Vol 1 Chapter 5 (2/2)

I can’t stand that look anymore! You stupid simulator!!

“Hmm.”

Then Erika glanced over at me instead of Ayumi.

“So you’re willing to put this much of a fight for your precious Cla.s.s Rep? Even when it’s just empty simulation data being controlled by Maxwell? Yet you never seem too interested when the two of us fight over you in the real world.”

“Of course I’m scared!! If she finds out about that swimsuit dance file set, she’ll beat me more than just half to death! Ohh, I so don’t want her upset at me!!”

“I see, I see,” said Erika while nodding twice.

And then…

“…That really p.i.s.ses me off…”

“Eh?”

“Oh, nothing☆”

All of a sudden, she put on a bright smile.

“Now, then. Ayumi-chan, you tried to sound cool with your checkmate line, but let’s take a look at the exact situation here. Do you really think a vampire will be so easily defeated at night?”

“You think you’re so great, don’t you? Get her, men!!”

Wow, this little sister gets really carried away as soon as she has the upper hand!!

She’s hopeless! And when she was sobbing not long ago!

After the command from their evil ruler (or maybe that didn’t matter at all since they had no hierarchy), the zombies rushed in from every direction. Erika ordered her two servants out to stop them, but they were outnumbered. There were more than thirty zombies, so the two vampires were forced down onto the rooftop and then devoured.

That just left Erika.

Perhaps to preserve her dignity as a queen, she did not use the Cla.s.s Rep as a s.h.i.+eld.

“Hey, Ayumi-chan.”

“What!? I’ve never been happier, so I guess I’ll hear what you have to say!!”

“What do you think our original plan was?”

The zombies rushed toward Erika.

Unlike vampires, zombies were not organized. Ayumi had dashed toward Erika not to deliver the finis.h.i.+ng blow, but to grab the Cla.s.s Rep’s hand and pull her out of harm’s way.

We were finally reunited.

However, I could not just rejoice because a swarm of zombies was grabbing at Erika.

But this was the end regardless.

Once we had a result, the simulation would end and it would all be over.

Or it should have been.

Even as the crowd knocked her to the floor, my older sister looked my way and continued smiling.

That clean-freak was torn bloodily apart.

“Don’t worry. My wounds will regenerate unless they take out my heart.”

“…”

“And there’s no reason for you to feel sorry. I’ve been making progress in my own way.”

I finally felt a chill down my spine as I watched her expression remain unchanged even as she had more and more bites taken out of her.

“Ayumi-chan, why do you think I started off by focusing on the administrative inst.i.tutions like the police and the city council?”

“What are you talking about, Onee-chan?”

“Surely you didn’t think it was only so I could control the influential people and the information sources in order to send both the humans and the vampires against your zombies☆”

…What was this feeling?

Was there something more? How many new forms did this final boss have!?

“Vampire skills are a lot like a mutation. No one knows what skill you’re going to find. So if there’s one you want, you have to keep making more vampires and hope you get lucky.”

Vampire skills could be a number of things.

It could mean turning into a bat or a wolf and it could mean changing size.

But wasn’t there one truly inhuman skill?

One that almost overturned the definition of a vampire as a bloodsucker?

“Yes, yes. If you just want to kill a lot of people, then a Kallikantzaros or a Nelapsi would be fine. If you want to be more surrept.i.tious about it, then a Doppelganger or a Vrykolakas is more than enough. But a vampire that takes blood from the dead rather than the living is much harder to come by. I really must have the luck of a queen to have hit the jackpot today☆”

Erika never stopped smiling as the zombies pinned her to the floor and devoured her.

Conversely, Ayumi’s face paled.

And yet this should have been checkmate for her.

“I wanted a vampire that appears in old Polish literature. It can move during the day, it sucks blood from the hearts of the dead, and it can bite its own flesh in its coffin to suck the life force from its relatives. Of all the many legends, not many are quite this cruel.”

Her voice contained the joy of someone who had successfully hidden the perfect present and was now hiding it behind their back, waiting to reveal it.

“It is known as the Upior and it is said to ring a church bell and kill every single person who hears it☆”

My spine was flash frozen.

But Erika was not done speaking.

She had more to say beyond that secret weapon.

“Didn’t I tell you, Satori-kun? The Upior can suck blood from the hearts of the dead. After everyone within range of the church bell falls dead, she just has to turn them all into vampires. With the modern population density, that would be a thousand people? Ten thousand? It might even reach a wondrous hundred thousand.”

“That’s impossible… The entire city was flooded. Even if the bell rings, the Upior can’t pa.s.s over the water!”

“But! What if the order was reversed?”

“…”

“Eh heh heh. I said the Upior can move around during the day, didn’t I? Instead of her fangs, the Upior sucks blood using her long, skinny tongue that stabs people like a thorn. And didn’t I say I wasn’t taking over the police and the city council for no reason? I had tens of thousands of people gather in stadiums and theatres. Those are not the most hygienic environments, so bug bites are hardly uncommon. Yes, the Upior left her scars in advance. Hee hee. Why didn’t that cause a commotion? Because we released plenty of flying bugs to give people a nice excuse for themselves. The Upior could casually walk around biting them all while they were packed in like it was rush hour. And when the Upior bites a corpse, they become a vampire. So don’t you think the process could be reversed a little? And if it can…”

The vampires had originally revealed their ident.i.ty and attacked the people trapped inside the barricades. They had sucked their blood one by one, creating more vampires.

But they wouldn’t have been able to suck the blood of every last person in a stadium.

A lot of the people would have run for their lives.

But what if that had not been enough to save them?

What if they had only thought they were safe? What if they had only been allowed to go free for the time being and they had no say in their own fate?

“You can’t…” cut in Ayumi.

But Erika did not stop.

“The bell just has to ring once and every last person we put in a ‘reservation’ for will die and immediately turn into a vampire thanks to the Upior’s mark. Doesn’t that sound like it work? Hee hee. Unlike the rest of us standard vampires, the Upior doesn’t have to suck a lethal amount of blood. Since the target is already dead, it doesn’t take much blood for the effects to kick in. Plus, if we turned all of the survivors into vampires during the day, the sunlight could have wiped them all out and we would need a further stock of humans to continue on. Now, a question, Satori-kun.”

“You can’t!!”

“The Upior could safely move around during the day and I sent her to a total of eight civilian fortresses such as stadiums and theatres. She probably made her ‘bug bites’ on almost three hundred thousand people. So what percentage of that will turn into vampires at the ring of this bell?☆”

I did not have time to give an answer.

Ayumi tackle the Cla.s.s Rep and me into the dark and cold water.

As soon as we hit the thick wall of water, a heavy ringing shook the world above.

[Pick Up] About Vampire Mutations [Net Files]

In addition to the standard traits, most vampires have a special skill. These are most likely mutations created from a mixture of the victim’s own traits and the skill of the vampire that bit them. One group is attempting to establish a link between this and the chromosome damage caused by cell death while the blood is being sucked out, but that will likely end in failure.

Their fighting spirit will be broken when they try to physically explain how that leads to shrinking one’s body or transforming into a wolf or a bat.

I have seen quite a few samples, but one of them stands out as the worst.

The Upior.

That vampire has its origins in Poland. The worst part is the fact that it has several ways of attacking people without biting them.

The worst of those is a church bell.

The Upior can remain active during the day, but they will also sneak into churches to ring the bell during the dead of night. Anyone who hears it and whose age is close to the Upior’s when it died will be killed.

You might think they are somewhat lucky to only be killed.

You might think that is better than becoming a vampire.

But that isn’t the case.

The Upior has a wide variety of abilities. Not only can it move around during the day, but it also rings a bell at night. Those traits are complete opposites.

And there are further legends.

While most other vampires wander to suck the blood of the living, the Upior is said to prefer sucking blood from the hearts of the dead.

If the Upior caused devastating damage to a village or town in a single night and then sucked the blood of the dead – in other words, if it turned the dead into vampires – the living who had escaped the initial damage would be swallowed up by the swarm of monsters. They would have no way to defeat the powerful vampires surrounding them and they would be overwhelmed by the pure numbers.

Can we really defeat a monster like that?

That vampire has strength, intelligence, and numbers. What human advantage is left?

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