"My lady, can you truly say that you are proud of the person you are today in front of your parents?"
Melazophis's words still echoed inside my head.
Those words had struck me like a blow from a blunt weapon.
Looking back, I could recognize that my recent behavior had gone far beyond the bounds of normalcy.
I had charmed a boy, abducted him, and feasted on his blood.
If my past self could see it, she would faint on the spot.
And yet, I had no particular feelings about it whatsoever.
I had carried out those acts naturally, without even a shred of awareness.
Looking back now, it was clearly abnormal.
And yet, even while recognizing it as abnormal, my present self could not muster any special emotion toward those actions.
Abnormal had become normal.
Before I knew it, I had become a vampire in body and soul.
Thinking about that made me feel a little lonely.
Ah, so I really can't go back to being human anymore.
Or, on the flip side, maybe the fact that it only made me feel "a little" lonely said something in itself.
One day after that fight with the oni, I returned to the academy.
At the academy, the whole incident was said to be the work of a mysterious Monster, and the Monster's appearance and abilities were listed as unknown.
All the other witnesses besides me were dead, and the battlefield had been so thoroughly devastated that nothing of the forest remained.
From that scene alone, all anyone could tell was that something of incomprehensible power had destroyed it.
The academy credited me with having slain that Monster.
Half right, half wrong.
I had indeed fought that oni, but the one who finished him off must have been a fellow servant of that black-haired master or whatever they were.
Since even I had been handled so effortlessly, the oni who had been fighting me on equal footing must have met the same fate.
I didn't know what became of the oni after that.
I had only been warned by my master not to do anything foolish.
But from what I'd heard around the academy, it was clear that my master had intervened somewhere and twisted the story around.
If that was the case, then asking my master should tell me what happened to the oni.
But I couldn't bring myself to ask.
My master would show up out of nowhere whenever I didn't need him, but during times like this, he was impossible to catch.
For someone who was supposed to be a spider, he wandered around with all the capriciousness of a cat.
Thanks to that, I was left stewing in frustration.
And on top of it all, Melazophis's words lingered like a splinter wedged between my teeth, leaving a sore spot in my heart.
Can I be proud of myself in front of my parents?
My parents, who were of the Human race — how could I possibly be proud before them now?
I was a vampire.
My way of thinking, my values, even my way of living — everything was different.
I had long since thrown away whatever pride I had as a human.
And I had done so without any particular emotional weight, with the same casual ease as tossing a bit of trash into a garbage can.
If someone hadn't pointed it out to me, I wouldn't even have been aware of it.
But now that I was aware, things were different.
The line between human and vampire was clear to me now.
Painfully, undeniably clear.
"Sofia, I heard you took down an incredible Monster! As expected of you!"
Normally, I would have naturally responded with a simple "thank you."
But today, I couldn't do that.
"My lady, can you truly say that you are proud of the person you are today in front of your parents?"
Melazophis's words replayed vividly, as though whispered right next to my ear.
At the same time, I caught a glimpse of Wald's Status through a reflexive Appraisal — and there, written among his condition flags, was the word "Charm."
Nausea.
I couldn't hold back. I turned my back on Wald and broke into a run.
Along the way, familiar faces called out to me again and again as we passed.
Each time, the nausea grew stronger.
I burst into the nearest restroom and locked myself in.
The nausea was there, but all that escaped my mouth was a muffled groan.
I clamped my hand over my mouth for a while, then slumped against the restroom wall.
Somehow, it felt nostalgic.
In this life, this hadn't happened before, but in my previous life I used to flee to the restroom like this all the time.
The restroom's unnecessarily strong air freshener only made me feel worse, so it wasn't exactly the ideal hiding spot.
But when there was nowhere else to go, you just had to make do.
What am I even doing?
After being reincarnated, I had changed.
My appearance had transformed from the ugliness of my past life into something beautiful — a transformation so complete it was almost laughable. My grades at the academy were always at the top.
Everything I could never obtain in my previous life, I had seized in this one.
Maybe that was why.
I had changed too much.
There was almost nothing left of the person I used to be — Negishi Akiko.
The only remnant of my former self was the jealousy I felt toward my master.
And the fact that even that remained felt like it only served to emphasize how ugly I was, which was anything but funny.
Ugly.
From the perspective of human values, my present self was a thoroughly ugly monster.
And yet, I carried on without batting an eye, without a shred of guilt, without even a question — accepting it all as perfectly natural.
Because, for a vampire, it was the natural order of things.
As a vampire, I believed my present self was perfectly proper.
This was what everyday life as a vampire looked like.
And in truth, for me, it had been everyday.
"My lady, can you truly say that you are proud of the person you are today in front of your parents?"
That was before I had heard Melazophis's words.
Pride?
What even was pride?
What was there left for me to be proud of, at this point?
If my parents were still alive and they saw the person I was now — what would they think?
The servants who had sacrificed themselves to help me escape.
What did I look like in their eyes?
The moment those thoughts crossed my mind, I impulsively pulled out one of my elongated canine teeth.
The sweet taste of blood spread through my mouth.
Thinking that my own blood tasted good — I really was done being human.
I hurled the extracted tooth against the restroom wall as though trying to shatter it.
But in the next instant, a new canine had already grown in, and the fact that I had pulled one out at all seemed to have been erased, as though it had never happened.
It was as though that regeneration was telling me, once and for all, that there was no going back.
I stared blankly at the tooth I had removed.
I couldn't possibly live as a human anymore — so what was I supposed to be proud of?
I didn't know.
I didn't know anymore.
If this was how it was going to turn out, I never would have wanted to become aware in the first place.