[V8C3] The Vampire’s Story
Translated by Jodas 8: The Witch of the BoundaryBefore her eyes stood a Greater Monster in a human form. In the sky above, a flock of Eyeball Birds.
Two options emerged in Tia’s mind. Fight, or flight.
The idea of revealing that she was a Harpy herself and pleading for her life never occurred to her.
Monsters did not see other species of Monsters as their allies. Even if they did learn that Tia was a Harpy, that did not necessarily mean these Monsters would let her go.
Plenty would find the idea of her playing human to be distasteful. It was normal for a Monster to want to kill such things.
Greater Monsters who held stronger obsessions with humans tended to have even more of a hatred for their fellow who tried to pass themselves off as human.
(What’s the right answer here?)
Tia’s inability to make on-the-spot decisions at times like this and take advantage of an opportunity was one of her flaws. She always left these sorts of things to Wren or Sevil.
(But Mr. Hütter would tell me ‘Think about it for yourself!’)
Tia observed her surroundings. They were in a grove with reasonably densely-packed trees, and with the coming of night, it was starting to get quite dark.
That fact did not work to Tia’s advantage. After all, just about all Monsters had excellent eyesight in the dark. In fact, many Monsters only became more powerful during the night.
…For instance, this blond Monster standing before her eyes.
As Tia grumbled, the blond Monster looked on with a smile.
He seemed to be having fun.
“Hey, hey, what do you think of my clothes? …Wait, ah… I’ve got blood all over them now. You know, I had these embroidered around here. Aren’t they wonderful? Look, look, don’t they fit me? Don’t I look like one of the vampires from the fairy tales?”
“…Vem-py-er?”
When Tia let her confusion show on her face, the blond Monster held both arms out wide as he spoke.
“Didn’t you humans come up with the idea? The stories of a beautiful monster that sucks peoples’ blood!”
Now that he mentioned it, she felt like she had seen one of those things in the stories Sophie liked to talk about.
Something about a beautiful and tragic love story between a monster that sucks blood — a vampire — and a human.
Then, was this man in front of her a vampire himself?
“You know, back when I was born, I was just any old Monster that liked blood. So long as I could suck a person’s blood, that was enough for me. But it was the humans who used me as a motif to make such lovely stories!”
The blond Monster placed his hand on his chest and told his tale with an intoxicated expression.
It seemed that his misconception that Tia was a young human girl had got him rather excited.
“A vampire in the form of a handsome man sucking the blood of a beautiful woman. It was humans who made those stories. Don’t you know? They even made stage plays out of it. I was positively touched when I learned about that~. Look, look, I had this outfit made to fit the image!”
As he spoke, the blond Monster waved around his frilly sleeves. All the while, droplets of blood dripped from his hands, still stained with the blood of humans.
The blond Monster licked some of that blood off of his fingers.
“Back in the day, I was happy so long as I could drink blood. If I found blood pooling on the ground, I would crawl on hands and knees to lick it all up. But now, I’ve decided to be much more refined and drink straight from the neck. After all, is that not all the more beautiful?”
She could understand biting through the arteries in someone’s neck as a way of finishing off your prey.
But, if you only wanted blood, Tia thought it shouldn’t matter where you drink it from. Most likely, this Monster was the same way back in the day.
But once he learned of the stories humans wrote about ‘vampires,’ he became obsessed with them.
“Isn’t it just so romantic to drink blood straight from the neck! It is all thanks to humans making those stories that I am who I am today. Art, literature, what have you — I love everything humans create!”
Tia, who was lying face-down on the ground, slowly lifted herself up.
The blond Monster did not stop her. This was a truly strong Monster. If he wanted to, he could twist Tia’s head off with the ease of plucking a flower.
“When it comes to vampire stories, it’s a given that they love drinking the blood of a young, living, virgin girl~!”
“So, are you excited to drink my blood, then?”
“Oh yes, so excited~!”
Saying that, the blond Monster tossed the torn piece of the Magical Flying Device’s wing onto the ground.
In that brief stretch of time, Tia thought. She thought as hard as her bird brain could.
(He said he likes to suck the blood of living girls. Then, I feel like he won’t kill me right away. My flight wings are broken, but… the leaping wings are still fine… I think. Then…!)
Tia wordlessly ripped off her own shirt.
Seeing her exposed neck, the blond Monster licked his lips.
“I love a good girl like you.”
The blond Monster stood in front of Tia and pulled her waist towards him. Then, he opened his mouth wide and sank his fangs into Tia’s artery.
A sharp pain assaulted her neck. Heedless of that, Tia pulled the lever of her Magical Flying Device. She was trying to change the wings from flying mode to leaping mode. But the broken wings wouldn’t retract. When they were ripped by force, what remained ended up slightly bent.
(Fold in! Fold in!)
She heard a Slurp, slurping sound. That was the sound of the blond Monster sucking Tia’s blood. It ended after only a few seconds.
He groaned sickly. The blond Monster’s face twisted in disgust as he turned away, screaming in dismay.
“Eugh! What is this, it’s awful…!”
Then, the stuck lever began to move. With the flying wings only half-retracted, the leaping wings sprung out.
Tia squatted down where she stood, and assessed her target.
“LuuuuAAAAAAHHH!!”
Activating the Magical Leaping Device, Tia took off with vigor. Her white hair collided directly with the blond Monster’s chin. This was Tia’s finishing move: the leaping headbutt.
When she got back to the Wedge Tower, she should teach it to Oliver too.
Without sparing a glance to the blond Monster as he fell to the ground, Tia once again activated the Magical Leaping Device and soared high.
“Hmph!”
With her first leap, she jumped to a branch on a nearby tree.
She dug through her pocket, pulled out the bottle of candies she’d received from the Witch, and threw one in her mouth. This was the candy that let her return to Harpy form for only five minutes. She hadn’t licked or bit on it yet, just held it between her teeth.
Then, she leapt a second and third time, moving to other trees.
(With this, I should be able to buy a little bit of…)
“Are we playing tag, little rabbit?”
That voice came directly next to her.
At the same time, something slammed into the right side of her body. Tia was knocked right down to the ground.
“Vuvuvuvuvuvu….! Ngh…!”
The candy rolled out of her mouth. Tia crawled over and bit the candy right off the ground, dirt and all.
She felt an intense pain in her right arm and shoulder. If she was human, her bones would have been shattered by now.
(The Magical Leaping Device isn’t broken yet!)
With the candy in her mouth, Tia leapt again. First, to the top of the trees. There, she bit down on the candy as she leapt from the top of the tree as high, high up as she could go.
Floral fragrance spread throughout her mouth. The intoxicating feeling that brought helped somewhat to dull the pain.
By then, Tia’s feet — her talons — had broken through her boots and exposed themselves. Tia threw her arms out as wide as possible.
Pure white wings extended from her bare arms.
“LLUUUUAAAAHH!!”
The Eyeball Birds that had chased after Tia and were circling in wait in the skies above her suddenly stopped.
Any bird Monsters would know by now. That human girl with the metal wings on her back was actually a far more powerful Monster than they were.
Tia spread her wings and sang a song to call out to the spirits of wind.
Drawn by Tia’s song, these lesser wind spirits allowed Tia’s body to ride on their wind.
Without her flight feathers, Tia could not fly as freely as she had before. However, by borrowing the help of wind spirits, she could glide from high up.
Just as she glided from the cliff with Sevil and Wren hanging from her feet during the Wedge Tower’s entrance exam.
But this time, she was gliding from much higher up. She wasn’t carrying anything, either.
(The wind isn’t blowing the right way. It’s a headwind. But, with the wind spirits’ power, I can just barely make it…)
The Eyeball Birds flew after the gliding Tia.
As Tia sang a spirit hymn to the wind spirits, she also started a second song. Harpies could make three voices at once, after all.
While singing the spirit hymn, Tia sang with the remaining two voices.
—On the day of tears, you will learn your worthlessness. (I will tear your skin one piece at a time)
—In the mud, no one will witness your flower. (I will slice your flesh one chunk at a time)
—You will rot, melt, and dissipate. (I will crush your bones one at a time)
That was a song to make the mana that composes a Monster go berserk and destroy them from inside. A song to kill Monsters.
The Eyeball Birds closest to her convulsed and fell to the earth. The remaining ones took caution of her voice and opened the distance between them and Tia.
In that opening, Tia pulled away from the Eyeball Birds and headed North.
With a clump of metal on her back, the Harpy glided with her pure white wings.
Watching her go from the surface, the blond Monster, Jill, covered his ears.
His hearing was quite good, so that Harpy’s song gave him a disgusted feeling.
“That girl was a Harpy…? That explains why her blood was so awful…”
Remembering the taste of her blood, Jill stuck out his tongue and spat as he thought.
Why was a Harpy taking a human form? Harpies shouldn’t have had that ability.
On top of that, there were those metal wings. No matter how he looked at them, those were made by a human. Monsters would never make such a complex tool.
“Is she the kid the Chancellor sent into the Wedge Tower? …No, I thought that was one of the old grandpa’s thralls… Well, whatever.”
It was only one Harpy.
Compared to a Greater Monster, a Harpy wasn’t much different than one of those little birds. It was an entirely unremarkable existence.