Equipment Item
The situation inside the station was just as dire as it had been outside.
Collapsed stairs, shattered walls, black-red mold choking every surface, dented vending machines, and turnstiles that survived only as traces of what they had once been.
All around, there were signs that a fierce battle had been fought here long ago.
"Mm..."
As I kept walking, a low groan slipped out of me.
The wreckage of the collapsed ceiling had buried a twisted subway car, blocking the narrow tunnel.
After a brief hesitation, I approached the warped and crushed train.
Through the broken window, I checked the interior.
Because the car was twisted and caved in, the space inside was extremely cramped.
Too tight for an ordinary adult man to pass through easily.
But for some reason, I felt like I could make it.
"Gh...!"
I reached out and grabbed the mangled subway door, then yanked.
I’d never invested points in strength, so I was a little worried, but a vampire’s body possessed far greater strength than a human’s ever could.
Rrrrip—!
With a dreadful sound, the subway door tore free.
I had peeled away the hardened steel plate as easily as if I were ripping paper.
Carefully, I squeezed my body through the narrow opening.
Tap—
Because the interior had been warped and crushed so badly, I couldn’t walk through it normally.
It was as if gravity itself had decided to pull sideways.
I stepped on a rotten seat and the wall beside it, moving on to the next car.
The door dividing the cars was just as mangled.
I pulled on it with the same force as before, and it came away without much resistance.
Kreeeek—!
I tore the steel plate loose and tossed it back as I kept moving.
Straight down the tunnel, past the debris that had swallowed the narrow passage.
As I traveled through the crushed subway car, I eventually found a small glass bottle and a bandage lying on the floor.
A spotless white bandage that looked completely out of place in this mold-choked ruin.
And a luxurious-looking glass bottle filled with bright red liquid.
Both were familiar consumable items from Blood Carnival.
Things that should never have appeared in reality now existed right here in front of me.
Thanks to absorbing Lavina’s memories, I already understood that this phenomenon was normal.
"..."
Still, there was no point getting hung up on trivial nonsense.
Right now, I needed to hurry and accomplish the goal I’d set for myself in the first place.
I shook my head and pressed forward.
Kreeeek! Thunk—!
The last door.
When I reached the final car and tore the door away, a tunnel that looked comparatively intact greeted me.
"Going along the tracks, are you?"
"What—!?"
A voice came out of nowhere.
I yelped and jumped back.
When I turned, Aurell was standing a short distance away from me.
I blinked, then looked behind me.
The tunnel was blocked by the wreckage of the collapsed ceiling, and the only way through had been the subway car I’d just passed through.
I moved the shadows and glared at Aurell.
"How did you get here?"
"Hm? Why, I transformed, of course. I turned into mist and came over."
"Transformed..."
Aurell answered as if it were obvious.
Transformation skill.
It was something all vampires could learn, but most players ignored it because they considered it a waste of skill points.
And I, Charlotte, had also never learned it.
Of course, if I’d known the world was going to end up like this, I would have taken it.
If this were reality instead of a game, transformation would have been incredibly useful.
"Charlotte-nim didn’t learn Transformation?"
"It’s a waste of skill points..."
"A waste?"
At my words, Aurell tilted her head and blinked those sparkling eyes of hers.
She looked genuinely unable to understand why it would be a waste.
Just as I was about to explain, I closed my mouth instead.
At the same time, I looked away from Aurell.
She probably thought she could tempt me by showing off that cute expression, but that wasn’t going to work on me.
I bit my lip and started walking ahead again.
I kept on walking for a long while.
Then I glanced back over my shoulder.
Aurell, who had seemed like she might cling to me and insist on coming along, was gone.
I narrowed my eyes and looked around elsewhere just in case, but there was still no sign of her.
Was she really not following me?
Of course, I had told her not to.
Still, now that she was out of sight, I felt a little disappointed.
The journey along the tracks was painfully dull.
There were no fused entities, and I didn’t run into any other survivors.
Once in a while, a few large rats would scurry around squeaking, but that was it.
How long had I walked like that?
By the time I’d passed more than twenty stations.
Suddenly.
A faint scent drifted into my nose.
A sweet smell of blood, mixed with the greasy stench that was unique to beasts.
By now, I knew exactly what that stench meant.
A werewolf.
More specifically, a werewolf that had just finished hunting.
In Blood Carnival, werewolves and vampires were hostile factions.
On an ordinary field, they were the sort to raise their blades against each other the moment they met.
But this place was different.
According to Lavina’s memories, the werewolves and vampires had signed a peace treaty.
As long as one side didn’t act hostile first, they wouldn’t be fighting the way they did in the game.
Crunch! Snap!
The sounds of flesh tearing and bones breaking came clearly through the darkness.
I had no intention of interrupting the werewolf’s meal, so I moved forward carefully.
But something felt odd.
The closer I got, the thicker the scent in the air became—not human blood, but werewolf blood.
And soon enough, I understood exactly what that meant.
Crunch—!
The first thing I saw was a werewolf collapsed on the floor.
Thanks to the fur growing on its arms and legs, and the sharp claws, I could tell it had been using its partial beast-transformation skill right up until the moment it died.
The next thing that came into view was a man swinging a sword at the fallen werewolf’s corpse.
He wore a black rider suit, with a black coat thrown over it.
Inside the coat, partially visible, were a number of weapons like knives and guns, and a cartridge belt was wrapped around his waist over the rider suit.
A human.
Not just any human, either, but one of the humans in Blood Carnival who fought against werewolves and vampires.
At once, memories I’d absorbed from Lavina surfaced.
Unlike the vampires and werewolves, who had signed a peace treaty, the players who had chosen the human faction in Blood Carnival hadn’t agreed to it.
Crunch!
For an instant, the man swinging his sword met my eyes.
Blue fire burned inside his black pupils.
It was a look full of fierce hostility.
The moment I recognized him, it meant he had recognized me as well.
He stopped swinging his sword and shoved his left hand into the inside of his coat.
The motion was smooth, practiced, without a shred of hesitation.
I had no idea what it meant.
Bang—!
A sudden, deafening blast rang out.
The man’s hand had just come back out from inside the coat when a flash of light burst forth with a loud report.
My thoughts moved sluggishly.
Gun. Firing. Hostility directed at me.
Those three naturally connected words led to one conclusion.
The thing in front of me was my enemy.
Thunk!
The bullet flying toward me was stopped by a shadow surging up from beneath my feet.
In response to the hostility aimed at me, my own hostility toward the man flared up as well.
And my shadow, as if reacting to my feelings, began to move.
Any thought of talking to him vanished on its own.
Whoooooosh—
With a cold, scraping sound, the shadow began to change shape.
What emerged was the form of a massive beast.
Unlike before, it now fully revealed its enormous body.
Bang! Bang! Bang—!
The other side didn’t stop attacking.
Gunfire rang out again and again.
The pitch-black station flashed in bursts every time a round was fired.
Thud— thud— thud—!
The bullets that came at me were all blocked by the shadow.
The moment one of the deflected rounds struck the floor.
The human man shoved the handgun in his hand back into his coat and drew out a different gun.
I frowned and ordered the shadow.
"Kill him."
The words slipped out lightly, but they were a command to bring death to the man in front of me.
Not a trace of hesitation. Not even the slightest reluctance.
Thud—!
The black beast lunged forward with heavy footsteps.
At that very moment, another gunshot cracked from the other side.
Bang—!
Just one shot.
The same sharp report as before.
But the result that single bullet created was different from the last.
Pow—!
A heavier, more brutal explosion than before.
The bullet fired at high speed pierced straight through the shadow’s head.
But that one blow still wasn’t enough to stop the black beast completely.
The shadow, staggered and losing its shape, quickly recovered its original form and lunged its mouth toward the human man.
KRRAAAACK—!
That gaping maw snapped shut over the spot where the man had been standing.
Watching that, I furrowed my brow.
The human man wasn’t dead.
He had rolled sharply to the side to avoid the attack, then drawn his sword and started running along the wall.
A bizarre movement, not quite human even though it was human.
There was no doubt about it. He was a Blood Carnival player.
I faced the human man charging at me after shaking off the shadow, calm and unmoved.
I kept my hand in my coat pocket all the while.
The moment the distance closed, he swung his sword in a wide arc.
A blue flash spread across my vision.
KRRAAAACK—!
A chilling sound followed.
I blinked and stared at the man frozen in midair.
His attack on me had stopped partway through.
His body trembled, and red blood burst out from within.
His eyes, blazing with blue fire, still shone vividly, as though he were alive and burning.
He couldn’t move.
He had been pierced through the entire body by shadows that had shot out from every direction.
I pulled my hand out of my pocket and touched the sword suspended in front of me.
"Where did you get this...?"
"..."
I frowned and examined the man’s gear.
A number of firearms that looked hard to obtain in Korea.
But more importantly, the sword in his hand was no ordinary weapon.
It was definitely a shop-bought weapon: a Matte Katana.
It matched the game’s design exactly, and more than that, even after he had hacked away at the werewolf’s tough body with it over and over, the blade hadn’t chipped at all.
In Blood Carnival, it had been a cheap weapon easily purchased from a shop, but not here.
An equipment item existed?
There had been no hint of equipment items in Lavina’s memories, either.
But the human man didn’t answer my question.
He only bared a twisted smile and glared at me.
The fierce light in his eyes slowly faded.
He was dead.
I took the Matte Katana and handed the remaining corpse over to my shadow.