An accomplishment deserves a fitting reward.

This principle doesn’t apply only to large systems like schools, societies, or nations. In fact, rewards carry even greater meaning on a smaller scale, such as relationships between individuals.

Exercise must be followed by sufficient rest, and an exhausted body must be supplied with nutrients. Fatigue from long hours of labor calls for sugar. When someone helps another person, they must receive a positive response that gives them a sense of satisfaction.

Such reward systems strengthen the body, the mind, and human relationships.

Therefore, I had to reward Azi.

JINGLE, JINGLE.

“All right. It’s a barbecue party.”

“Woof!”

Azi wagged her tail, her eyes sparkling. Her tail was so powerful that the wind it stirred up blew all the flames and smoke toward me. A little faster, and she might take flight.

I stuck a skewer deep into the meat. It slid in without resistance, so the meat seemed cooked all the way through. Soaking it in water for so long to bulk it up had left it practically half-boiled, but I wasn’t the one eating it, so I didn’t care.

I lifted the broad slab of meat on the skewer and twirled it over my head. Azi crouched, her eyes brimming with anticipation. A strand of drool hung from her wide-open mouth.

Drawing my arm far back, I swung it in a broad arc and sent the slab of meat flying into the distance.

“Catch! Special meat Frisbee!”

“Woof! W-w-woof! Woof!”

The meat Frisbee sailed through the air, flaunting its irresistible aroma and appetizing appearance. Azi went wild and raced after it. Snatching the flying chunk out of the air, she grinned happily and tore into it.

Play and a meal in one: a play-meal. For Azi, it must have been a better reward than ever.

I wouldn’t normally put this much effort in, but a dog who’d fought a vampire for me deserved some meat.

I laid the next chunk on the grill and shouted.

“Keep being a good girl and listening to me!”

“Woof, woof! Yes!”

Azi’s happy laughter carried all the way to me, satisfied with her simple but sufficient reward. Dogs really were wonderful friends. A few chunks of meat made her happy even after a life-or-death struggle with a blood steed.

As I chuckled, it suddenly occurred to me that something was wrong.

“That’s strange. I worked hard and got good results too. Why don’t I get a reward?”

Huh?

I knew perfectly well that achievements needed rewards, so why was I the only one not getting one? How had the person who understood the importance of rewards better than anyone ended up handing them out to everyone else?

Something about this was unfair. Something, something...

“Woof, woof, woof! Yummy! Woof, woof, woof!”

Having already wolfed down all the meat, Azi approached with her tail swaying. While the next piece cooked, I stroked her and muttered.

“Azi. Give me some praise.”

“You, good! Give meat!”

“Don’t try to earn your dinner with compliments. I mean praise that comes from your heart. Something sincere.”

Azi put her hands on her hips, thrust out her chest, and shouted.

“You, good!”

“Right. My mistake for expecting you to understand metaphors, idioms, or anything metaphysical. Thanks, girl.”

“Give meat!”

“Still trying to earn your dinner, I see.”

I skewered the meat and sent it flying again. Azi immediately raced off, leaving me behind. Sure, she was just a beast who didn’t know any better, so all she had to do was look out for herself, huh?

I was just starting to resent how utterly carefree she was when a voice spoke.

“Is something the matter?”

The need for rewards applies in the negative direction as well. We call that punishment.

The vampire, who’d been controlled by the likes of Finlay and caused all that chaos, had faced my righteous wrath. As her punishment, I’d first ordered her to clean up the destruction she’d caused.

Thus, the vampire had been leveling the shattered concrete ground and collecting the scraps of the undying one’s horribly mangled right arm. Since her powers couldn’t be allowed to touch the undying one, she’d had to use her own hands to pick them up one by one for the first time in ages.

Lifting a box filled with the undying one’s arm—or, more accurately, the pieces of flesh that had once made up his arm—the vampire spoke.

“But were you not the one who actually destroyed the earthfolk’s arm?”

“Now, now! It takes two hands to clap. Would the undying one’s arm have been damaged that badly if your black knights hadn’t been there, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka? So both sides bear responsibility, and you bear the greater share for doing whatever you pleased!”

How dare she try to shift the blame onto me? Not a chance. I glared at the vampire and took her to task.

At my words, she lowered her eyes and murmured hesitantly.

“I was not trying to evade responsibility. Still, it seems a little unfair to blame me even for this gruesome state of affairs, when someone scraped off the flesh with a skewer and scattered it everywhere.”

That did prick my conscience a little, but plenty of people in this world had more reason to feel guilty than I did. In their presence, I could hold my head infinitely high.

“You’re complaining about that little bit of unfairness? Do you know how unfair this is for me? I worked myself to the bone, and all I got was the cleanup! It’s like I cooked the meal, didn’t even get to finish eating, and got stuck with all the dishes too!”

“Does it upset you that much?”

“Of course! What did I do wrong in any of this? I did nothing wrong and all the work, but I don’t get any reward! Nobody’s even told me I did a good job!”

“You did well.”

Huh? What?

While I stood openmouthed at those unexpected words, the vampire looked straight at me and continued.

“Thank you. You all did wonderfully. Thanks to you, I avoided making an even greater mistake. I owe it all to you.”

The praise had come out of nowhere, but if praise like that made people happy, there wouldn’t be a saying about having to bow first to get a bow in return.

I scowled and spoke.

“The dog praises me for food. What are you trying to squeeze out of me, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka?”

“Do you take me for such a mercenary creature? My praise is heartfelt. I have thanked you. What is there to complain about?”

“Of course you should be grateful. I saved you from being controlled by some idiot nobody had ever heard of. That much is a given.”

“You seemed hungry for praise, so I gave it, only to hear more complaints. What would you have me do, then?”

“Show it through your actions. If you really mean what you said, you won’t need any electrical massages, will you? Right?”

As I started to turn away, the vampire hastily grabbed my arm. After a moment’s hesitation, she spoke, averting her eyes slightly from my cold stare.

“... I did not say I had no need of them.”

“Wow. You really are addicted.”

“Addicted? No poison can affect my body. I merely wish for my heart to beat, however briefly. So, just a little.”

“Wanting more even when it’s ruining your body is called addiction, you know? You ended up in that humiliating mess, controlled by your own thrall, because you don’t realize you’re addicted. You’re living perfectly well already. Why are you so desperate over not being able to make your heart beat?”

As I continued replying curtly, the restless vampire finally looked up at me with reproachful eyes.

“It is your fault, is it not?”

“Excuse me?”

What was this supposed to mean? I was too dumbfounded to speak. Was this some belated April Fools’ joke?

Sure, I’d lamented that it was my fault for playfully introducing an old lady to a stimulating new pastime, but I could say that because I was the one who’d actually suffered for it! Coming from her, that was sheer ingratitude!

Apparently, the vampire still had more to say. She tightened her grip on my arm and spoke.

“My heart does not beat. Whatever emotion I feel soon fades away. And so my desires, my feelings, and my memories are all faint, as though painted over in shades of gray. Even now, in this very moment I share with you.”

Azi ambled over with her mouth full of meat, but when she saw the vampire, she simply sat down where she was and began tearing into the rest.

The vampire gazed wistfully at her, as though recalling a distant memory.

“I never go hungry, so I have no need for food. Thus, even when I smell its fragrance and taste its flavor, it brings me no happiness. I could have every delicacy in the world before me and still not rejoice as the King of Dogs does.”

“But you taste blood.”

“Did you think that truly meant tasting it? Taste is merely a metaphor. I only seek out and take in the blood closest to my own. The more its nature resembles mine, the more it fulfills me.”

After that gentle rebuke, the vampire gazed into the distance again and continued.

“And so there is no warmth in my emotions. They merely glitter like starlight within my head. The stars in a dark night sky are hauntingly beautiful, but they cannot warm the cold earth. So too did my feelings merely flicker for a moment and vanish, without warmth.”

That this infamous vampire was so kind, contrary to the rumors, was surely due in part to her disposition. But another reason couldn’t be ignored.

People are naturally generous toward things that cannot hurt them.

More precisely, they grow numb to them.

The vampire suffered neither wounds to her body nor wounds to her heart. Even if someone drove swords and spears into her, even if they died cursing and resenting her, she could let it all wash over her like the birdsong she’d heard the night before.

Cruel? No. Humanity ought to be grateful.

If the Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka had not possessed the sensitivity to find beauty even in the same daily routine, if she had not been a girl who could lose herself in the quiet flow of starlight...

Humanity would have faced a vampire queen many times colder and crueler than she was now.

“I did not mind Finlay’s resentment. Even as I killed him, I felt much as I would while tidying an old chest of drawers. It was the same in the past, and it will remain so in the future. I am rather fond of you, but even if you were to die suddenly, I would not bat an eye. I would briefly regret your passing, thinking, ‘There was such a man,’ and then turn away.”

No, hold on.

Even as an example, why did she have to kill me off? That was terrifying. I didn’t care if she batted an eye, so couldn’t she just let me live?

Unaware that her offhand example had frightened me, the vampire demurely brought her hands, still holding the parasol, to her chest.

“But in that brief moment when your fingers touch my heart, I can feel emotion flowing through my body. In those moments, my body is mine, yet not mine. My heart leaps of its own accord, and my lungs draw in air unbidden, though they have no need to. My chest, cold all my life, grows warm.”

Now, even cradling her chest in both hands, all she could feel was cold. The vampire spread her hands and looked down at them forlornly.

“Had I never known, perhaps it would be different. But now that I know, there is no turning back. It has been a long night. Dawn has broken, and a faint warmth has shone upon me. To tell me to turn back the clock and return to that cold, dark night... Is that not too cruel?”

Then her eyes met mine again. Blood-red eyes pierced me at an angle from below.

Calmly laying bare thoughts she had long held, the vampire voiced a single wish, both in her heart and aloud.

“Please. Become my heart.”

In darkness where no sky could be seen, in the bottomless pit forsaken even by the earth, a long-held wish spilled forth.

And I was terrified.

Her words were truly romantic. The feeling behind them was so painfully earnest that it was hard to believe it came from a vampire whose heart had stopped. Even I almost fell for it for a moment.

But I had mind reading.

Reading what she meant by those words, I could only marvel at the cruelty of her intentions.

Become her heart?

She literally meant becoming an externally attached heart that would stick its fingers into her chest and supply electricity whenever she wanted!

“Come to think of it, I still do not even know your name...”

“Never mind.”

I hastily cut her off before anything else could develop. Her words stopped as though she’d been stabbed. For a moment, her gaze filled with reproach.

“You still haven’t learned your lesson after getting burned like that? Keep handing your heart over to other people, and you’ll be in serious trouble again.”

“That is why you should do it.”

“No, listen. How can you trust me? What will you do if I just take control of you?”

I’d tried to frighten her as a way of turning her down gently, but her response was nothing like I’d expected.

“If it is you, I do not mind.”

Those calmly spoken words were so bewildering that even I, with my mind reading, was briefly stunned and had to read her thoughts again.

Wondering if the vampire had somehow learned to joke in the meantime, I took another proper look at her thoughts, but...

‘If I must trust someone anyway, if I must place myself upon the scales, I would rather entrust myself to someone I like.’

No. Was she sane? I’d seen suckers before, but never one with a mindset quite this gullible.

There were limits. Just as even heartless gamblers wouldn’t go out of their way to steal a snot-nosed kid’s money, someone this gullible made you feel bad about fleecing them.

So I firmly rejected the vampire’s plea.

“I mind. I don’t want to become someone else’s heart. Not even yours.”

The vampire was deeply disappointed by my unequivocal rejection.

But even that crushing feeling lasted only an instant.

Her disappointment soon vanished, followed by resignation. Not surrender, but a current that simply let everything flow away like a river swept through her and passed on.

Mind reading really was awful at times like this.

I needed to turn her away. I could just let her go.

But watching it all so clearly left me with lingering regrets of my own.

“But that doesn’t mean you’ll give up on your heart, does it?”

The vampire fell silent at my question. Silence didn’t necessarily mean yes, but put it on a scale, and it certainly tipped that way.

She probably wouldn’t do anything as foolish as entrusting her heart to the likes of Finlay again. But I could just picture her going around doing things only slightly less foolish.

Ugh. Seriously.

I swept a hand up over my forehead and sighed.

“In that case, I’d better do it myself.”

“Did you say... you would do it? Does that mean...”

For a moment, her face brightened like a flower blooming.

Now I was sure. Someone this easy to read might hand over her liver and gallbladder to the next con artist too... Literally.

There was no helping it. I reached out and took the vampire’s hand.

“Hope doesn’t keep slipping through your fingers because your hands are absurdly large, Trainee Tyrkanzyaka. Nor is it because hope is so tiny and fine.”

Now she didn’t even scold me when I openly reached for her hand. So much for caution. A little affection, and she’d overlook a simple breach of manners.

One by one, I took her small, cold fingers and neatly brought them together.

Little finger to ring finger, ring finger to middle finger, middle finger to index finger, and finally index finger to thumb.

“You simply weren’t holding your fingers together tightly enough.”

What she needed was a desperate wish.

Firmly pressing all five fingers together, I pushed her hand toward her chest. With both hands now gathered over her chest, the vampire looked at me with eyes full of anticipation.

Ugh. I really, really hadn’t wanted to do this.

“I’m not your heart. I don’t want to be, either. Because I don’t want to work hard beating every moment, I won’t beat when I don’t feel like it, and I’ll be away from you most of the time.”

When someone’s wish hits me from so close, even I can’t help myself.

Just as those who see the future become bound to it and meet their ruin...

Those who see into hearts cannot be free of the hearts of others.

“Instead, I’ll show you how to make that heart beat again.”