‘You’ve been doing a very good job so far, Len.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not dangerous at all. I’m just… it’s doesn’t really matter who I am.’

‘I’m here to make you aware of my existence, that’s all.’

‘So, continue the good work!’

---

“Ahh!!”

“Ah!?”

Huh!? Where am I?

I opened my eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling and a sound of a woman shrieking.

I’m… laying on a bed. Whose bed is this? And the vampire girl is beside me, sitting on a chair.

What was that? I was dreaming about… I heard voice, a voice of a boy. Who is he?

I looked around the room and my eyes fell on her face, she looks surprised and confused. Did she carried me here? Why?

“I’m sorry!”

She said while looking on the ground, her expression changed from surprise into one of sadness.

“... About what?”

“I… I attacked you and… hypnotized you and... and… I’m sorry!”

“Where’s Re- the wolf?”

“Ah, he- he’s sleeping… in the guest room…”

“How long was I asleep?”

“Around… 20 minutes, maybe?”

“Where are we?”

“... One of the bedroom in this house…”

“I see. So, why did you hypnotized me?”

“I…”

“Was me losing my consciousness is also one of your doing?”

“No! I didn’t do it… probably…”

This girl is hopeless, she lacks confidence. I’m worried about Ren and there’s stuff to ask about this girl. For now, she doesn’t seems to be a threat. Why is she suddenly acts like a naive teenager after our little fight? now I’m really curious.

“I’m going to get my wolf, can you lead the way?”

I said while getting up.

“Wait!”

She grabbed my hand.

“I-I didn’t catch your name…?”

“Call me… Len.”

“Len…?”

“Yeah, so can you lead the way?”

“Yes I can! And uh… my name is Ciel.”

“Right, Ciel, please lead the way.”

She nodded and walked in front of me, leading toward the sleeping Ren. His face looks peaceful, I almost feel bad waking him up. I shook his body and called his name, but there’s no answer. Weird, usually he would wake up even by the smallest contact with his body.

“Ah, I actually… hypnotized him too…”

She said apologetically.

Huh, no wonder I felt something amiss before. Ren won’t sleep when there’s a fight going on. But when did she hypnotized him?

“When did you do that?”

“When we… fought…”

I can see her face turned red. She’s very shy isn’t she?

There’s many questions I want to ask her, who build a mansion in the middle of the forest? Who is she? What happened to the people who used to live in this mansion?

“Can you wake him up?”

I asked her.

“Yes.”

She snapped her finger and suddenly Ren opened his eyes and looked at me with confused expression. That was pretty cool.

I caressed Ren and looked at Ciel. Now, what I should ask first? She doesn’t seems hostile anymore, it seems we need a little chit-chat.

After that, we sit on a sofa, it’s pretty comfy. Ciel brewed a tea and offered me one. When she realized that I don’t have a mouth, the glass fell from her hand and it broke. This girl is really hopeless.

“Can you tell me anything about this world?”

I don’t want to waste anymore time, it’s better to go straight to the point.

“Y-you truly didn’t know anything…?!”

She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.

“You want to hypnotize me again to make sure I’m telling the truth?”

Ren snorted beside me with his half-closed eyes. He isn’t stupid, he knows he got hypnotized and he’s in bad mood now. Why didn’t she hypnotized me in the first place? Maybe she thought I was a ‘real’ golem, so she didn’t bother thinking to hypnotize me huh?

“I can’t hypnotize people more than twice continuously, I need time to recover my power…”

“Is it really okay telling me that? We’ve just met you know.”

“It’s… alright really…”

She clenched her hand and her voice cracked.

“Hmm? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s doesn’t really matter…”

Just like Ren, she reminded me a lot about my past. I feel she’s very similar to old me, a crybaby.

There’s something inconsistent with my memory, if I’m weak, a coward and a crybaby, so why the current ‘me’ is the opposite of all that? I guess only time will tell.

After a bit of awkward silence, I asked her about this world. Her explanation is long and a bit vague, it seems she too, never stepped outside the mansion before. She only tells me what she learned from the books, not real experience.

We are in the Gaia Continent, the third biggest continent in the world and this forest is called the Sleeping Forest. I don’t know how big is the difference between ranks, but there are nineteen ranks, from F, E, D, C, B, A, A+, S, S+, S++, SS, SS+, SS++, SSS, SSS+, SSS++, Ancient, Demon, and God rank. Apparently Sleeping Forest is in S rank, I guess it means this place is very dangerous right?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

There are six races in this world. Divine Beast, Elf, Orc, Werebeast, Vampire, and the last but not the least, Human. However, Ciel learned this from a very old book, maybe there’s already a new race?

Magic is actually easy to learn but hard to master. There are many elements, like fire, water and whatnot. This isn’t something new, I’ve already heard this from a novel.

This is like a fantasy novel. Different races, different ranks, magic and witchcraft, demons and angels, dragons and dungeons, and lastly, Adventurers. I didn’t belong in this world… I was transported to this world without my memories.

This would be much more fun if I didn’t lost memory, have a human body and not stranded in a middle of a forest.

Before I knew it, it’s already dark. Ren is sleeping beside me, this time without hypnosis.

I asked her if she’s thirsty or hungry, she shook her head.

Oh yeah, she’s a vampire, does she drinks blood?

“Say… do you drink bloods?”

“Huh!? W-well…”

She looks surprised and a bit pale. I shouldn’t have asked that.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you or something, just curious. Forget I just asked.”

“No, it’s not like that… it’s just… I never drink any blood…”

“O-oh… that was surprising, is that really alright?”

“Not really, we vampires only drink bloods when we reached adulthood.”

“... How old are you again?”

“Um, 15 years old. What’s wrong?”

Really? You look like 18 or 19 or something.

“And at what age vampires reached adulthood?”

Suddenly she looked gloomy while hanging her head down. She bit her lips almost to the point it would bleed and with a low voice she told me.

“When we reach adulthood, we need to drink bloods but not any bloods, we need human bloods. And when we do, our power will increase tremendously to a whole new level and we will gain immortality. However, the burden is too big, so we will train our bodies until then. Well, 16 years old is the minimum age to reach adulthood, as long we have human bloods and trained our bodies strong enough to handle the burden, we can reach adulthood.”

I sense a bit of pride when she talked. I don’t really understand what she means by ‘handle the burden’ and what do you mean by ‘we will train our bodies’? You do push-ups everyday and jogging around the mansion or what? Why do you need only human bloods?

“I… live alone. My parents died when I was around 7 years old. They were… murdered”

“...” I can see her eyes getting red and tears accumulate.

“It’s not just my parents, we are a big family. A big happy family. I have a lot of brothers and sisters, they… all died. It was just another peaceful day, some of my brothers and sisters is playing around in the backyard and some is just reading books, enjoying the silence.“

Tears began to dripping on the floor as her voice began to sound hoarse. Why would she tell me all this?

“Suddenly, out of nowhere… a group of human appeared. They forced their way in through the front door. My parents is very strong, however… those people also brought someone strong too. They brought a S ranked adventurer with them while my parents is A ranked. The gap between my parents and that adventurer is too big and my parents was murdered.”

She covered her face with both of her hands and her voice is getting more hoarse, barely audible.

I get it.

“My brothers and sisters was also got murdered by them, we can’t fight them, we can’t run, we can only surrender ourselves to them. almost all of us was captured by them, I was… hiding in fear, I’m… the only… survivor.”

I understand what’s happening now.

We… have all been through a bitter experience, some of them were very traumatic. We are always carrying a burden, something we keep to ourselves, something we don’t want other people to know about. However, if you keep it to yourselves, it’s only will getting heavier and heavier and at the end… you want to share it to other people.

She’s the same. She kept her past to herself with no one to share. Day by day, she feels more lonely and the stress of having no one to talk only making the burden heavier. She wanted to share, but there’s literally no one she can talk to.

Until one day, she met me.

She found someone who she can talk to. Someone who listens. Someone who understands.

“I… I’m… sorry, I’m sorry…”

She finally lost it and cried. She cried really loud, snot is coming out of her nostril and her face turned red. She keeps crying until finally, she cried to her sleep. I didn’t say anything and let her cries to her heart’s content. Ren is aware of what’s happening of course, but he remained silent like me.

I carried her back to the bedroom. While she sleeps, I walk around the mansion, maybe I would find something interesting.

Yep, the mansion is clean, I didn’t find any spect of dust at all. She must be a very diligent person to be able clean all this mansion alone.

I’ve found some pictures of her family, it is indeed a big happy family. From the pictures, I think she had a couple of uncles and aunts. The brothers and sisters is… hmm, I’ve stopped counting at 15.

Hmm… There’s nothing much to look at, besides the pictures and the furnitures. It’s pretty boring.

I sit on a sofa, thinking what I’m supposed to do from now on. Should I walk away quietly or I wait until she wakes up and… talk?

Ah, I remember now. When she hypnotized me, she asked me ‘You didn’t come here to take my heart, are you?’. What’s that supposed to mean? Why would I take her heart?

One of Vampire’s weaknesses is that they can be killed if you stab their hearts. Well, that applies to us all, right? Not me though.

Does her heart is being targeted? By who? Vampire hunters? Hellsing?

Finally, the curiosity wins over me. I waited her until she wakes up.

And there’s another thing I wanted to ask her, it’s been bothering me for quite a while.

…

Hmm?

My skin… has grown a bit… what does it mean?

===========================

If you found any grammar mistakes, please do tell. I'm a human after all. Headaches, this chapter is a bit short.