As Garam looked at the System message floating before his eyes, Ha-yeon asked him curiously.
"What is it?"
With Ha-yeon narrowing her eyes as she asked, Garam couldn't help but answer.
"It says an Arrangement of Nosferatu has appeared."
He said it as flatly as he could, as though it were nothing.
But such a clumsy ploy didn't seem to work on Ha-yeon.
"You're not getting dragged into something dangerous again, are you?"
Her voice dropped a tone in worry.
Not long ago he had gone into a gate once and come out half a corpse, so her worrying was understandable.
"This time it's really fine."
He wasn't saying it as empty words.
The place the System had indicated was the Windswept Great Plateau.
A low-Grade gate where at most a few goblins came out.
It was even a famous gate that some hunters occasionally entered for training, thanks to its unusual plateau environment.
"There's no way I'd fall into danger in a place like that. Right?"
Barring truly rotten luck, nothing of the sort would happen.
Though he said it breezily, as if seeking her agreement, Ha-yeon was still giving him a sharp look.
"Hmm. What if I went along too..."
"No."
At Ha-yeon's one line, as if his playfulness of a moment ago had been a lie, Garam turned serious and shook his head.
"You can't go into a gate yet. You know that."
"But."
Ha-yeon opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something.
But Garam was a little faster.
"Later. Once your condition improves a little more, we'll go together then."
As she was now, using a skill a few times overloaded her body until she could barely move.
Even generously put, it wasn't a state anyone could call normal.
"And when will that be?"
"When I find a Mid-tier Blood Point Stone."
If he could just use Kindred Conversion, she would be far better off than now.
By then she would be in good enough shape to clear a gate.
But Ha-yeon didn't seem to like his answer; she was scowling hard.
[Why are you so set on going along in the first place? You know that going with him now would make you nothing but dead weight, don't you?]
In the end it was Carmilla who stepped in.
Words cold enough to gouge at Ha-yeon's chest.
But for that very reason they were also the closest thing to the truth.
"That's......."
[What, do you want to play hunter too?]
"We're family. Isn't that obvious?"
Ha-yeon's answer to Carmilla was so simple it was almost absurd.
"Haah, all right. Honestly, even I think going along is pushing it."
Carmilla's words seemed to convince Ha-yeon; unlike before, she nodded readily.
"But next time I'll be stronger too, so you have to take me along, all right?"
"Sure. I'd like that."
"Anyway, I can tell exactly where you go."
Hm?
"How would you know that?"
"There's a location-tracking app installed on your phone."
Location... what?
Why was something like that installed on his phone?
"It's been there a while. You didn't know?"
He didn't.
He had no idea at all.
[Ugh, that's a little creepy.]
Carmilla rubbed both arms furiously beside him, as if she had goosebumps.
'Well, if she's worried, that happens.'
Ignoring Carmilla, Garam met Ha-yeon's eyes.
It wasn't that he didn't understand her worry.
Until recently he had been nothing but a porter.
Now he was tearing around everywhere like a madman, so of course she worried.
"Oh, I have class now, so I'll go. See you later."
Seeing Ha-yeon off as she walked away, Garam too turned around.
***
"Is this it?"
Deep in the night.
Garam was standing in an alley of a hillside slum.
Scenery that called to mind the day he first Awakened.
'The Mid-tier Blood Point Stone matters too, but for now it's right to take the Arrangement I can get my hands on immediately.'
The reason Garam was here was simple.
[A new Arrangement of Nosferatu has appeared.]
[Location: The Windswept Great Plateau.]
It was because of the System message that had appeared earlier.
He did have to go hunting for Worshippers in order to obtain Kindred Conversion.
'But those bastards aren't the sort to turn up just because you go looking.'
For now it was right to focus on the Arrangement in front of him.
"So this is the Windswept Great Plateau?"
Where Garam stood now was a hillside slum in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.
More precisely, in front of a gate that had appeared in that slum.
The very gate where an Arrangement of Nosferatu was said to have appeared.
"You don't know what kind of Arrangement this one is either, right?"
[Right. I'd tell you if I could, but there's no knowing until I see it myself.]
"Then there's nothing for it but to go in ourselves."
[Yes, yes. Let's get in there.]
Unable to wait, Carmilla kept pointing at the gate.
Garam nodded to her.
As it happened, he had just acquired a skill perfect for infiltration.
[Lower Skill: Veil (A) is used.]
A faint energy flowed from Garam's body and wrapped around him.
A feeling as though he had been severed from the world.
Carmilla watched and folded her arms.
[It really is fast. Even so, the First Molting isn't something you can get through this quickly.]
She muttered it under her breath.
Growing stronger quickly was a good thing, so Garam didn't pay it much mind.
Garam stepped forward to enter the gate.
His vision wavered and the scenery around him changed.
"There's a reason they call it a plateau."
Perhaps because of the high-altitude terrain, he could feel that breathing had become harder.
"Not enough to be a burden, though."
C-Grade or not, his was unmistakably a hunter's body.
Meaning there was no chance of altitude sickness.
[Entered Gate: The Windswept Great Plateau.]
[Hidden Quest: Arrangement of Nosferatu (1) begins.]
[Blood Script obtained 0/1]
[Reward: Blood Script.]
[Failure: Permanent destruction of the Blood Script.]
"This is......."
Garam swallowed a groan at the quest window that had suddenly appeared before him.
The window looked exactly like the one from when he became a True Progenitor, and bad memories surfaced.
[Aren't you lucky?]
But Carmilla had been thinking something entirely different; she was looking at the quest window with a bright smile.
"How so."
[The Blood Script. Among the True Progenitor's powers, this is the most important one. Put simply, it's a blueprint tool. The ability to turn the unique traits written in blood into script and pull them out whenever you need them.]
Turning blood into script.
Where was he supposed to use something like that?
Seeing Garam's dubious expression, Carmilla let out a deep sigh.
[Haah. Meaning, if you can just decipher Hae-rang's blood, you can take Hae-rang's power and use it whenever you want.]
"No way."
Put like that, it did sound like an incredible ability.
He had no idea how one went about deciphering blood.
But if it could be done, it amounted to getting tremendous power for free.
It was similar to the plunder he performed through Absorb.
But in terms of versatility, this Blood Script looked far better.
Unlike Absorb, which only netted random skills.
The Blood Script dealt in a monster's traits.
Meaning he could use it the way the Bat-Man had gained an orc's regeneration and muscle.
In other words, he could strengthen the Lower Skills themselves.
"Then let's move fast and......."
[Hm? What's the matter?]
Garam's steps, about to head deeper into the gate, halted.
"You don't feel this?"
Until a moment ago the momentarily thin air had kept him from noticing properly.
Now that his body had adjusted, he felt it clearly.
A smell of blood thick enough to fill the entire plateau.
[You're right... the smell of blood is overpowering. It's like it's calling out for the Vampir to come.]
The thick scent of blood filling the plateau, and fresh blood.
For him, who had no blood-drinking urge, it was one thing.
But for an ordinary Vampir this was a place to go mad over.
"And what's that?"
When Garam followed the smell of blood inward.
he saw monsters of unknown identity.
"KIEK."
"KEEEK?"
Monsters that at a glance looked like goblins.
But if there was one thing different from ordinary goblins.
it was that beneath the goblins' arms, arms that appeared to belong to Kobolds were attached.
"What in the world kind of monster is that?"
[At least it doesn't look like an ordinary monster.]
"And that... isn't that a Blood Point Stone?"
In the chests of the strangely shaped goblins.
small but unmistakable Blood Point Stones were embedded.
Lower-tier Blood Point Stones.
[Hey. Looks like your luck really is rotten.]
"You're telling me."
A sigh escaped him.
He had made such big promises to Ha-yeon.
And the first things he saw on entering the gate were twisted netherworld goblins and Blood Point Stones?
"Next time I'll probably end up locked away somewhere."
If this reached Ha-yeon's ears, he'd be grounded that very day.
[I saw it coming from the moment she swung a blade at our first meeting.]
"She's a good kid, though."
Setting that aside, there were the Blood Point Stones and the smell of blood in the area.
And bizarre goblins of unknown nature on top of it.
"At this point, is it settled that the Worshippers are tangled up in this?"
[I'd say we have to assume so.]
How could a coincidence be this vicious?
For traces of the Worshippers to be in the very place where the Blood Script appeared.
[It might not be a coincidence.]
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
[A kind of causality, I suppose.]
That was exactly what he was asking about.
He had asked for an explanation and gotten a Zen riddle instead.
[I mean, to gain a cheat-tier power like an Arrangement of Nosferatu, maybe you have to overcome a kind of trial?]
"He sure twisted it into something troublesome."
Whatever sort of being Nosferatu was, he didn't seem to be one with a pleasant disposition.
"Anyway, if I kill those things first and head inside, something will turn up."
If anything, it worked out.
If this place was connected to the Worshippers.
then there might be a Mid-tier Blood Point Stone here.
As Garam and Carmilla approached the unidentified monsters.
they spotted Garam too and began charging at him all at once.
"Hardening. Crimson Flame."
FWOOOOSH!
A blood axe summoned in an instant.
Crimson flame burned over it.
"Hup!"
Just as he had in the Deep Crystal Cave, he gathered the Crimson Flame at the axe head and burst it all at once!
FWOOOOOSH!
The Crimson Flame spread like a wave and washed over the goblins.
"KIEEK!"
"KIAAAAA!"
"What the— that's stronger than I expected."
Perhaps because he had gone through the First Molting.
The Crimson Flame was far more powerful than he had thought.
[Crimson Flame (C) Lv 8 has risen to Crimson Flame (C) Lv 9.]
'It isn't my imagination. Wielding the power has gotten easier.'
Perhaps thanks to the First Molting, his skills were leveling faster.
And it wasn't only Crimson Flame.
The amount of blood used, and the axe, whose quality had improved even though he made it with less blood.
The blood used to make the axe was also clearly different from before.
"Then let's experiment a bit more."
This time Garam charged the goblins first himself.
Every time he swung the axe, goblins were swept away in a single blow.
"KIEEEEK!"
The goblins charged too, swinging four arms as if refusing to go down easily.
"You can strap on all the Kobold arms you like, it won't be enough!"
He dodged the four arms and swung the axe.
The goblins before him were certainly stronger than the Kobolds and Blue Lizards he had faced before.
In Grade terms, perhaps C-Grade.
'This much doesn't even consume any blood now.'
Even so, they were far too easy a prey for him as he was now.
"Absorb."
HMMMMM-
Blood refilled from the goblins Garam had killed.
An endless repetition of spending and refilling.
Mere C-Grade monsters couldn't even manage to drain his blood.