Esdeath

No, that wasn't quite accurate. It should have been: Could you bear to let a perfect work of art be blemished?

Lilith couldn't.

But since figuring out whether she was really a vampire was more important, Lilith gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut, and twisted her own arm.

Hiss...

A bruise immediately appeared on Lilith's arm, making her heart ache as she looked at it.

But before she could rub it with her palm, the bruise vanished in the blink of an eye.

It really disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Feeling the faint pain still lingering in her arm, Lilith fell silent.

With recovery like that, she wouldn't believe she wasn't a vampire even if someone told her so.

Lilith put the knife away. There was no need to continue testing herself now.

Then Lilith had no idea what to do next, so she simply stood there in a daze.

It felt as though her mind had drifted far away.

It was the scent of blood at the tip of her nose that brought Lilith back to her senses.

She lifted the tent flap and went to find Esdeath.

After all, Esdeath was still outside dealing with the prey. It simply wouldn't do for Lilith to stay in the warm tent by herself, and her conscience wouldn't let her sit there comfortably.

Then... not long after leaving the tent, Lilith returned with an awkward expression.

Lilith covered her face with both hands, feeling it burn.

That was so embarrassing.

She felt utterly useless.

She had clearly wanted to help, only to realize she had no idea how to deal with an animal carcass. She couldn't even hand over tools without causing trouble.

After handing over the wrong tool twice in a row, Lilith conscientiously returned to the tent. Sitting quietly inside was the best help she could offer Esdeath.

But Lilith couldn't sit still in the tent at all.

To her, everything around her was unfamiliar and novel, making her want to learn about it.

But considering this was someone else's home, Lilith decided she should sit obediently.

She could only look around at the furnishings inside the tent while her thoughts drifted somewhere unknown.

Once she had calmed down, the more she felt that the name Esdeath sounded familiar.

Yet she could never remember where she had heard it. The name gave her a strange sense of having heard it often, yet feeling incredibly distant at the same time.

It was such a contradiction.

Come to think of it, had Esdeath always lived here?

Ever since Lilith had arrived at this tribe, Esdeath was the only living person she had seen. Where had everyone else gone?

She also wondered how long Esdeath had been living alone. She must have been very lonely.

Time passed as Lilith let her thoughts run wild.

Lilith only came back to herself when she heard the tent flap being lifted.

Esdeath entered the tent, added some water to the iron pot hanging over the fire in front of the bed, then carried in a pile of firewood. Finally, she brought over a wooden basin containing the prepared raw meat and sat beside Lilith.

Lilith shifted a little farther away. It wasn't that she disliked Esdeath; it was simply an instinctive movement.

Esdeath seemed not to notice and lowered her head to tend the fire.

"Hey, what is the world outside like?"

Other than the crackling of the fire, the tent was utterly quiet.

The silence made Lilith uncomfortable. She wanted to find something to talk about, but she had no idea what to say.

After all, she knew almost nothing about this world.

Yet to her surprise, Esdeath took the initiative and asked her about the world.

"...I... don't know."

Lilith answered honestly.

"My father once told me that the world beyond the Icefield is vast. There is the Empire, the strongest empire in the world, and there are also the Foreigners driven out of the Empire by the First Emperor a thousand years ago. There are mountains and seas, and Dangerous Species that live in those places."

Esdeath showed no surprise at Lilith's answer. Or rather, she had not expected Lilith to answer her question in the first place. She simply had not spoken to anyone in too long and wanted someone to talk to.

But at those few words, something flashed through Lilith's mind like lightning. She finally understood the source of that sense of disconnect.

So this was the disconnect between two-dimensional fiction and three-dimensional reality!

Lilith stared at Esdeath in shock. She had never imagined that Esdeath was that Esdeath.

No!

Lilith took another careful look at Esdeath and realized that the current Esdeath was very different from the one in her memories.

That was also why she had failed to recognize her immediately.

Esdeath had yet to leave the Icefield, had not joined the military, and perhaps did not even know what a Teigu was.

Her strength was probably at the weakest point of her life. The Esdeath before Lilith was not yet the invincible general.

Though Esdeath's youthful face was somewhat cold, and she still had few expressions compared to when she became a general, she seemed more human than the woman who had been baptized in blood and took pleasure in it.

At least, that was what Lilith thought.

"Is there something on my face? Why are you staring at me like that?"

Lilith's fixed stare made Esdeath uncomfortable.

Having hunted on the Icefield year-round, she was highly sensitive to others' gazes. She had noticed the moment Lilith looked at her, but she had not expected Lilith to stare for so long.

"...It's nothing."

Lilith's heartbeat sped up uncontrollably. She had never expected to encounter a killer like Esdeath.

Or perhaps she should consider herself fortunate to have met Esdeath before she joined the military, when her desire to kill was not yet so intense.

Wait, although Esdeath liked killing, she didn't seem to massacre ordinary civilians?

Lilith let out a sigh of relief.

If that was the case, then she was safe.

She was just an ordinary, harmless little girl. Esdeath shouldn't kill her for no reason... right?

Lilith suddenly wasn't so sure.

Lilith guiltily turned away. Now that she knew Esdeath's true identity, she no longer dared to look at her so openly.

She had the feeling that if she looked at Esdeath two more times, Esdeath would stab her with a sword.

"I can't help feeling that the way you look at me is very uncomfortable."

"Ahaha... that's just your imagination. Your imagination."

Lilith once again assessed the gap between herself and Esdeath in a fight.

Then... she discovered that even counting a vampire's immortality, she still couldn't beat her.

Perhaps the only difference would be that, after discovering Lilith's immortality, Esdeath would become even more excited.

Yes, she'd be even more excited to chop her up.