Who Am I?
Hearing the researcher sprawled face-down on the floor, trembling and muttering "monster," I couldn't help but let out a hollow laugh.
Calling me a monster when they used freaks as security? That wasn't even funny. Honestly, weren't those freaks far more monstrous-looking than me?
At least I still had skin-colored flesh left. Compared to those two-legged vermin over there, I was much closer to human.
And this body looked plenty fine, if I said so myself. Though... maybe the face was hideously ugly.
I'd have to check a mirror or a window later. Like it or not, this was the body I'd be stuck with for a while—maybe forever.
I lightly stomped the researcher who was trying to slink away on his hands and knees. The vermin had some nerve trying to escape, but I decided to be generous and let it slide.
Right now, I needed to figure out what the hell was going on.
If I was going to decide what to do next, I needed a lot of information.
Who these people were, what this place was, what time it was, what this body even was... things like that.
"Human. Confess everything you know."
So I asked the researcher trembling in that pathetic heap on the ground.
I didn't actually expect him to spill everything. He probably wasn't in a position to, and even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have the knowledge.
But I could at least confirm the basics.
"E-everything... i-if you mean e-everything, th-then what..."
"I said everything. Don't make me say it twice."
His already grating voice stuttering on top of it made irritation surge up, so my words came out sharper than intended.
The researcher then started babbling frantically, dumping out everything he knew in a jumbled mess.
The only useful bits among it all were that it was roughly two months before the original story began, and that this place was a research lab under the Freak Association.
The rest was his job title, what he did for a living, and other completely useless garbage, so I decided to cut him off there.
"Spare me your pathetic life story. Tell me instead what I am."
"Th-that... it's not even my department, and I was only recently assigned here...!"
So he doesn't know?
Tch. I should've asked that woman. But I already drank her dry...
I could've just asked, if I was that thirsty. Yeah, yeah. Not guilty. She was a bitch anyway, so society was better off with her dead.
Shaking off the unease, I asked again about something I'd only half-heard earlier.
"You said you had a family?"
"Huh? Ah, n-no, I don't have a fami—"
Figuring there was nothing more worth hearing, I whipped my tail like a lash.
The tail cleanly sliced through the nameless researcher's neck... or rather, it didn't.
I'd never had a tail in my life. My control was clumsy, so it passed slightly lower and his upper body exploded instead.
I'd meant to cut him.
"Should I have at least asked if he had a pet...?"
I shook the blood off my tail, then on a sudden whim almost licked it—but decided against it.
Some unknown revulsion stopped me.
So instead I reached toward the pool of blood, trying to draw it up through my fingertips the way I had before.
The blood twitched as if wanting to come to me, then scattered again, over and over.
Annoyed, I scowled and forced power into my hand. Only then did the blood reluctantly get sucked toward me.
Absorbing human blood instead of a freak's brought overwhelming satisfaction.
...But it felt somehow emptier than when I drank with my fangs.
I wondered what was missing, then gave up thinking since I couldn't figure it out. Right now... I needed to move fast.
If I wanted to find and kill every scientist in the facility before they escaped, time was going to be tight.
Taking a running stance, I shouted confidently.
"Rev up!"
Nothing happened.
"...Not that? Clock up?"
Nothing happened.
"Acceleration? Full throttle? Maximum speed?"
Still nothing.
...Come on. Whether it was super-speed or blood manipulation, nothing worked when I tried to use it consciously.
Guess I'd just have to run.
Unfortunately, the facility was unnecessarily complex and vast. Fortunately, this body was excellent enough that it didn't matter.
I tore off panic-room doors with a bit of force and dragged out the scholars hiding inside. I found the ones tucked away in weird places by their heartbeats or breathing.
The ones who ran, I simply caught up to with a light sprint. I felt like an uncle playing with babies.
It was so easy I didn't need special abilities. My calculation that time would be tight proved pointless—I easily captured every scientist in the facility.
Of course some resisted with pistols along the way. But I dodged every shot with ease.
After dodging them all right in front of their faces, I grabbed one guy's pistol and jammed it into his skull. That finally made the scientists stop their pointless resistance.
The reason I bothered dodging was simple. It felt gross. Getting hit by the likes of them.
Anyway, after catching them one by one and herding them all into something like a cafeteria, there were quite a few. Around sixty?
At least among these, someone had to have the information I wanted.
The captured scholars showed all sorts of reactions. Anxious, screaming that I'd regret this, bawling their eyes out.
Really...
They were noisy.
"Quiet."
Figuring words wouldn't get through, I dropped my voice and told them to shut up. The scientists all stopped what they were doing.
If only they'd been this quiet from the start. We wouldn't have had to make ugly faces at each other.
"Whoever among you can explain who I am, raise your hand."
After silencing them all, I asked what my identity was.
About ten people raised their hands.
"You first, then. Tell me what you know. What the hell am I?"
I asked the oldest one, who looked like he knew the most. The old man let out a deep sigh and began.
"...Before that, may I ask just one thing?"
Answering a question with a question was so irritating I briefly considered killing him, but I decided to be generous this once.
"Speak."
"Do you retain even the slightest memory of before?"
"Memory of before?"
What? Did he somehow know I was inside?
Barely hiding my confusion, I waited for him to explain properly. The old man continued as if he'd gained some certainty.
"I mean your memories as a human, or as a vampire. Nothing at all comes to mind? Not even a single thing?"
Hmm, no. Nothing at all. When I stayed silent, the old man, convinced he was right, declared boldly:
"You are a freak created by modifying a magical girl."
Huh? Suddenly? They used to say vampire or dragon.
Ah, so the rank-and-file and the higher-ups got different information... something like that? I stayed quiet and jerked my chin for him to continue. The old man went on excitedly.
He explained that I was a being created by taking a magical girl captured ten years ago, inserting her into an unhatched dragon egg, then adding blood infused with a high-ranking vampire's essence, freak-ification cells, and various other things.
"Even as a magical girl, she was ultimately human, so she died during the mutation process. But she kept twitching endlessly, so we left her as is until now. Who would've thought she'd go berserk the moment she woke..."
The old man said that at least she'd woken up, that they'd reserved the Dragon seat among the Zodiacs for me, and that I should stop killing allies now.
He also added a soft persuasion that only final adjustments were needed, and then today's events could be written off as a cute little accident.
I cleanly ignored the old man's words and pressed him for the information he'd left out.
"What was that magical girl's name?"
I wanted to be sure.
Who my original had been.
And whether this was even the world I knew.
"The magical girl, Shining White."
The old man kept babbling after that about how the magical girl's consciousness had vanished, how almost nothing of the original form remained, but none of it reached my ears.
Because I knew the name Shining White.
Shining White was the reason the heroine Radiant White got involved with the male lead, the older sister she admired, the reason she became a magical girl, and the person she desperately searched for.
In I Picked Up a Magical Girl, she only appeared by name and was considered a MacGuffin by the fandom... Who would've thought she'd end up like this.
Hearing an unexpected name hit me pretty hard.
But on the other hand, I was relieved. Not only was this the world I knew, but the sister she'd desperately searched for remained, at least in this form.
...Whether you could call this "remaining" was another question.
After extracting a few more pieces of information from the remaining scientists, I asked them:
"Alright. Anyone here who claims to be innocent! Or truly wronged, raise your hand. If what you say is true, I'll at least spare your life."
My identity being a mess was one thing, but I still had things to do. Right?