Vampire Overlord System in the Apocalypse

-----

Albert Darkeye was never from any prestigious family.

From the time he could remember having any consciousness, he was living in the streets, crawling in the areas where poverty governed.

He had no parents, no family, nothing to call home.

The only things he had were his tattered clothes and a small medallion that said 'Albert Darkeye', which he assumed to be his own name.

Many times he was bitten by large, mutated rats, and had to fight against critters crawling in these places to survive…

However, if such a place were to only be filled with critters, it would not be so bad…

But there were even more terrifying creatures.

People.

Subhumans and Humans lived in these areas, fighting for survival, stealing from each other, assaulting each other for a mere piece of old and moldy bread…

Somehow, Albert was almost killed many times but managed to survive.

However, it was always so close, that he could not even count all the times he was at the border of death with the fingers of his hands…

But everything changed one fateful day when something within him awakened.

As he was fighting another older kid who was trying to stab him in the chest to steal the food he had gathered from the trash, something inside of him awakened.

As he gritted his teeth and the knife was already penetrating his skin, a pink-colored light emerged from his hands.

Touching the head of the kid he was fighting.

Suddenly, the kid cried in agony as he fell to the ground, a sharp pain emerged inside of his head, as his mind was being… eaten away by something.

And then Albert realized that this "something" was from him.

This was… his power.

And as he awakened it, he gained the System.

And found out what it was.

Mind-Eating Parasite.

A Skill that sounded so eerie that it seemed to have come from a horror movie.

With this Skill, Albert's life gave a total shift.

Mind-Eating Parasite gave Albert the power to eat or brainwash the minds of other living beings.

As long as they were weaker or of a similar strength than him.

He had tried to use it on adults, but many times he was caught and beaten almost to death…

But he realized that if he could not brainwash those stronger than him to protect him, he just had to gather a ton of weaklings…

And use them as his army.

Through the streets, he began to experiment with his power, trying out its limits and what it could truly do.

However, due to the large amount of Mana needed to use it, he could barely activate it once a day before his Mana were to be completely depleted, regenerating very slowly afterward.

He only had one chance a day…

And each chance had a probability of failure as well, even in weaker beings.

If they opposed resistance, he was not able to take over them.

The first kid that was attacked by his Skill was startled but managed to get the effect off his head, escaping from him while leaving the knife in the ground.

Albert acquired this first weapon and used it to catch a giant mutant rat the size of a house cat.

As it was weakened and beaten up, he managed to parasitize, and from there and on, he slowly began to tame rats, making his own rat army.

One rat a day…

Not too long after, he began to catch kids and finally managed to brainwash one human.

But quickly after, he suffered an enormous headache.

He discovered that he had a limit of how many minds he could control, and no matter how much the proficiency of the skill increased, this limitation did not change.

But that was fine by him.

He simply killed one rat every time he took a person.

Half a year later, he had gathered ten kids before him… this was his limit, ten people.

However, it was hard to keep them all feed, so he often worked them to death to bring him whatever he wanted.

After another year, he had decided to infiltrate into an F-Rank Dungeon and began to slowly rise in power as a hunter, while bringing those kids that managed to survive the most as his loyal pawns.

Although the range of his power was limited to a certain amount of people, he could slowly climb the social hierarchy… and if he were to somehow get at the same level as an S-Rank hunter… wouldn't he be able to also brainwash them?

Then… the entire world could be his!

With such a blazing resolve and a wicked and cold heart, Albert advanced further and further, until the opportunity to enter a Military School arose.

He had already reached E-Rank in strength at that time, and now, he had secretly reached D-Rank after these months in the school.

Using his pawns as students as well, he infiltrated and faked that his powers were those of the Skills he acquired through dropped Ability Cores.

What was his purpose? Use the school as a safety net and show off his power to become a soldier of the government, as that would bring him an easier way to grow in power and then meet strong new people to brainwash.

Due to this, he had decided to get as many rivals off his path as possible today, slaughtering any student party he crossed paths with.

It was an easy task for someone who had been hiding his actual strength, and even more, as he realized that this was most likely the intention of the higher-ups anyways.

Filtering out the students so only the strongest and most suitable for the task of becoming a strong soldier for the Sector would remain.

It was a ruthless plan, but wasn't this world already insane?

Society had fallen apart, and the world was simply reformed from the ashes, made by people that survived this living hell with blood and sweat.

There was no room for ethics anymore, there was no room for human rights either, there was only room for surviving, where only the strong survived.

It was that simple, and Albert had understood this world since he was born in it, never having experienced what was the old world where everyone seemed to live peacefully while discussing the most meaningless of things.

And like this, Albert came into contact with Clementina's party…

He knew she was from a prestigious family.

But did he care?

Not at all, he was just about to slaughter her if it wasn't for her very troublesome ability, if he were to get completely frozen, all of his plans would be gone forever, so he didn't want to die so meaninglessly… ultimately letting her escape, although based on her wounds, she was already about to die.

Despite that, Albert could not help but still have some kind of uneasiness within him, he did not like to leave half-done jobs.

After having slaughtered yet another party of useless nobodies and collecting their Ability Cores, he walked back to where Clementina went to, looking for her corpse to loot, or if she were still alive somehow, to kill her for once…

However, when he finally found her… she was not alone.

"What? The useless party? Noah and these other guys… Timassa should only be the only strong enough, and not even that much, seeing how she was F-Rank… Did they found her by chance?" he wondered.

Much like many other students, although Albert sensed the enormous power within the classroom, he did not identify it as Noah or his party's strength.

"He's here… Albert…" cried Clementina, as she gritted her teeth.

"Albert… is it?" asked Noah with a complacent smile.

"I was wondering where this little lamb went to… and here she is, with the useless party. I have not been paying any attention to trash like you, but I was wondering why you guys survived that time and even got a perfect score, and seeing you guys still alive… I still do wonder… what's up with that?" asked Albert rather teasingly.

"Albert, you're interesting. I have an offer for you… Serve me while being alive, or serve me while being dead. Sounds nice, right? What's your choice?" said Noah.

"…Ah? What trash are you spitting now? …Wait for a second, that confidence… Don't tell me that you've been hiding your powers like me?" asked Albert.

"Oh, hidden? You are revealing your secrets? Does that mean that you are going to kill me anyway? What if I have powers? Do you want to see them? Well, catch this," said Noah, as a blade made of blood flew towards Albert!

Flash!

"W-What?!"

-----