7 First Skill

The source was nearby so Viola doesn't need to make another mad dash like before. Instead, she lightly jogged towards the scent. It was a light jog to her, but the speed still far surpassed even the fastest animal on Earth.

As the scent draws closer, what comes to view is a small group of small green humanoid-looking creatures walking together and making various inhuman and unintelligible sounds. Their skins were dark green with almost deformed-looking limbs and grotesque nails, toenails, and hideous-looking faces with pointy ears and long noses. They were bald and were all only wearing nothing but dirty loincloths. They all looked malnourished and were all at least a head shorter than Viola.

'Goblins! And not the ones from a certain slime anime. Just typical disgusting-looking fantasy goblins that have a closer resemblance to a certain goblin slayer anime instead.' Viola thought as she moved in closer out of curiosity.

Viola was a bit let down at the sight of the goblins' appearances, but she also was quite excited to meet another basic but iconic beginner fantasy monster. She also was quite surprised to see what this world's goblins looked like, but not too much as it was a look she was always expecting when she sees them in manga and video games.

'I'm not sure what kind of goblins these guys are from this world. And when I meant 'what kind', I meant whether they were those kinds where they go after females to do their breeding or just the kind that will just kill anyone with extreme prejudice. Either way, I'm not down to find out.' Viola thought.

Just as Viola was deciding what to do next, the goblins ended up spotting her. It wasn't like she was well hidden or anything as she was only some meters away from them and was standing in the open shrubberies. Not that she's afraid in the first place to be cowering from such lowly creatures.

They easily noticed her due to how much her appearance stood out from her surroundings. They immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at her in awe.

Both sides continued to stare at each other without any sudden movement. The disparity between the beauty of both sides—Viola standing on one side and these ugly green beings standing on the other—are like night and day. The dualism was almost symbolic.

The goblins all looked completely hypnotized by the sight of Viola's beauty and naked form until she noticed when they started drooling from their mouths and making unsightly lustful expressions.

'Yup, I think that answered my earlier thought pretty well.' At that thought, Viola sighs and preps for a fight. Killing such repulsive creatures would be doing the world a favor with free pest control services.

She wasn't afraid in the slightest as she can tell just by her sharp instinct that they were of no threat to her.

Moments passed, one of the goblins suddenly gave an ugly-sounding roar, and they all began charging straight at her.

Viola, however, remained completely calm about her situation. Her eyes were calm and focused with an icy stare as everything around her slowed down almost to a halt. It was a familiar feeling as her body tensed up and reflexes kicked in, only this time, it's much further enhanced and controlled. It was like time had slowed down for her while she could still think and move normally at will.

She uses this time to calmly analyze her opponents. There were four goblins, all unclothed with the exception of the loincloths all of them were wearing. Three of them were wielding uneven-looking wooden clubs while the one that roared was wielding a long, rusty chipped knife.

Deciding to dispatch the one with the blade, Viola moves towards the knife-wielding goblin as it was still moving in really slow motion to her with no chance of it tracking her speed even when she was right next to it due to how much slower they were to Viola.

'Perhaps this is what it looks like due to the differences between the Agility stat. I feel like Quicksilver right now hehe~' She mused.

Indeed ever since she was reincarnated into this body, the world around her felt like it's moving at a standstill. She had wondered if this is how those speedsters see the world. But of course, those actual speedsters are still far faster than her right now.

Without any further thinking needed, Viola threw a punch at the knife goblin. But to her surprise, the head of the goblin exploded on impact like a watermelon when it made contact with her fist. Bits and chunks of the goblin's head and brain flew outward in slow motion.

'Ah, I need to learn how to control my strength better.'

Turning to the other three goblins still moving in slow motion towards the spot that Viola was originally at earlier while completely oblivious to what had just happened to the head of one of their own, she briskly moves to each one of them and launched an attack at their torso, this time with far less force than before, yet still contained enough force to completely caved their bodies in and shattered most of their bones. She did this with the rest of the goblins save for one. She decides to let this one live for just a bit longer as curiosity sets in.

'I want to play with this little guy for a bit. Just an idea about a little test. After everything I have seen what this body can do, I wanted to test something. I decided to give this last goblin a chance to give it his best shot. This one doesn't look too strong anyways.'

She wanted more opportunities to further gauge the strength of the beings in this world and compare it to her. It may be bold or stupid of her, but she was always too audacious. And besides, her curiosity can't be any higher, not when she's in a freaking fantasy world which was pretty much the dream of every shut-in, gamer, and otakus. The thought of discovering everything they ever wanted to see like a curious child is too strong. Yet this "child" knows no fear not by naivety, but by equanimity tempered through numerous experiences. Viola knows better than to be too at ease.

As she relaxes her body tension and reflexes, time around her moves normally again. The one goblin that remained unharmed stumbled a bit at the sight of the beautiful purple-haired little girl disappearing from the spot she was standing on earlier. It looked around in an attempt to locate her again. It then looked back to notice all of its friends' limp dead bodies on the ground with one completely headless with its splattered brain matter all over the trees. Standing in the middle was the purple-haired loli smiling with her hands behind her back.

"Come on, little guy~ Show me what you got." With an enchanting voice, Viola taunted the goblin.

The goblin looked shocked and was completely confused at the sight but failed to process the situation. It then snapped out of its confused state and just decided to charge at Viola once again with a look of frenzied lust. Guess it's probably due to its low intellect that it failed to assess the situation.

The simple-minded goblin only had one goal in mind: to capture the little girl while unable to process anything else around it. It was probably due to the mesmerizing beauty of the little girl that it was unable to because of it.

As Viola waited for the goblin to reach her and swung its easily dodge-able improvised wooden club at her head, she casually moved her left arm to block the club. The wooden club shattered on impact as it made contact with her forearm. Her body didn't even budge a single inch from the attack nor did she even feel so much as a breeze from that hit.

'Yup, these guys can't do shit to me. Not with this body.' She smiled at this reaffirmation.

Viola then grabbed the face of the goblin as it failed to respond to her action. Her hand may be a little too small to cover its face, but her nails easily dug into its face, allowing for a good grip as she easily held its entire body up, lifting its feet off the ground as it gave an ugly squeal in pain and tried to struggle in fear for its life. Giving the goblin an emotionless and cold stare, Viola then effortlessly twisted its neck and dropped its now limp and quiet body on the ground.

'They were around level 5 at best with below-average stats.' Viola concluded.

After confirming that all the goblins are dead, Viola slackened her body.

'Whew~ In a way, that was a rousing and interesting experience.' She thought, pleased with the results.

The pungent smell of goblin blood reaches her nose along with the goblins' revolting body odor.

"Phew. Smells like shit!" She said vociferously. The smell was extremely overpowering due to her super vampiric sense of smell.

'But I've dealt with worse. This isn't anything too new to me.' She was too resolute to let something like this stop her.

Covering her nose, Viola picked up one of the bodies of the goblins on the ground, one that still had its head intact. She quickly inspects it before deciding to feed on it.

'Well, I still need the blood so bottoms up!'

Without any sense of trepidation or hesitation, she bit into the neck of the dead goblin with her small but razor-sharp fangs and started draining its blood until it was completely void of any of its life essence.

"Blech! I take it back!" Viola exclaimed in disgust.

'It tasted a little stale but still quite sweet and filling nonetheless. It's nothing like the sweetness of the rabbit earlier, but it's still pretty satisfying. The scent, however, was horrendous. I almost hurled to the odor alone. And I thought a room full of two-day-old corpses smelled bad.' Viola grumbled. Her vampiric senses actually made it far worse than anything she had experienced back on Earth, especially when her nose was inches away from the source while she was feeding. Guess that's the downside of her enhanced senses as expected.

She wiped her mouth of blood with the back of her hand while staring at the shriveled body of the goblin with cold eyes.

'This goblin had killed before and quite recently at that…'

Her mood dropped a bit at the discovery.

'There was blood and skin under its nails which I could tell by its scent that it was human blood. I could also tell that it belonged to a young one at that. Perks of being a vampire. It's amazing how the unique senses of a vampire were able to accurately recognize the type of blood it is and analyze it with such precise details from different beings. Or maybe it's just me. I am, apparently, no ordinary vampire...'

A bitter thought came up which was like a slap to the face from her earlier ecstasy. Of course, no matter which world she's in, fantasy or not, it's never all sunshine and rainbows.

"I can't let my guard down." She reminded herself.

Pushing the sour thought aside, she decided to feed on the other three goblin corpses. Holding her breath and biting the bullet, she then went and quickly fed on the rest of the goblins for their Blood Essence all in a single breath.

After feeling satisfied, she then checks on the amount of Blood Essence she currently has.

[Blood Essence: 14]

'Oh? It's less than I expected, but it seems that I have enough to unlock one of my skills.' She thought as she opened her status to ponder her options.

After inspection, she found out a couple of things. She wanted to see if she could unlock a 'Unique Skill' but found out that it requires "certain conditions" to be met. She was puzzled at first but didn't think much of it. The 'Special Skills' however, she still couldn't afford.

[Required Blood Essence to unseal a random special skill you once possess: 14/30]

So with that, the only thing she could afford right now is a normal skill, but it wasn't a big deal.

'I remembered I had some insane skills back in the game. Let's hope I get one of those.' She thought.

And with that thought, she opens her status screen and selects 'Skills' to spend her Blood Essence.

[Required Blood Essence to unseal a random skill you once possess: 14/10]

[Would you like to unlock a random skill you once possessed using Blood Essence?]

'Yes'

Suddenly, a warm feeling enveloped her body and reached towards her hands and feet. At the same time, hot and sharp pain can be felt at her fingertips, toes, and nails.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Shit!" Viola let out a cute-sounding voice as she winced from the sudden sharp pain. She was hopping around trying to shake off the pain.

The burning sensation and pain continue for a few minutes before subsiding.

"Oww, that stung. Like the time when I had a couple of shrapnel wounds." She said tearfully and sullenly recalling a shitty memory.

After the pain lessens, Viola inspected her fingers and nails because that was where the pain was most intense during the experience. That's when she noticed her nails looked very different from before. Pitch black pointy elongated nails adorned every single one of her fingers in place of the earlier claws she had before. The claws are completely pitched black like darkness and completely smooth like a glass surface.

'What are these?' She questioned while staring at her new black nails.

As Viola continues to scrutinize her new nails, she decides to pull up her status and inspect whatever she just got.

'Status'

『Status』

Name: Viola Hellstar

Sex: Female

Age: 530

Race: Omega Vampire

Class: Astro Sword God

Level: 265

Rank: EX

State: Sealed

HP: 30,000/30,000

MP: 30,000/30,000

Blood Essence: 4

「Stats」

STR: 1000 (Sealed)

CON: 1000 (Sealed)

AGI: 1000 (Sealed)

DEX: 1000 (Sealed)

INT: 1000 (Sealed)

「Skills」

Skills: [Dark Star Claw: MAX (NEW)] [(Sealed)]

Special Skills: [(Sealed)]

Unique Skills: [(Sealed)]

Title: [Hyperuranion Star]

[『Dark Star Claw』(Rank: SSS): Innate skill. Claws of the abyss. Said to have been formed and compressed at the very depths of darkness. Virtually indestructible and can cleave through practically anything in the universe including magic, rifts, and the fabric of space.]

'Oi, I thought it said it was random, but isn't that too much of a coincidence for my first unlock skill to be literally the first skill you can get as a vampire in the game? Although, it is a later evolved version of 『Vampiric Claw』 based on my evolution and branch class...'

Staring at her new nails once again, her previous nails were white in color and very sharp before, but they didn't have any special characteristics besides claws belonging to a vampire. But now, her nails were pitch black in color like black crystals and are smooth like a gem instead of the usual rough texture of nails. A stark contrast to her paper-white and soft skin. Looking into the swirling darkness of the nails, the nature of the color makes it look like the inside of the nails goes far deeper than what it appears. Almost like looking in an endless void.

'I remembered this skill quite well back in the game. Because it's one of those starting skills and even though it's currently highly evolved, it became a little obsolete in late-game as the higher-level skills always tend to outshine them due to the meta. I was hoping I would be getting one of those skills, but I guess that would be way too easy if it hadn't been easy enough already.' She gave a small pout.

Viola also noticed that the description of the skill the system provided was the same as in the game. She was curious if this trivia game lore description is now for real, now that everything is no longer a game, that the skill can now indeed 'cleave through magic, rifts, and the fabric of space' like it said it can.

Playing with the black claws for a bit revealed them to be far more dangerous than she imagined as the claws themselves sent cold shivers down her own spine. She felt like she could actually hurt herself with these despite knowing how sturdy her body is now. Her earlier claws were very sharp and were as hard as steel before, but compared to the claws she has now, the sharpness and density were leagues apart.

Tensing her claws with the will to use them causes them to grow longer in length until they truly look like menacing claws whereas before, they just shaped more like long pointy nails little shorter than the average nail length of a typical woman. They also started giving off a faint black mist when she willed her mana into them causing them to give off a deathly aura. You don't need to be smart to tell that these suckers looked very dangerous just by existing. The claws felt so damn sharp that it felt like she could tear down the very air in front of her and reality itself would be shredded apart like a torn wallpaper on a wall. She was now beginning to believe that the skill description might actually be true now.

"Dangerous..." Viola uttered, shivering at the thought.

Feeling a bit perturbed at her new claws, she willed them to retract themselves into a smaller size. To her surprise, her new claws can continue to retract all the way until it shapes completely like a normal human nail with only its pitch-black darkness-like color remains.

'Huh, that's quite convenient.' She mused.

Viola still doesn't know if this world is exactly like the game world so she doesn't know if vampires in this world are considered monsters to the humans, but this skill gave her retractable claws and would allow her to hide one of her traits of a vampire, making it easier to conceal her vampire identity if needed.

Looking at her now black human-shaped nails, she couldn't help but admire them now. She finds its pitch darkness color to be quite beautiful and mesmerizing in a way. It's almost like she has the very abyss literally on her fingertips. The same could be said for her toenails as well when she noticed that they were also the same as her current nails.

'Now, where to next?'