Bring It On
I couldn't understand why I was so desperately hungry for blood. I'd suppressed the vampire element with the choker, hadn't I?
Wasn't blood consumption supposed to be suppressed along with it?
Don't tell me that even with the vampire component locked down, the blood still burned through on its own? Ugh, seriously. I really could have used a user manual for this body.
In my case, there was no original work to consult, no precedent in this world at all—so I had no one I could even ask.
Even the monster association that could be called my creator probably didn't know exactly what I was. I'd gone and escaped on my own before they could figure anything out…
And since even I, the one who should have known this body best, still had no idea what I truly was, I had no choice but to learn it the hard way—piece by piece, like a blind person feeling out an elephant.
Which meant… suppressing the vampire component still left the blood draining away just the same. Wow. The fuel efficiency on this thing was absolute garbage.
Barely a week without blood and I was already losing my mind over it.
Or was the efficiency actually good? At least I hadn't reached the point where the shortage was wrecking my body. I had no idea—I didn't know what a normal vampire's fuel economy looked like.
I was still evaluating myself when another dizzying wave of thirst hit me.
Anyway, I needed blood. Right now. Even the garbage blood of a monster would do. Blood. I needed blood.
I almost took off on instinct before I finally remembered why I'd been hunted out of Romania in the first place, and clicked my tongue.
I had no desire to fight a magical girl out here.
I didn't exactly have a plan, but I did want my first proper appearance as a monster to be in Seoul.
More than that, if I started scattering starlight here, White might run into Su-hyeok earlier than scheduled—or some other magical girl might show up. So flying was out.
…Not that I particularly wanted to look lame running around on foot, either.
I stood there with my arms folded, tapping my fingers, until the old transmission tower I'd been using as a landmark caught my eye.
The lines were all already cut, so climbing it shouldn't be a problem.
I kicked off from girder to girder, reached the top without much trouble, and looked down over the ruined city.
Lights flared here and there and flames leapt skyward—even in the middle of the night, this was still a demon-haunted battlefield.
Which only made it better for me.
I spread my wings wide and gave them a few vigorous flaps.
They kicked up a decent wind, but it didn't look like quite enough to lift me off the ground.
Whether it simply didn't work, or I just didn't know the trick, I couldn't say.
…Still, the wings weren't exactly small. Gliding ought to be possible, right?
They might have been decorative more than anything, but even so, that much should be doable. Holding onto that thought, I leapt hard and spread my wings.
I wobbled for the first few seconds, but wings were still wings—I managed it.
I glanced over my shoulder at them. No red trails of light streaming off them the way they had last time. So I wasn't using magic. Good.
So I could do at least this much. I added another line to the mental notebook and enjoyed a leisurely glide.
The closer I drew, the more clearly I could hear the sounds of battle rising from the city center.
Gunfire. Something exploding. Probably human screams and monster howls—or the other way around. Who cared?
All of it was my prey, and all of it was beneath me.
There was no reason to be afraid. The only real worry was running into Su-hyeok by chance… but come on. What were the odds?
I fretted and reassured myself in the same breath, then dove at high speed straight toward the place where gunshots and howls were roaring the loudest.
I came down crushing some nameless monster underfoot—one that had been getting turned into a beehive while surrounded—and the ones who'd been pouring bullets into it froze, startled by the unexpected arrival.
I licked the green blood smeared near my mouth. The taste was so foul it would have been better not to eat it at all.
Monster blood was one thing, but the blood of something that had never been human in the first place really wasn't fit for consumption.
I added another line to the notepad and looked over the ones who'd been so enthusiastically pulling triggers. Hmm. Hmm. Just some gang of criminals, by the look of them.
Beings better off not existing in society. The root of harm deserved to be wiped out.
"Be grateful. Even for worthless things like you, my generosity can still find a use."
I hereby designate you as food.
I floated droplets of blood into the air to match their number, and even idiots like them had enough sense to swing their muzzles toward me.
But the floating drops shot out and punched through their throats faster than they could pull their triggers.
The droplets bored clean through bone and spinal cord, then slipped back through the holes they'd made and returned to me.
I'd been copying the blood manipulation the vampires who'd fought me had used. The fact that I could pick it up so easily after seeing it once made me think I might actually have a knack for this.
They crumpled where they stood as if they'd died instantly—but they weren't dead yet.
With nerves and arteries severed, they were doomed to die within minutes, but biologically speaking they were still alive.
The reason I'd left them that way was simple: living blood tasted far better than dead blood.
I'd grown reasonably familiar with blood manipulation by now, so I had no trouble seizing control of the blood gushing from the holes in their necks and drawing it in.
The moment the droplets touched my hand, a satisfaction and pleasure beyond words nearly dragged an ugly sound out of me.
…Ah. Yes. This was it. Whether from the long thirst or from drinking living blood, my head spun.
I could get addicted to this for real. I shuddered with joy—and for a moment I almost felt a little sorry for the vampires I'd tortured before.
I'd drunk blood right in front of creatures who were literally dying of thirst. How much must that have hurt…
They were villains, so it doesn't matter.
…While I was still pitying them, that voice rang through my head again.
Whose voice was it, exactly? Magical girl or vampire—it had to be one of the two.
Vampire, right? No matter how extreme Shining White could get, she wouldn't look at people and say something like that.
Still… yeah. It did sound right. Well, whose fault was it for living like a criminal? They should have lived decently.
I snickered and drifted for a moment in the afterglow of the feeding—then a rustling sound cut through it.
In that instant my floating mind snapped back into my body. Who the hell was interrupting me right when I was feeling good?
Irritated, I went toward the noise, and found someone either late to the party or looking the wrong way.
A scrawny little boy stood there, gun in hand, trembling hard.
What, a kid?
Before I could even ask if he was with the ones from earlier, he yanked the trigger, so the moment I saw him pull it I designated the kid an "enemy" and activated Time Acceleration.
I had something I wanted to try.
Even in accelerated time, the trigger had already been pulled, so a moment later the bullet left the barrel.
It was slow enough to dodge, but I didn't dodge. I caught it off to the side.
Then I released the acceleration, and along with the hot sensation blooming in my hand I saw the kid's eyes go huge as a rabbit's.
"Hmm. Opening with gunfire. Doesn't look like an innocent civilian, does it?"
I'd been ready to spare him if he turned out to be innocent, the way I had with Na-rae. Hmm. You're out.
I knocked the gun away and lifted the kid by the throat.
"You. Were you with those ones just now?"
His throat was too constricted for a proper answer, but the kid shook his head hard in denial.
A lie? Or not. The racing heartbeat made it look like one, but stress alone could do that too.
I couldn't tell. But did I need to? He'd opened fire without a second thought.
If the sprout was already yellow, better to snap it early…
…
…Still. He was a child.
Was it right to start from the assumption of killing him?
The question rose unbidden.
Even if he grows up, he'll only turn into some two-bit criminal.
The voice in my head kept feeding me lines, urging me to kill him. Come to think of it, there was more than one strange thing about this voice.
Was it the lingering thoughts of a past life echoing back, or was there genuinely another self living inside my head? I had no way of knowing.
Snap his neck like this? Or spare him because he was still a kid? Ah, and I wanted his blood, too.
I was still tangled up over which impulse was even mine when a twisted yet somehow familiar voice reached me.
"Let that boy go."
That voice…
Come on. No way. Right?
I turned my head slowly, and that "no way" turned out to be exactly right.
Wow. For real?
The one calling out to me was none other than Su-hyeok in his monster form.
A head wrapped in something that was either black smoke or black flame, and floating at its center, a pair of eyes glowing faintly. The clothes he wore seemed affected by the same blackness—at a glance they looked like an ordinary coat and shirt, but toward the hems they trailed off into something that might have been fire or smoke.
Seeing it in person instead of just descriptions and illustrations made it look far more ominous. That was the first thought that hit me when I laid eyes on Su-hyeok's monster form.
"Don't tell me that was aimed at me?"
Before I even wondered why he wanted me to let the kid go, that line was what stuck with me.
Running into Su-hyeok in monster form was startling enough, but…
He was weaker than me, wasn't he?
And a weaker person was giving orders?
"…That's prey I've been hunting. Whoever you are, I'm not letting you snatch him away."
Even Su-hyeok, who usually charged in without looking back, seemed cowed by my gaze—his words ran a little long.
Prey, though… Su-hyeok wasn't the type to kill people over something petty the way I might, so he had to have a reason for chasing this one.
Hmm. Probably because of the request I'd put out? That was the only reason Su-hyeok would move.
Thinking of it that way, I almost found it endearing. He was risking his life to mouth off at me just to carry out my commission.
Fine. I was in a good mood. I'd let the earlier rudeness slide.
That didn't mean I intended to hand the boy over, though.
Su-hyeok might have been the protagonist, but he was still weaker than me.
I did not take orders from anyone weaker than me. A request was another matter.
"If it had been a request, I might have considered it… but an order? How arrogant. Know your place, worm."
I growled low, a thread of irritation in it, trying to drive him off.
"So that means you won't let him go."
Even after all that, Su-hyeok opened black holes in the air as if he meant to fight right then and there.
If he still wouldn't leave, this kid must have been pretty important.
Part of me wanted to just hand him over, but my pride wouldn't stand for it, so I racked my brain over what to do.
Hmm. Fighting was the only real option, wasn't it?
I'd been meaning to give him some real combat experience anyway. Fighting now didn't sound so bad.
I hadn't expected to run into him here… but what did it matter? Even brushing sleeves was fate, right? So meeting again like this was fine.
Of course, I had no intention of going all out. Just lightly. Lightly.
A little scouting match, nothing more.
"If you want him, take him by force!"
I shaped a spear of blood and shouted for him to come at me.