A Modern Guy in the Lesbian Vampires' Court 1 (Patreon)

A Modern Guy in the Lesbian Vampires' Court 1 - or ‘My business as the treasurer is surely a troublesome one among those ‘supposed’ world-conquerors’ (Castlevania Animated Series, Vampire!SI)

1470, Styria- Austria. It would be odd to start a situation from such a date considering I was born in the last few years of the 20th Century, but the circumstance I was dealing with was far from a mere case of time-traveling.

My name is John Bukharin, I was once a human but, as I woke up in the starting decades of the Renaissance in one of the Southern Regions of Modern Austria, I ended up realizing fairly soon that I was no longer human. First thing that came to my attention was the fact that my nose and hunger had changed radically.

Same for my sight as I could perfectly see in the dark. My teeth were sharper, my eyes were blood red with slits and… I was recognized as a vampire when I ended up being recruited by some of the ‘bannermen’ owned by the ‘Council of Sisters’ as they were looking to expand their ranks.

It wasn’t just soldiers, it was also administrators and bureaucrats. And I managed to land a job as one of those with the right amount of literacy to work under Lady Morana, the ‘Organizer’ within the council.

I wasn’t expected to do much until the first year of ‘commitment’ to the organization, but I was given a task by the sixth month of my presence within the Styrian ‘Vampire Kingdom’: I had to handle the Murau District and make sure that stability and progress were achieved in the area.

While many would be surprised by this important task, this was not one without some hurdles. Specifically, it was one of the areas that bordered with the rest of Austria, and it was known to draw in bandits and condottieri that wanted to ‘liberate the region from vampires and devil-worshipers’.

The first task I put myself through was the internal division within the administration and the locals. The lack of progress ever since the incorporation of the state within the real administration of Styria worked a bit against me, but I managed to solve this hassle by the notion of ‘Panem et Circenses’. Bakeries were ‘expropriated’ from their owners as those were then turned into ‘statal workers’.

In truth these individuals were getting subsided with resources such as more grain and a greater budget to hire new people, renovate their shops and provide lower prices to feed the people. Food was a concern, but it wasn’t as troublesome as the water issue and the sewage problem.

The former was correlated to the limited wells that provided water to the settlements. I had already sent for engineers that worked by the forge in Graz to provide assistance in this hurdle and more. They were experienced in basic plumbing, but through some careful planning they also provided for plans for a rudimentary sewage system to replace the limited one relying on the ‘crappers’, with tubes reaching big caves several feet underground. What was left to do was to get in the caves, add more tubes and then connect all of those to the houses where new ‘crappers’ could be produced.

It was 1472 when I was done getting rid of the worst issues within the internal affairs. The agriculture was reshuffled to modern standards, with fertilizers produced by researchers I had hired from Graz granting greater yield to the peasants.

Rather than allow landed gentry, I focused on organizing ‘Farming Unions’ meant to obey the government. At this point, privatization was not an option so nationalization felt more than just prolonging agrarianism to the basic feudal stage it currently was.

Taxes were reorganized and simplified to allow greater job opportunities and higher life expectancy for many against the common economic issues of the time. A ‘clinic’ was opened to be operated by surgeons studying in Graz- the lack of importance of medical assistance within a society of vampires meant that their best work application was within these areas where humans needed it.

Likewise, education was planned to be expanded through the hiring of scholars from both Styria and beyond who were invited to work as professors and teachers to the University of Murau.

At the moment, I saw fit to not create a full school system, relying more on those unemployed folks that would provide much needed ‘blood’ to the local administration and beyond.

Still, such a progress would take more than just a handful years to produce major results. And speaking of blood, I had been working with some researchers to provide a safe means to create a ‘blood tax’ for the humans. Not all humans however and the quantity claimed by each denizen was limited by major traits such as age (old people going beyond 55 and young kids that weren’t considered adults before the age of 15), severe illnesses (lepers and plague-ridden people), and people that worked difficult jobs such as miners and forge-masters were not listed as ‘proper donors’.

In less than a year of integrating sterile needles and sterile containers to store blood, we had a steady weekly supply of blood that provided for the capital’s demands. And things were going so wonderfully that I was invited as a guest to a council meeting in Graz by Lady Morana.

It was 1474 and… I knew it wasn’t Dracula that had caused discussions of a conflict to come up. It was Carinthia, the Duchy that was directly bordering my fief. The old king had died and his son, a zealot, had taken steps to raise an army and plan to march it into Styria to destroy the ‘cults in the area’. Someone had told him that Styria was ruled by vampires, so he was smartly limiting the true reasons why he was conducting a mini-crusade within Austria.

Lady Striga had enough in her forces to take care of that, but the reason I had been invited was less about the aftermath of such an affair which would see my fief doubled due to the planned acquisition of new land, and more on a proposal forwarded by Lady Morana.

“Treasurer to the Council?” I inquired calmly, my advanced learning of Austrian and Hungarian proceeding smoothly through my picture-perfect memory as a vampire. “I thought the duty was already entrusted to Lady Morana.”

“My chores used to include this, but I realized that it would be best to split this duty on the basis that the main duty of an organizer is to plan the general circumstances behind supplies and logistics. I would be foolish to claim I am an expert in budgeting the kingdom’s funds and I would be even greater of a fool to refuse the good work you secured within Murau, raising it from a mere district to a major hub within the kingdom.”

I slowly nodded at the praise. “Your words bring relief to me, Lady Morana.”

“Nothing else?” Carmilla quipped, eyed me with a mixture of curiosity and intrigue. “Not pride?”

“Pride is but a momentary feeling in interactions. My true pride is built within deeds and not words.”

“So, praises do not stir in you any admiration?” Lenore inquired with childish curiosity flavoring her genuine interest over what I may give her.

She was already eyeing me like she was going to do with Hector.

“I would say praises are good for two things. Reinforce a matter of fact in a positive light, or, in rare and in situations unlike this one, to buttering some faux affection within someone. And I wish to reinforce that I am thankful for those words as I know, like many that respect Lady Morana and Lady Striga, that they are in a relationship. So I would never consider this last option, not even in my thoughts.”

Striga, the Military Buff Vampire that sat close to Morana, nodded in agreement, understanding what I was saying and how awkward of a situation it was.

“Nonetheless, I wish to accept this position if it is the will of the council to bestow it to me.”

“There should be a vote, but I had the chance to read some reports on your actions,” Carmilla commented, glancing at Lenore and- I realized just now that one of the last things I did in these months was to export a few of the newly-produced writing machines to her offices and she had been staring at me giddily also for that reason.

And as I accepted the role of Treasurer, I failed to realize that my plans to win the upcoming war on Humanity waged by Dracula were soon going to be muddied by the interference of a red-haired vampire that may want me more than just a treasurer and… a pet~.

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AN

Soon~!