Charlotte
By any sane measure, how many people could walk around a road with no streetlights at all, relying only on moonlight?
And yet there I was.
My night vision was absurdly bright.
That wasn’t the only strange thing, either. My white legs and tiny soles shone so pale they looked as if they were giving off their own light.
Like a soft moon hanging in the sky.
While I was admiring that glittering skin, a faint movement caught at the edge of my vision.
Thick clothes. A huge backpack strapped to his back. And in his hand, some bizarre iron skewer.
Then, all at once, a faintly sweet scent drifted toward me.
From the direction I was looking.
I swallowed hard.
This had to be a dream. It had to be a dream, so why was I feeling such an intense thirst?
My body moved on its own.
I walked slowly, trailing after the stranger.
The closer I got, the stronger the sweet fragrance became.
It was him. That man was definitely hiding something.
Was it candy? Or maybe chocolate?
I couldn’t tell for sure.
But one thing was certain: my instincts were telling me to catch him.
Drunk on the sweet scent, half in a daze, I kept following him.
The stranger with the backpack went into a building and started gathering things.
Inside the large, open bag were shiny cans, water bottles, and all kinds of books.
"Hi—"
It was a light, casual greeting.
But his reaction wasn’t light at all.
He flinched so violently, as if he’d heard something that should never have reached his ears, and I stared at him, slack-jawed.
Crash—!
The iron skewer slipped from his hand and rattled across the floor with a loud clang.
Tension, excitement, fear, and hostility.
The man in front of me was guarding himself from everything around him, and from me in particular, with almost absurd intensity.
Why was he looking at me like that?
Ah—
Only then did I realize I wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Clothes—something to cover my body. I needed that.
The moment I thought it, the shadow beneath me began to squirm and take on a faint shape.
I accepted it naturally, as if nothing about it were strange at all.
This was a dream, after all. In my dreams, getting what I wanted was only natural.
Swish—
A pleasant texture settled over my body.
Shoes, pants, a shirt, even a coat.
Now that I was dressed, wasn’t it fine?
No. Apparently he didn’t think so.
"You...!"
The low voice that slipped out of him was unmistakably hostile.
And his actions were no different.
The man grabbed the iron skewer from the floor and aimed it at me.
Why was he showing hostility?
I couldn’t understand what he was doing.
"Wai—"
Thud—!
I’d meant to say wait.
But the word never got the chance to finish.
A sharp, burning ache.
The chilling sound that followed.
And then came the cold.
Something long and hard had driven into my body—into my neck, of all places.
Grrrk—
My mouth produced a sound like boiling blood as red liquid spilled out.
At the same instant I understood what had happened, my gaze snapped along the iron skewer that had pierced my throat.
Blood running down the metal slicked the man’s hand.
His hands trembled. His eyes shook wildly, fixed on me.
I read the bottomless hostility in them and felt a single, baffled question rise in me.
Why did he hate me so much?
I couldn’t know.
The moment I thought that, the shadow at my feet began to move.
Slither—
Black and red.
The two colors mingled together, forming the head of a huge beast, which then opened its mouth wide.
Split—
Crush—!
Just a simple motion.
It opened its jaws and bit clean through the man.
The red mass of flesh began to collapse with a sickening, wet crunch.
Not even a scream.
My dazed mind snapped awake.
A moment of sudden clarity.
The smell of blood stinging my nose told me that this wasn’t a dream.
"Hah..."
After finishing its meal, the black beast vanished back into my shadow.
The man with the iron skewer in front of me was gone.
The skewer that had been through my throat had also been pulled free at some point and was now rolling across the floor.
Had it not been for the blood soaking the ground and the backpack the man had brought with him, I might still have believed this was all a dream.
Shadow, blood, and a ruined city.
The words that surfaced in my mind snapped together, and the title of a game came to me.
No way.
It couldn’t be, could it?
I shook my head and started rummaging through the backpack on the floor.
Not yet. It was too early to be certain.
I needed more reliable information.
What I pulled out of the bag were magazines and books packed with specialized knowledge.
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
[First Aid, Volume 1]
[Gun Maintenance, Volume 6]
There wasn’t even the author’s name.
Not the publisher’s name, either.
Just the title printed on the cover. That was all.
My doubt hardened into certainty, and the vague outline in my mind sharpened into focus.
Werewolves, vampires, humans, fused entities.
A game world where four races lived side by side.
Blood Carnival...
The moment the name came back to me, a chain of memories followed in a rush.
It couldn’t be helped. Blood Carnival was the only online game I had ever truly enjoyed.
Feeling the sweet scent tickling my nose, I let out a hollow laugh.
Overly bright night vision, skin that gleamed even in pitch-black darkness, the power to control shadows, a thirst for blood, and a mind that could stay calm even after witnessing a person die right in front of me.
Those were the racial traits of vampires in the game.
And I had inherited them.
There was no point denying it.
I had become a vampire.
All right. So what was I supposed to do now?
Sitting astride the large backpack, I fell into thought.
"Status window... status... skill window... inventory..."
I muttered the words hopefully, chasing the thought a little further.
But, as expected, nothing appeared before my eyes.
I gave a tiny, empty chuckle.
Even in a situation like this, the fact that I could still think calmly meant the game’s settings were definitely in effect.
I couldn’t see it, but the game’s rules were still holding, weren’t they?
Just as I was mulling that over in a composed sort of way, I remembered a tiny shard of memory.
A huge map unfolded in my mind, the kind that would only ever appear in a game, and the terrain around me was drawn in.
Then a red mark was painted over it.
[Survivor Camp]
[Werewolf Territory]
There was a camp of survivors near the ruined city center, and far beyond that lay the werewolves’ territory.
I frowned and tilted my head. This memory definitely wasn’t mine.
But it didn’t feel unfamiliar.
It slipped into my mind as naturally as if I’d always had it.
I got to my feet.
I couldn’t verify where the memory had come from, but that didn’t mean I could just stand around here.
Conveniently, the survivors’ camp wasn’t far from here, so I decided to head there.
I hoisted the backpack from the floor and left the building.
Vampires had physical abilities superior to humans.
Being able to run fast, silently, and without tiring in this world was nothing short of a blessing.
Using my vampire body, I raced through the ruined city at high speed.
[Grrr...]
After running for quite a while, a strange noise reached my ears.
The low growl sounded oddly familiar.
I came to a stop and focused on the sound.
[Grrrrr—]
It grew clearer.
It wasn’t so much frightening as disgusting.
I moved cautiously toward the sound for some time.
When I carefully peeked through the gap between collapsed buildings, I found a bizarre creature.
Long, stretched-out limbs.
Tough-looking blackish-red skin covering its entire body.
Coarse fur sprouting along its back.
Sharp claws and talons, and long teeth slick with sticky blood.
A race you couldn’t avoid encountering if you played Blood Carnival long enough.
It was definitely a fused entity.
A strange tension hung in the air.
There was only one fused entity in sight.
My vampire senses, sharpened to an almost painful degree, told me that what I could see was all there was.
If I were really playing the game, I would have killed that fused entity without a second thought.
But that was only when I had a keyboard and mouse in my hands.
Even after stepping on broken glass, I hadn’t felt pain.
Even after being stabbed through the neck with an iron skewer, I hadn’t felt pain.
But this time, I wasn’t sure I could get away with it again.
I had no certainty that having my body torn apart by those huge claws wouldn’t hurt.
That was why I couldn’t move so easily.
In the end, I chose another path.
I unfolded the tiny map in my head and changed direction.
After moving for quite a while, I emerged from the ruined city and reached the location of the survivors’ camp.
Hiding myself in a spot a little way off, I examined the camp.
A barricade built from wrecked cars and the remains of collapsed buildings, with people standing guard on top of it.
There was only one entrance into the camp.
Squinting, I checked their weapons.
Bows, spears, and iron clubs made up most of what they carried.
Only a very small number were armed with guns.
The camp was bigger than I expected.
There were a lot of guards, too, so I couldn’t just approach carelessly.
Judging by the reaction of the man I’d met first, if I walked up to the camp without thinking, someone might just put a bullet in me.
I spent a while thinking about how to make contact with them.
Then the camp’s gate opened, and a group of people slowly walked out.
They wore thick clothes and carried large backpacks on their backs.
The only weapons in their hands were crude things like iron clubs, iron skewers, and bows.
No one seemed to be carrying a gun.
They were just like the human faction in the game.
They were clearly an expedition team sent out to gather supplies.
Watching the scouts move farther and farther away, I tightened my grip on the backpack slung over my shoulder.
Maybe getting information would be easier than I’d thought.
Keeping myself hidden in the dark, I began to follow the expedition team.
---