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Half-blood elf Neia.

Today was truly a terribly unlucky day for her.

First, her shift got canceled, and she had to take a day off.

Then, she lost a perfectly good outfit because of a drunken man wandering the streets.

Next, her cherished hair accessory was stolen by a rude colleague at work.

With all these annoyances piling up, it felt like a day of endless irritations.

For someone with thin nerves like her, the stress was overwhelming.

And it didn’t stop there.

The cherry on top of this dreadful day happened at night.

A handsome customer, rare to find in her shop, came in.

He was of decent height with pale skin.

His innocent-looking face and casual attire caught her attention.

Being about a quarter elf, she was aesthetically picky, but he barely passed her standards.

It seemed he noticed Neia was a half-blood elf too, given his long ears.

Without much hesitation, he chose her.

But then, he suddenly took her to a secluded place and spoke about wanting to pull her fingers.

Her mind was blown, and she couldn’t help but wonder why this was happening.

“Hey… you said you’d do anything if I liked you, right? So, pulling a finger shouldn’t be that big of a deal? Why are you being so picky for a prostitute?”

In a sticky and filthy dead-end alley.

Neia shed tears for her pitiful situation.

Even if bodies began piling up, it was that kind of place.

She still didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to get hurt either.

“Please, let this be a dream.”

She prayed.

In her life, she had never believed in a god, but at this moment, she fervently wished for their existence.

Did her prayer reach the heavens somehow?

As her tears blurred her vision, she closed her eyes tightly, and when she opened them, a dirty bundle of cloth suddenly appeared before her.

“Wha…?”

It was surprising.

If it had fallen from the sky, there would surely have been sound or a gust of wind.

The alley was a dead end, and there was no place for it to suddenly appear.

The arrival of the cloth bundle felt so surreal it almost felt like she was facing a ghost.

“Wait… ghost? Now that I think about it, I think someone among the customers mentioned something like that….”

Thanks to a briefly held surprise that suppressed her fear, rational thoughts began to flow back to Neia.

She recalled the vague conversation she had with one of her customers.

“Eh? Why do you have a bruise on your forehead? …I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“Was it yesterday? I was just collecting payments like always when a brat started bothering me. I was going to teach him a lesson but suddenly, something like a ghost appeared next to me… After that, I don’t remember anything. Maybe I got hit in the back of the head with a metal pipe. When I woke up, this bruise was the only thing left on my forehead.”

The customer had scratched his head in confusion as he spoke.

From what she knew, that customer was quite strong.

Being a werewolf, even without turning into one, he could easily fold a typical human in half.

Was it because of that strong customer that she realized the ghost was quite dangerous?

At the same time, Neia instinctively sensed that this little bundle of cloth was related to that ghost.

“What the hell is this filthy thing? Not a child… seems not, could it be a goblin? You should know your place and stay out of this.”

But unlike Neia, the man didn’t seem to feel any discomfort.

He appeared quite irritated, perhaps disturbed by the interruption.

With a notably displeased expression, he kept tapping his toes against the ground.

Or perhaps, judging by how his exposed hands trembled slightly, it seemed like he was desperately holding back some impulse.

“Those bastards bragged about not letting a rat in… Ah, whatever. You die too.”

The man’s patience broke as he muttered to himself with his head bowed.

When he raised his gaze again, his eyes were stained red as blood.

Neia, having experience dealing with various races as a prostitute, quickly grasped why the man was wanting to pull her fingers.

“V-vampire!”

Indeed.

The man was a vampire, treated as particularly dangerous even in Night Haven.

Although the atmosphere was mana-deficient, severely limiting magic use, vampires were somewhat exempt from that restriction as they used blood as a medium for magic.

What he wanted was her blood—although of lesser quality, still undeniably elven.

Pulling fingers was merely a matter of preference for him.

“I’ll shred that filthy cloth into pieces!”

The man bit his own lip, drawing blood.

Neia instinctively flinched.

Although she couldn’t gauge just how pure a vampire he was, even the weakest vampire could easily tear apart a half-blood elf like her.

As someone who couldn’t even use magic, she had every reason to be terrified.

“Kehehehe! Die! Dying….”

Smack!

Before the man could finish his words, a sound that resembled a whip cracking echoed out.

Neia was startled as her waist instinctively lurched upward and dropped back down, her heart pounding so hard she felt dizzy.

Before her eyes, the vampire fell, his eyeballs rolled back.

“Eh? What?”

What’s happening? What just occurred?

Neia blinked as she looked at the man sprawled on the ground.

His strength seemed to have vanished completely.

The man lay on the floor, drooling and showing his whites.

The dirty bundle approached the fallen vampire, and only then did she realize that the ghost had subdued him.

“A vampire… in one hit? Y-you really are that ghost!”

Neia silently screamed.

How could she have a chance of surviving against a creature like that?

Even the vampire was a monster far beyond her measures.

And she had no idea how the ghost managed to take down the vampire.

Before she even registered the sound, the vampire was already defeated.

It seemed to be the same method as when that werewolf customer fell.

A stealthy attack that the opponent didn’t even notice—such sheer terror!

“I-I don’t want to die!”

Shouldn’t it be my turn next?

As Neia thought this and trembled in fear, the ghost, having approached the man, turned to her.

It drew closer without making a sound.

The closer it got, the more fear piled up with that sense of the unknown, until it finally reached right in front of Neia.

At that moment, a hazy thought of an extreme choice crossed her mind.

From within the cloth bundle, a pale hand emerged, presenting something to her.

“Hyah! Th-this is… a ring?”

The ghost offered her, none other than her own ring.

It was the ring taken from her right before the man said he would pull her fingers.

It seemed the ghost retrieved it from the vampire’s grasp.

Half in a daze, Neia had no choice but to receive it.

“What… what is this? Your hand is really soft.”

As her confusion flickered in her mind, Neia looked down at the ring placed in her own hand.

When she lifted her gaze again, there was no trace of the ghost to be found.

“Is this… a dream?”

In the alley were the vampire sprawled on the ground, unconscious, and Neia herself, half-dazed.

She had certainly been saved, yet her mind was filled with unspeakable confusion.

*

Perched on a rooftop railing overlooking a skyscraper far away,

she opened the wallet she had taken from the man she knocked out with psychokinetic force.

“Hmm… this isn’t very tasty either.”

Could it be that she was having two consecutive failures?

Is it now in vogue to not carry cash?

It wasn’t a satisfying result for having tormented someone who seemed mentally distressed.

“His hands trembled, and his eyes were bloodshot, so he must’ve been a drug addict. Poor guy.”

Despite how drug addiction distorts one’s mind, it couldn’t be helped.

It was far better than creating a wronged victim.

She kept only enough cash to buy some bread and tossed the wallet aside.

Thinking of it as a drug addict’s wallet made it feel even more yucky.

“That aside, that was the first elf I’ve seen. Those ears are really pointed. How fascinating.”

Instead of ruminating on the unpleasant thoughts of the drug addict, she chose to replay the image of the elf in her mind.

How terrifying the drug addict had been, still trembling even when she approached.

To reassure her that she could now relax, she felt compelled to return the ring to the pretty elf sister.

“Even if I showed my hand by accident… it should be fine.”

Hoping that the pretty elf sister wouldn’t get involved in such matters again,

she pulled out all the various rings that she’d found on the unconscious man.

If there’s no cash, then tangible goods will do.

It seemed today would be the day to drop by a jewelry store.