Erica lay on her side, staring at the wall, and pouted.
It wasn’t dramatic. She wasn’t throwing a fit or anything like that. It was just a quiet, stubborn kind of disappointment that sat in her chest and refused to move. Teresa had paid for a single room, which sounded promising for about half a second until Erica actually saw it.
Two beds.
One on each side of the room.
Dr. Gan had taken the second one without hesitation, setting his things down with the same calm efficiency he applied to everything else. There hadn’t even been a discussion about it. No awkward pause. No look between her and Teresa.
Just… done.
Which meant she and Teresa weren’t having sex tonight.
Which meant tonight was just sleep.
Erica shifted slightly under the rough blanket, her back to the room, her expression scrunched in mild annoyance. Teresa had laid down not long after, turning in without comment, clearly used to this kind of arrangement. Dr. Gan had been even quicker, already still and quiet on the other side of the room.
“…Unbelievable,” Erica muttered under her breath.
No one responded.
She stared at the wall a little longer, then let out a slow breath and closed her eyes. The exhaustion from the day was real. Walking through the desert, fighting, the constant heat and grit, even eating had taken something out of her in a way that normal games never did.
Her body felt heavy.
Sleep came fast.
But it didn’t feel like real sleep.
It never did here.
Something about the system capped it, controlled it, kept it efficient instead of natural. Seven hours, give or take, and then she’d be awake again whether she wanted to be or not. No drifting. No lingering.
Just off, then on.
She didn’t feel like dealing with that.
After a few minutes of lying there, she opened her eyes again, staring at the dim ceiling.
“…Yeah, no,” she whispered.
She slipped into the interface.
───
The transition to the sanctuary was always smoother than she expected.
No sand. No heat. No weight pressing against her skin.
Just space.
Clean, quiet, controlled.
Erica stood in the familiar open area, the soft ambient glow replacing the harsh desert light almost instantly. For a second, she just stood there, letting the absence of sensation settle in. No grit in her clothes. No soreness in her side. No smell of blood or dust.
It felt… empty.
She pulled up her social panel.
Nathan wasn’t online.
She stared at his name for a second anyway, then scrolled.
Her parents weren’t on either.
That wasn’t unusual. They visited often, but not constantly. They had lives outside of this, schedules, things that didn’t revolve around her.
Her sister’s name was there.
Online.
Erica paused on it.
They didn’t talk much.
It wasn’t hostile. It wasn’t even awkward. It was just… distant. Like they existed in the same space but never quite lined up. Erica didn’t blame her. It was hard to feel like sisters when one of you was living normally and the other was… this.
A project.
A responsibility.
A cost.
She leaned back slightly, exhaling.
“They say it’s worth it,” she murmured to herself. “Every time they visit.”
She believed them.
She just didn’t know if she felt it the same way.
Erica dismissed the panel and walked over to one of the benches, sitting down and leaning back against it. For a while, she just stared up at nothing, letting her thoughts drift.
What did life even feel like now?
Not this.
Not the game.
The real thing.
Warmth that wasn’t simulated. Food that didn’t come with numbers attached. Sleep that didn’t feel like a mechanic.
She closed her eyes.
The UI stayed there, faintly visible behind her eyelids, but her thoughts drifted anyway, loosening, fading as her mind finally gave in to actual rest.
───
She woke up to the interface.
The UI floated cleanly in front of her vision, sharper than before, like it had been waiting.
Time elapsed: 10 hours.
Erica blinked, sitting up slowly on the bench.
“…Huh.”
She rolled her shoulders slightly.
No soreness.
No stiffness.
No lingering fatigue.
It was wrong.
Not bad. Just… incomplete.
In the game, everything had weight. Pain. Resistance. Even something as simple as walking felt like it mattered. Here, her body felt like it had been reset without being used.
She exhaled slowly, resting her elbows on her knees.
“…I hate this part.”
The silence pressed in a little.
There was no wind here. No background noise. No subtle movement of anything unless someone else was around.
Just stillness.
She rubbed her hands together, then stopped halfway through.
There was no friction.
No sand.
No anything.
“…Yeah,” she muttered. “There’s no way I go back to normal games after this.”
Nathan’s words came back to her.
Once you’re turned, you’re a vampire forever.
Her expression shifted slightly.
“…Not happening.”
Because of the serum, she couldn’t become one.
Which meant if she got bitten…
She didn’t even want to think about it.
Erica leaned back again, staring out into the empty space.
“I am not getting bitten,” she said quietly.
That decision felt solid enough to hold onto.
After a moment, she pulled up the system interface again, scrolling past her stats and messages until she found the archive section.
Lore.
If she was going to stay in this world, she might as well understand it.
She tapped into it.
───
The entries opened quickly, far more detailed than she expected.
The first major record was about Dracula.
Not the myth. The actual figure.
Dracula — Lord of the Night / The Dragon / The Impaler
The text described his rise, his dominance, and then his death. Not at the hands of a single hero, but through a long campaign led by the Van Helsing bloodline. A coordinated effort spanning generations that finally brought him down.
Erica leaned forward slightly as she read.
That wasn’t the end.
It made things worse.
Dracula’s death fractured the balance of power among the original vampires, who were before him, the Progenitors. Older. Stronger. Less human. His fall didn’t weaken them. It enraged them.
They didn’t fight openly at first.
They changed the world.
One of the entries detailed a ritual so large it had altered the sky itself. The sun, once yellow, now burned red across the horizon, its light twisted into something that no longer burned the undead the same way. It weakened them, yes, but it didn’t destroy them.
Erica blinked at that.
“…They changed the sun?”
The next entries filled in the rest.
The Van Helsings.
What started as a family had turned into something else entirely. A bloodline refined over generations, not through chance, but through control. The records didn’t hide it. Marriages arranged within the family. Lines preserved. Power concentrated.
Women in the bloodline weren’t just heirs.
They were baby making machines.
The language was clinical, but the implication was obvious. Produce strong offspring. Maintain the blood. Expand the numbers, even if it meant incest.
Erica made a face.
“…That’s messed up. No wonder Teresa was so fine with calling me cousin then fingering me.” If her real body could blush from here. It sure was right now.
There were branches, too. Offshoot families where the blood mixed with commoners, producing weaker but more numerous hunters. Still useful. Still necessary.
But the pureblood line remained separate.
Centralized.
At the ancestral home.
She scrolled further.
A list of known figures appeared, categorized by generation, rank, and current activity. Names filled the screen, most unfamiliar, some marked as deceased, others active.
Then she saw it.
Teresa Van Helsing
Generation: 18th — Pureblood Line
Erica leaned in slightly.
The entry was brief, but it told enough.
Raised under strict parents who had expected sons and received daughters instead. Trained regardless. Elevated through merit, not preference. Assigned to protect a doctor involved in ongoing research into a cure for the vampire blight.
Seen frequently slaying high level vampires.
Erica stared at it for a second longer.
“…Of course you are,” she murmured.
It fit.
Everything about her did.
She leaned back slowly, letting the interface fade slightly as she processed it. The world felt bigger now, not just in scale but in weight, like everything she had stumbled into had been moving long before she arrived and would keep moving whether she kept up or not.
After a moment, she stood up from the bench, brushing her hands together out of habit even though there was nothing there.
“…Alright,” she said quietly.
Then she didn’t log out.
Instead, she opened the forums.
───
The interface shifted into a more crowded space, panels stacking over each other as threads, clips, and discussion boards filled her view. It felt different from the rest of the sanctuary. Less quiet. Less controlled. This was where players actually talked, argued, shared things they probably shouldn’t.
She scrolled.
Most of it was noise at first. People complaining about spawn zones, arguing about builds, bragging about kills that sounded exaggerated. But the deeper she went, the more focused it became.
Clips.
Actual gameplay.
She tapped one.
───
The scene opened into a live capture of another player’s perspective. A group of them moved through a ruined village at night, their movements coordinated in a way Erica hadn’t seen yet. They weren’t reacting like she had been. They were setting positions, spacing themselves out, drawing enemies in controlled directions.
“Pull left,” one of them said.
Another threw something, a glowing object that burst into light, drawing a cluster of ferals toward it. The rest of the group moved as one, cutting down the incoming wave before it could surround them.
Erica leaned forward slightly.
“…Oh.”
They were very… organized.
The clip shifted, highlighting points of impact, angles of attack, positioning around choke points. Someone had annotated the footage, marking safe zones and failure points, explaining how to avoid being boxed in when dealing with groups.
Elite hunting guide.
She watched a few more.
The difference became obvious quickly. Against larger enemies, they didn’t go for constant aggression. They baited attacks, forced openings, rotated positions instead of standing still. Even their jumps were controlled, used to reposition, not just avoid.
“…I’m kinda winging it,” she admitted quietly.
It had worked so far.
But this was cleaner.
More efficient.
She backed out and scrolled again.
Another thread caught her eye.
Attempt Count: Vampire Lord Encounter (Unfinished Quest)
She tapped it.
───
The footage opened into chaos.
A massive structure, something like a cathedral twisted into something darker, filled the screen. Players moved through it cautiously, their numbers larger this time, maybe ten or more. The atmosphere alone felt heavier, the lighting dim and distorted.
Then the fight started.
The vampire lord wasn’t like the ferals.
It moved with intent.
Every swing was deliberate, every movement controlled, and when it hit, players didn’t just lose health. They disappeared. Turned. Dropped.
The clip cut between attempts.
Attempt 3.
Attempt 7.
Attempt 12.
Each time they got closer.
Each time someone made a mistake.
Each time they backed out before it went too far.
That part stood out.
They didn’t fight to the death.
They ran.
“Pull back,” someone shouted in one clip as the boss shifted phases.
“We’re not ready, reset, reset!”
They escaped.
Barely.
Erica frowned slightly.
“…They’re scared of getting turned.”
That made sense.
If she got turned, it was over.
For them too.
The thread confirmed it. Players were tracking attempts, learning patterns, but no one was committing fully unless they were sure they could win. The risk wasn’t just losing progress.
It was losing your character's humanity.
Permanently.
She leaned back again, exhaling slowly.
“…Okay. So there's some powerful vampires out there.”
She scrolled again.
Another thread.
This one was… different.
───
Short clips.
Players hunting other players.
Newbies.
Low-level zones.
Groups of vampires chasing down weaker players, laughing, dragging things out longer than necessary. Some of them played with their targets, cornering them instead of finishing it quickly.
Erica’s expression tightened.
“…That’s just being a dick.”
One clip showed a player begging for help before getting taken down.
Another showed someone being chased across open terrain, stamina clearly draining, the outcome obvious before it even finished.
She closed it.
“…Yeah, no. Thank god I have Teresa.”
For a moment, she just sat there, letting everything settle.
The game wasn’t just survival.
It was people.
Good and bad.
Same as anywhere else.
───
Her thoughts shifted.
Streaming.
The idea came back to her slowly, like something she hadn’t thought about in a long time.
“…I could do that again,” she said quietly.
Not professionally.
Not like before.
Just… stream what she saw.
Her perspective.
Her fights.
Her mistakes.
People would watch that, right?
Or at least some would.
She frowned slightly.
“…I’m not that special yet though.”
That was the problem.
Why would anyone care?
She thought about it for a second longer, then something clicked, and a small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.
“…Actually…”
She opened the creation panel.
Channel name.
She stared at the input field longer than she should have.
“…uhh, names,” she muttered.
After another second, she just typed it in.
Erica Van Helsing
Simple.
Straightforward.
She hit confirm.
The system processed it instantly.
───
STREAM CHANNEL CREATED
Privacy Settings: Auto-Filtered
Explicit / Intimate Content: Automatically Obscured
Manual Control Available
Default Mode: Live Broadcast Enabled
───
Erica blinked.
“…Oh.”
So it just… handled that.
Moments flagged as private would cut out automatically. Anything questionable, anything she didn’t want seen, the system filtered or muted. Everything else stayed live.
“That’s… actually kind of nice,” she admitted.
She toggled a few settings, mostly leaving things on default, then paused.
“…So I’m just… live now?”
A small indicator pulsed faintly in the corner of her vision.
Yes.
Erica leaned back slightly, staring up at the empty sanctuary space.
“…Huh.”
It felt strange.
But not bad.
After a moment, she exhaled and stood up again.
Alright,” she said, more to steady herself than anything else.
Time to go back.
She hesitated for half a second, then glanced upward.
A faint shimmer resolved above her, barely visible at first before sharpening into something clearer. A lens. Floating. Watching. It shifted slightly as it locked onto her, then began to circle slowly, adjusting its angle like it already knew how to frame her.
So that’s how it worked.
Erica gave it an awkward look, then forced a small smile anyway.
“Please enjoy the stream,” she said, already cringing internally at how formal that sounded. “I won’t be replying to any comments since I’m… undercover. Roleplay reasons.”
The camera drifted slightly closer, focusing on her face before pulling back again as she started moving.
Right.
That was happening now.
She took a breath, then added, trying to sound more confident than she felt,
“Let’s do this, my fellow vampire hunters.”
The words left her mouth and immediately felt wrong.
Too forced. Too much.
Erica winced slightly as she turned away from the lens.
“…Yeah, we’re workshopping that,” she muttered under her breath.
The camera followed anyway.
And a second later, she logged back in.