Before I even opened the door it exploded into splinters and a palm struck me in the chest sending me flying into the wall. I started coughing fitfully as pain wracked my chest, looking up with wet eyes I saw Ran snarling at me, held back only by Rin both clad in simple linen underwear. How much strength did she have? Checking my hp in the top left of my vision while I don't seem to have broken anything I've already lost over half my health.

"Let Go of me Rin, he needs to die!!" Ran was trying to move forward as Rin clung to her waist, imprints were being made in the floor by their struggle with each other.

"Y-You can't Ran," her quiet voice straining to speak, "You shouldn't do something like this."

"Ma- *cough, may I ask what I've done to anger you?" Getting up slowly I prepare some magic, imagining a magical barrier between us; considering how magic has worked for me so far I hope this goes off without a problem.

"It's simple you need to die for us t-" the door further down the hallway opened revealing Caroline standing there in translucent blue underwear.

"How unsightly Ran," She walked over to us then grabbed me by the arm pulling me up, "Let's come to my room sir, and ignore the rude beats."

"Why you little," Ran growled while attempting to claw her way to us leaving deep gashes in the wood, she really did look like a beast; how exactly did they keep her here?

"Well then, sorry about that incredibly rude incident," Caroline closed the door behind us as she sat me down on the bed, "Would you like some tea?"

"Ah, Yes please." What just happened?

"Here you go, while these aren't the best tea leaves I am quite confident about my skills in brewing it," Caroline brought over a tray with a teapot and two teacups. Pouring the tea in with smooth graceful movements she held one of the cups out to me.

"Thank you," Taking one of the cups I hesitated a bit, could the tea be drugged or poisoned?

"Don't worry there is nothing in them," She took the cup from my hands and took a sip before handing it back to me with a small smile.

"So-sorry and thank you," The tea resembled green tea and although not very strong it was warming and pleasant. "And thanks for your help back there."

She laughed a bit, it was a pleasant sound, "You say thank you a lot sir, it was not a problem I am just doing my duties." She shifted closer leaning her body in towards me and pressing her bountiful chest against my arm, "I can be doing a lot more if you bought me though."

I almost choked on the tea I was drinking on spilling a bit on myself, "Oh, I am very sorry sir for startling you," Caroline started wiping me down with a handkerchief her hands touching areas that weren't hit by the tea. Then suddenly she stopped, following her gaze she was looking at the bag that was hanging at my waist. It was opened and inside was just a lot of copper coins, she looked up at me her gaze hard and cold.

"It seems that the old slaver had misjudged you quite a bit hasn't he?" She sighed and backed away from me sitting at the edge of the bed, "And here I thought it was my chance to buy my freedom." Her hand reached under the covers and seemed to be searching for something.

"What do you mean?"

She ignored me and continued talking out loud "Too bad, but at least I'll get something from this," She looked towards me and showed a brilliant smile but her eyes were emotionless, "If you want to blame anything blame your own misfortune." Her hand whipped out burying something in my chest before I could react, a feeling that was sadly getting familiar to me started to overcome my senses. As my vision blurred I looked down to see a simple iron dagger buried to the hilt with her slender hands holding on to it.

Well that was expected considering your luck.

"Yeah don't need those comments of yours," I was looking down in my soul form as Caroline took my copper coins while she was frowning.

"Barely a silver here, not even enough to cover the cost of cleaning up this mess." She made a disgusted look, "That pig made a big miscalculation here, and to think we thought we could buy our freedoms using him. I should have just let Ran tear him apart." I wonder if the slave trader made a deal with them, that would explain how they were acting and why Caroline had a weapon. Certainly if I didn't replace the coins inside that bag it would have been more than enough to buy the girls.

So what are you going to do now?

"Well since I can't exactly revive right now, lets test something out," As far as I know all the souls chained by my ability are stuck where they died, so if I try to move... Taking a step forward towards the door nothing special happened, I took another step, then another until I was by the door. Well this is anti climatic, I mean I was an irregular but still I thought there would at least be some resistance. "Well next would be to door." In most movies and stories ghosts can walk through walls and stuff, reaching my hand out I felt resistance but pushing a bit I got through no problem.

*Ding

Due to your actions you have gained a new skill:

Spectral Walk (Passive): You can now move around freely while in soul form, your revival location is still at where your body is. Or if your body is no longer existent where you have died.

Well that's certainly useful to know, "Karen can you tell me when I'm about to hit my limit?"

Yeah yeah, I'll let you know a minute before your ability times out.

Now it's time to do some snooping around, after all there are some things that you can only find with free camera while dead.

The Dancing Bear was a pretty popular inn frequented by adventurers, merchants and lower nobles alike. Today however the merriment was quickly put to an end by a rough looking group of twenty accompanied by three white garbed hunters. At first the inn keeper resisted but a bolt to the hand quickly got everyone moving out of the inn in a silence and with one of the hunters outside no mobs were formed, non were curious enough to risk their lives.

"Now if you need our help we'll just be right here." The leader of the three hunters spoke, with a mischievous oh his lips.

"We don't need your help." Bob the leader of the goons grunted, "Let's get em, what room were they in?"

"Room 10 Boss," one of the rabble answered. The hunter sighed, these thick headed idiots were going to take on a pure blooded vampire? Well it'll make his job less of a pain, they'll weaken her. He liked his lips oh what fun they'll have later on.

"Hey Mary..." Liliana put a hand pushing Mary's face away from her lips, "Everything suddenly got quieter."

"Hmmm, you noticed too? And here I was thinking we could play a bit longer." Mary started getting dressed in a slow seductive fashion. While Liliana started to hurriedly put her clothing and armor on in a professional military way.

"This is serious, there's really only one reason that the inn would get like this and without any panic or uproar," well there was for a bit where the innkeeper sounded angry followed by a scream but aside from that it was utterly silent. For an inn in the middle of the very well patrolled town to sound like that would mean that someone with the authority to do this was here.

"Didn't you say all the hunters in the city were dead? Aside from you that is." Mary leaned in close to steal another kiss as Liliana again pushed her away.

"All the hunters stationed in this city yes, but since we haven't sent a message in a while they probably sent someone to check on us. And I think the slave merchant had an analysis skill, he was looking at you funny and for a long time. I didn't think it would be this soon though." Liliana gritted her teeth, she should have told Shin but usually the hunters don't move that fast, they take things at their own speed not caring what happens as collateral during that time.

"Won't we be fine with you here? Plus I do have my own unique type of magic," Liliana looked over at Mary's carefree words, Mary's hands however were trembling a bit and her eyes did not seem playful at all. Peeking out the window Liliana saw a hunter and several brutes moving around.

"Seems the merchant had an analyze skill," Liliana looked at Mary, "He wants you." Not surprising, pure blood vampires after the war are priced up to 50 mithril, that's enough money to live extremely luxuriously for several lifetimes. "I see one, no two hunters maybe more."

Liliana while being not much more than a novice in magic can hold her own against most other hunters in weapons combat, leaning more comfortably towards melee. Mary on the other hand wasn't very well versed in combat and since it wasn't night time she couldn't transform. "Do we have no way of communicating with Shin or Jane?" They were linked by a bond but other than feeling each others existence the bond wasn't particularly useful. While Liliana didn't see the fights the carnage left over from when they entered the forest was more than a testament to their strength although they won't be able to stay in the city afterwards.

Mary shrugged, "Not that I know of, I guess we're on our own."

The first one that smashed through the door ate a fireball to the face which took him down with a lot of screaming, however before Liliana can fire off another attack they have already crowded into the room. The screeching of metal clashing on metal was heard as Liliana parried a metal bludgeon with her sword, using the opponents power against them Liliana pulled back slightly while angling her sword to send him flying off to the left before slashing him across his side. Getting back into a defensive position she got ready to face the next opponent.

"Obey me!" Mary's eyes emitted a purple glow as she glared at the intruder that had bypassed Liliana which stopped him in his tracks. "Fight for me." Following her commanding voice the brute turned around and smacked the grunt behind him across the head before a larger club smacked him right across the forehead.

"Foul magic," spat Bob had walked in and started lumbering towards Mary while Liliana was distracted by three of his subordinates.

"You shall obey!" Once again Mary's eyes glowed purple as she demanded Bob serve her... except this time Bob only grinned.

"Your magic won't work on me, vampire" Bob showed off a silver bracelet upon which blue runes were carved.

Mary swore as she readied her sword in a flawed stance, she didn't think any of them would have mind control immunity items. As they started exchanging loud stinging blows it was clear Bob had the upper hand despite Mary's physical superiority. Bob wasn't super smart nor was he a genius at fighting, he got to his position today by clawing his way through the streets and past better men than he using experience and thinking you can only get by scrapping a living through the slums.

"Tch, get out of my way!" Liliana was still stuck by the entrance of the room cornered- no kept busy by the other goons, five bodies in total lay by her feet the blood making the floor slick.

Bob blocked a badly aimed attack directed at his chest by Mary and reflected her sword away with his bludgeon; swinging his left hand from his chest he back slapped Mary across the face sending her flying into the table effectively destroying it.

"That all you got you monster? Can't do anything without your tricks?" Normally fighting a pure blood vampire was suicide, but what luck his boss had stumbled upon to find an irregular vampire unable to use blood magic. Bob grinned, he loved his job. He was on the other side of the stick during a whacking and even though his pay was meager there were certain benefits to it.

A flash of light shifted Bob's attention as he barely brought up his left arm to block it sending searing pain to his brain in response. "Graaaahhgh!!!" Lightning temporarily ran painfully through him, the origin was Liliana who took a hit to her right side to send that magic out at him.

Although the damage was superficial it bought Mary enough time to regain her surroundings, getting up in a crouch her eyes once again glowed purple. "That was annoying but it's time to end this," Bob poured a sparse amount of his barely existent magic pool into the metal bludgeon he held in his right hand triggering several runes that glowed blue. Sparks shot out as lightning danced all throughout the weapon stopping at the hilt. Bob moved in close wanting to knock Mary out before she had a chance to try anything, the bracelet her wore made him immune to mind control but experience told him not to trust in trinkets and mystics.

Swinging the bludgeon at her from the right Bob's instinct told him something was wrong, she was smiling. He wasn't under a spell nor was he hindered at all but she was up to something. But she wasn't doing anything special, she had brought her sword up to block which despite having his weight behind it was stopped do to her brute strength; the result however was the same and that was her being electrocuted. Gritting her teeth Mary didn't scream out even as the skin on her hands blackened, wait she had done something. Bob let go of the bludgeon to turn around to kick out at the shadow that was approaching him but not fast enough as a club similar yet inferior to his own smashed into his head, splattering it over Mary.

"Man, I didn't expect much of him but to lose to something like that, how weak." The hunter that stayed in the inn was looking at the dwindling amount of idiots from down the hall with a smile on his lips. "But for Liliana to be there, this is an unexpected treat." Turning towards the door to the street where his companions were he shouted out, "Ginger, Kent clean up out there we're going in."

Grunts and screams were heard soon after before the two other hunters entered one immaculately clean the other drenched in blood. "Ginger you always make such a mess, can't you be cleaner?"

Ginger looked up and gave a crooked smile her eyes containing an insane glint, "I love the feeling of blood our clothes are too white, but you aren't one to talk Sebastian."

"Isn't that your sister up there?" the other one Kent spoke up while cleaning his blade off with a pure white handkerchief.

"Does it matter? I hated her anyways, always wanted to kill her and now that she's broken some rules... I can" From beneath Sebastian's hood blue eyes peeked out framed by unkempt red hair his teeth sharp and broken like a sharks.

Jane and Mina were shopping for supplies, using the connections Mina had to some people in the city they got some decent stuff for nice prices. They even managed to secure underwear at a nice price although Jane had to convince Mina a bit about that. 35 silver for a set of plain underwear may not be much but even Shin would be grateful for it, using a single pair for so long couldn't have been comfortable.

Jane felt something odd as Mina was with candy in hand haggling with a merchant about prices on some provisions

it was a disturbing feeling deep within her. Pain, Anger, Panic, these weren't her feelings. Identifying the cause wasn't hard, ever since she was revived in this form there has been a connection between her, Shin and the other two who were bond to Shin. Therefore from the rough direction it was coming from Jane deduced that Liliana and Mary ran into some trouble. "Did the hunters move already?" A betrayal was sure to get their attention, also Shin wiping out an entire squad. "But they never moved this fast before, they do everything on a whim."

"Did you say something Jane?" Jane looked up at the curious face of Mina not realizing she had spoken out loud.

"Ah no it's fine, can you continue shopping on your own? I have something I want to look at."

"Sure, take your time." Mina replied quickly and nonchalantly which caused Jane to pause for a second, was she really just a child? But the urgency of the feelings she felt and distant screaming gave her no time to investigate further, pulling her hood down Jane hurriedly slipped through the crowd moving towards the inn.

Ok I kind of lied about the spoiler for this chapter and this took longer than I thought it would take, also food poisoning is not fun. If you've gotten it before you have my sympathies if not you are very lucky X.X. I'm not sure if I have work tomorrow, I'll try to get the next chapter out today so as to technically keep the spoiler somewhat relevant (princes will for sure be in it) if not it'll be out tomorrow. Most likely another chapter out tomorrow if I don't have work.