“Ugh. I thought I was caught.”
Piarro, finishing his conversation with Lily, entered the room prepared by the Vampire Master, clutching the book tightly to his chest, and locked the door.
He had told the low-class vampires helping with the maid work not to open the door unless instructed, so no one would come in right away.
When Lily suddenly told him to use magic, Piarro panicked but managed to calmly perform the spell.
‘Just a bit worse than I know.’
The Master had taken the book away, so he couldn’t practice much, but he remembered how to use it, and he was somewhat skilled by now.
He had to hide his progress for a month to show something amazing and surprise everyone.
He displayed a slightly subpar version of magic, and Lily nodded as if she got it, handing him back the book.
It felt like she vaguely noticed something, but he couldn’t show it, so there was nothing to be done.
“I came to ask, but of course, you just took it… everything’s messed up now.”
The Seven Seats of Blood, Elders of the Vampires.
Among them, Piarro’s Master was a well-known Elder, occupying the third seat, and Piarro had learned blood and teachings from him after accidentally falling into this place.
Vampires are said to possess stronger powers the more refined and noble their blood is.
Because of that, Piarro, inheriting the Elder’s blood, gained the power and position of a high-class vampire in just half a year.
This meant he had become a recognized strong figure in this mysterious land of vampires.
“If you just said it, I would have copied it. You’re so impatient.”
Piarro absentmindedly tapped on the luxurious carpet and furniture before opening the book he had brought.
Although only three days had passed since he started attending lessons, he was slowly picking up the foundational magic.
The magic and his own ‘Blood (血) Magic’ were remarkably similar.
It must be the influence of this magic decrypted by Lasty, the progenitor of the vampires.
“Hmm… as expected.”
Looking back now, the progenitor must be a significant figure for vampires.
Even as a user, he found it hard to breathe when standing in front of her.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the vampire residents of this world fainted just being near her.
Piarro knew well the danger of the progenitor but found it strangely impossible to speak her name.
He could only refer to her as that person, that teacher, or terms like that, but saying ‘Lasty’ felt utterly off-limits.
‘It was as if such things were not allowed.’
Because of this, Piarro didn’t even mention the existence of the progenitor to his Master, the Elder.
“I’ll talk about the identity later if I get the chance. For now, studying… huh?”
Piarro, who had happily opened the book, frowned.
It was a strangely different content from the other book.
Unlike the book he received before, this one was significantly more difficult, and the blood energy flowing through it sent chills down his spine.
The book was quite difficult compared to others, and the aura of blood flowing through its pages seemed to send chills up my spine.
Above all, looking at the content…
“Ah… To manipulate mana like this… This is completely blood magic, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t a common magic formula.
From the first page to the last, everything was deciphered with blood magic, and some sentences made my mind feel like it was spinning just from looking at them.
“Using blood positions for movement would be convenient… If I draw the formula using the fabric of blood… How about this… ■■■ ■■■ ■ This is an undecipherable power formula. I’ll organize this after conducting a separate experiment…
…
[…The integration shame is rising abnormally.]
[Serious danger has been assessed regarding the user, activating the protection system.]
[The power of blessing, Defensio, is activated.]
Whoa!
It felt damp.
Piarro suddenly wiped the liquid covering her face with her hands and was startled as she looked at both her hands.
Bright red.
Her pale hands had turned bright red as if soaked in blood, and blood was flowing like a waterfall from her dazed eyes.
I wondered why I hadn’t realized this until now.
“Ugh… My blood burst…”
Piarro hurriedly put the book she was reading down on the desk and tried to control the blood flowing inside her.
Controlling blood was as natural for a vampire as breathing.
Before long, the blood that had been flowing like a waterfall stopped, and her vision, which had been tinted bright red, gradually returned.
Her already pale face looked even paler.
In a daze, she furrowed her brow while still looking at her red hands.
“…Why did it suddenly turn like this?”
All she had done was read a book, and now she was spilling blood all over the place.
And most of the content of the book was already a blur in her memory.
All she could recall were the first lines of the first and second pages.
Piarro squinted her eyes and confirmed the page on the desk.
8.
“…Page 8.”
In her dazed state, she found herself reading the last sentence of page 8.
The original copy had just been a blank page, but everything was there in this book.
There was probably more content on the following pages.
Piarro squeezed her eyes shut and gently closed the book.
“This book is insane.”
It was crazy. A seriously insane book.
What kind of book makes you go crazy and spill blood just by reading it?
‘Especially for a vampire!’
If it weren’t for her being a vampire, it would have been no surprise if another user had just dropped dead.
“It didn’t happen.”
Piarro chuckled in disbelief as she dragged her powerless legs and collapsed onto the bed.
“My head is spinning.”
She almost drifted away, but suddenly thought that if she fell asleep like this, she might forget even the small details she remembered.
“…Ugh. Surely, like this…”
Piarro’s hand cut through the air.
The blood scattered on the floor rose, setting up countless mana lines, and auxiliary lines arranged in order above them.
Just yesterday, it felt like she was stuck, but now it was racing down an open road like crazy.
“Rotate…”
One last rotation.
Wooooooong…!
The blood ritual was spinning fiercely, creating a red circle.
Perfect magic that continued to sustain itself.
“Ha, hahaha…”
I succeeded!
“I succeeded in foundational magic!!”
I’m a genius!
To implement something all at once with just unrefined knowledge.
“Indeed, this body is a──”
Drip…
“Huh?”
Blood is flowing.
Blood that flowed from her eyes began to spill from her mouth, nose, and ears as well.
Fwooosh!!
It exploded all at once.
[You have died!]
[Excessive fusion may cause side effects.]
[Please be cautious.]
[A death penalty of level 5 has been assigned.]
[48 hours until next resurrection…]
■
“Sis. Give me back what you took.”
“What?”
Three weeks after class.
Finally, I raised my rank into the top 10, landing in 9th place, and satisfied, I ended the ranked battle broadcast and returned to the academy.
Rashti, with her ever-constant expression, seemed to be decoding books all day lately.
‘Has she found some fun in it?’
Once Rashti got into magic research, she could concentrate for a long time.
“What did you take?”
“Is there something you don’t remember?”
“Well, I don’t have anything special.”
“The book.”
“The book?”
Did I take a book?
I had received some books from Rashti for research before, but I hadn’t personally ‘taken’ any.
It was all directly given from Rashti.
But would Rashti really describe that as ‘taking’? Nah.
“Are you talking about what I gave you a few days ago? That’s in Space right now.”
“It wasn’t a few days ago. It’s been about 3 weeks.”
“Yeah. It’s been about three weeks.”
“Three weeks…?”
If it’s been three weeks, I haven’t received anything separately; it must be what I took back then, which I gave to Piarro…
“…?”
“There’s a bit of an error in that content. I wrote down some notes without protection while I was researching. Of course, it won’t matter if my sister sees it.”
“I gave that to the user.”
“…What?”
Lasty’s expression suddenly shattered.
She seemed a bit serious now, glaring as she asked again.
“Who did you give it to?”
“I gave it to a user named Piarro. Wasn’t it a copy?”
“No, that was something I was deciphering.”
“Huh?”
It wasn’t a copy?
“Wasn’t it just a place for copies? It was still there, so I handed it over.”
“That’s true, but I left it there for a moment because I had someone to see. Since I already distributed it all, I thought there was no way they could take it in the meantime…”
“Ugh.”
What a coincidence that I was redistributing the copy to Piarro at the same time Lasty had put her own deciphering notes there.
Moreover, since there were several standard copies in that space, if I had reached for them differently, a normal copy would have been delivered.
What a truly absurd timing.
“The book isn’t sealed with magic. A few powers have been partially dismantled, so it’s dangerous for humans to see.”
“How many pages have been deciphered?”
“Eleven pages. I had a sort of epiphany back then, so I managed to get that far.”
Demon Race magic is dangerous.
It doesn’t just change the user’s body but can even touch their soul.
What Lasty and I are deciphering is all under control to allow users to use the magic safely, but Lasty’s deciphered version has no such control.
“…Maybe it will be okay.”
“Huh?”
“The system is stronger than you’d think. Each administrator has different powers, but since the Kraken incident, they’ve been taking precautions.”
Maybe after the Sword Saint incident, there was a sense of vigilance, so they put various protections in place to safeguard the user’s well-being.
During the Black Lily commotion, for example, they put a blessing on me and laid a shield across the entire continent to prevent an emergency from occurring.
“Of course, it ended up breaking through at the end.”
Rather, there was a high chance that if something went wrong with Piarro, they would have responded immediately.
“The problem is with the residents. The system doesn’t protect the residents.”
I have no idea what could happen to them.
