Provocation
Looking down upon the earth from high above the sky, I felt as though I had truly become a god.
Perhaps that was why humanity had gazed upward and yearned for wings since ancient times. Even now that I could roam the heavens freely, I still found myself longing for them.
Airplanes existed, of course, but to soar through the sky this freely remained a privilege reserved solely for winged beings.
In truth I was no god—just a vampire who would shriek the moment sunlight brushed her skin—yet I was still superior to the things crawling on the ground, so a little arrogance seemed permissible.
I was far stronger than most things, after all.
…Alright. Enough soaking in the scenery. Time to move.
I had already scattered enough starlight in every direction to register on the detection sensors. All that remained was to commit acts Radiant White would be unable to ignore.
The problem was figuring out what, exactly, would make a girl of such pure heart lose her mind.
A civilian massacre… I didn’t like that idea. Raid a base of the Monster Association, then? No—that would make my image in the media look all wrong.
The title of a monster who kills monsters was one I ought to leave to Su-hyeok.
So was picking off trash and killing them the only option left? That would merely be repeating everything I had done so far, and drawing the public’s attention would be difficult.
As I puzzled over how I had managed to catch Radiant White’s eye last time, I finally remembered the words her sister used to say.
Hmm. Last time I used words, so this time I would imitate what Shining White herself used to do. Yes—that sounded perfect.
If I recreated the signature acts of Shining White so thoroughly that even trying to ignore them became impossible, she would flip out all on her own.
Praising myself for coming up with a rather fine idea, I first descended to the ground to gather materials.
A recent bloodbath had thinned their numbers somewhat, but there were still plenty of “trash that had no need to exist,” so it hardly mattered.
“Wh-what is that doing here?! Everyone, run—”
“A spear for beasts, a sword for humans.”
I tried reciting the line just before the kill, wondering if it was something she chanted before battle, but no memories resurfaced and nothing felt familiar.
If Radiant White knew the phrase, then at the very least she had clearly heard her sister speak those words. How on earth had they come about?
There was no official record of Shining White ever saying such a thing, so perhaps it had been something shared only between the sisters.
Hmm. Maybe it had been Shining White’s own form of education.
Their parents had died when the girls were still very young, and accounts mentioned that Shining White had served as both older sister and mother.
A Shining White who adored her little sister so fiercely must have hoped the girl would navigate this harsh world without being wounded by it.
With that wish in her heart she had passed on her own teachings. The phrase I had recalled was surely a single sentence packed with meaning the way a four-character idiom is.
…Right? Surely she hadn’t seriously regarded monsters and criminals as little beast cubs?
She was a magical girl. Magical girls required dreams, hope, and a yearning for good; it was not something one did as a joke.
Shaking off the chilling thought, I looked down at the neutralized, useless things.
Things that had been useless even with intact limbs now wriggled with limbs no longer whole—even more useless than before. The sight was truly repulsive.
There is no place in this world for things like these.
Left alone they would die on their own, but that would be no different from my usual routine.
It was time to imitate a little of what Shining White had done while she still lived.
I slammed the lance into the ground and poured my blood through it into the earth.
Then I forced that blood to surge upward in the shape of spears, skewering every one of the creatures sprawled across the ground.
They looked exactly like prisoners who had been impaled.
Surprisingly, this was something Shining White had actually done in life.
She had not skewered people—only monsters—but the spectacle remained every bit as grotesque.
Her younger sister Radiant White had defended it as something like a “victory parade”….
Well, I didn’t know about that.
I had no need to know, and no desire to know. I only hoped it would scrape at Radiant White.
On one hand the sight was horrific; on the other, a strange satisfaction bloomed inside me.
It was not the excessive cruelty of the kill that satisfied me.
It was the fact that my skill at handling blood had grown sharper.
I truly hated to admit it, but ever since the vampire had used my body as it pleased, I had become far more proficient at blood manipulation.
During our last fight the technique had still been half-settled in my flesh and I had fought rather clumsily; now I could weave blood in far more complex patterns.
I had grown more flexible, one might say.
In the past I would have had to gather every drop that spilled onto the ground with hematokinesis one by one. Now I could inject blood into the earth, raise spears from it, and absorb blood through those very spears. That said everything.
This was probably the original method the Vampire Elder had used to command blood.
Ilie—or whatever her name was—had already demonstrated that strange technique of permeating blood. The Elder had simply absorbed people whole.
Of course I had no intention of using anything like this against Radiant White or Su-hyeok. The reason was simple: it would not be fun.
Struggling, matching each other blow for blow—that was the good part.
After sucking up every last drop of blood, I left only the skewers and the corpses pierced upon them and departed.
I still needed to plant several more of these skewers elsewhere.
After touring all of Incheon and raising multiple Shining White-style skewers, I picked up one handmade skewer and flew toward a military base near the city.
I had no intention of overturning the base. I merely wanted to show off a little.
After all this effort, I would be terribly disappointed if Radiant White somehow failed to notice.
Noisy sirens wailed and lights flashed as though an emergency had been declared, yet nothing flew in my direction.
They must have known. Trying to face me with what they possessed would be meaningless. From that perspective, it was a wise choice.
I was mildly dissatisfied that they refused to muster the courage to resist, but I had never expected such courage from the weak, so I let it pass.
Once a monster reached special-grade, it ceased to be a living creature and became something closer to a living phenomenon.
“Cowering and trembling with the enemy right before your eyes—how utterly pathetic. And yet… that look suits you lot perfectly.”
I landed atop a building that looked reasonably important and drew every gaze toward myself.
I did not strictly need to do so, but this way pleased me far more.
“Hear me. And spread what you hear. That I, in place of you cowards, have personally carried out the work you yourselves should have done.”
I descended right in front of the soldiers who only aimed their muzzles in silence and showed them what I was holding. A few with weak stomachs turned ashen and seemed to lose all will to fight.
“Not soldiers at all, but mute monks under a vow of silence, I see. Not a peep out of any of you.”
Was I supposed to find it admirable that even then they kept their mouths clamped shut so as not to provoke me?
“Then I shall leave this as a souvenir. Even a pack of mutes should at least be capable of taking a photograph.”
I grew bored of toying with people determined only to keep quiet and survive, and lingering longer would bring no benefit, so I announced my departure and rose into the air once more.
This ought to be enough to scrape Radiant White properly, I thought with anticipation.
Having learned what had happened overnight, Radiant White headed straight for the Association the moment she woke.
“White? Please calm down a little first! I understand how you feel, but the Association is in chaos right now! We can’t burden the President any further…”
“Pegasus, it’s been ten years. A full ten years I’ve waited. What more am I supposed to wait for here?! I’m already an expert at waiting!”
Pegasus tried to restrain her, insisting it would be better not to act rashly, but Radiant White had no intention of stopping.
“…You know that better than anyone, don’t you? Pegasus, so please don’t stop me.”
“Please spare a thought for the President’s few remaining hairs as well…”
“Sorry. That might be difficult. And they’re going to fall out anyway, right?”
She strode boldly through the Association’s halls, flung open the door of the President’s office marked “No Entry,” and declared without a hint of hesitation:
“Mister! I want to go to Incheon!”
Inside the room, a girl with sky-blue hair and a middle-aged man whose head was almost completely bald both turned to look at her at once.
“Uweh? Senpai? Um… isn’t entry forbidden right now…? I… was in the middle of getting scolded…”
The sky-blue-haired girl stared blankly at Radiant White’s sudden appearance, looking thoroughly dumbfounded.
“Miss White… did you perhaps fail to notice the ‘No Entry’ sign?”
The man whose smooth scalp contrasted sharply with the deep wrinkles of his face swept back what little hair remained and asked her the question.
“No, I saw it perfectly well! But this isn’t a time when we can afford to wait around leisurely, is it? You saw the news, right?! That monster has shown itself again!”
Faced with White’s unflinching answer, the Association President seemed momentarily at a loss for words as he regarded her.
“Miss White… I understand your feelings, but please wait just a little longer. Once I have finished reprimanding Miss Sky, I will hear your request.”
Today, once again, the Association President’s wrinkles grew deeper, and his forehead only grew wider.