"Vampires?"
The word slipped out as I paused mid-bite, chopsticks hovering over a steaming bowl of noodles at the inn's worn table. Tang Ayeon sat across from me, her eyes glinting with the casual thrill of shared secrets, as if we'd been trading tales of the mundane all evening.
"Yeah, vampires," she confirmed, leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper. "Freaks who slaughter folks and drain them dry of blood. The rumors kicked off about a month back—whispers crawling out of the shadows like smoke."
"Hmm…"
Slurp.
To the folk of the Central Plains, it rang like a crude moniker for some bloodthirsty brute. But for me? It hit like an old echo from another life—staple fodder for games, films, novels, the endless churn of modern myths. In a fantasy realm, vampires slotted in seamless as a drawn blade.
But isn't this a martial world?
Why dredge up bloodsuckers here, amid qi flows and fist clashes? Probably just a foul-tempered thug, or some deviant who'd twisted a forbidden art into crimson hunger. Then again, with transmigrators like me stumbling through, and that shop window tethered to realms of elves and spells... maybe the veil between worlds ran thinner than I'd guessed.
Anyway—
"So, a subjugation team's assembled to hunt them down," she continued, twirling a strand of noodle around her chopstick with effortless grace. "And I'm on it."
"You, Miss?"
"You underestimate me too much." A playful smirk tugged at her lips, though her eyes held a sharper edge. "I'm actually kind of a big deal, you know?"
She wasn't exaggerating. One of her generation's brightest flames, a prodigy whose name already hummed through clan halls and tournament whispers.
"But aren't there hordes of experts in Shaanxi alone?"
"Oh, it's the numbers—more than one bloodletter out there, stirring trouble in pockets across the regions. I'm tasked with one cluster. Their estimated strength clocks in at first-rate, which suits me down to the bone."
"I see."
Still, her volunteering nagged at me. From the glimpses I'd caught, her spirit burned bright but not blindly heroic. She weighed risks like a merchant tallied silvers—ever mindful of the scales tipping her way, doling kindness with a thread of self-interest woven in. At heart, she seemed decent, solid... but no zealot chained to righteousness's altar.
"The reward must be pretty hefty, huh?"
"Hehe."
There it was—the glint of confirmation. Not pure altruism, then. As expected.
"The Martial Alliance dangled a fat purse, yeah," she admitted, her chuckle low and satisfied. "And these hunts? They polish your legend afterward. Picture it: 'The Tang Clan's prodigy, the Poison Phoenix, slays a vampire single-handed.' Fame like that? It opens doors in the high halls—sways alliances, bends ears."
"Aren't there other prodigies who could claim the spotlight?"
"Sure, but the Sichuan Tang Clan's arts are tailor-forged for this: subdue or strike without a mar, leaving the prey intact for the scholars' knives. The Alliance craves more than corpses—they want to dissect these things, probe if they're echoes of the Blood Cult from twenty years past, or some tangled offshoot."
"Oh."
It clicked, grim as a locked manacle. A chill slithered through me at the thought—human experimentation, cold and clinical—but that was this world's grim rhythm. Especially where Blood Cult scars lingered; they poked those wounds with feverish care, lest infection spread anew.
"Honestly, I doubt it's Blood Cult rot myself," she added with a shrug, "but that's beside the point. Reward and renown on a silver platter? Who'd turn that away?"
"So when do you ship out? I'll be adrift without my conversation partner for a stretch."
"Oh, you're coming with me."
Oh. I'm going too.
...
"What?"
Pardon?
"Miss, I might've picked up a trick or two with hidden weapons from you, but I couldn't scrap with a third-rate thug on my best day. Why drag me into—"
"Of course I'm not hauling you blind into the fray." She waved off my protest with a laugh, light but laced with intent. "It's a pitch. Read this first—sealed missive from the team's leader."
Tang Ayeon fished a folded parchment from the folds of her sleeve, unfolding it with a flick that betrayed her assassin's poise. I eyed her attire anew—how many shadowed nooks did that garb conceal for needles and notes? A cloak suited me for veils, but her robes? A arsenal in silk.
Now that I think about it, her clothes have gotten oddly thinner lately.
Compared to our first encounter, the fabric clung lighter, tracing her silhouette with a subtlety that hadn't escaped me. Curves hinted bolder now, a gradual bloom over the past month or so—
It has been hot lately.
Summers on Earth stripped layers too, necessity over modesty. The martial world bowed to no exception; even qi-tempered bones yielded to the sun's scourge. I'd heard peak masters shrugged off frost and blaze alike, but Tang Ayeon? Not quite ascended to that frost-kissed echelon.
"...I feel like you're thinking something rude. Am I imagining it?"
"No way."
No matter her prowess—or mine, for that matter—the chasm between us loomed unbridgeable. I couldn't touch her in a tussle, not with every ounce of cunning I scraped together.
"Well, I'll at least read it."
I took the parchment with care, eyes tracing the inked lines like one might a contract's fine print. Better safe than ensnared.
By the by—
"Four days, four gold coins?"
"Pretty sweet, right?"
The haul gleamed substantial. On flush days, my shop tallied forty or fifty silvers—respectable, but this? Double the take, pure and gleaming.
Still...
"Factoring the fangs and shadows, it's no siren's song. I don't even grasp why they'd summon me."
Slice it any way, this was monster-hunting writ large. And me? I'd sooner fade into the scenery than front the fray, fragile as wet paper against a third-rate's breeze.
"The hook's your sight, fortune-teller," she explained, tapping the page. "Track the beast through your glimpses—steer us true before the blood flies."
"What, you think my readings are some miracle snare?!"
"Can't you pull it off?"
"I mean, I probably could, if I stretched for it..."
"Wait, seriously?"
"You were just guessing...?"
Even so, the lure dangled limp. Proximity to peril offered no ironclad shield; four golds whispered sweet, but life's thread frayed too cheap against a blade's kiss.
"Anyway, I'm not really inter—"
"I figured you'd balk, so I brought leverage." Swift as a dart, Tang Ayeon plucked the sheet away and slid a fresh one across the table, its seal unbroken.
The variance?
"Ten gold coins?!"
"Worth the gamble now, eh?"
"Urghhh..."
Ten golds for four days' shadow.
With this, the liquor...
I could trade my dingy haunts for a gilded den, where casks breathed rarities undreamt.
What would gold-coin spirits kiss like on the tongue?
My mouth watered unbidden. My usual poisons topped at thirty silvers—steep for a sot like me, but this? Forbidden nectar, perhaps, or a windfall to feed the shop's endless maw.
"But... isn't it still dangerous...?"
The protest rang hollow now, conviction crumbling like dry earth.
Ten golds. That much.
"Come on—I'm there, blade-sharp, and the team's stacked with sinew besides. If claws clash, duck behind the wall of steel. I'll etch it in oaths: they'll shield you like their own skin."
"...I can trust you on that?"
"Oh, and this is off the scrolls, but our leader? A fellow fiend for the flask, hoarding vintages that'd make poets weep..."
"Let's go."
The scales tipped. Hazard be damned.
"Hehe—if you sweet-talk a touch more, who knows what doors might creak open?"
"There's no one like you, Miss Tang. Meeting you? The heavens' finest jest turned gift in my sorry span."
"...I know it's flattery, but it still lands warm."
A soft flush crept across Tang Ayeon's cheeks, faint as dawn's first brush.
"The full itinerary's sketched on the page—mind it close. I'll slip out for now."
"Already?"
"If I linger, something seismic might stir..."
"Huh?"
"Oh, no—nothing at all."
With that, she blurred from the inn in a gust, leaving the air humming in her wake.
"Guess she had urgent shadows to chase."
Slurp.
Lately, Tang Ayeon had been... off-kilter. A subtle skew in her orbit, like a compass pricked by unseen iron.
...
...