eyes were attracted by the options below it. To think I made such a blunder.

It made me worried I had skipped over any other important information and I skimmed through the form just in case. In the end, I didn't see anything else wrong. When it came to oversight, that seemed to be the only real blunder I had made back then, but it was a big one.

I didn't want to live out my second life as a woman, but it wasn't like I had a choice. I had no idea how to get back to that strange space aside from dying, and even if I succeeded, there was a high chance that I wouldn't be allowed to get all the things I wanted, like keeping my memories, or remembering my past, or especially preserving the knowledge of my previous lives. Not being able to be the same s*x as my previous life sucked, but it wasn't as bad as it could be, and it was only a matter of time before I got used to it.

I scratched my head, but gave up thinking about it. Survival came first, and the consequences of my mistake could be left until I met some of the locals.

Stepping away from the tree I arrived beside, I took the torn paper with me. It was the sole physical memento I had of my previous life, even if it neither existed while I was alive, nor did it have any information regarding my old self, but I was reluctant to dispose of it, and leaving it for someone else to find was dangerous.

I folded the sheet and held it firmly in the palm of my left hand as I started to trek across the forest, careful with my steps. I was barefoot, so any little thing could cut my soles, limiting my ability to get around many-fold.

My balance was extremely unsteady, but the actual act of moving around was surprisingly easy. Either my new body was stronger than my old, or I was simply that much lighter. Or both. Most likely both. The last year especially I spent most my time secluded indoors as I worked my failure of a project.

I couldn't help but keep touching my chest as it swayed. If anything, I was really starting to want something to hold it in place. I dreaded the idea of having to run while the pair of flesh globes bounced around trying to get me to trip.

Frankly, it might've been because of my perspective, but they were big. Not as big as some other women I've seen, but way bigger than what I'd have liked on myself. Which was to say I wish I didn't have them in the first place, but that was nothing more than denying my reality.

The reason felt a bit different, but I did need to adhere to the second of the survival rule of threes.

With no particular goals, I headed towards the mountain I could see through the occasional break in the tree-line, the only distinct landmark I had.

As I walked, I admired everything around me, staring at one new sight after the next.

The strange shapes of the bushes to the large trees that rivalled the tallest I've ever seen in pictures.

My feet frequently stopped. At first it was because I lost my balance while staring at something as I walked past it, but eventually it changed to me just stopping to have a closer look at things. Sometimes it was an oddly shaped leaf on the ground, or others it was a bug I've never seen before crawling or flying around.

This world was simply mysterious, and surprisingly beautiful. That thought was even more impressive considering that I was fundamentally the indoor type in my last life. Maybe it was because I was happy with everything I could see from my computer monitor before, but here, where I had to physically move to see something, walking around and exploring was an exciting experience.

That said, I was worried about my ability to survive on my own. I had never taken any survival courses, and the closest thing I did was some outdoor activities during summer camp as a kid. I did read some bits and pieces on the field online, but it was all fragmentary, and hardly from reliable sources. Even more importantly, it was all knowledge from Earth. It was easily possible that none of it applied here, a world with three suns.

But there was nothing I could do but keep trying things until I find those that worked, and hence I kept walking. I picked up a rock and a strong looking stick for self defence. I didn't know if I was weak, but the stick took quite a bit of effort for me to break to size. Hopefully it would work as a decent club. Hopefully I wouldn't have to find out.

As I continued to walk, I noticed that the suns were moving to my left in the sky, suggesting I was moving north. Or south, depending on what the standard orientation was in this world, if there was even a common consensus regarding it.

I was growing hungry as the hours passed, but it was hard to find anything. I had no knowledge regarding foraging for food, especially when it came to figuring out if anything was edible or not. I tried sniffing a few fruit I found hanging in some of the trees, but they didn't smell very appetizing at all. Wary about eating something poisonous, I avoided them, but if I didn't find something to eat soon, I might be forced to gamble on it.

Suddenly, I smelt blood in the air. The scent was surprisingly strong, and it was easy for me to follow it.

There was barely a breeze blowing, so the smell probably wasn't coming from far away. But the strength of the scent probably meant that there must have been a lot of blood around. The worry that I was heading towards the scene of a slaughter was diminished by my hunger. The thought of fresh meat almost made me drool a bit.