What is the greatest distinction between day and night?

The presence or absence of light, of course.

Light illuminates the world, granting us the ability to see what lies ahead in this treacherous place. Without light, we can know nothing. Even with death right before our noses, we might innocently lean toward it like a three-year-old child.

The unknown inspires fear, not courage. When you take a step into the darkness, the fact that unseen fangs do not tear into your throat is no achievement of bravery. You are simply lucky. Ordinary people who realize this instinctively avoid the dark.

They learn from those who never returned from their reckless ventures.

“Wake up.”

That was why night had always been something to guard against. The unknowable was terror and dread itself.

Even building houses and lighting fires were measures humanity devised to protect itself against the dark. Filling one's surroundings with familiar things was a way to lessen that fear.

“Wake up, I said.”

“Hwaaah!”

And so, when someone intruded into my room in the middle of the night, I sprang up with a convulsive start and switched on the lamp beside my bed.

Who sneaks in at night without making a sound? Into my room, no less. They could only have come with bad intentions...

Or so I thought, but the sight that greeted me was wholly unexpected.

It was a beautiful girl whose entire appearance was white. Rather than being white in color, she seemed drained of pigment.

A bloodless face, silver hair devoid of color, an expression without warmth, and a chest that never stirred.

She looked sickly, as though missing several of the things that made up a living being.

She exuded an aristocratic, classical elegance, yet her face looked young compared with her mysterious air. But that fleeting quality did not suggest she had yet to finish growing. It was as if, at some point, growth itself had been stolen from her.

Was she a ghost? Her hair and limbs were impossibly fine. She looked as though she might break at a touch, making it difficult to approach her carelessly. There was a precarious fragility to her, like white porcelain an instant away from hitting the floor.

But that unease was an attraction in itself. When would it fall? How would it shatter? How beautiful would the red liquid seeping between the broken pieces be? Such anticipation stirred dizzying, transgressive impulses.

All the blood in my body was drawn toward her. My senses reeled. I felt a vertigo much like falling. Without realizing it, I reached out—and stopped.

“Ah.”

I read her.

It was the vampire.

Why was she here?

Surely not.

“Have you finally come to cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs?”

Her red eyes, shining even in the dark, filled with puzzlement.

“What nonsense are you spouting in your sleep?”

“Were you that hungry? But please, think for a moment. This is an extremely foolish choice. There are roughly five liters of blood flowing through my body. Kill me now, and that's all the blood you'll get. But I can make more blood every single day, and if I push myself to the limit, I can provide about three hundred milliliters a week. Seventeen weeks, or about a hundred and twenty days, and keeping me alive becomes the more profitable option. Remember. Become a monster of interest rates. For someone who lives as long as you do, compound interest is always the better deal...”

Here I was, sharing forbidden knowledge with a vampire who would live forever unless the world ended. Perhaps I had created a monster...

The vampire quietly looked down at me as I babbled my dog-brained nonsense, then spoke.

“Are you fully awake now?”

“Yes. Running my mouth a little helped clear my head.”

“Good. May I sit?”

“Oh, yes.”

When I nodded, the vampire conjured a black chair out of thin air and perched on it.

I sat on the bed and rubbed my face a few times. I could sense neither hostility nor appetite from her. Apparently, I wasn't destined to die today.

Please don't think it strange that I was frightened. A vampire visiting silently in the middle of the night? Along with tiger attacks and smallpox, that was one of the world's three great categories of horror.

It was a relief that she had no intention of harming me. Otherwise, I would have been sucked dry like a fallen coconut.

“What brings you to my room at this hour?”

I asked partly to read her thoughts, but she answered honestly without my even needing mind reading.

“Yes. I came because I have something important to discuss with you. I realize I was a little hasty, but I feared I would have no opportunity except at this hour...”

Breaking off, the vampire glanced around, then lowered her head, partly hiding her face behind her parasol.

“I called to you from outside, but you simply would not wake. I had no choice but to enter your room... Why must you sleep so deeply? You made me come inside myself.”

'A woman secretly visiting a man's room in the middle of the night. It is unthinkable.'

Excuse me, before worrying about being a woman, could you remember that you're a vampire? That was terrifying. My heart was pounding with the sort of fear reserved for encountering a natural predator.

I was the victim here, so why was she acting as though she had lost out...?

Oh, to hell with it. Since things had come this far, I stuck out my tongue with a wicked grin.

“Heh heh heh. Sneaking in at this hour means you've steeled yourself for what's to come... Did you miss me that much? Very well. I'll treat you just as you desire...”

“Stop joking. I am serious.”

Displeasure showed in her red eyes. She broke into my room at night, but I wasn't even allowed to joke about it. How unfair.

But the age gap between us was even more unfair. I tucked my tail between my legs and quickly changed the subject.

“That's because you keep stopping short. You're usually so unhurried, but you were worked up enough to come all the way here in the middle of the night. Why are you just twirling your hair instead of getting the words out?”

“Well... This may seem rather sudden, but I... There is an important favor I wish to ask of you.”

“Then hurry up. I'm merely human, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka. I can't read your mind. If you don't say it, I won't know.”

Actually, I knew. I had just read it.

No, perhaps I had suspected this might happen from the moment I attempted cardiac resuscitation today. The vampire's longing for her stilled heart and stolen life remained a knot within her even after a thousand years.

Sure enough, she made up her mind and looked straight at me. In her red eyes burned the fervent desire of a human who had seized upon a single thread of hope.

She looked just like a novice at the gambling table clutching a good hand.

“About the heart. What you did today made a heart that had stopped beat again.”

“Yes.”

“Within my body, too, there is a heart that has stopped. A hearth that has broken down after going so long unlit.”

A vampire's heart does not beat. Frozen cold, their hearts merely let blood flow through them. A vampire's heart is simply a place where countless streams of blood converge.

Then how does their blood move? What makes that red liquid, the very source of life, circulate...?

The answer is surprisingly simple.

Blood manipulation.

The vampire art of controlling blood, which the Regressor had tried to learn.

With it, they directly control every drop and stream of blood, distributing it throughout their bodies. They push it into the gaps between muscles and beneath the skin, bit by bit. Blood controlled entirely by their own will moves their bodies without a heartbeat.

That is how vampires can live despite being dead.

“Would you revive that hearth with your flame?”

That is why a vampire's heart does not beat. It remains still. Their blood flows steadily, independent of the heart, as naturally as a river.

The passionate surge of blood squeezed through the body is a concept that does not exist for vampires. They do not grow excited or sad. Even if they do feel such emotions, there is not a single effect upon their flesh.

“Please. With a heart that beats of its own accord... I wish to die while I am alive.”

Their faces do not flush. Their veins do not bulge. Their vision does not narrow.

Their eyes do not redden. Tears do not fall. Their hands and feet do not tremble with nerves, nor does sorrow constrict their whole bodies.

Excitement and sorrow alike end as thoughts flickering through their minds. Without hormones, emotions have no staying power.

Over the past thousand-odd years, some people had yearned to become vampires. They envied not only the ageless, immortal bodies they themselves lacked, but even the vampires' cold composure. The only emotion vampires could possess was reverent love toward their blood lord.

Yet Tyrkanzyaka, their very Progenitor, had never liked it for a single moment.

That was why the vampire had come to me. She bore a fervent wish she had cherished for a thousand years, along with an empty yearning she could not feel in her heart.

As I simply looked at her in silence, the vampire smiled sadly.

“... It is rather ugly, is it not? I have already lived over a thousand years. What lingering attachment could I possibly have? I have lived several times as long as others, yet shamelessly desire more life.”

I shrugged and answered.

“Not at all. The life you've lived so far can't diminish your desire to keep living.”

Her lips parted slightly at my unexpectedly kind response.

“I thought you would tease me. How unexpected.”

“When have I ever teased you, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka? I've been so consistently considerate. You'll never find anyone more devoted to respecting their elders than me.”

“... Or perhaps not? Am I still being teased?”

So that was why she had seemed oddly bothered whenever I brought up her age. Had she been feeling ashamed of continuing to live?

The vampire lowered her gaze and murmured.

“I do not fear death. I have already died once. Nor do I fear pain. I have experienced countless kinds of suffering over the long years. But the experiences, the emotions, and the pain I have felt in this body... have all been filtered. I have merely contemplated them through slowly flowing blood. It feels as though all my years have been false, and that is so terrible...”

Suddenly, the vampire grabbed my arm. Her cold hand clung to me as though I were her last lifeline. There was little strength in her grip, yet I could not shake her off.

Filled with cold sorrow, she pleaded with me.

“I will do anything. Please. Bring my heart back to life.”

Oof. This wasn't good.

Faint anticipation seeping from faded hope. A dream in its twilight. Lost childhood innocence.

All of these were things that drove a magician mad.

When you see someone yearning for a hope they themselves no longer believe in, how can you not want to surprise them somehow?

After all, giving people illusions is a magician's duty.

I asked once more.

“You'll do anything?”

“Yes. It is a wish I have held for a thousand years. What would I not do?”

“In that case.”

I rose from the bed. The vampire's gaze followed me. Seated in her chair, her head barely reached my waist.

I straightened the bedding, then patted the firm mattress and gave an order.

“Bare your chest and lie down here.”

The vampire's eyes quivered, like those of someone who had never imagined receiving such a response.

“Bare my chest, you say? But that...”

“You said you'd do anything, didn't you?”

That attitude. That look in her eyes.

Desperation, and the hope she had found within it. It was familiar. At the same time, my mouth watered as though I had spotted delicious prey. The instincts I had honed as a back-alley cardsharp were shouting at me.

This was a sucker.

A sucker who had just picked up a good hand and was ready to match whatever I bet. One I could bleed utterly dry, right down to the marrow.

If I let a sucker like this walk away, I would disgrace the name of gambler.

“You have to lie down if we're going to do this. Come on, now.”

I gave the order firmly. The vampire flinched, apparently unable to make her feet move. Her snow-white hand closed pointlessly around empty air, then opened again. At last, as though she had made up her mind, she clutched her collar with her small hands and rose from her seat.