“The Americano is too bitter.”
Orli grimaced slightly and put down the cup. The ice clinked as it hit against each other.
A sigh mixed with disillusionment escaped from Erica’s lips.
She couldn’t understand.
Why was she even in this situation right now?
Drinking coffee peacefully in a café with a wanted ranker classified at the highest level of danger?
Wasn’t she a hunter of the Association? A ranker with ultimate power. A rising star.
Just a few days ago, the one who had forcefully assaulted her defenseless body and sank their fangs into her seemed to be completely unfazed.
He kept spouting meaningless comments like how he liked sweet things while he thought bitter was better, then suddenly turned serious.
He took out a notebook filled with dense notes and began to kindly explain about Erica, about her own condition, showing her a few drawings.
“Do you have any pain anywhere? A headache? Is your heart racing?”
“·····No.”
“That’s a relief.”
A relief. Ah, yes. That’s certainly a relief.
“Back then, I wasn’t in my right mind and didn’t worry about the aftereffects while I was pushing into you, but I think trusting your regeneration stats was a good choice.”
Oh, I see. That’s important. Aftereffects.
“Simply put, you can think of it as a misaligned saw wheel. The act of bloodsucking is the result of unnecessary nerves being awakened during the evolution process of the Dampire species.”
“Dampire?”
“Ah, a mix of vampire and human.”
Erica nodded vaguely. Still, it seemed like he was trying hard to explain something, and she thought she should at least show a minimal interest.
“What’s extended from the brief explanation I gave you back then is this much.”
With that, Orli put down the notebook.
“Now, you, the one who has become the subject of my bloodsucking, need to be aware of this.”
Erica suddenly felt parched. She took a sip of the café mocha in front of her through a straw. It was sweet.
Judging by the fact that there was cream on top despite not remembering asking for it, it seemed like her mind had gone blank ever since she entered the café with this suspicious girl in a coat.
The Association’s hunter entering a café with a wanted Awakened One.
Yeah, a wanted Awakened One. In short, a bad girl.
A villain, indeed.
Do villains come into cafés to drink Americanos?
Suddenly, her thoughts came to a stop. It was an utterly meaningless thought.
“You can think of it as being bitten by a viper.”
“Excuse me?”
Before she could even think of what that meant, Orli slightly parted his lips to show his fangs.
“In an analogy, it’s like this: when the fangs pierce the skin, something enters the bloodstream.”
Orli waved his hand in the air, creating a blue outline. It simply modeled the spot on Erica’s collarbone where she had been bitten that day. And two small, glinting round marks caught her attention.
Erica suddenly felt sick. Was she robbed of her first time?
“Ha.”
I’ve finally lost my mind.
Erica’s feelings seemed to go unnoticed as the model began to move. The blue magic power derived from the two bite marks flowed into her bloodstream.
“The magic channels in your body accept the blue droplets like that and flow to the heart. It’s a series of processes that are happening in your body right now.”
Unintelligible graphs and charts swayed.
“However, I can’t tell if it’s an amount of magic you can handle right now.”
“What happens if I can’t handle it?”
“·····It would hurt, right?”
Erica scoffed.
“So I’ll be performing various tests.”
“·····Tests?”
Orli grinned wickedly. It felt ominous.
“I told you before, right? That you need to engage in combat.”
The ice clinked.
“You’ll be a part of my hostage situation.”
A hollow laugh escaped from Erica.
It was so ridiculous that her thoughts nearly froze.
Sitting side by side in a café, drinking Americano and café mocha, she was being asked by a criminal to participate in their hostage situation.
Orli tilted his head. He had a face that made her want to punch him.
“Is it strange? But it’s a necessary process. There’s nothing better than this to adapt to the magic that’s starting to accumulate in your body as soon as possible.”
She playfully reached out a fist in the air.
It wasn’t cute at all.
“What if you get into a fight with a gate or a wanted Awakened One and end up having aftereffects on your body later?”
“So you’re saying I should stop you from killing people right now?”
“Exactly!”
A faint smile faced her.
“Someday, you’ll have to kill me, right?”
His bright blue eyes sparkled beautifully. Her reflection was captured in them. The air calmed, and the surroundings grew remarkably quiet.
Erica did not avert her gaze.
Yeah.
It was those eyes.
Like a crystal ball, opaque and uncertain.
The first meeting, the meetings that followed, and now.
Orli was busy toying with her, throwing her a purpose to kill her while holding justice hostage.
If she asked why, all he said was just because you’re pretty, a strange response.
She couldn’t understand.
So she wanted to know.
She wanted to uncover whatever it was that she was meticulously hiding behind that barrier.
She promised herself.
She would definitely pry it out.
“I understand.”
She replied that way.
It took just a few seconds.
#
It was a pleasant time.
In a cozy seat of a quiet café.
Café mocha and Americano.
Sweet and bitter.
She felt thankful for unexpectedly listening to her words attentively.
When she had brought up the subject of bloodsucking, she had expected to hear accusations and curses, but it was nothing like that.
All he did was look at her like that, saying he understood, igniting his competitive spirit.
What could she do?
If she said she would kill people, could he really stop her?
There was no way.
No, absolutely not.
Even though it was more of a conversation without true dialogue where she would ask questions and he would give her short answers, she enjoyed this moment.
Although it was a life staring at death, the feeling of being alive was quite a peculiar emotion.
A tickling sensation in one corner of her heart, a shimmering feeling.
What was she, getting so excited over what others deemed trivial?
A villain. Erica always referred to her that way.
Better than trash or crazy, lowly words.
If she thought that, would that make it true?
As someone filled with countless mixes, she still didn’t know well.
She was just wandering.
After parting ways with Erica, she walked leisurely through the night streets.
Parting way was just disappearing without saying goodbye.
That allowed her ample time to enjoy and actively pursue until the midnight hours.
“AHHHHH!!”
They were the beings she had felt since the café.
With white uniforms and large double-edged swords emblazoned.
Swinging her arms to deflect the bullets, she plunged into them and forced her knives in until she felt revulsion.
Screams echoed, and she lifted the face of a woman who had just collapsed.
“Thank you for coming this far. You’re from the Union Department, right?”
“You, ugh·····!”
As she shoved the blade deeper, something spewed out of the woman’s mouth.
How filthy.
“I was waiting for you to arrive. Or are you still on your way? I was watching and ran to greet you first.”
This wasn’t the scene she had envisioned.
“I just wish you’d all come together and die at once. I hope you feel the gap and run away.”
Sooner rather than later. So she could focus on Erica.
As she pulled the knife from the woman’s abdomen, another groan resonated. Blood gushed out, flooding the ground.
“It seems I’ve arrived at an unfavorable situation.”
And then coverage of thorns adorned with spikes suddenly stained the crimson swamp. The air trembled, and the wind whistled.
She twisted her posture and glanced sideways.
“Well? It’s just a scene I’ve always encountered.”
To become accustomed to something is a race greater than humans.
The robe fluttered, producing strange tones. Seran let out a hollow laugh.
“You’re still the same. A feast of chaos and disorder.”
“Wow, I agree on that. It’s too noisy.”
“You didn’t come to save the human world just for this, right?”
Did he, too, know how to make such a face? It was a suppressed flame.
“All that hatred is directed toward you, Orli; I’m sure it must be frustrating.”
“After enduring, light eventually dawns. I can barely rely on it now.”
Though delayed.
“Ugh·····! W-What the hell···! AAAAAHHH!”
Before the man could finish his speech, a huge spear pierced his back. Seran shook her head and stomped on his head.
“The Spirit World is normalizing. But here, nothing has changed. I guess we had a pointless break.”
“I suppose you’ve taken care of the small fries?”
Resistance against the new government, perhaps.
“They are nothing but bugs. The pleasure of wiping them all out with this one spear is indescribable.”
The thin, long spear gleamed. That was kind of cool.
After a brief silence, Seran pulled out a glass bottle from her sleeve. Red orbs jingled and made a refreshing sound.
“Are you giving me that again?”
“Of course. I think this much is still insufficient for you, Orli.”
Well, I wondered if she was just tempting me with that precious orb.
The hidden violence behind those vast eyes was striking enough to make one clap if faced directly.
“Is that so?”
“Being the savior of the human world, isn’t that natural?”
“Well, if we’re being precise, a blood-red savior, right?”
To eliminate the Executioners of the Spirits, countless gallons of human blood were needed.
“If we had left things as they were, they would have all been destined for massacre. It’s only natural to be hailed as a savior after saving tens of thousands with hundreds of sacrifices.”
[ Aren’t you in no position to say such things? ]
“Haha. I did my best. I never imagined that the Executioners would have the gall to invade the human world.”
It was preposterous to think that a Spirit King couldn’t control thousands of Executioners in the first place.
The spear stood straight and struck the ground. The space warped, creating a crack.
“I hope to see you next time. Those small fries are getting on my nerves.”
The robe shook violently before disappearing.
It was quiet.
