Bisan's teeth sank into Haseol's neck.
Haseol's body froze in that instant.
Like a herbivore bitten by a carnivore, he could do nothing, only twitching from time to time.
Blood ran from Haseol's neck.
"Ah, ngh, hnng. Kh."
Groans escaped Haseol as he twitched.
Time passed like that.
"Phew."
Bisan released Haseol and stepped back.
"......"
Haseol sank down onto the ground.
For a while, he sat there blankly.
"Ah."
Then, as though he had come to himself, he raised his head.
"Is it over?"
"Yes. It's over."
"Ah, um, okay."
Holding his neck, he nodded hesitantly.
"Here, look in the mirror."
Bisan held a mirror before Haseol's face.
"Can you see the two red lines running across your neck?"
"Yes, I can."
"Those lines are my blood."
"Blood?"
"Touch your finger to the line and turn it. The red line will come undone, and my blood will spread through your body."
"Ah."
"Then you will be able to use a vampire's abilities."
"Can I turn into a bat or control blood?"
"Not immediately. It is like giving a person a tail; they cannot move it right away."
"Ah, okay."
"If you had aptitude, it would be different, but it would be best not to expect that sort of thing."
Bisan gave a pleasant smile as he informed him of reality.
"Your physical strength will become extraordinarily great. And your regenerative ability will increase, so you will not die from most things short of your neck being severed. It would be best to expect only that much."
"I won't die unless my neck is cut......"
Haseol repeated that part as if it pleased him most, then nodded.
"That's right. A vampire's power and raison d'être are bound up with an obsession with life."
"Then what about pain? I can regenerate too, so perhaps......"
"Pain still hurts."
"......"
He soon looked disappointed.
"First, go into Rootstream once and come back out. If Rootstream does not permit even this state, we will have to draw all of my blood out of you."
"Ah, okay."
Haseol got to his feet.
"Take your cloak and knife too, just in case."
Haseol put on the cloak and took the knife in hand.
"Eska, is there any magic you would like to cast on him?"
Bisan asked Eska.
"Since there is a chance my magic will keep him from entering, let us first have him enter and leave in this state alone."
"That's what she says."
"Okay, then...... Ah, I don't need to wear earphones?"
"Myun isn't here, so we do not have the receiver with us."
"Then if I go in and can't get back out......"
"You will have to resolve it on your own."
"......"
At that, Haseol drew a deep breath and stood before Rootstream.
"I'm going."
"Go on, then."
"Take care."
Haseol steeled himself.
Tap.
He leapt forward.
Haseol entered Rootstream.
Before he could even take in the landscape unfolding before him inside Rootstream.
Tap.
He jumped back out of Rootstream again.
"It worked. I can enter. If there is anything else you want to give me, please put it on me now."
As though he had accomplished something great, he excitedly asked for additional support.
"First, I will link a spell for shared vision and open a channel for conversation."
Eska smiled at the sight and placed her hands over Haseol's eyes and ears.
Hands suffused with blue light.
"It is done."
"What about anything else?"
"Let me cast a physical-enhancement spell—"
Eska tried to place a glowing hand on Haseol's chest, but Bisan seized that hand and stopped her.
"Mr. Haseol cannot handle that speed."
"Hmm, but is faster not always better?"
"Not at all. That is a mage's way of thinking. What if he moves around at a speed he cannot even perceive and has an accident?"
"An accident? Is it not enough if Rootstream is resolved?"
"I think so too, but do you think Mr. Haseol does?"
"He may be angry because he thinks I am disregarding his abilities."
"Um, excuse me......"
Haseol faltered between the two of them.
"Wouldn't we be more accurate in judging my abilities?"
"I think the person who examined you would know better than you."
"Excuse me? You aren't planning to listen to my opinion, are you?"
"It is data that has not been tested in actual combat, though."
"Are you saying you will disregard the data I obtained?"
"Could you please fight somewhere other than in front of me?"
Haseol tried saying this and that while flustered between the two of them, but.
"My wrist is beginning to ache a little. Would you loosen your grip?"
"If you extinguish the light of magic in your hand, I will let go."
"Honestly."
Eska lowered her head with a smile.
Slash.
In that instant, Bisan's wrist was severed.
Blood gushed from the wrist.
The hand flew upward.
Haseol could not even tell what had cut through the wrist.
Then, in the next instant.
The blood gushing from Bisan's wrist.
An awl.
No, it shot straight forward in a shape as sharp as a spear.
It struck Eska directly in the neck.
The lengthening spear of blood drove Eska away.
KABOOOM!
She crashed through a building several hundred meters away.
"Ah, uh......"
Haseol was flustered by the scene unfolding before his eyes.
Gray dust rose from the building.
"That old woman has quite a temper."
Bisan briefly shook his regenerated hand, then looked at Haseol.
"Right?"
He asked Haseol for agreement with a pleasant smile.
Rumble!
The building Eska had crashed through came apart and began to rise into the air.
Eska also floated in the air, with that building behind her.
The buildings beside it also began to come apart, and countless chunks of stone filled the sky.
Eska appeared completely unharmed.
"Bisan."
"Yes."
"Please tell Eska something for me."
"Go ahead."
"I'm going in for now, so tell her to talk to me again later, once you have reached an agreement."
"Hehe. All right. I will tell her."
Bisan answered with a laugh, and Haseol entered Rootstream as though fleeing the two of them.
CRASH!
A thunderous noise came from outside Rootstream, but he did his best to ignore it.
"The world might end, so why are they fighting each other? I don't understand."
No, rather than ignoring it, he said that as though he wanted them to hear.
[Huh. You......]
"Oh, you heard that? Right! The channel we can talk through was open! And our vision was shared too."
Haseol acted as though he had forgotten.
It even looked as though he had fled into Rootstream to say what he wanted to say.
Even so, the sound of fighting outside continued.
This time, Haseol truly ignored it and looked around inside Rootstream.
An empty street.
Most of the buildings were low shops only one or two stories tall, and all had gone out of business, leaving their interiors empty.
The buildings were heavily rusted, their paint peeling away.
The only relatively large building was perhaps a large supermarket.
That building had also gone out of business, to the point that only its sign remained intact.
"This isn't our country, is it?"
[It isn't.]
"The language is one I have never seen before."
Haseol walked through the street in fascination.
"Ah, should I activate my vampire form now? Does this have a time limit too?"
[You may do it now. And it is not vampire form. Call it Bloodline State.]
"Ah~, okay."
Haseol stopped walking for a moment and tilted his neck to one side.
He touched his thumb to the red line engraved on his neck and twisted it.
WOOOSH!
Blood spread through his body.
Red lines streaked across Haseol's skin and hair.
The only part without red lines was, at least, his face.
"I just entered Bloodline State, and it feels strange."
[You will get used to it.]
"Okay."
Haseol nodded and continued down the street.
He looked carefully around his surroundings.
"But could you two really stop fighting? I can't concentrate."
Haseol spoke with a slight frown between his brows.
After a moment, the sounds of fighting stopped, as though they had reached an agreement.
Haseol started walking again.
"First, I don't see any ghosts."
[There is no place that looks like a target, either.]
"Yeah. It is just empty. Do you have any information about this village?"
[I will look into it.]
[Hmm, Rootstream was created to eliminate supernatural abilities, so let us first look for things related to supernatural abilities.]
"I wish they would just shine right in front of my eyes. I cannot distinguish well between supernatural things and ordinary things."
[You could distinguish the ghost even when you saw it. Try looking mainly for ghosts.]
"Okay. I suppose I need to go into the buildings too."
Haseol opened the door of a closed building.
Creeeak.
It was not even properly locked, and it opened with a sound.
Inside, there was only dust and fallen leaves.
Haseol opened the buildings' doors to make sure they were safe as he walked toward the largest supermarket in the village.
"This Rootstream is smaller than the last one, right?"
[It is.]
"Then could there be a ghost weaker than the Bully?"
[Was the Bully's threat level not F―? There probably is no ghost weaker than that.]
"That is true."
Since nothing was in sight, there was no particular tension in their conversation.
Haseol also strode through the empty street without much hesitation.
[You said you had no connection to the supernatural side, Mr. Haseol?]
Bisan asked.
"Yes. I was simply an ordinary person."
[And yet you accept anomalous phenomena quickly. It is good for us, too, that you adapt so quickly.]
Still, it would be difficult for an ordinary person to remain this calm merely because the anomaly could not be seen directly.
"Is that a compliment?"
[It is.]
"Thank you. But it is a little different."
Haseol walked with a faint smile.
He drew closer to the supermarket, the largest building in the village.
[What is different?]
"It is not that I adapt quickly. I give up quickly."
[Oh?]
"So you should not trust me too much. Wouldn't it be better to take out insurance with someone truly capable rather than me?"
[Insurance. That may be necessary.]
Bisan agreed with Haseol in a voice that carried an ease to it.
[Should not the being that dragged Haseol into this be the one to take out that insurance?]
Eska offered a different view of that proposal.
"The being that showed us the future?"
[Hmm. What has been given to us is Haseol, so I think it would be best for us to focus only on Haseol for now.]
"I don't know whether that is good or bad for me."
Scratching his head, Haseol arrived in front of the large supermarket.
He opened the glass door that was half open because it did not fit properly and went inside.
The next moment, Haseol's calm expression stiffened.
An unpleasant smell reached his nose.
Fishy and metallic, damp and unpleasant as though it clung to his body.
The instinctive revulsion felt by a living creature.
The smell of blood.
Red, black, and dark red evenly mixed together.
A floor made of blood, like one coated over and over with a great quantity of paint.
Waves in the blood and ripples from falling droplets were imprinted on it.
At a glance, it could even have looked like a painting created by an artist with peculiar tastes.
And in its center was a woman.
A woman wearing a bright red hoodie and a bright red skirt.
"......Huh?"
As Haseol approached the woman, he tilted his head to one side.
The woman sat in a plastic chair that did not suit the blood-drenched floor, a chair that would likely draw complaints even if it were used in a convenience store.
The television in front of her displayed a game, and she held a game controller in her hands.
"Excuse me."
Haseol took off his cloak and tied it around his waist, then spoke to the woman, but she did not answer.
"Excuse me?"
It seemed she could not hear Haseol because she was wearing a headset.
"......"
Haseol looked down at the floor.
A floor of blood layered thickly together and hardened, one that looked unbearably unpleasant.
"Ugh."
Though he hated it, Haseol stepped onto it.
It felt squishy and sticky.
The layers were quite deep, passing over his slippers and clinging even to his feet.
"Excuse me!"
Haseol came right beside the woman and spoke loudly.
"Ah? Yes?"
Only then did the woman lower her headset and turn toward Haseol.
A girl with a black bob, a small face, round blue eyes, and an exotic appearance that blended East and West.
"Ah! You are here! Welcome! Welcome!"
The girl sprang out of her chair and greeted Haseol.
She was small, with a liveliness like that of a puppy.
"Hello."
Haseol greeted the girl as well for the moment.
"I am Asha Peyrn."
The girl began to introduce herself, then stopped.
"Um."
She thought for a moment.
"I am someone who used to work to get rid of that pure-white dome!"
She extended a hand and pointed upward.
However, the pure-white dome was not visible now because the old, shabby building had a ceiling.
[Used to work? That is past tense.]
At that, Eska briefly offered her opinion.
"I am Si Haseol."
As though this was not the time to ask, Haseol introduced himself.
"Yes, yes!"
"I am someone currently working to get rid of this pure-white dome."
"Yes, yes!"
"I have something I want to ask. Is that all right?"
"Ah! I am busy, so please make it quick!"
Haseol looked at the game that was far along behind Asha, then looked back at her.
With a kind smile, he asked Asha.
"Excuse me, but how old are you?"
Haseol asked as he looked down at the girl, who was much shorter and looked far younger than he did.