“W-Wait!” she blurted out.
I flashed her a sharp glare, making her recoil slightly before she nervously looked around.
“Uh, well, you know...just be on your best behavior, okay? I’ll come back later to show you around the rest of the school.”
And with that, she bowed once more before finally exiting the room. Her outburst had slightly piqued my curiosity, but it was immediately overwritten by the nonhuman girl speaking.
“Why don’t you take a seat so we can begin?” she suggested, motioning to one of two empty seats in front of her very ornate wooden desk.
“Humph. Let’s get this over with,” I huffed as I plopped myself down, intentionally taking the chair she hadn’t gestured at.
She softly chuckled before pulling out a stack of papers from her desk drawer, and they made a respectable thud as they connected with the desk. As I prepared myself for the explanation of the documents, which I assumed would ensue, my expectations for the flow of events were betrayed. She instead rested both her elbows on the desk and then her head in her hands as she began to intently stare at me.
Her deep vermilion eyes possessed a mysterious intensity as if they were piercing through me. I’d already guessed that she wasn’t human, but now that I was up close and personal like this, it was more than obvious what she was.
“So, this is an elder dragon,” she said with a polite smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet a fellow legendary creature such as yourself.”
I paused, narrowing my eyes. “‘Fellow legendary creature’? That’s quite the claim. There’s only one species that could be considered equal to an elder dragon. You’re either an overconfident fool or a greater vampire.”
She giggled softly. “Well, which do I seem to you?”
“You’re arrogant. However, I suppose that comes with the territory for your kind. Besides, I’d have to be an ignoramus to not notice the signs: drawn curtains during the day, those detestable vermilion eyes, and the human’s worry of my neck in your presence—you’re a greater vampire.”
“To be precise, I’m a greater vampire lord, but I won’t fault you for that. The vampire hierarchy is convoluted, to say the least.”
Even in my realm, vampires were only second in strength to elder dragons. Greater vampire lords usually possessed enough power to deal with dragons and wyverns with ease. The strongest ones were able to almost go toe to toe with elder dragons. Their pride and arrogance made them a pain to deal with, but they’d been a valuable ally during the war.
“It’s not my first time meeting your kind,” I confessed. “However, I never thought I’d see the day when a greater vampire lord would be playing nicely with their food.”
“Maybe your realm is different.” She shrugged. “Or maybe...” Her lips curled into a mischievous smile. “Could it be that the future is different?”
I froze. I made sure not to let the surprise show on my face, but my silence had most likely been enough for her to surmise that I was shaken. Judging by her proud smile, it seemed that my reaction, or lack thereof, had, in her mind, proven her point.
“You seem surprised, but you really shouldn’t be,” she giggled.
“How did you know?”
“When Karen reported you to the headmaster, I was asked to investigate the area independently. It was there where I found a certain personal effect that she’d missed. I don’t blame her though. Its current appearance had even me almost mistaking it for a mundane object.”
In the next moment, she opened a drawer and pulled something out. My eyes widened as she placed it on the desk.
“The Hourglass of the Ancients...” I whispered.
It was unmistakably the same artifact I’d used to travel back in time before I’d been almost killed by the Blade Saint. But gone was its golden luster and overflowing stock of mana. It looked as if it’d been petrified. Now, it appeared to be nothing more than a strangely shaped rock.
“There aren’t many who know of the existence of this artifact and even fewer who can recognize it in this state. All the pieces fell in place after I found it,” the vampire explained.
I’d assumed that the artifact had disappeared after I’d used it. After all, that was what I’d been told would happen all my life after I’d been entrusted with it. After having the mana inside expended to evoke its magic, it was supposed to disintegrate. But here it was, albeit in a different state than what I was familiar with.
I tried to snatch it back from her, but she immediately retracted her hand and brought it out of my reach.
“Here’s the thing,” she said, placing the hourglass on top of the papers as I glared at her, “you’ve been accepted as a student here under the presumption that you’re seeking asylum. However, the fact that you’ve used an artifact as precious as this to travel back in time casts doubt on that. From what I understand, it’s widely debated who’s in possession of it, but from very old texts that I’ve pored over, it’s speculated that possession of it fell to the elder dragons before the Fissure, which separated our realms long ago. It’s supposedly only entrusted to the chieftain of the elder dragons since they have the most mana to passively charge it. However, since it can be used but once, it’s only meant to be an absolute last resort. Now, the real question...” The smile faded from her face, and her eyes turned to slits. “What could make an elder dragon use such a precious artifact only meant for the direst of emergencies?”