Damien stood ten meters from a wooden structure with annoyance plastered on his perfectly crafted face. After all, the mid-game villain ‘Damien Nightshade’ had been designed after a typical vampire merged with a fantasy elf to give it a more noble vibe. Such a perfect appearance would be unrealistic in real life but not in a game.


    “Fay?” Damien said, trying to keep his anger restrained.


    “Y-yes?” She replied hesitantly.


    Damien gestured to the scene before him. “Why are the horses lying on the floor, covered in frost and not breathing?”


    “Well, you killed the stable master a few weeks ago…” Fay said, watching his expression carefully, “Do you remember? You snapped his neck in half.”


    Damien pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh, “Of course I remember. But what does that man''s death have to do with the horse’s current situation? Surely Damien—I mean, didn’t I order you to look after the horses?”


    “I tried, but I have no idea how to look after horses!” Fay said while looking at the ground, “I changed their food and water every few days, so I have no idea how they ended up dead.”


    Damien picked up a rock from the ground with his psychokinetic glove and floated it over a crude metal trough at the stable’s entrance. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. It was January, one of the coldest months in Kassinki, with a thin layer of frost dusting the ground, indicating the low temperatures temperatures.


    He released the rock, and ice cracking sounded through the air.


    Damien turned to Fay and pointed toward the stables surrounded by dead horses. “You are supposed to move the horses inside and regularly replace the water during cold months. If you leave both out here, the water freezes over due to the cold wind, and the horses then die from dehydration.”


    Fay seemed surprised by his explanation, or perhaps because the bloodthirsty vampire seemed to know more than she had expected. Either way, Damien didn’t care for her reaction. The more pressing matter was to figure out how he would reach the city now that the horses were dead.


    There was a carriage in front of the wooden stable. Though calling it a ‘carriage’ was generous. It was nothing more than a tiny wooden box with a door-size hole, likely built from a farmer’s wagon.


    The carriage had leather reins attached to the front, allowing a single horse to pull it. Unfortunately, the coach was so small that there was no room for a coachman to sit. Instead, the coachman would ride on the horse’s back and guide it manually. A small window would have allowed the baroness to instruct the coachman on her destination and see where she was going.


    Damien observed the carriage and then the mud road that led out of this mansion’s grounds. In most cities back on Earth and the game, nobles preferred to live as close to the city’s center as possible, as that was where the ruling family lived. But here in Kassinki, nobles preferred living away from the loud and foul-smelling city and placed their estates around the city outskirts.


    Other than escaping the foul city, nobles also enjoyed the freedom and space afforded by living out here for recreational activities such as horse riding and magic practice. Of course, some nobles still preferred to live in the city center, but the vast majority chose to live out here.


    Damien could see the walls of Kassinki’s capital in the distance.


    About a thirty-minute walk, give or take. Damien mused. The cold weather doesn’t bother me like it does for Fay, but the journey is down dirt roads, which means mud.


    Damien dismissed the idea of walking immediately as the idea of dirtying his shoes was far too horrifying.


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    I believe Damien would have visited the city a few times since he arrived here. He likely took the carriage each time and would have had Fay ride on the horse. As a noble, she would be well-versed in horse riding.


    But with the horses dead, was there any other way?


    Damien rubbed his chin while formulating a plan. What about psychokinesis? He walked toward the carriage and easily climbed inside. The interior was empty apart from a simple wooden bench facing the window, allowing him to see the frost-covered dirt road leading to the city gates in the distance. Sitting on the bench, he frowned. There’s no padding; it’s just a simple wooden bench. The baroness really was quite poor to be willing to ride in this.


    He released control of his gloves and closed his eyes to concentrate. He felt his mind manifest a large spectral hand, which he positioned behind the wall he was leaning on. He gave it a push, and the whole carriage creaked from the force. Yet, the carriage didn’t move. Finding his efforts futile, Damien sighed. I thought pushing it like a toy car would work, but it’s too heavy for my current skill level. Maybe I should envelop the entire carriage instead?


    He released his control over the spectral hand and loosely spread his power over the whole of the small carriage like a fog and tried to move it forward. “Woah,” he exclaimed as the carriage floated a few centimeters off the ground and moved forward slightly before crashing back to Earth.


    “That’s not what I wanted to do at all,” He grumbled while clutching his throbbing head. Picking it up just now used way too much concentration and mana.


    Controlling his breathing while massaging his head, he took a moment to relax and allow his [Lazy] trait to kick in and restore his mana.


    “Master, are you trying to move the carriage with magic?” Fay asked from the side.


    “Yes, but it uses too much mana and concentration,” Damien replied, rather sluggish while still clutching his head, trying to massage the headache away.


    “Did you try to move the wheels?” Fay asked.


    “No?” Damien paused as he processed her suggestion, “Wait, the wheels… yeah, that could work.”


    I have only been using psychokinesis to move entire objects so far; in the game, players could only grab complete objects with psychokinesis. Yet, I was thinking of how to manipulate the individual fingers of my gloves earlier! Psychokinesis is way more versatile now that the game has become real life.


    Damien took another five minutes to control his headache before daring to attempt the new idea.


    He reached out with his mind and located the wheels. He knew that he didn’t need to move all four wheels at once; two-wheel-drive cars existed back on Earth, after all. He just needed to put force into two wheels, and the other two would follow along.


    Which two should I put my power into, though?


    Only the front two wheels of the carriage could shift to change direction—meanwhile, the back two wheels were fixed in place. Therefore, Damien chose to put power into the front two wheels and simultaneously also used them to steer the carriage.


    For the first attempt, Damien exerted force onto the entire wheel—his control was still lacking, so the wheels just tried to escape from their brackets instead of rotating.


    After a few failed attempts to turn the entire wheel, Damien realized, he needed to exert physical force onto the top of the wheel to make it rotate forward, rather than trying to grip the whole wheel with his psychokinesis.


    After another twenty minutes, he sat in the carriage with sweat dripping from his forehead and freezing onto his skin. He was breathing heavily but had a happy and triumphant smile.


    His psychokinesis hadn’t upgraded to B-grade, but he could feel he was close. His level of skill with his powers was increasing. Using magic was challenging but very rewarding, and he enjoyed the experience.


    Wiping his brow, he turned toward the shivering Fay. She stood there quietly while watching Damien trying to move the carriage. Although the space inside the carriage was small, it technically could fit two people.


    Damien felt being trapped inside a small space with that woman would be repulsive and against all his noble traits. His human mind tried to reason with his body to take the woman inside, but his vampiric body refused the notion of sharing a carriage with livestock.


    She is dirty, his [Germaphobe] trait whispered.


    His [Noble Vampire] soul argued that a noble vampire would never sit on the same bench as a lowly blood slave.


    Damien just sighed deeply. He felt terrible, but she did want to stab him, to be fair.


    He compromised. “I will use the carriage to get to the university. You can stand in the doorway and direct me, but you cannot sit down on the bench next to me.”


    Damien almost made her walk the rest of the distance, but that would greatly slow him down, and he was already feeling the cold more than he cared to admit.


    Fay nodded and used a rock as a stool to climb up into the carriage with great effort. Finally, she sat down in the door-shaped hole and dangled her legs off the edge.


    Turning his gaze from her back, Damien looked forward. Then, keeping his eyes open, he exerted physical force on the top of the wheels, and they turned. Of course, the speed was slower than a horse, but the world’s first Psychic-powered car was on the road!