Isaac Ray Pelham Westcott was a tall man with dull, ash-blonde hair.
Although he appeared to be in his thirties—well-preserved, the kind of thirty that hinted at expensive skincare and no children—he habitually wore a black suit.
While handsome, he always gave off that greasy vibe of a “domineering CEO.” The kind who leaned back in leather chairs, swirled wine glasses, and spoke in cryptic half-sentences.
Of course, he was the Executive Director of DEM Corporation and one of the three founders of DEM.
As a true person of power, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call him a genuine domineering CEO.
…If domineering CEOs also spent their afternoons watching high school surveillance footage.
At this moment, he was watching his computer screen with great interest.
Unfortunately, there were no scantily clad older sisters on the screen.
There was only a pair of scarlet pupils—crimson, ancient, hungry—and the subtle lip movements of a handsome high school student.
‘Found you.’
Based on the lip movements, Westcott read the meaning of this Japanese phrase.
His smile didn’t waver.
“——Ah, how terrifying.” He leaned back, still smiling.
“That gaze is indeed quite frightening.”
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
“I can feel a sense of oppression even through the screen.”
That’s right—on the screen was the Fourth Progenitor in the cooking classroom, issuing a warning to the unknown voyeur.
A warning that had crossed through wires and signals and screens, finding its target with unerring accuracy.
Impressive, Westcott thought.
Or terrifying.
Perhaps both.
Westcott had secured the contract for the installation and maintenance of the surveillance cameras at Sobu High School through a few minor, legal tricks and layers of outsourcing.
School surveillance contracts are naturally handled by external companies.
As DEM—the world’s largest supplier of Realizer units—it was incredibly easy for them to use some minor maneuvering to secure this business.
Especially since they didn’t need to make a profit.
When you have unlimited resources, Westcott reasoned, “profit” becomes a suggestion, not a requirement.
Furthermore, it was completely legal and compliant.
After all, with the maintenance contract in place, monitoring the feed from the company at all times was naturally not a problem.
Legally, he repeated in his head.
Compliantly.
The best kind of surveillance.
“I believe I warned you that doing this is dangerous.” The woman standing behind Westcott stated calmly.
“That is the Fourth Progenitor. A true humanoid natural disaster.”
She was an intellectual beauty—wearing a black blazer and a pencil skirt.
The black fabric outlined the beautiful curves of her body, and the necklace around her neck accentuated her snow-white skin.
But her purple pupils revealed a sense of gravity.
Ellen Mira Mathers.
Also one of the three founders of DEM.
Westcott’s secretary and right-hand woman.
The Chief of the Second Division of DEM.
And also one of the top-ranking Wizards in the world.
As a top-tier combatant who could stand on the front lines, Ellen had once faced the First Progenitor—the Forgetting War King.
That terrifying sense of oppression was something she would never forget for the rest of her life.
The memory lived in her bones, she thought.
In the places where fear never quite healed.
Therefore, Ellen held certain objections to Westcott’s actions.
It sounded completely legal and compliant—on paper, in theory, in a court of law—but would a capricious creature like a Progenitor really reason with you?
Ellen didn’t think so.
Even though creatures like Progenitors looked similar to ordinary people, the factors of madness were engraved in their bones.
The Sanctuary Treaty could not completely suppress them.
Nothing could.
Monsters wearing human skin, she thought.
Always watching.
Always waiting.
“Sigh.” Westcott waved a hand, dismissing her concerns.
“Don’t misunderstand my intentions. I have no intention of provoking something as terrifying as the Fourth Progenitor.” He turned back to the screen, where the image of the cooking classroom now showed only empty counters and a slowly spinning ceiling fan.
“DEM’s goal has always been solely the Spirits.”
Westcott was not lying.
The subjects he was monitoring were indeed only the twin Spirits under Shizuka Hiratsuka’s guardianship.
As for treating the Progenitor as a target or an enemy—at least for now—Westcott had no such crazy plans.
For now, his expression seemed to add.
The future is always uncertain.
Compared to Spirits—whose capacity for harm outweighed their raw power, whose destruction was indiscriminate and chaotic—every Progenitor was a true overlord.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
Terrifying in a way that Spirits could never match.
Of the current four Progenitors, three had vast armies of thousands of vampires under their command.
Each had established their own Empire of the Night on three different continents.
The Forgetting War King, who dominated Europe.
The Eye of Extinction, revered across West Asia.
Three empires, Ellen thought.
Three immortals.
Three ticking time bombs held in check only by mutual suspicion and the fragile Sanctuary Treaty.
As for the Fourth Progenitor—the Kaleid Blood, who only existed in rumors—although he had not yet established his own Empire of the Night, many factions worldwide had already tacitly accepted that the territory of the Japanese islands likely belonged to Hachiman Hikigaya.
Even without any vampire retainers.
Even without an army.
Even without a single castle to his name.
He was the aloof tyrant reigning over Japan.
A king without subjects.
An emperor without a throne.
And somehow, Ellen thought, that made him even more dangerous.
“Based on the intelligence we have obtained so far,” Ellen said carefully, “the Fourth Progenitor has interactions with the twin Spirits.” She paused.
“Is it really necessary to take this risk for the twins?”
“Ellen.” Westcott set down his wine glass with a soft clink.
“That is why you still don’t understand.”
He turned to face her—his smile thin, knowing, insufferable.
“Do you really think an existence like the Fourth Progenitor would care about so-called Spirits?”
He stood up, walking toward the window that overlooked the Chiba skyline.
“That is the legendary cold-blooded, heartless, and eternally lonely vampire.” His reflection stared back at him—handsome, cold, hollow.
“Although I don’t know for what purpose he would disguise himself and hide in Chiba…”
But ultimately, his voice dropped, “do you think such a monster would form an inseparable bond with the twins?”
Ellen fell silent.
Westcott’s words were not without reason.
She had seen the Forgetting War King.
She had stood in his presence, felt the weight of his gaze, the coldness of his aura.
That was indeed a monster wearing human skin.
He looked normal enough.
He spoke like a normal person.
He laughed at appropriate moments and expressed interest in appropriate topics.
But deep down…
Deep down, there was nothing.
No warmth.
No connection.
No humanity.
Just eternity, wearing a borrowed face.
“Perhaps,” Ellen said finally, “you are right.”
“Of course I am.” Westcott picked up his wine glass again.
“The Fourth Progenitor is not our enemy. He is not our ally. He is simply…” He swirled the crimson liquid.
“…a variable we must account for.”
And variables, his smile said, can be managed.
With enough data.
With enough patience.
With enough time.
And Isaac Ray Pelham Westcott had all the time in the world.
Across the city, in a high school cooking classroom, a dead-fish-eyed vampire finished his last cookie and wondered why the back of his neck was still prickling.
Someone was watching, Hikigaya knew.
He had confirmed it.
But who?
And why?
And more importantly—
…Did they see him eat three of Yuzuru’s cookies in a row?
That was embarrassing.
He hoped they had looked away.
It was a kind of arrogance.
An arrogance that completely disregarded her—and everyone else who wasn’t a Progenitor.
This arrogance was accompanied by indifference.
To him—to any of them—the deaths of ordinary people were as insignificant as numbers in a game.
Statistics on a report.
Background noise in an uncaring universe.
As for the other two—whether it was the Eye of Extinction or the Chaos Princess—their styles of operation might differ, but…
The essence was the same.
Apart from their fellow Progenitors, they held no one in their eyes.
Not humans.
Not spirits.
Not even the most powerful wizards.
Just each other, Ellen thought.
An exclusive club of immortals, and the rest of the world was merely furniture.
But Ellen still had doubts.
“But what is the Fourth Progenitor’s purpose in staying by the twins’ side?”
“It must be for food.” Westcott made this judgment with full confidence—the confidence of a man who reduced all complex phenomena to simple, consumable categories.
“Spirits themselves are extremely high-quality spirit mediums. Their blood is also top-tier cuisine for a Progenitor.”
Cuisine, Ellen repeated in her head.
He called living beings “cuisine.”
…Of course he did.
“I see.” She nodded slowly, fitting the pieces into Westcott’s framework.
“Because the Fourth Progenitor does not have an empire of his own. No one has offered him ‘consorts.’ That is why he has set his sights on the twins who are right beside him. Is that it?”
“What else could it be?” Westcott’s smile was thin, knowing, superior.
“Look at the Lion King Organization. Aren’t they smart? Upon receiving news of the Fourth Progenitor’s appearance, they immediately offered up a cute shrine maiden.”
Offered up, he said.
Like a sacrifice.
Like a gift.
Like a bribe.
Westcott despised the methods of the Lion King Organization.
Despite being a professional agency specializing in human-demon combat—dedicated to protecting humanity from supernatural threats—they had clung to the coattails of the true Demon King as quickly as possible the moment he appeared.
And shamelessly raised the banner of ‘supervision.’
They specifically dispatched their best spirit medium—a pure virgin shrine maiden, carefully selected, meticulously trained—to ‘supervise’ a vampire Progenitor.
They were essentially delivering themselves on a silver platter, Westcott thought, yet they could make it sound better than a song.
“Then what do you intend to do?” Ellen’s voice was flat, professional, but her eyes betrayed her concern.
“Even if the twins are just food for the Kaleid Blood, snatching food from the tiger’s mouth is a very dangerous matter.”
“That is a matter for the second step.” Westcott waved a hand dismissively.
“For this, I have already prepared an even higher-quality spirit medium to be responsible for ‘supervising’ the Fourth Progenitor.”
Ellen stared at him.
“Are you doing the same despicable things,” she said slowly, “while verbally expressing disdain for the Lion King Organization?”
Westcott did not mind Ellen’s sarcasm.
In a sense, such ‘negative feedback’ was the best form of praise—proof that he was doing something right, proof that he was making the right people uncomfortable.
“First,” he said, ignoring her jab, “we must proceed with the first step.” He turned back to his computer screen, where the image of the cooking classroom had long since frozen—a single frame of a dead-fish-eyed vampire eating a cookie.
“Is that item ready?”
Ellen’s expression shifted—from skepticism to something harder.
More resigned.
“Almost.” She paused.
“Although it is a counterfeit imitation… it will probably break after being used just once…”
One use, she thought.
One shot.
One chance.
And then nothing.
Ellen, combat mode.jpg
Across the city, in the Hikigaya household, a certain vampire was blissfully unaware that he had been reduced to a variable in a madman’s equation.
He was also unaware that he had been classified as a “tiger” with “food” and “consorts” and other such dehumanizing terminology.
What he was aware of was that Komachi had finished her homework and was now demanding that he review it.
“Big Brother! Pay attention!”
“I’m paying attention.” Hikigaya’s dead-fish eyes scanned the worksheet.
“This kanji is wrong.”
“Eh? Where?”
“Here. You wrote ‘happiness’ but forgot the radical. Now it means ‘hardship.'”
Komachi stared at the page.
Then she stared at her brother.
“…That’s a metaphor for my life, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Hardship disguised as happiness.” Komachi nodded sagely.
“Deep, Big Brother. Really deep.”
“I just told you you wrote it wrong.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.” Komachi took back her worksheet.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Hikigaya watched his little sister return to her desk, humming cheerfully.
Somewhere in the world, he thought, people were plotting against him.
Probably.
Maybe.
…But right now, his biggest problem was a middle schooler who couldn’t spell “happiness.”
Maybe that was a good thing.
Maybe he should enjoy it while it lasted.
He picked up his Max Coffee and took a long sip.
…It didn’t taste like happiness, he decided.
It tasted like caffeine and sugar and the slow, creeping dread of an uncertain future.
So, normal.
Just a normal Tuesday.
For a not-so-normal vampire.