—–
I flew down to catch Emeraldine so fast that my entire body became a black blur!
FLAAAAASH!
“Uwaaahh- Ah?”
I extended my body like a parachute, grabbed her belly, and slowly descended into the middle of the forest with her.
“Phew, that was close… Emeraldine, dear, are you okay?” I asked.
“Y-Yeah… Thank you…” She said.
I suddenly found myself right over her body while she was looking into my eyes.
“Oh, my bad….” I said.
I quickly thought of it as a rather awkward situation and jumped away to not make her feel uncomfortable.
“N-No, it’s fine….” She said with a smile.
It’s not really fine! I keep getting myself into these weird anime situations. This is already the… I don’t know how many! I lost the count.
Now what? Will I land over Partner and “accidentally” grab her boobs now? Ah, I better not think about it, or it will become true…
“So, where are we?” Wondered Emeraldine.
“According to my mental map… Right in the middle of the forest….” I said.
“Ah, there you are!”
“Master, Emeraldine, are you okay?”
Lucifer and Partner flew next to us for a bit.
“Yeah, we are doing okay… but the entire forest is covered in a rather thick mist… I wonder where we can go from here. I suppose we should just fly upwards again…” I said.
“Yeah, I agree. Let’s just go back up,” Said Emeraldine.
“Hm, let’s go-” Said Lucifer, as he was suddenly interrupted by Partner.
“Wait, look!” Said Partner, as she pointed her finger at something.
Partner pointed out two tiny rabbit-like ears popping out of the nearby bush.
They twitched the moment she pointed her finger at them, and it suddenly tried to hide.
Was that just a rabbit monster? Maybe a horned rabbit?
“I am getting thirsty, so a little snack won’t do bad….” Said Partner, quickly rushing towards the bush.
Since she became a Lesser Vampire, she had begun to need to ingest a lot more blood daily than before. It says that she also needs to drink human or demi-human blood… but the blood I had accumulated from all the people I had killed (and accumulated their corpses) has been running low, so she had been mixing it with wild monsters or animal’s blood.
The stronger the monster, the more satiation the blood gives to her. However, she had stated that monsters have very bitter blood because they have miasma inside themselves, but wild animals like rabbits or the monster horned rabbit have very delicious blood, so she goes hunting rabbits daily.
I guess it was justified for her to hunt it if she wanted and was hungry, so we let her do it and saw it as something normal.
“Hehe, there you are, little rabbit….” Said Partner, pushing her hand down into the bush and grasping a pair of long, brown-colored rabbit ears.
“GYYYAAH! No! Stop! Don’t eat me!”
However, the voice of a little girl screaming resonated around the forest.
“Huh? A person?” Asked Partner.
“That’s… a Beast-kin! Stop! Don’t be rough with her!” Said Emeraldine.
“A rabbit-kin? I have not seen them in ages… Well, the map did state that there were a few wild tribes of beast-kin around… I guess some inhabit this place?” Muttered Lucifer.
I had only seen a few beast-kin myself. Within our entire population of former slaves, there are only around four beast-kin in total, which are three wolf-kin and one cat-kin, so they’re very rare.
In the duchies I’ve visited, I have barely seen a few going around, so the ones that had joined society are very rare and sometimes looked more like halflings than pure-blooded ones, so they might even be the children of slaves.
Yeah… Beast-kin are the most popular “slave race” around. Due to their wild nature and how so many don’t like society, they’re often considered more like animals than people, the same way they consider Majin just monsters rather than people.
And this girl was super cute too! She had bright emerald eyes, fluffy brown hair, long rabbit ears, and chocolate-colored skin with fluffy born hair around her legs and hands, and of course, she had a cute rabbit tail behind her, like a puffy pompom.
I think she wore some tribal-like clothes made of wolf leather wrapped around her like a cute dress, and the one that made the dress seem rather skilled.
She was also barefoot, but she seemed to not mind the cold.
“P-Please don’t eat me! I don’t taste good!” She said while almost crying out of fear.
“Okay, calm down… We are not eating you,” I said.
However… I felt an eerie presence behind me. Partner was looking at her while drooling…
“Rabbit… and people… combined? I can already imagine… how tasty that blood would be….” She said.
Her favorite blood, aside from that of people, was rabbit blood… so I guess she’s like a combination of the best.
Wait, why am I taking it so casually?
I slapped Partner back into consciousness as she snapped back.
“Ah! M-Master? What’s going on?” She wondered.
The instincts of a Vampire are strong in this one… She’s going to have to practice some more self-control. If we weren’t there, she might have drank her blood and converted her into some sort of Vampire Rabbit or something… if she was even left alive, that’s it.
“Ah, you’ve snapped back! Those Vampire instincts are a real danger, you know? You almost ate this adorable little rabbit girl,” I said.
“Huh? Ah… Sorry…” Said Partner.
“Th-There’s… no problem… Hahaha… Ugh…”
The girl suddenly fell unconscious.
I rapidly held her in my arms, as I thought she might have passed out of fear against Partner’s aura, but no, I just noticed that her body was way too slender, and her ribs were easily visible.
She looked pale too and seemed sickly, with a strong fever. Her forehead was practically boiling.
“W-What’s going on? Did I do this?! Sorry!” Partner apologized.
“No, dear, it wasn’t you… I think she’s sick….” I said.
—–