The Hidden Alpha Stops Hiding His Power - 3
I blinked at the face looking back at me — strangely unfamiliar, and yet somehow not.
Eeh? This is… me?
A meme that had been all the rage not long ago flickered through my mind.
I blinked again, just in case. The stranger was still there.
Sharper features. A softer, more delicate air. He looked like the archetypal prince straight out of a romance fantasy comic.
"Right? I've changed so much… is this all right?"
Janet leaned in cautiously and asked. Even with a far more plausible face than before, there wasn't the slightest tremor of vanity in her. She was simply worried about the sudden transformation — because she was the kind of person who truly practiced the saying look at a person's heart, not their appearance.
"Well… we're going to need a new ID, aren't we?"
I turned toward Janet and sighed. Unwanted extra work had just piled onto my plate, and it left me feeling distinctly put out.
"Yes. Your face is completely different."
"Different person level of different. It's not going to flip again out of nowhere, is it?"
"If it does, there's no point changing anything right now. That would just be a waste of time."
Fair enough. If a face could flip overnight, it could flip again just as easily.
"Then for now… let's wait a few days like this."
"That sounds best. Though — Camilla might know something, don't you think?"
Camilla? I was skeptical, but I couldn't rule it out completely either.
"I'll call her up a little later and ask."
"It's still early for breakfast, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
I nodded and stepped out of the bathroom, flicking the light switch off on my way.
5:15 a.m. Unless you were a construction worker — or something close to it — it was far too early for a meal. So I sat in the living room and killed time until morning properly arrived.
"Oh… the change is truly drastic. I sensed something was afoot, but this is rather abrupt, is it not?"
Before breakfast, Camilla came down from upstairs and blinked at me, openly fascinated.
"Yes. I'm just as surprised. Let's eat first, and then we can talk."
"Curious about my opinion, I take it. Very well."
Camilla nodded without complaint and took a seat at the table. She already looked reasonably used to Korean meals. She couldn't draw real nutrition from them the way a human could, but she could still taste the food.
"Here."
After the meal, I pricked my thumb with a needle and let a few drops of blood well up. For a vampire, blood was the real meal.
"Mm. I shall enjoy it."
Camilla stepped close, then lightly licked the blood from my thumb. The way she half-closed her eyes and let her tongue slip free was enough to set the imagination running wild.
"Still so rich. If I misjudge the amount, even I would be coughing up blood and dying."
Apparently finished, she slowly drew her lips away and exhaled a warm breath. The talk of dying brought to mind the face of that man who had been posing as human.
"Like that guy?"
"Yes. Like that one. Of course my capacity exceeds his… but it is still quite dangerous. And you, being human, cannot afford to have too much blood drawn either."
"I'd die of blood loss."
"Mm. Which makes this amount just right."
In any case, Camilla cut herself off and settled across from me — not at the dining table, but at the round table in the living room.
"You said you had something to ask me. Would it happen to concern that face of yours, so suddenly transformed?"
"Yes. Exactly."
Could she read minds? Hearing her spit out the very question I had been about to ask left me more than a little startled.
"Do you have any idea what might have caused it?"
Janet, seated beside me, asked with shining eyes. Having no way of knowing herself, she was clearly hanging on every word.
"Hmm… well. I am sorry to disappoint your expectations, but I am rather ignorant in matters of this sort. Simply put, I do not know."
"Ah… I see."
For a moment, disappointment flickered across Janet's face.
"However — there is one point on which I can venture a guess."
A faint curve touched Camilla's lips, and Janet's eyes lit up again. Disappointment, then hope — the swing was so dramatic in such a short span that I found it almost entertaining.
"What kind of point?"
"Skipping the preamble and cutting straight to the summary… I suspect a high soul rank is exerting its influence."
"Soul rank?"
Janet's head tilted to one side. It was the first I had heard of it as well, so the question rose naturally.
"Just as it sounds — the grade of the soul itself is high. Counting this life, he has undergone fully four reincarnations, has he not?"
"Does going through many reincarnations raise your soul rank?"
"The precise reason is unknown, but yes. He has lived other lives, and he retains the memories of those times intact, does he not?"
"So history can leave its mark on a soul."
"That is my thinking. And then, some incident served as the trigger that allowed that soul rank to begin affecting the body. That is what I sensed upon tasting his blood."
If Camilla was talking about an "incident," only one thing came to mind. The vampire who had sucked my blood. Beyond that, there hadn't been anything particularly noteworthy.
Janet kept her eyes locked on Camilla as she asked, her gaze settled and calm — she seemed to have more or less grasped it.
"So by being fed on directly, his soul was stimulated… is that what you mean?"
"Nothing else comes readily to mind. At any rate, that is why the faces of his previous lives have begun to surface."
"So that's why I saw Leo's shadow in him. It wasn't my imagination."
Both women's gazes turned on me at once, nodding as if everything finally made sense. I still didn't really get it. But for people who saw me every day, the difference must have been striking. I had never been on particularly friendly terms with mirrors, then or now.
"Then… it won't suddenly change again, will it?"
Another question slipped from Janet's lips — the one we had both been fretting over most. In a way, the main question.
"Suddenly, you say. At least in my judgment, I do not believe so. Though I cannot claim certainty, given that this is a vessel altered by the soul."
"I see."
Janet lightly brushed a hand over her chest and let out a breath. Hearing that this wasn't likely to happen again put my mind at ease as well.
"In any case, it is undeniably a handsomer countenance than before."
Camilla studied my face intently, stroking her chin. Being called handsome was nice, but the odd comparison left a faint sadness creeping in.
"Is that so?"
Janet, for her part, merely took it in stride.
"Your standards for beauty and ugliness are rather different, so of course you would find it puzzling. Still, I believe that is the proper way for a person to be. Difficult though it may be."
A distant light rose in Camilla's eyes — like a household head shouldering a bitter weight.
"That's far too much praise."
Janet flushed and looked embarrassed. Then as now, she had always found blunt compliments hard to bear. Unlike the way she took praise in bed at night.
Well? Doesn't this body — born of your genes mixed with mine — make you want to make a baby with me?
Oh boy. With the mystery resolved and a little breathing room restored, the night from a few days ago rose up vivid and clear. More accurately, I heard the same line every single day, so I could remember even the sound of her breathing.
Actually, I'd love that.
A Saint who kept urging baby-making while never actually making a baby? That contradiction had a strangely delicious flavor. The kind of taste only someone who hadn't tried it would never understand.
"Ah — just a moment."
Bzzz.
The phone vibrating in Janet's pocket shattered my daydream. I had come dangerously close to sinking in too deep and standing up at the table.
"Yes, speaking."
Polite, soft, and yet firm. Being the Saint, her phone voice was genuinely pleasant to listen to.
"A party?"
Janet's brows knit as she asked. Not disgust so much as a clear lack of enthusiasm written across her face.
"I can't exactly attend something like that, and it will also be a gathering of Korea's key figures — it's rather burdensome."
I had a pretty good idea. They were using the vampire purge as a pretext to invite her to a banquet and weave their connections. With the added intent of binding her more deeply, more stickily, to Korea.
"…Since you're putting it that way, continuing to refuse would be discourteous. I will attend."
In the end she folded, accepting with a sigh in her voice. It would have been better if they had taken no for an answer the first time. Given their intentions, they had clearly latched on with a vengeance.
A full twenty minutes. An awfully long time to spend on a simple invitation.
The call ended with a soft click, and Camilla's lips twisted.
"When the light is strong, the gnats swarm in droves. Is that not also an inescapable fate?"
"I wouldn't go so far as to dismiss them as gnats. But I do understand what you mean by it."
Janet shoved her phone into her pocket and immediately exhaled. If she had been a little more selfish, she would have refused outright. For better or worse, her Saintly nature had her by the ankle.
I asked, "When does it start?"
"Tomorrow. At least it's not today — that's something."
"Tomorrow's pretty sudden too."
Normally these parties gave you more lead time. It felt like they had timed the call assuming she would refuse. The longer the waiting period, the more room for variables to creep in.
"Nothing else?"
"No. They asked me to bring the same people who were with me during the operation."
"So that includes Henri and Camilla."
Both of them had worked hard alongside Janet, after all.
"I am invited as well? To a banquet, when they know me as a criminal?"
Camilla's eyes went round with genuine bewilderment. It was a fair question, so I found myself agreeing.
"Right? Weird."
"They probably invited her because of me. I did say she would be under my supervision and responsibility."
"Ah. I had quite forgotten. You are my guardian as well, after all."
As if it finally made sense, Camilla nodded demurely. Camilla was framed as a criminal, but she was also part of Janet's supervised party. Leaving such a companion off the guest list might have rubbed Janet the wrong way. That seemed to have been their calculation.
Camilla asked, "Hmm… speaking of a banquet, ought I to go out and buy a dress or some such? Formal gatherings usually observe a certain standard of dress."
"I have one you can use. Our figures are similar enough that it shouldn't be a problem."
"Oh, true enough. You and I are both rather… ample in build. My thanks."
Camilla smiled as she ran a hand smoothly over her own body. Even without deliberate intent, the gesture was so blatantly alluring that my eyes went straight to it.
"By the by — was there any restriction on the number of attendees?"
"They didn't say so, but… usually it's no entry for anyone not involved. Why do you ask?"
"Then what do you say to bringing him along as well?"
In an instant, Camilla's gaze swung toward me. Wait — why me? I had fully intended to stay quietly planted at home while they went to their party. Even Janet was staring at me in surprise, a faint, hopeful expectation rising in her expression.
I asked, "Why me?"
"No particular reason. I simply thought it might be nice if you came along."
"There's no justification for it. And having an unrelated person there would ruin the atmosphere."
An ordinary civilian crashing a celebration for the vampire purge? Even I thought that was a bit much. If it had been a private get-together among a few couples, maybe. But I cut the idea off cleanly, and disappointment flickered across Janet's face.
Great. Now I felt bad again.
I feel like I did something wrong.
No actual guilt, and yet the feeling of having committed a crime. It was remarkably effective at making a person squirm.
"Look here. That face of a puppy that got its hopes up only to be crushed. When one's wife wears such a look, is it not only right to soothe her?"
Meanwhile Camilla was fanning the flames from the side, grinning. She was being so oddly annoying that the urge to smack her rose up sharp and sudden.
"…You're not wrong, but this isn't a place I belong. Why are you so determined to drag me in by force?"
"Because of what one cannot know."
When I dropped my voice, Camilla dropped hers as well.
"If both of us leave our posts, who will be left to guard you? Of course I know well from experience that this place is safe — but one never knows."
Safety. The moment she put forward such an unassailable reason, my boiling irritation cooled in an instant — as if I had been dunked in an Arctic ice bath.
"What about Valerie?"
"Naturally she must come. Frankly, she is a woman of little consequence to me… but she is family to one of the Saint's close aides, is she not?"
"…I've got nothing to say to that."
"I should think not. At the very least, until Artifacts are distributed, stay close to one or more of us. Remain a little on edge until then."
Stay a little tense until safety could be guaranteed. It was the right call; I had no room to argue.
"I see. I was being careless."
I bowed my head in apology, and Janet's expression brightened at once — not with excitement, but with the quiet smile that comes from calm relief.
Then, slowly, her lips parted.