My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister

Chapter 17

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(Garlic Count: 1)

I had to think about the environment I found myself in and what I could do.

"Your memories seem confused."

"Well, can you blame me when I"ve turned into garlic!? I have no idea how I ended up here!"

The Cla.s.s Rep sat on the b.l.o.o.d.y room"s bed and she placed my round garlic body on her lap.

"First, this is an old convalescent hospital on the border of our Kukyou City and the neighboring city. It"s deep in the forest, so you wouldn"t even know it"s there except for satellite images from something like Mobile Earth. It"s a bit of a mystery why they would build a hospital here, but it may have been for patients who didn"t want to be seen. It ran into difficulties and the director and the rest of the management went missing like they had skipped town, so all the rusted medical equipment was left here."

I was actually more interested in why I was a garlic, but I guess she had to go over things in order. And I wasn"t about to complain when it was the nice-smelling Cla.s.s Rep and I was resting on her lap! Rub, rub!!

"We received permission from school and the government office to come here and investigate what happened. It was for social studies. We wanted to know why the hospital couldn"t stay in business and why it hasn"t been demolished. The idea was to do some investigation, announce the results in cla.s.s, and learn how difficult the world of adults can be."

"A secret hospital kept out of view and the management went missing like they had skipped town? That doesn"t sound quite so simple."

Especially with that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl wandering around. If she had something to do with the old hospital, then it was possible the disappearance of the director and the rest of the management had not been them running away in the night.

Were they buried somewhere around here?

Or were they lurking in the shadows just like that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl?

Those options seemed entirely possible.

"Ah ha ha. Looking back on it, yes. But our teacher and the government worker didn"t seem too worried about it. They immediately okayed the idea. If it was really dangerous, they would have stopped us, right? Or so we thought. But we were wrong. The truly frightening things are hidden so that no one knows they"re there. Why didn"t I realize that no one would be caught by a trap if they could predict it was there?"

I can"t believe this.

My older sister Erika was a vampire, so what did that make this? A neighbor? A turf rival? To be honest, I doubted that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl would just leave if I used my sister"s name. For one thing, I wasn"t even sure she could understand human language. And I wasn"t about to test it.

She was somehow different from Erika or my little sister Ayumi. Archenemies and the immortal were just girls, weren"t they? But I couldn"t see anything like that here.

She was a pure monster.

If she sensed us with her eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin, we would lose our lives. We were surrounded by the atmosphere of pure night where we could not afford to run across something like that.

After thinking through all that, I asked the most fundamental question of all.

"…What do we do?"

"Good question." The Cla.s.s Rep kept my giant garlic body on her lap. "First of all, we can"t defeat that. I"m not saying that from a moral or humane standpoint; it"s simply physically impossible. We might be able to temporarily scare her off, trip her, or guide her in the wrong direction, but there is simply no way to defeat her and settle this once and for all."

I produced a gulping noise, even though I wasn"t sure my garlic body even had a throat or saliva.

"B-but. But we can"t just continue hiding here, can we? That won"t solve anything."

"Ah ha ha. True enough. We can"t call for help since our phones don"t have a signal. And even if our teacher or the government office would come looking for us when we didn"t return…if they enter the hospital without being warned first, they"ll just suffer the same fate. I don"t think we can count on help from outside. In fact, that might actually increase the number of vampires."

With that, the Cla.s.s Rep held garlic me between her soft hands and lifted me up. She got up from the bed and approached the wall of the room…which I now realized was a dusty hospital room.

She actually approached the window covered by a light-blocking curtain.

"Look."

She opened the edge of the curtain just a crack and placed me in the sunlight stabbing in.

We were quite high up. It looked like the third or maybe fourth floor. But this was no time to stare at the green sea spreading out below.

"The sun is still high in the sky. If we could get out of the hospital, I don"t think that vampire would be able to pursue us."

"True. But, Cla.s.s Rep, doesn"t that mean the opposite as well?"

"Yes."

The Cla.s.s Rep likely didn"t want to say it out loud. But to share our information, I took on that unpleasant task.

"If we don"t get out of here before the sun sets…the vampire can pursue us outside. In that case, there would be no saving us. We"d be caught in the forest before we reached the city."

(Garlic Count: 1)

It turned out I could do a surprising lot as a garlic.

"Oh."

I left the Cla.s.s Rep"s hands and rolled along the floor. I was only a garlic body with no hands or feet, but it was like I could control my center of gravity. It felt like there was a small metal ball inside a larger, hollow ball and I could move that to roll in any direction.

Controlling that small metal ball seemed to be the key to movement. By making it bounce upwards, I could jump. As high as the Cla.s.s Rep"s navel seemed to be my limit.

"But how are we supposed to fight that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl like this? Just being in the same room as her was enough for me to freeze up. It wouldn"t be possible even if I had mastered Chinese marital arts, learned qigong, and could split a boulder with a piece of newspaper."

"But, Satori-kun, don"t they often say that garlic is a vampire"s weakness?"

"But how are we supposed to use that garlic, my kitten?"

"Umm, throw it at her?"

"Throw…!?"

"Or how about grating it and spreading it across the floor? Maybe that would create a sort of barrier."

"Wait, wait, wait! First of all, I feel like we"re just throwing my basic human rights out in the trash! You can"t treat me carelessly just because I"m garlic. You need to take good care of me. There"s still a single life inside me!"

"But, Satori-kun, didn"t you multiply before?"

"Hm…hmm???"

"Y"know, if we stick you in a flowerpot, give you water, and open the curtain to let sunlight shine on you, then you start to flower…"

"No, wait. I don"t remember any of this!"

Where was I trying to go?

But I wanted to know everything my garlic body could do. And if my garlic body had multiplied without my knowledge, what had happened to them? Regardless, I wanted to try it out.

"There isn"t a flowerpot in this room, is there?" asked the Cla.s.s Rep.

"Eh?"

"I think there was a withered houseplant at the nurse station. The building"s water isn"t running, but the fire hydrant on the third floor was broken and the wall-…"

"If it"s gonna be that kind of pain-in-the-a.s.s quest, then forget it! You wait here, Cla.s.s Rep. We"re up against a zombie, so a normal human like you would be at the most risk just wandering around."

But if garlic like me moved to the corner of the hall, the vampire might walk right past me, a.s.suming I was garbage. Not that I wanted to test it out if I could avoid it.

So I rolled toward the door, leaving the Cla.s.s Rep in the hospital room. The floor was covered in sweet blood, like someone had been dragging a dirty mop around. It was disgusting, but I couldn"t complain. I left through the cracked door and entered the hallway.

It was just as dimly lit. I had to rely on the slight light that made it in through the windows sealed by curtains and wooden boards.

And it was far more cluttered than I had expected.

Several filthy buckets were lined up and rusted metal racks were piled up along one side of the hallway. The stairway leading down was completely blocked by garbage at one point. I couldn"t rely on the map on the wall. The place had become something of a labyrinth. There were no cigarette b.u.t.ts and no spray paint graffiti. No one must have bothered coming to this inconvenient place just for fun.

"Is that the nurse station?"

But it was not difficult to find where I wanted to go. Unless the designer had not known what they were doing, the nurse station would be located at the intersection of several halls. In other words, where the most people would pa.s.s through. It was best to place it at that "prime traffic point" so they could immediately reach a patient needing help and observe people"s comings and goings.

"Still…"

There was indeed a flowerpot on the counter. It only had some brown and withered leaves inside, though. But how was I supposed to carry it? I apparently needed water and sunlight as well.

"Let"s see."

I moved right up to the counter and jumped straight up as a garlic. I could reach the height of the Cla.s.s Rep"s navel, so I could just barely jump up onto the counter.

But…

"I don"t have any arms or legs, so I guess all I can do is push it."

The flowerpot was ceramic, so it would probably break if I dropped it. There was nothing I could do.

Man, being a giant garlic was really inconvenient. If I really could multiply my body like the Cla.s.s Rep said, I might be able to push it down from above while catching it from below.

I took a break as I thought about that. And when I looked down from the counter…

"Oh."

I spoke without thinking.

Even if the one on the counter was hopeless, there was something else I could use. There was a large bucket-like pot meant more for a "tree" than a flower at the end of a row of benches in the waiting area in front of the nurse station.

And it had a large plate-like thing below it. That plate was wet. It was meant to catch water. That water would have been dangerous for a person to drink, but that shouldn"t matter when it came to wetting some dirt. The Cla.s.s Rep"s information was not all that reliable. I was just about to run around on an unnecessary quest while that strange b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl was wandering around. I decided to complain to the Cla.s.s Rep later and have her let me rub all over her!

I hopped down from the counter and rolled along the floor. The large pot and the nearby windowsill were both easy enough to jump onto. I had trouble pulling on the thick curtain, but I managed it by placing my round garlic body between the gla.s.s and the curtain and slowly moving along the windowsill.

Pant, pant. Moving a single curtain was a lot of work. I really missed my human body. In fact, I still didn"t know why I had become garlic. Had a wicked witch cast a spell on me? In that case, would I not return to normal unless the s.e.xy forehead gla.s.ses Cla.s.s Rep princess kissed me? Pant, pant!!

"There."

At any rate, the pot was what mattered now.

Like a move theater projector, the sunbeam shined through the dusty air and onto the dirt. As expected, it was damp. It had a bit of a sour smell, but I could hardly complain since I was garlic.

…What did it feel like to multiply?

Even if I did multiply, it would only mean creating giant, pumpkin-like garlics, but it was still strange to think about. I couldn"t fully backup Maxwell due to his specs, so not even that program had experienced this.

But…huh?

Wait a second.

I have a giant garlic body, but aren"t I only round because of the few cloves gathered together? Multiplying doesn"t mean for this round body to spit apart into 4 or 8 pieces and scatter the contents arou-…agagagagagagagagah!?

(Garlic Count: 8)

I nearly lost consciousness.

In fact, I wasn"t entirely sure I hadn"t. Was this really the same garlic as before? This garlic led me to ponder the same questions as with a teleportation device.

"Oh, come on…"

The remains of a giant and split garlic sat at the center of the pot. And it was surrounded by eight identical giant garlics, including myself. Was that one dead? But wait. The other garlics would not move like I wanted them to. I tried thinking "right" and "left" and they moved accordingly. Controlling them each individually was as difficult as opening and closing individual toes, but if I focused, I could manage. I tried lining them up on the floor.

As I looked down from the pot, I was convinced.

This was not copying my mind as well. I could ma.s.s-produce the garlic bodies, but there was only one "me", the mind controlling them. So the me that had split apart there and the me that was here now were the same. The file was being moved, not copied.

Which meant…

"Wow. It"s like having infinite 1-ups! All I need is water, dirt, and sunlight, which isn"t all that difficult to get. I can make as many as I want. What does it matter if I"m garlic? If it can multiply a thousand or even a million fold, even a 10,000 yen note can kill someone. And I"m garlic, so I can hold back a vampire! Ah ha ha ha ha!!"

In that case, I had to focus on increasing my numbers. I didn"t want to repeat that sensation of my head splitting open, but oh well. One garlic was clearly in control, but the pain reached me equally. I crammed all of them inside the bucket-like pot and they all burst out like popcorn.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

But it was really picking up speed. Each one did more than just double, so the waiting room would be filled in no time at all. At this rate, I would really be able to create a garlic avalanche.

…Splat.

"Ah."

My garlic head heard a wet sound. And one of my sensations was instantly blown away. Why hadn"t I realized it? When playing hide-and-seek, increasing your numbers only made you stand out. And I was garlic. Why didn"t you think about the smell, you complete moron!?

I slowly turned around.

As expected, the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl appeared from the darkness. And before I could even think about rolling to the left or right, her claws swung toward my head like lightni-

(Garlic Count: 300)

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"

I screamed.

I could only scream and run away.

The garlics scattered in every direction. I had no idea what percentage of them were sliced apart by claws or crushed underfoot. I couldn"t count them all. I had been filled with pain and fear at first, but those sensations quickly numbed over. Just like sticking your hand in the cold snow and waiting, I couldn"t feel the stimulation and pain once it pa.s.sed a certain point. Each time the main garlic was crushed and had its insides splattered out, my mind hopped to another one. I instinctually understood that once that stock ran out and my mind had nowhere else to go, I really would die.

…It seemed silly at first, but that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl was the real deal. Garlic was fairly hard when it was raw. Wasn"t slicing uncooked vegetables with your nails a greater feat than a karate master chopping off the neck of a beer bottle?

But.

To put it another way, no matter how freakishly strong she was, I would win as long as I had just one garlic body remaining. All the rest were expendable. I could replenish my numbers by climbing in a pot again later. I could build up my number of lives while making sure I didn"t stand out this time.

The unpleasant sounds of something being smashed, sliced, or even crushed came from all over.

Dammit, did she just tear apart that steel fire door like it was wet paper!?

"…!?"

But I wasn"t the only one that was afraid. That b.l.o.o.d.y dress vampire recoiled when she was. .h.i.t by the unique-smelling juice that splattered from the dead garlic. It really did seem to be working on her. Even if I couldn"t defeat her, I could knock her back. That rising hope drove the pain and fear even further from my mind. If I could interfere with her movements, I could get my lifeline garlic away from here!

And once I knew that…

"Men, attack!!"

I cried out like I was raising the fan held by a sumo referee. The scattered garlics rushed at the vampire as a group. They had no arms or legs, but they could roll and jump as high as the Cla.s.s Rep"s navel. If they got close enough, they could hop up and tackle the vampire.

Of course, it wasn"t that easy to hit her. Most of them were turned into diced garlic by a whirlwind of claws. But that was fine. The juice that splattered on her in place of blood would do damage to her. Ah ha ha! How do you like being coated in my bodily fluid! L-look the other way and complain that it smells!!

"Oh."

A few of the garlics got too close and slipped below the b.l.o.o.d.y dress"s skirt. I was a step away, but I could see what they saw like an image you pictured in your mind while walking and thinking at the same time.

When the skirt group looked up, I could see that even her panties were soaked red. It was a little much, but that was a perfectly lewd image! But I showed no mercy. I finally had a chance to tackle her. Jump, everyone, before she can stomp on you!! Attack her together!!

"…Gh…!?"

When the multiple hits flew up at her, the b.l.o.o.d.y dress was knocked upwards.

This was my chance.

To reiterate, I could not defeat the vampire. My goal was to allow at least one of the garlics to escape safely. I could replenish my lives later. What mattered now was to leave one of them alive.

The b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl was focused on the garlics hopping around inside her skirt, so her gaze was directed straight down. The floor and walls were coated with the Special Satori Juice from the crushed garlics. If the entire area had become a toxic swamp for her, she would have difficulty pursuing.

She wouldn"t notice if I acted now.

This was my chance to escape.

I was located on the ground a step away, but I rolled away and left the rest to the ones still there.

(Garlic Count: 21)

I knew what I could do.

If I created too many garlics, it was difficult to move them individually. And if their scent or presence grew too great, they would be noticed.

But if I created a smaller unit of elites, I could handle even that hopeless wandering monster. While one made a commotion and drew the attention of the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl, another could escape along with the Cla.s.s Rep.

…There were two things to keep in mind.

First, it didn"t matter how many times I was killed, but I couldn"t let my number of remaining lives fall to zero. Second, there was only one Cla.s.s Rep. She had no extra lives, so I could not allow her to even be scratched.

I could die to protect her.

Huh? That sounds awfully bada.s.s for a garlic.

"…Cla.s.s Rep?"

Or so I thought before I ran across the next bit of trouble.

When I returned to the old hospital room, I couldn"t find the Cla.s.s Rep anywhere.

"Cla.s.s Rep!? d.a.m.n!"

Just to be sure, I checked below the bed, but there was no sign of my forehead gla.s.ses childhood friend. I may have been garlic, but I felt impatience burning at the back of my head.

But wait. I had to calm down. I had just stopped the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl with my garlic army. I doubted the Cla.s.s Rep had been taken out by her. This was still dangerous, but there was still hope. My first priority was finding her as she continued her dangerous one-girl expedition.

But then an unpleasant thought occurred to me.

"…Why am I so certain that the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl is the only vampire?"

If the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl could make more of her by biting people, there might be other victims. What had happened to the hospital"s management who had suddenly disappeared like they had skipped town? The Cla.s.s Rep had said we were investigating something for school, but was it really just the two of us? If we were working in a larger group and other students or a teacher were here too, then where had they gone???

This was bad.

The garlic army"s strength was their ability to fight as a group, but this changed the difficulty level. Even if I could draw the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl"s attention to one spot, there was nothing we could do if there was another vampire blocking the other route. Since we couldn"t view everything from overhead like on a GPS map, the piles of trash blocking the corridors and stairways had turned the hospital into a life-sized labyrinth where any turn could lead to a literal dead-end. If we ran across a vampire and fled, we could end up in a dead-end or caught between two vampires. That would eliminate any chance of reversing the situation.

I couldn"t let the Cla.s.s Rep be taken out.

The "other viewpoints" in a corner of my mind and the pain arriving remotely had all vanished. The garlic army holding back the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl had apparently been wiped out. Now I was back to a single life and she could freely wander the abandoned hospital.

But I had to do this.

Only I, the giant round garlic, could protect the Cla.s.s Rep from the vampire.

(Garlic Count: 1)

Now, where was I supposed to search for the Cla.s.s Rep? I realized I had yet to go around to the entire floor.

That said, I could not randomly search all of the rooms while shouting the Cla.s.s Rep"s name. That b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl was still on the same floor. If I was killed now, I would lose my last life. I wanted to keep my risk of death to a minimum.

What would I do?

How could I find the best answer?

I thought as I rolled across the hospital room"s floor. For one thing, why had she left the hospital room now? She had immediately hid below the bed and held her breath just from hearing a noise, so she would have wanted to avoid an adventure if at all possible. And while the room was splattered with blood from the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl"s tantrum, there was no other sign of damage.

So it may not have been that she fled because another vampire had shown up.

…But if she chose to leave, then why? Had she needed food or water? Had she heard cries for help from another survivor? Had she looked out the window and seen someone approaching the building? It was no use. It was all speculation without any actual evidence to back it up.

It looked like I would have to head out and investigate myself.

I poked half of the garlic out through the cracked door once more. There was…no one in the hallway. The room was hardly a safe zone, but this felt like heading into the dangerous "outside".

"Oh?"

I hadn"t noticed before, but I noticed some interesting things when I looked at the dusty floor again: footprints. What looked like a red mop being dragged along the floor was the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl and the narrow line was from me rolling along, but I also saw small footprints leaving the hospital room and heading in a different direction.

"The Cla.s.s Rep?"

I decided to roll in that direction. But this was dangerous. If the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl had also seen the footprints and pursued her prey, the person trying to hide would have an overwhelming disadvantage. I could only pray she was not smart enough to do that.

And I found another odd thing before reaching the creator of the footprints.

"?"

A white powder drew out a circle with a diameter of about a meter in the center of the hallway. It looked kind of like a magic circle. I hesitantly approached it. The powder…seemed to be normal chalk for a blackboard. This felt more like a good-luck charm than a sign for demolition work.

But with this, I felt like I had gathered a number of puzzle pieces.

A large abandoned building, a wandering zombie, and a chalk circle. I knew a legend that fit those conditions.

"The Polish Vampire Princess."

I remembered my vampire older sister reading me a picture book about it long ago.

The fairy tale princess had oddly never had her name given.

"A beautiful princess lived in a castle. But the princess lived such a selfish and luxurious lifestyle that she earned the resentment of the people. She fell victim to a powerful curse and she turned into a vampire."

At the time, I had wondered if all vampires, including my sister, were queen-like people with s.e.xy proportions.

"Night after night, the Vampire Princess wandered the castle and turned her fangs against her servants and knights."

That lifestyle had made me think of a spider. She never left her own territory, she set up a web and preyed on those who entered it, and she used her own beauty and circ.u.mstances as bait.

"There was only one way to save the princess. While she was wandering, you had to find the coffin located somewhere in the castle, seal the lid, and never let her enter it again. The coffin was the source of the curse and its effects cannot replenish inside her as long as she does not sleep inside it. So if she was shut out for a set period of time, the princess would return to being a normal human."

That was a fair bit different from other legends.

Even after spending a long time as a vampire, she could be returned to normal if the proper process was followed. That was a favor not heard of in other stories.

"However, that was no easy task. After all, the castle was like a complex labyrinth and the Vampire Princess was immune to all attacks. There was no way to defeat her before locating the coffin deep inside the castle. If she found you, it was all over. The one and only way to survive was to draw a circle on the floor with white chalk. The Vampire Princess could not see you if you were inside there. Just like Hoichi the Earless. Thus, the only option was to head deep into the castle while playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek."

My sister giving a j.a.panese comparison had confused my young mind a fair bit. I couldn"t stop picturing a Buddhist monk challenging a princess in a dress.

"By the way, this was apparently the sort of story where the knight who returned the princess to normal got to marry her later on. Kyah!"

My garlic movement came to a stop when I remembered that.

"Why did Erika tell me that story?"

But if that was the setup here, the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl would have a coffin somewhere in the abandoned hospital. If I could find that before I was defeated, I would win. This wasn"t part of the world"s most famous piece of vampire literature, but as a garlic, I could probably coat the coffin lid with my juices to act as a seal. I didn"t know how many there were, but that would likely allow all of the survivors to escape the hospital alive.

But this vampire had to be a fairly strong one. There were a lot of different kinds of vampires, but a Polish Vampire Princess probably wouldn"t die if you drove a stake through her heart. Sunlight might slow her down, but it wouldn"t annihilate her. After all, she received an endless supply of energy as long as the coffin existed as a source for the curse. Sucking blood was secondary. Her fingernails could shred through garlic and even steel fire doors like wet paper. If she could continue that kind of destruction at full power indefinitely, she might be stronger as an individual than Erika who was feared as a Queen-cla.s.s. Group destruction of a city was a different matter, though. She seemed odd for a vampire and it felt like she was wandering around, unable to control herself, but that might have been due to the unending supply of energy.

"And the Cla.s.s Rep didn"t have any chalk."

I spoke it aloud because it was so important.

Since this chalk circle existed in the hallway, I had to a.s.sume the survivors were familiar with the story. So why had the Cla.s.s Rep hidden below the hospital room"s bed? Why hadn"t she drawn a large circle on the floor?

Probably because she had run out of chalk.

She hadn"t even had a little bit left.

The amount of chalk was like her extra lives. Not being able to draw a circle brought death closer. She would only be able to rely on the few safe zones that already existed. How frightening had it been to be unable to draw a circle if she needed to? That meant she had gone out into the dangerous hallway while still in that situation.

"…Wait."

That may have been why she had disappeared. Had she gone to collect some more chalk to act as extra lives, or had she sensed danger and fled to somewhere with an existing chalk circle? Looking at it that way, I could understand why she left that small room which was not a 100% safe zone even behind the door or under the bed. I had told her to wait for me, but she would have had to move if danger was approaching. We couldn"t secretly contact each other with a cellphone or smartphone now, so we might have just missed each other like that.

…The problem was the existence of this chalk circle near the hospital room and the absence of the Cla.s.s Rep inside it.

"So did she go looking for more chalk? …But where?"

Had there been any at the nurse station? I didn"t recall a blackboard or chalk there. The schedule and message board had been a whiteboard that used markers. In that case, where would they have a blackboard in a hospital where cleanliness was crucial?

"The rehabilitation room in the pediatric department? They might have it set up like a school. The Cla.s.s Rep might be there too."

In that case, I couldn"t blame her. As a garlic, I knew just how much of a difference it meant to have some extra lives in stock.

I decided to search around the pediatric department and to give it more thought if I didn"t find anything.

…I needed to eliminate the most likely option first. I had to follow the small footprints in the dust that ignored the chalk circle and continued down the hall. I would probably find a likely location for chalk at the end of those tracks.

With that, I continued down the hallway.

It was difficult getting past the junk covering the hallway in places and a normal person would have had to turn sideways and press their back against the wall a lot of the time. On the other hand, there was almost nothing that would make a useful tool. There were boards and supports for collapsed steel racks, but it was obvious what would happen if you faced that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl with only a piece of wood. She was worse than a man-eating tiger.

There weren"t any pots or watering cans either. It was difficult rolling into the darkness without a chance to increase my number of extra lives. If I was killed now, it was all over. I wouldn"t be able to save the Cla.s.s Rep either.

I kept that in mind as I rolled on and on. The trail of footprints in the dust seemed to avoid the nurse station and approach the hall where the elevators and emergency stairs were gathered.

But…

"Wait a second," I said after rolling out into the elevator hall. "Where"s the Cla.s.s Rep? Why did the footprints vanish!?"

The footprints in the dust suddenly stopped.

But what had happened here? Had the Cla.s.s Rep traveled along the wall or ceiling? Had she sprinkled something much like dust to cover her tracks? No, my imagination was completely lacking in reality. The answer wouldn"t be anything like that.

I had to think.

No matter what she did, the Cla.s.s Rep"s ma.s.s was not going to just disappear here. She must have moved somehow. But where to? If she had gone off somewhere, I had to suspect somewhere with chalk. She might have been afraid of the vampire tracking her down before she acquired those extra lives and thus used some kind of trick. Or what if a third party had done this? My tension grew. For example, what if she had been attacked by a vampire who could crawl along the walls or ceiling? But in that case, the area should be covered in blood. Both from the Cla.s.s Rep"s wounds and from the stifling, rose-smelling blood that dripped from the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl.

…Whatever had happened, that vampire may not have been involved.

Supposedly, one way of not leaving any tracks in the jungle was to wrap several layers of thick cloth around your boots. The Cla.s.s Rep might have found something in the piles of trash and erased her tracks before heading off again.

At any rate, I had to continue the search.

First, somewhere that might have chalk. I checked the diagram on the elevator hall wall. Two large T-shaped buildings overlapped and an extra bar stuck out from the rectangular peak. This was the fourth floor and it had nothing to do with pediatrics. That was apparently on the third floor.

"But…"

The hospital was not as big as I had expected. It had only five floors and that contained all of the hospital rooms, examination rooms, testing rooms, and operating rooms. Every division necessary for a general hospital was contained in the same s.p.a.ce as two school buildings: internal medicine, surgery, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, gynecology, pediatrics, dentistry, cosmetic surgery, psychosomatic medicine, radiology, etc. There was a lot of variation, but the actual number of beds was fairly limited. That meant the cycle of treating patients had to be fairly cramped. And this was deep in the forest, not near a train station. I wasn"t quite sure how hospitals were run, but I could kind of see why the old management might have skipped town.

…A small number of beds, ample services, and a location deep in the forest and away from prying eyes. This may have been a pricy hospital for VIPs. Politicians and corporate executives apparently still could not let the public know if they were severely ill. An athlete might not be able to focus on healing after surgery to their elbow or knee if the media was hanging around.

But why had that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl shown up here?

If she was a Polish Vampire Princess, she could not leave on her own and find a new haunt. She had to stay with the cursed coffin. That would mean the coffin had been carried here.

For one thing, who was she?

If the coffin was the source of the curse, she would have been a normal human to begin with. She had turned into that once she was cursed. In that case, who had she been originally and how had she been procured?

"Questions, questions, nothing but questions…"

Even if I didn"t understand, I couldn"t just stop here. I stored the unanswered questions in a corner of my mind and rolled toward the emergency stairs to the side of the unmoving elevator. The stairway leading up was entirely blocked by the trash piled up taller than a person on the landing, but the stairs down were clear and I could get to the third floor where the pediatric department was.

The area looked little different, but there was a sign of a struggle on the dusty floor. Something had made a mess of the dust and left behind bloodstains and a rosy scent. I wouldn"t have been able to follow any footprints even if the trail had continued.

I checked the diagram to see where the pediatric department was. The rehabilitation room was right next to it.

I found a pot in the hallway. I opened the curtain to let sunlight in and I buried myself in the dirt.

My head split open and I became eight of myself.

Needless to say, they were all giant garlics. I was relieved to have some extra lives again. The army of garlics rolled toward the rehabilitation room in question.

The rehabilitation room next to the pediatric department was in an awful state.

This was not just the flow of time. There were clear signs of destruction. The tables were broken and the chairs had been crushed and thrown, so I had no idea how they had originally been arranged. There were also shards of gla.s.s lying around. But not from a window. They seemed to have come from cups. Broken and shattered chalk stained the floor.

…Had that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl done this?

No, it might have been survivors fighting over the extra lives. It looked like it had been left like this for a long time. The pieces of chalk on the floor were coated with dust. Even if the Cla.s.s Rep had come here, it didn"t look like she had had any luck. The exhaustion may have caught up to her when she saw this result.

I doubted she had visited here several times.

Just to be sure, I checked the pediatric examination room next door, but I wasn"t expecting much.

And then I saw it.

A human corpse lay face-down and unmoving.

(Garlic Count: 8)

"Ugh…!?"

My garlic head groaned.

It was an elderly man in a pricy-looking suit and wrist.w.a.tch. He looked older than my dad. He was well-built, but he looked more like a grandfather than a father. There wasn"t much actual blood. His head had split open and about a cup"s worth of dark red liquid had stained the floor. In a drama, I would have wondered how they could know he was really dead.

But even if I wasn"t a doctor, I could tell at a glance. This was a corpse. Without even checking his chest or wrist for a pulse, I knew he was different from us. Mysteries often had the murderer pretend to be a corpse to eliminate themselves from the list of suspects, but that would never work. There was no way you could fake the abnormal presence given off by a corpse.

"…"

And there was one other problem.

He was most certainly dead…but was he going to start moving again? For example, like that b.l.o.o.d.y dress puppet.

This was dangerous.

Super dangerous.

I had eight lives at the moment. Not all of them had to approach him. I rolled one garlic over to the rehabilitation room"s entrance so it could escape at any time and I chose two of them for the suicide squad. I rolled them slowly over to the unmoving corpse that reminded me of unexploded ordnance.

A stethoscope and a pen holder were scattered around him. They didn"t seem solid enough to be the murder weapon. They had probably been strewn about while someone searched for surviving chalk. Had someone already been pursuing him or had they heard the noise? Either way, what he had wanted hadn"t been here.

He lay face down and his arm was extended as if to grab something, so I hesitantly touched his fingertip. There was no response. There was no sign of rigor mortis and he was perfectly pliable. Instead of meaning he had just died, it probably meant a long time had pa.s.sed and the stiffness had gone away. I also detected an odd odor. It was not simply rotting pork or beef and it was not blood either. It was a truly unique stench that could not be compared to anything else: the smell of death. I was truly glad that I gave off a powerful aroma as garlic. If I had to wander around this abandoned hospital reeking of death with no chance of taking a shower or bath, I might have been so bothered by it that I scratched my skin raw.

The corpse was clearly different from a vampire like Erika. I didn"t want to speak ill of the dead, but it lacked the unique presence and warmth of a living being. I was overwhelmed by the powerful presence of a mere "thing".

He had to be nothing more than a corpse.

He was not an Archenemy or an immortal.

"Phew…"

But just as I breathed a sigh of relief, a new question occurred to me: Then was it not the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl who had done this? Had it been done by a human who lacked the power to turn him into a vampire? Since he seemed to have been hit by a blunt weapon which was then removed from the crime scene, it did feel more like an act of someone with the intelligence and reason to fear punishment for a crime instead of a rampaging vampire.

But then who had done it?

I didn"t know how many people were here. But wasn"t the Cla.s.s Rep one of them?

"You"ve gotta be kidding me."

I spoke without thinking, even though it was entirely meaningless.

"Maxwell, please tell me this is some cruel simulation. Tell me it"s just a game. I"ve only seen the Cla.s.s Rep, the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl, and some old guy"s corpse. Even a cheap murder mystery would have more suspects than that!"

Of course there was no response.

There was only the garlic and the corpse here.

And when I looked to the corpse with despair in my eyes, I found something odd. The old man had died with a small briefcase in his other hand. There was a dark red stain on the corner of the expensive and st.u.r.dy-looking leather-covered case. Had he swung it around a few times as a weapon? I didn"t know if it was due to that violent usage, but the lock had broken and the case was cracked open.

I stuck the pointed top of the garlic into the crack and pushed it open.

And inside I found…

"A hospital pamphlet, a map, a keyring, a notebook, and an ID card…?"

The last one caught my attention most of all. It had the same hospital logo as the pamphlet. I checked the name and t.i.tle listed on the card: Director Oniyama Mitsuhiro.

"…"

The small photo was of the dead old man. This had to be him. But in that case, had he really skipped town instead of being killed by the vampire? And had he returned to his abandoned hospital now and had his head split open by someone?

It made no sense. Nothing seemed to fit together. Had he come here of his own free will? Or had he been tracked down and dragged back here? All I found were more questions standing in my way. But based on the ID card equipped with an IC chip, the keyring, the map, and the pamphlet…it kind of looked like he had been searching for something.

A lot it was important, but garlic didn"t have hands or fingers. So to carry the card and keys…

"…I"ll have to stab them into myself."

Suicide Squad #1 charged forward and pushed at the keyring along with #2. Then the ID card. Fortunately, both objects were hard. They stabbed quite well into Garlic #1. Ow, ow. d.a.m.n, that hurts! This is way too much work. Isn"t there some way to cut off feelings from individual garlics!?

The injured #2 produced a powerful aroma and wasn"t any help, so after exiting to the hallway, I had it split inside the pot. Gaining too many extra lives would summon the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl, so I had the excess wait in the corner of a nearby hospital room. Now even if the entire army was annihilated, I could move my mind to them and continue. These garlics were pretty good. They were capable garlics.

"The only other thing of interest…would be the notebook, I guess."

I doubted it would have everything he had been thinking written out in detail, but even fragmentary information would be useful. Especially if it had to do with why he came here and who he planned to meet.

After all, it would be a relief to know there was some other human here.

If someone who knew the dead director was in the abandoned hospital, they were the top suspect. They were much, much more likely to be the murderer than the Cla.s.s Rep who had just so happened to show up today.

The leather-bound notebook was fastened with a b.u.t.ton, but it luckily was not locked. It wasn"t easy flipping over the cover with my garlic head, but I put in the effort.

"?"

I first found a string of numbers. It was a long string, but it wasn"t a phone number. More numbers followed and the amount grew and shrank, so they seemed to have to do with money. It wasn"t as organized as an account book and it looked hurriedly scrawled out.

They had supposedly skipped town, so this did not look very hopeful.

The mountain of numbers suddenly ended and something was written in a nervous-looking handwriting:

"These are your just deserts."

"It"s what you get for laying a hand on my treasure."

I had no idea what that meant, but what looked like a map of the hospital was drawn out after it. It looked half-remembered. The details were mostly glossed over and he must have known how little he remembered because it ended partway through.

"I can"t rely on my memories."

"I need accurate doc.u.ments to salvage it."

"…Salvage?"

What had this indebted man been trying to recover from the abandoned hospital? I felt like this kept heading in a darker and darker direction.

Another page had a few photographs held between the pages.

One showed an ebony coffin in a white room. One showed a girl on an examining table with her chest bared. One showed a row of red test tubes. One was a group photo of what looked like doctors and nurses.

"I was shocked it was still moving."

"No, that"s exactly why I came here."

…Had he tried to drag out the coffin to sell it? And had he been killed in the process? Had he come into conflict with another group of survivors?

Some of had definitely been written by someone else. There was that opening text and I also saw a few other sentences written as if to disparage someone.

If so, this was bad.

This abandoned hospital might include a few groups of greedy people in addition to the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl. There was no guarantee anyone else was any safer than the director collapsed here. If the Cla.s.s Rep hadn"t realized that and she focused too much on the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl, she might end up trusting someone she shouldn"t.

…And had the Cla.s.s Rep known about this? If we were acting as a group, what about the other members? That could complicate the situation further.

But there was good news.

For example, I had the keyring and ID card stabbed into Suicide Squad #1. The photos were also important. Especially the ebony coffin. I knew what my target looked like and I wanted to visit that white room seen in the photo.

I used the edge of my garlic head to push open the thin pamphlet I found in the briefcase and I found one location marked with an X in red pen.

It was the "authorized personnel only" zone of the radiology department in the first bas.e.m.e.nt.

…The same pen had written Temporary Storeroom for Discarded Resources next to it.

A normal human would have hesitated. But I was garlic at the moment and I had plenty of extra lives.

"…Okay."

I had lost the Cla.s.s Rep"s trail.

I was afraid that there were multiple survivors and some of them might be greedily in search of money, but the greatest threat had to be the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl. Searching the bas.e.m.e.nt for the coffin may have been the best plan for protecting the Cla.s.s Rep.

(Garlic Count: 15)

The radiology department.

I had never been to one of those, but I could guess it was where they did X-rays and CT scans. I guessed it was underground because it needed to be thickly shielded to keep the X-rays and such from leaking out. Radiation could of course harm living things, but it could also cause machines to malfunction. A hospital was even worried about cellphones, so they would be extra cautious about this kind of thing.

I rolled the garlics down the stairs and found a dark world before me. There were obviously no windows down here and there was no power, so there was no light. That said, it would be too dangerous to search around with a handmade torch when that b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl was wandering around.

I normally would have given up, but I didn"t have to. There was something odd lying on the floor.

"…Glow sticks?"

It was those things everyone waves around at an idol concert. Almost like a trail, they had been placed on the floor at even intervals. They didn"t use fire and thus couldn"t start one and they could produce light without electricity. They were certainly convenient and whoever had placed them here would be able to follow them back to the stairs. Just like Hansel and Gretel"s bread crumbs.

…But that level of preparation worried me. It was like someone had been prepared for some exploration from the get-go. I had a feeling this wasn"t going to lead me to the Cla.s.s Rep.

And I didn"t really want to find the Cla.s.s Rep down this way anyway. I couldn"t imagine how I would broach the topic.

The glow sticks on the floor led me to the same corridor labelled on the pamphlet as the radiology department. I doubted that was a coincidence. Whoever it was had clearly been making their way to the same place as the director and me.

The darkness scared me.

That was the vampire"s territory.

If I hadn"t hidden the extra garlics in an empty room on the third floor, I wouldn"t have rolled down here no matter how many extra lives I made.

But I did it.

The area around each glow stick glowed with a faint light and barely held the darkness at bay. I ran into several obstacles long the way and my garlic skin was worn down as I continued on as a formation of eight.

Then I found it.

I saw the large double-doors of the radiology department and someone collapsed and leaning up against them.

"…"

It was a young man.

He did not look high school age. He looked gaudy, but he was older than me.

I was overcome by disgust at the fact that I felt some relief at that, that I was calmly confirming that this was not the Cla.s.s Rep, and that I felt less of a shock than I had with the previous corpse.

He seemed to have been the one laying out the glow sticks. He must have been in a fight because a shredded knapsack lay next to a pile of glow sticks. And it took me far too long to notice the sickly sweet smell of rose blood left at the crime scene…

He might be "dangerous".

He was leaning against the door, so I would have to move his corpse to get inside. And he had used his own blood to write something on the door: Open up.

"…"

I could guess what his fate had been.

He had reached the right place, but he had lacked the key. The glow sticks he had used to show the way back had worked against him. The b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl had noticed them, followed them, and left him with nowhere to run.

And just as I realized that…

Bam.

I heard something knocking on the locked double-doors from the other side.

…No, wait.

Hadn"t he died here because he hadn"t had the key? Things might be different inside and outside the door. Even if you needed the key to get in, you might just need to turn a k.n.o.b to get out. But if the door had been open and it had been locked from the inside afterwards…

The b.l.o.o.d.y writing had said "open up". Not "it won"t open" but "open up". I sensed a great darkness in that slight difference in nuance.

"Hold on, dammit."

They might not have had much of a choice. They might have just barely made it inside and they might have been slaughtered if they hadn"t shut the door. But there still would have been another choice. Who was on the other side of that door? A face came to mind and I quickly rejected the possibility. I had been searching so hard for her, but I didn"t want to be reunited with her now. Definitely not here.

I used the tip of my garlic head to dig out the keyring and card embedded in Garlic Suicide Squad #1. Ow, ow. G.o.d that hurts! It"s like ripping off a half-healed scab!! O-oh, #1 isn"t going to be much use anymore. I crossed the garlic corpse, jumped to doork.n.o.b height, and somehow managed to hold the card in front of the reader.

There was supposedly no power here.

But an unnatural buzzer rang and the double-doors automatically opened inward. The corpse lost its support and collapsed inside.

And…

When I looked in…

"…Satori-kun…?"

I saw the worst possible combination waiting for me: the corpse and the Cla.s.s Rep.

(Garlic Count: 14)

I still didn"t know some basic things. Why was I garlic? Who was the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl? And what was the Cla.s.s Rep"s real reason for coming to this abandoned hospital?

"Thank goodness it"s you, Satori-kun. I don"t know what I would"ve done if it was that vampire…"

"Right."

I had learned a few things in my investigation, but I was missing too many pieces to the puzzle. And most of those were not mysteries concerning the hospital or the vampire. I had finally realized that the missing pieces were about myself and the Cla.s.s Rep.

"Why are you here, Cla.s.s Rep?"

"I ran away. Satori-kun, I"m sorry I didn"t wait for you. And what about that person? You have a garlic body…so you couldn"t have done anything, right?"

"He was leaning up against the door."

"I see… The radiology department must have special walls. I couldn"t tell who was out there."

I decided to suspect everything.

Was what she was saying accurate? Had we really come here for a school project? Was I correct in a.s.suming we had been acting as a group and gotten separated from the other members?

"Cla.s.s Rep."

"What is it, Satori-kun?"

"Come to think of it, what brought this hospital to your attention?"

"Eh?"

"Y"know, you said it was for school, right?" I made sure not to answer her slight surprise with an extreme reaction. "But surely there was a closer location for putting together a report. Even if this is in the same city, heading deep in the woods where there"s no cell signal is going to a lot of effort, right?"

"Yes…" She paused as if rolling the sound around in her mouth. "It"s true we could have done something about how different local convenience stores will sell different products."

"Yeah?"

"But doesn"t it make you curious when you find out there"s something you didn"t know about in your own city? I only recently learned there was a hospital deep in the woods here. It might be abandoned, but it"s private land and the government office wouldn"t give me permission to investigate it just for fun. I thought this was a good opportunity. …And I was afraid to sneak into somewhere like this on my own."

The gist of her argument wasn"t wrong. It seemed to fit her tastes and way of thinking. Besides, she wouldn"t be the Cla.s.s Rep if she could learn about something odd and just leave it be. Control freaks tended to make sure everything lined up the way they wanted it. If an ingredient turned up in our hotpot and she didn"t know where it came from, she wouldn"t just ignore it. She would ask who had brought it.

"By the way, Cla.s.s Rep."

"What is it?"

Garlic didn"t have a mouth, but I mimicked taking a deep breath.

And I said it.

"That doesn"t make any sense. It"s pitch black down here and there isn"t a single glow stick."

Yes.

I could have understood it if she had been walking around the bas.e.m.e.nt with the man who had laid out the glow sticks. But if she had arrived first, shut the door, and not known that young man had arrived later…then what had she used to walk through the darkness? Even now, she didn"t pull out a flashlight. Nor did she reveal a glow stick or smartphone backlight.

Besides, even if this vampire was a Polish Vampire Princess type and wasn"t instantly killed by sunlight or a stake through the heart, she was still damaged by sunlight. You might be able to get away while she flinched back. In that case, the first step wouldn"t be finding or drawing a chalk circle. Wouldn"t it be opening all the curtains and tearing off pieces of wooden boards? Unlike garlic me, she had free use of her two arms. But she hadn"t done so. She had kept the sunlight out, crawled through the dim light, and kept the environment perfect for the vampire.

And in the end, she had gone to the radiology department where there was no light whatsoever.

I was garlic. I had no eyes or ears. I had been hesitant to enter the dark, but I could tell what as around me even without any light. It was like I had automatic night vision that I couldn"t adjust myself.

But the Cla.s.s Rep was different. She was nothing more than human. If she could not gather information with her eyes or ears, she should have been stuck…

"Cla.s.s Rep."

"What is it, Satori-kun?"

I was afraid.

I didn"t want to ask.

I didn"t want to give any validity to this possibility.

But…

Even so…

"Were you bitten…maybe?"

(Garlic Count: 14)

That devilish theory was the worst thing I could think of, but it explained everything.

For example, when we had first hidden below the bed, had the b.l.o.o.d.y dress girl really not noticed us? Or had she ignored us as one of her own?

For example, had the Cla.s.s Rep disappeared from the hospital room because she had realized someone was approaching the radiology department where the coffin was hidden?

The only possibility that didn"t have to do with vampires was the director collapsed back in the examination room next to the rehabilitation room. Had he been fighting over the valuable coffin with the young man collapsed over there?

Although I didn"t know if they were fighting over the location of the coffin or the chalk as the vampire approached.

"Satori-kun."

Even now, the Cla.s.s Rep was not acting any different from normal.

Even though it was pitch black and radioactive materials could have leaked out of the broken machinery.

"Do you really think that? Do you really think I was bitten by the wandering vampire and I"m already being controlled by her?"

"But that explains everything." I faltered. "I don"t want to think it! But all the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly. Once I thought about it, I couldn"t see any other way for them to fit together!! So please deny it. Cla.s.s Rep, show me your neck and tell me you haven"t been bitten!!"

"Calm down, Satori-kun."

The Cla.s.s Rep seemed to raise her index finger in the darkness.

"Satori-kun, you are mistaken. You may think you"ve gathered all the pieces, but you haven"t. Aren"t you ignoring the most fundamental mystery of all?"

"What…? What more could be hidden!?"

The Cla.s.s Rep moved her raised index finger slightly. And that was enough for my mind to go blank.

Yes.

She pointed at me.

"Satori-kun. Why are you garlic?"

(Garlic Count: 14)

It was a basic question.

An absolutely fundamental question.

"Eh…? Ah…?"

"See, you can"t answer it. Didn"t you find it odd, Satori-kun? You"ve turned into a giant garlic that can talk and roll around, but how could I be so sure it was you? Even if I asked 100 questions and the garlic got them all right, I wouldn"t normally think a faceless and bodiless garlic was you. Plus, you can bury yourself and multiply endlessly, so how can I know which garlic is you?"

"…Now that you mention it."

Telling garlics apart had to be more difficult than telling apart stray cats strolling through your neighborhood.

"Human or vampire, I shouldn"t be able to know it"s you just from seeing the garlic. See? There"s a missing piece of the puzzle."

"…"

"And another thing: who is the b.l.o.o.d.y dress vampire wandering around the old Peace Committee Convalescent Hospital?"

"U-umm, it"s a system known as the Polish Vampire Princess, and…"

"That isn"t all that important." She cut me off. "What matters is why the hospital acquired a coffin and vampire pair. And how acquiring them will earn them money. Satori-kun, have you actually thought this through?"

"U-um, well…"

"Could it be something like human trafficking? But if it was something that illegal, they wouldn"t have to limit themselves to an Archenemy. I don"t like saying it, but it"s a lot less dangerous to abduct and sell a normal human. And there are several people collapsed in this very hospital."

"B-but they might be able to charge a higher price if it"s a vampire."

"True. The immortal can be attractive for military, medical, or artistic purposes. But in that case, they would need a certain technique to capture the wandering vampire."

"Ah."

"They would need a way to safely secure the vampire without killing her. The indebted director returned to this dangerous hospital as a last-ditch attempt to recover. In that case, he must have known that method. And where did he test that method…and on whom?"

It can"t be…

It just can"t be…

"Are you saying this hospital was a facility used to research ways of defeating Archenemies…and vampires in particular!?"

"Well done. Now is the shape of the puzzle coming together?" The Cla.s.s Rep winked at me in the darkness as if she could see. "That b.l.o.o.d.y dress vampire was a dummy for the hospital. They took her in as a theoretical enemy. Either their research stalled or their sample vampire escaped her cell. Either way, the hospital fell into ruin. The director had to skip town to avoid his debts and the responsibility for loss of life. But even after several years of struggling, that was his area of expertise, so he was forced to repeat the same thing to protect his way of life. He must not have known any other way to earn a living."

"So he came to recover the vampire coffin to begin his research anew…?"

The young man was probably from a rival business. Or maybe a debt collector pursuing the director. There was no way to find out now.

"This hospital had a method for humans to oppose Archenemies." The Cla.s.s Rep spread her arms. "And we walked deep inside the abandoned hospital without a clue. Then we touched something we shouldn"t have. That"s what turned you into garlic…and me into this."

"Kh."

Yes, that"s right.

What had happened to the Cla.s.s Rep"s body? How could she see in the dark?

My panicked vision picked up on something odd.

There was something sharp sticking out at the edges of her mouth…?

"A dhampir. You could say I"m half-human and half-vampire right now."

…

Erika had once read me a picture book about that when I was little.

"A dhampir isn"t made by a vampire biting a human. They"re the baby born between a vampire and a human. Eh? How are babies made? C-c"mon! We can talk about that later! Later!!"

Yes.

That"s right.

"A dhampir can easily switch between vampire and human, both physically and mentally. If they let their power consume them, they become a vampire. If they control it, they can become a powerful hunter. Then again, which answer is usually considered correct seems a little twisted to vampires like us."

A dhampir had unstable powers and apparently wouldn"t live long. Something about not actually becoming immortal. If they fought for the human side, they would not be rewarded, but the ones who were willing to bu

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