I drink
The instinct of a vampire tells me what I must do.
A sweetness unlike anything I have tasted before slides down my throat.
I suppress the urge to drain him dry and channel my power instead.
Merazophis's body convulses violently, accepting my power.
It remakes him from within.
<<Proficiency has reached a certain threshold. Skill 'Vampire LV1' has become 'Vampire LV2'>> <<Condition met. Title 'Progenitor' has been acquired>> <<Due to the effect of Title 'Progenitor', skills 'Servant Domination LV1' and 'Abnormal Status Resistance LV1' have been acquired>> <<'Sleep Resistance LV4' has been consolidated into 'Abnormal Status Resistance LV1'>> <<Proficiency has reached a certain threshold. Skill 'Abnormal Status Resistance LV1' has become 'Abnormal Status Resistance LV3'>> I withdraw my fangs.
At the same time, Merazophis slowly rises to his feet, his face ashen white.
The wound on his back has sealed shut at some point.
One of the men notices me and charges.
A short blade comes slashing down.
Merazophis catches it with his bare arm.
The edge sinks into flesh, shatters bone, and punches clean through his forearm.
Without so much as flinching, Merazophis drives his fist into the man's face.
His fist locks onto the man's skull, and he hurls him into the wall.
Sandwiched between fist and stone, the hooded man's head collapses.
At the same time, Merazophis's fist—unable to withstand the force of his own blow—shatters to pieces.
Merazophis, with his ruined hand, lifts the lifeless body.
He sinks his teeth into the man's neck.
From my angle his back is turned so I can't see, but the other attackers must have witnessed his throat swallowing blood.
As if swallowed by the strange atmosphere around him, they freeze.
Of them all, only Merazophis still moves.
Perhaps his hunger sated, he hurls the corpse aside.
And then he lets out a roar.
It was a scream that no human could produce—one that made every hair on end.
Terror is written plain across the men's faces.
Merazophis charges into the rigid crowd with another roar.
The nearest man snaps out of his trance and swings to intercept.
His sword cleaves open Merazophis's abdomen.
But Merazophis doesn't stop.
Even with his belly split open, he smashes the man's face with a devastating blow.
The man's body goes flying and slams into another attacker.
That man's neck bends at an impossible angle, and the point of impact is a grotesque ruin.
But that was as far as it went.
Split open from stomach to chest, both fists reduced to pulp—still Merazophis tried to rise against them.
"How long are you going to play around?"
Merazophis's body went airborne.
Given the surge of mana, it was wind magic, most likely.
A newly arrived figure—a woman in a hood identical to the men who had appeared at the far end of the alley.
Merazophis's body hurtled through the air with tremendous force, bounced off the ground, and rolled to a stop right beside me.
No matter how vampire-like he had become, Merazophis had always been ordinary at best in terms of raw power.
As a retainer he had a decent measure of strength, but he could never match humans who made fighting their livelihood.
Daily sword drills and training could only do so much when the fundamentals were different.
Fundamentals measured by Level.
Unlike adventurers or soldiers, Merazophis as a retainer had few opportunities to fight Monsters.
Consequently, his Level was low.
No amount of training could bridge the gap in Levels, nor could it compensate for the lack of real combat experience.
Above all, Merazophis's profession was retainer, not fighter. Combat was not his specialty.
Even at the same Level, he could never defeat someone whose actual job was fighting.
He had turned into a vampire and launched a reckless all-out assault—and the outcome hadn't changed.
Merazophis, fallen on the ground, and I lock eyes.
His gaze is hollow.
Reflected in those empty eyes is my own image.
My terrified, wretched face.
Merazophis shows a flicker of recognition.
Gradually, light returns to his eyes.
He forces his tattered body upright on sheer willpower alone.
The newly arrived woman neutralizes half of the original group—the men who had been at the near side of the alley—rendering them unconscious.
"A vampire, is it. Status is still low since you've just been turned, but you'd be troublesome if left to grow."
The woman speaks in a dry voice devoid of emotion.
"So the Progenitor is that infant over there?"
"What would you have us do?"
"Kill them."
<<Proficiency has reached a certain threshold. Skill 'Fear Resistance LV1' has become 'Fear Resistance LV2'>> Her casually delivered word sends a shudder through me.
"Are you sure about that?"
"Tell Okka that we were caught up in the fighting and couldn't arrive in time. Leaving a vampire alive could spell serious trouble down the road."
"Understood."
The men close in on Merazophis.
He shouldn't be able to stand, let alone fight.
"Young miss—I won't let you lay a hand on her."
And yet this man puts himself between them.
"If you'd just stayed put, I'd have made it quick. Why go this far for that little girl? She's a vampire—a disaster waiting to happen."
The woman presses him.
"That has nothing to do with it. I swore I would protect her. That is what I was entrusted to do."
Merazophis answers without a moment's hesitation.
"Boring."
"Oh my, oh my. Now there's a man with quite the backbone."
A voice so utterly dispassionate it might have been genuinely indifferent.
Followed by a cheerful tone utterly at odds with this grim battlefield.
"Ta-da! The Demon King girl
The bizarre woman's absurd entrance froze the air solid.