The sun set, and night fell. Many animals went to sleep at this hour, but for some, this was when they became active.
“Mwa ha ha! Now this is rather delightful again, isn’t it?”
One such creature was Wilhelmina Vermilion Vauheim, the True Ancestor Vampire who had lived on Arcadia since time immemorial. She looked down on me as she levitated in the night sky, the full moon complementing her witch’s hat and black dress. Her golden hair, gleaming in the moonlight, gave me the inescapable feeling that she was the true sovereign of the night.
“You’re visiting this late again, Mina?” I said. “Just so you know, I definitely won’t let you break down this wall.”
“You and Luna must be the only ones who can speak to me in such a casual tone,” she remarked.
I’d built the wall surrounding the house with Mina in mind. It was even tough enough to withstand a full-force tackle from Gaius; no matter how strong Mina was, I’d made sure to use enough strengthening magic to make it impossible for her to simply destroy. This wasn’t to keep her from entering the house—she could just go through the sky to get over the wall, as she was doing now. But she had a nasty habit of wanting to destroy the things we built just for fun. This wall was really just a display of my stubborn refusal to lose to her.
Mina tried to attack the wall with magic. When she saw that it didn’t break, she clicked her tongue in frustration. “Tch... How much mana did you pour into this thing?”
I win!
She irritably looked at my triumphant expression, then slowly descended to the ground. “Besides, I don’t recall ever letting you call me Mina.”
“Well, your name’s pretty long. I can call you Vivi instead.”
“...Mina is fine.”
I found “Wilhelmina” hard to pronounce, so I was glad she accepted it.
“So, what are you here for today?” I asked. Reina had just gone into the bath. Mina seemed to have really taken a liking to her, and this was how she came to mess with her. “You always come at the perfect times, don’t you? Did you install a bug in our house or something?”
“I don’t know of any insects that can tell me what you’re doing, but before coming here, I make sure to observe you with a spell of Farsight.”
“So you are watching us! I thought it was suspicious that you always come whenever Reina is taking a bath!”
“Of course I do. I come here to see Reina looking embarrassed.”
Her complete lack of shame made me feel like I was the one who was weird. But then I reconsidered. “No, no, no!”
She was obviously the one in the wrong for coming to peep on Reina. Also, Reina had classified Mina as an enemy and would use every spell in her arsenal against her if she spotted her while coming out of the bath. It was hard to calm her down in that state, so I kindly asked the vampire who was here to stir things up to leave.
“Hmph, you truly are insensitive,” Mina said.
“Is that so? People often say I’m quite thoughtful.”
“Good grief... This is exactly why I have no choice but to come here every time. Don’t you see that I’m doing you a favor?”
What she was saying was completely incoherent, and I was confused as to how to reply.
“Usually I’d be having fun destroying the wall of that bathroom right about now...”
“Do you think you could stop casually saying that you’re going to destroy my house?”
“No,” she instantly replied. She was awfully cruel. “But despite all I’ve said, today is different. I sensed some unfamiliar presences, and I’m here to see what they are. I’m not wrong to assume that this has something to do with you all?”
She’s sharp. Elga says her stronghold is on a small floating island at the northernmost point of the island, so how is she so sensitive to things all the way down here in the south?
“When I get too bored, I end up spending all day searching for things that look entertaining. Farsight magic is a good way to kill time,” she explained.
Somehow, she reminded me of myself in my past life, wasting time looking at various apps on my phone. Maybe she was using her magic to do something similar.
“There was an abnormality in the barrier when you came here too,” she continued. “I’m here because I sensed the same change, you see.”
“Well, yeah, there definitely was a lot that happened today...”
Wait, should I be telling all this to a vampire who has nothing but time on her hands? Then again, she’d probably figure it out whether I told her or not, so with no other choice, I got her a chair.
“Ha ha ha, how thoughtful. If you want to sleep soundly on this island, you’d better entertain me.”
“I’m pretty sure disturbing others’ sleep is just plain harassment.”
“Bothering someone is just the ticket for boredom. You’d be hard-pressed to find a vampire better at harassing people than me.”
Please don’t say something like that so proudly.
“So, what happened?” Mina began. She drew closer to me with a smirk on her face, as if to say, There’s no way you’re going to hold out on me, right? so I told her everything from the beginning.
I talked about how we had gotten tired of eating nothing but meat, and how we had gone to the beach because we wanted vegetables and fish. There, I said, we had found Zelos and Merlyn unconscious and shipwrecked. After that, I went into detail about Tailtiu’s entrance and everything that had happened then.
“Uh-huh... That sounds quite useful,” Mina said.
“Thinking about something strange?”
“No,” she said. Then, she added under her breath, “But I am thinking about something that could be interesting.”
My cheat body didn’t fail to catch what she said. However, I knew that she would never confess to it if I pressed her.
“Please don’t do anything to trouble others, okay?” I said.
“Hmm... That’s none of my concern.”
The way she said it so completely shamelessly left me at a loss. She must have really believed it, and it seemed to me that she didn’t think there was anything wrong with troubling others in the first place. Her sensibility in that area was probably completely different from ours.
“Well, maybe it’s just her personality...”
Mina chuckled. “Now you’re getting it. Indeed, our resemblance to each other is only surface level. True Ancestors, Ancient Dragons, Divine Beasts, Fierce Ogres, Great Spirits—we all live very different lives. You’re the one who’s wrong to get that confused, and to think that we can all come to a common understanding.”
“You’re right,” I said. Even among fellow humans, people’s beliefs greatly varied depending on their race, the place they lived, or any number of other characteristics. That was even more true for the residents of this island, all of whom were stubborn and far more individualistic than humans. “But that hardly means we can’t get along with each other.”
“Of course. We have language, after all. As long as we care about others, cherish them, and are able to accept them, we can indeed get along, even if we’re different species.”
That was quite the commendable statement, but Mina was nasty because she used that as a pretext to bother others.
“Well, enough about that,” Mina said. “Is it about time for Reina to come out?”
“I don’t know, is it?” I said.
A wicked expression suddenly appeared on Mina’s face. She looked at me and grinned like a child who had just come up with a prank.
“You know, you could easily sense what’s going on in there if you really wanted to. Just focus for a moment, and you should be able to clearly make out what she looks like while changing, as if you were watching her directly. Come now, you’re a man—you’ve got no choice but to try it.”
“I won’t do it.”
“But you didn’t say that you can’t, did you?”
I was silent. I had been set up...but I only grasped that because I realized Reina was standing behind me and looking at us. In front of me, Mina was covering her mouth with her hands and stifling her laughter. That really pissed me off.
“You can do that, Arata?” Reina asked.
I slowly turned around, facing her. It’s fine. I’m sure she’ll understand. Besides, I only did it once the very first time, and that was an act of god. And I haven’t done it at all since then.
“I-I can...but I don’t. Not even once!”
“Reeeally?” Mina said. “Can a man really listen to reason with a naked woman right there?”
“Just shut up, Mina!”
“Your embarrassment only makes you more suspicious, you know...”
I’ll give this vampire a beating if it’s the last thing I do! I thought, but by then she had already disappeared into the darkness. She was astonishingly quick at escaping.
“Hey, Arata?” Reina said. “Why don’t we have a long talk?”
“Okay...”
It didn’t look like I would be getting much sleep tonight.
I could easily picture in my mind the True Ancestor Vampire, Wilhelmina Vermilion Vauheim, cackling with the full moon at her back, but there was no longer anything I could do about that.