Fenrir
After my conversation with Mary ended, she led us to a small room.
The sun was about to rise, and she’d shown us here out of consideration, a place where we could get away from its light for a while.
What she brought us to was a bleak little room with nothing in it but a bed, a desk, and a single chair.
"I’m sorry... this is the only room I have."
"It’s fine. We’re not planning to stay long anyway."
Mary gave me a faint smile at that before slipping out of the room.
The moment she was gone, Aurell and Hwanggu both sprinted toward the bed.
"Yup!"
"Hngh!"
The fact that the two children could tumble around on the bed without kicking up a speck of dust told me this room had been well cared for, at least in the usual sense.
Mary wasn’t nearly as dangerous as I’d feared.
In fact, she was an adult—an extremely rare sight these days.
I’d learned quite a bit from our conversation. The most surprising thing was that most of the vampire users in this cathedral were minors.
What shocked me second most was that, before becoming a vampire, Mary had been a priest.
Of course, I’d already guessed as much from the black clerical robe and the white band around his neck.
The fact that he wore the same clothes he’d worn before changing said enough: he must have been a priest.
He hadn’t hesitated for a second when it came to talking about his past self.
I watched the children bouncing up and down on the bed and fell into thought.
Mary had said that everyone here had already adapted to this world.
That they had accepted the bodies they’d been changed into, and chosen to live as they were.
He’d said that everyone had given up on those meaningless struggles to survive at any cost.
Of course, the biggest reason the users had made that choice had probably been the terrifying power of Fenrir.
"What are you thinking about so hard?"
While I was still thinking it through, Cheonhwi poked her head out from the shadows and spoke to me.
Her old appearance was almost impossible to find in her current one; she was ridiculously cute now.
"I’m thinking about how to make this world go back to the way it was."
Cheonhwi looked a little startled at my answer.
Then she wriggled her way out of the shadows with a series of tiny grunts.
Cheonhwi, once a completely white nude figure, was now wearing a large T-shirt like a dress.
It looked like she’d made it out of shadows, but that must have been the limit of what she could do.
I’d wondered where her crayons had gone, but she still had them clutched tightly in one hand.
"I’m a little surprised there’s still someone thinking about that."
With that, Cheonhwi waddled around the room.
Her shortened arms and legs seemed to make movement awkward; every motion looked clumsy.
Every move she made felt unsteady.
"Haah... so I can’t go back to how I was?"
She flopped down onto the floor and muttered it like a sigh, sounding almost resigned.
Even now, she still couldn’t let go of her old body.
Time passed, and the sun climbed into the sky.
Vampires who could walk outside in broad daylight were extremely rare.
As expected, most of the vampires inside the cathedral chose to shut themselves away in their rooms.
Aurell was the same.
Lying on the bed with the blanket pulled over her, she was holding Hwanggu tightly in her arms.
It was a lovely sight—two cute girls clinging to each other like that.
I rested my chin in my hand and watched them from the table.
Hwanggu, still wrapped in Aurell’s arms, started nodding off.
Once Hwanggu began dozing, Aurell followed suit, her own head beginning to droop.
It didn’t take long for both girls to sink into a deep sleep.
I left them behind and stepped out of the room.
"Where are you going?"
The voice came the moment I left.
Looking down, I saw Cheonhwi peering up at me with only the top of her little head visible.
"Just going to look around the cathedral for a bit."
Cheonhwi nodded at that.
She seemed to be interested in the layout of the place too.
I walked with Cheonhwi and looked around the cathedral.
There were no crosses, no statues, and no silver objects anywhere in sight.
They’d apparently cleared out everything that vampires would instinctively find repulsive.
Come to think of it, they would have had to remove all of it just to survive here.
How long had we been walking?
From the far end of a dark corridor that didn’t let in a single ray of light, a group of vampires began approaching.
They looked strangely familiar, and then I realized they were the male vampire who’d been hanging upside down from the cathedral ceiling earlier.
There were four of them in total.
It seemed they had business with me.
The vampires came closer and stopped in front of me.
What, were all of these guys minors?
As I looked up at them with a crooked gaze, the vampire who’d been hanging upside down planted a hand against the wall behind me and said,
"What’s your name?"
His voice came out low, and the slight tremor at the end told me he was deliberately forcing it deeper.
What the hell was this bastard doing?
He was even looking down his nose at me.
Apparently he thought that made him look cool.
"Charlotte."
"Charlotte... I’m Vermouth."
The vampire introduced himself as Vermouth.
Once he was done, the other vampires beside him started introducing themselves too.
"Want to go out with me?"
Vermouth suddenly blurted out a confession.
When I looked up at him with a twisted expression, he slowly continued.
"You’re staying here from today, right? Then you’d be better off dating me. I’m the strongest one here. I can even get you more blood rations."
At his words, the other vampires began nodding along.
The whole situation was so absurd I didn’t even feel angry.
"Do you even know who I am?"
"You’re Charlotte, aren’t you?"
"No... I’m asking if you know what I do."
"Does that matter?"
"I used to be a man."
"You’re not now, are you?"
Vermouth looked back at me as if my former life had nothing to do with anything.
His answer shocked me.
"So that makes today our first day together?"
I was too dumbfounded to even answer, and Vermouth apparently took my silence for acceptance.
He smiled lightly and reached out his hand.
I caught the approaching hand and twisted his arm around.
Crack—!
"Huh...?"
His arm bent grotesquely in an instant, and an ugly sound leaked from deep inside it.
When I let go, Vermouth stared blankly at his dangling arm.
"Ah, so you’re throwing a tantrum?"
Vermouth was a vampire. A broken arm shouldn’t have meant much pain.
And yet he still had the nerve to say something like that while staring at his own dangling arm.
He really didn’t seem to have any sense in his head at all.
At that moment, I heard a snickering laugh from below my feet.
When I looked down, Cheonhwi was peeking out and laughing.
My head started to burn. The anger that had suddenly surged up made my shadows react.
The shadow stretching from beneath my feet writhed violently, and the shadows all through the corridor rippled in response.
Mary had said most of the vampires living here were minors.
It was a mistake from a kid. That was understandable enough.
Even my own body was that of a small, cute girl.
If Vermouth had looked like one of those small, cute girls—like Aurell or Hwanggu—I wouldn’t have gotten angry at all.
I’d have laughed it off and given him a proper scolding.
But Vermouth looked like an adult man.
I couldn’t stomach that.
A massive beast shape began to seep up from the shadows, slowly taking form.
As if giving shape to my irritated mood, the beast thrashed about in a fit of temper.
"Are you going to kill them?"
"No."
I shook my head at Cheonhwi’s question.
I wasn’t going to kill them.
Just...
I was going to help them become a little more obedient.
"Eat them."
The moment my command ended, the shadow beast opened its mouth wide and swallowed Vermouth and the others whole.
The group trapped inside the shadows struggled hard, but there was no way to escape from within my darkness.
The difference between my power and theirs was simply too great.
How long passed after that?
By the time Vermouth’s resistance had finally gone quiet, the shadow beast spat out four eggs.
They were round, elongated, and looked just like eggs.
I’d tried it on a whim, and it seemed to work just as well on vampires of the same kind.
"W-What...!"
"Those are your friends."
At my friendly explanation, Cheonhwi made a stunned face.
She seemed to understand exactly what happened inside those big eggs.
And why wouldn’t she? Cheonhwi had been born again from one of them too.
I crossed my arms and waited for the eggs to crack open.
"Y-you cruel monster...!"
Cheonhwi, her face gone pale blue, ran around the eggs in a panic.
How long did we wait?
Cracks began to appear across the four large eggs.
Crack—!
Crack, crack!
What was born from the broken eggs were four tiny girls.
"H-heh..."
"Hwah..."
"Hiiik..."
"Hiyeng..."
The four girls slumped weakly to the floor.
I activated my magical eye and checked Vermouth’s information.
Vermouth was sprawled on the floor, drooling helplessly.
He still didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.
He’d confessed to me the instant he saw me.
Apparently his type was beautiful girls like Charlotte.
So I’d made him one.
Something similar to Charlotte, his ideal type.
Vermouth slowly started to push himself upright.
He managed to sit up, only to sway and collapse onto the floor again.
"Ugh..."
He probably still hadn’t adjusted to his changed center of gravity.
Blowing his eyes wide, Vermouth finally looked down at his own palm.
His small, soft hand twitched faintly.
"Huh...?"
Seeing that, Cheonhwi turned her head away without a word.
Apparently she could no longer bear to watch Vermouth’s state, because she disappeared back into the shadows.
"H-How is this..."
Vermouth stared at his altered body in shock.
He touched himself with his tiny hands, confirming his own shape with trembling fingers, and then he looked over at his friends scattered on the floor and froze all over again.
"Hwah...!"
"Do you like it?"
I sincerely hoped he did.
No, it was obvious he did.
I walked toward him with a faint smile.
"A-Aaaaah!"
As I approached, Vermouth scrambled back in alarm.
It looked like the shock he’d taken inside my shadows had been pretty serious.
I sighed and waved a hand.
At that moment, the four girls dissolved into the corridor’s shadows and vanished.
They’d been reborn from my shadow just like Cheonhwi.
At their core, they were the same as shadows, so it was only natural they would return to them as well.
The noisy corridor went quiet in an instant.