I peek around the corner to see the zombie that walks slowly in the filth flowing through sewers and groaning from time to time, around fifteen meters from me.

It is largely rotten, but it is still visible it was a young woman before, especially since there is barely anything covering the decaying body. A large chunk of zombie’s left inner thigh is gone, making her walk unsteadily, the stomach is caved in so much even starving people would have it better and one of the woman’s breasts has fell off, with another still in place, albeit small in size. The mouth of the zombie is wide open with incomplete set of teeth and one of her eye sockets is empty, only complimenting its twisted face.

Had I been a noble lady I look like I would have fainted already seeing this sight that isn’t any better than a mutilated corpse.

I feel a light tug on my cloak and turn my head around to see Yana looking at me with excitement is her crimson eyes.

“Zombie.” – I whisper. – “Bad enemy for you since you can’t suck out its blood, but will do for now.”

“Okay.” – She replies in similarly quiet voice. – “Um, can I fight it now?”

“Wait a second. Brace yourself first, because it is a really bad sight. The zombie is quite slow and unsteady, so don’t expect any fancy moves from it, but it will be very strong, so don’t get hit. And remember to use your claws. They are very good for cutting, but stabbing won’t work well on a zombie, so try to sever its limbs. I will be behind you if anything happens. Ready?”

“Ready.” – She smiles with anticipation, showing her fangs.

“Then go.” – I indicate with my head.

Yana releases her black claws and slowly steps forward, looking warily into the tunnel. She grimaces as she notices the state of the zombie, but doesn’t stop and slowly continues.

I follow around two meters behind her to provide enough space for her fight and be able to quickly help if anything happens.

When Yana comes around then meters from the zombie, it suddenly jolts and turns around, roaring in low voice. The half-vampire immediately tenses and the zombie rushes forward with speed of ordinary child, faltering slightly.

When it is around one meter from Yana, who stands in place with arms in front of her, it makes a large swing with its arm, aimed at her head. The girl quickly ducks down and slashes with her right arm at the base of zombie’s arm while jumping to the side to avoid its charge, and I follow behind her not to attract zombie’s attention.

Yana, unused to her claws, slashes slightly too far and her claws dig into zombie’s arm at their base, biting strongly into the bone and producing a distinct sound, but failing to slice it off as her fingers hit the muscle. She quickly yanks her arm out and jumps back as the zombie’s arm hangs limply, lacking muscles to support it properly.

The zombie turns around quickly and rushes after Yana, this time jumping at her with a roar and making another large overhead swing with other arm. The girl steps aside and slashes at the zombie’s neck, attempting to slice it off, and she almost succeeds as her claws dig into zombie’s flesh deeply, disconnecting over half of its neck, but not reaching the bone.

The zombie staggers, almost falling to the ground, and somehow still lands on its legs, but just then Yana turns around after her swing and catches its limp right arm. She pulls it with all her strength, ripping it off and pulling the zombie along, making it fall on the stones in the sewers with loud sound.

Yana throws the arm aside, judging it useless, and as the zombie spins its upper body with a groan and attempts to slash at her once again she takes her leg back and launches a kick at its head with all her strength. Her bare leg connects with the head and blows it off due to little muscle keeping it, sending a bit of remaining coagulated blood and pieces of flesh on the floor and the head tumbling away.

Yana takes a deep breath and her eyes light up, a huge, proud and excited smile blooming on her face as she retracts her claws and relaxes her posture.

I step forward quickly from behind her and stretch my arm out, catching the zombie’s arm going for Yana’s waist and stopping it in its tracks.

“Hyaaa!”

The girl, seeing it, jumps backwards with cute scream, landing precisely in my other arm as I catch her with a smile.

I pull the zombie’s soul out and kick the zombie’s torso away, then step back with Yana firmly in my embrace. I pat the girl on her head, enjoying the slightly messy, silver hair, and say calmly into her ear. – “A bit of advice. Never drop your guard down until you confirm there is no danger, especially when fighting monsters.”

Yana takes another deep, shaky breath and turns around, burying her face in my belly and hugging me tightly.

“I-I’m sorry.” – She says, clenching her teeth.

“It’s alright, you did even better than I expected.” – I comfort her. – “You didn’t get hit at all and killed it quickly. You can’t blame yourself for dropping your guard if you have no experience fighting with monsters. Just don’t make the same mistake again and it will be alright.” – I make circles on her back with my left arm.

Yana calms down soon after and raises her head, looking at my face with slightly red eyes. – “I’ll make sure I won’t drop my guard again.” – She says resolutely, nodding her head.

“Good.” – I point at the motionless corpse on the stone floor. – “Do you want to take out the mana stone yourself?”

Her face immediately regains some of previous excitement and she squirms in my arms. – “Yesh! Where is it?”

I let go of her and take her arm, leading her to the zombie.

“In case of zombies, mana stones can be in various places. Usually they are where the heart is, because it is the place where mana is easily distributed from. Check it with your claws, but be careful not to press too hard.”

Yana steps forward, her claws extending, and she sticks then into zombie’s chest, slicing it. Within a few seconds she digs out a square of flesh and breaks two ribs, exposing the dead heart, not reacting at all to the sight, but then hesitates what to do.

“I see, so it’s not here. Normally it would be to the left of the heart next to esophagus, because it is where humans usually have it.” – I point to the side of the heart below the sternum. – “It seems this zombie was created from a human with no mana, so there are three other options. It can be in the forehead, in the sternum or in the base of its skull.” – I take the head from the ground and place my hand on its forehead between eyebrows first, between zombie’s breasts and then turn its head around and point where zombie’s remaining three or so vertebras connect with the skull. – “I think it will be there, but check all three of them.”

Yana nods her head and proceeds to first cut a long line along the sternum, but notices no bulge indicating a mana stone, then does the same through the middle of zombie’s forehead, similarly with no result. She then hesitates for a moment.

“Um, how to check that?” – She asks and turns her head to me with a frown.

“The same way as before.” – I say simply. – “Cut a line from skull to spine and pull the sides. If it doesn’t show up you need to break the skull.”

Yana nods her head and cuts a line, then her body raises slightly and her ears twitch even before she finishes the cut. She quickly reaches inside with her hand and yanks out a small, blackish orb with a beaming smile.

“Yeah!” – She exclaims excitedly and turns around, running up to me.

She stretches her arm with the mana stone to me and her cheeks redden.

“You want me to take it?” – I ask, slightly surprised.

“Mhm!” – She nods energetically and averts her eyes. – “Because it’s only thanks to you I had a chance to kill it, so…”

“Okay, I’ll hold onto it then.” – I take the stone from her hand and ruffle her hair with a smile. – “Let’s go. If we’re lucky, we might find a slime or a few rats before it’s time to go back.”

…

“You don’t feel bad seeing that zombie and cutting it just like that?” – I ask Yana as we walk through the sewers hand in hand.

“Um, no. I mean, it’s unpleasant, but I don’t really mind it.” – She glances at me. – “You seemed completely unfazed.”

“Well, I am kinda used to that. I don’t have claws, so I dug out the three stones from the zombies and a drowned with my hands. It was bloody and I almost puked at first, but I got numb to it quickly.”

“Oh.”

We walk a few minutes in a comfortable silence until Yana asks another question.

“Um, Nea, where do you sleep?”

“Uh, mmm, it’s a five minute walk from here. Do you want to see? It’s nothing special though, some stone with a few rags.”

“Un, I would like to see.” – She nods her head and we turn to the side at the next intersection.

“Oh, and, this rat you ate, do you eat them often? Isn’t it bad?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it certainly isn’t bad. I eat a lot of them because I need a lot more energy due to my ability.”

“Oh. Um, could I try drinking one’s blood?” – She asks, fidgeting.

“Uh, not now. I mean, it would need to be fresh for you.”

“Huh? Why?” – Yana asks with surprise.

“Well, I guess no one told you how vampires work, right?” – She shakes her head with a frown. – “You see, vampire’s, in essence, don’t drink just blood, but also suck out target’s soul. The taste of blood is good because of soul you drink along the way. You have that ability still, so if you drink blood of a dead rat it will be just that, blood, but if you drink fresh blood you will get stronger and it will taste much better.”

Yana blinks her eyes a few times, processing what I told her, and nods slowly. – “Okay. Um, but, how do you know that?”

“From my master, the spirit I told you about.” – I smile faintly - “You can drink some blood if we find a rat or something else here.” – I add.

“Un.”

We walk for a while longer and after turning on another intersection comes into view the small cavity in the wall. It isn’t hidden in any way, merely a hole on the side of the tunnel, but it is small and not conspicuous.

“It’s ‘ere.” – I say, pointing forward.

“Oh?” – Yana runs forward and looks at the hole. – “Hm, it’s not bad.” – She concludes. – “But isn’t it cold here?” – She turns to me.

“Not really. I mean, it is quite cold, but my regeneration makes me practically immune to this level of coldness, so there is no problem.” – I stick my head inside next to her and sniff. – “Hey, why does it smell of fresh blood here?”

Yana glances at me with surprised expression and takes a breath through nose herself.

“Yes, it does…?” – She says uncertainly.

I look around the place where only three or four moderately large pieces of cloth are lying around and notice a suspicious bulge under them. I slowly reach my hand to the edge, pinching it, and quickly pull it upward while trusting my right arm inside to the bulge.

I hear a high-pitched squeak and wrap my hand around what was inside, pulling it out.

“Talk about drinking blood of a fresh rat.” – I look at the rat squirming in my grip and unsuccessfully trying to bite my hand, noticing it has a bleeding wound stretching from the side its head to its front legs.

I take it by its tail and show it to Yana with a cheeky smile. – “Want a drink?”

Her face scrunches up for a moment, but soon she nods and smiles.

“Okay, a moment please.” – I swing the rat in my hand and smash it into the wall, making it go limp in my hand without killing it. – “I’ll hold its tail, okay? I would like to see what will happen to its soul.”

“Okay.” – Yana replies and reaches her hand to the rat I am holding. – “Um, is it safe?”

‘Mm, Master?’

{Yep, as safe as it can be. Vampires are more resistant to wild mana and diseases, and even if something happened I would be able to treat her immediately.} – Natria confirms.

“Yep, a hundred percent safe.” – I say in reply to Yana’s question.

After a moment of hesitation she opens her mouth wide, raising upper lip to expose fangs better, and bites the rat more or less on its neck.

Soon enough her eyes open wide and her face melts in pleasure as she starts sucking with vigor, letting out quiet, muffled and surprisingly erotic sounds I try to ignore.

I wasn’t moaning like that. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact she is sucking out the blood, so it’s also a physical stimulus?

I look into the rat’s soul and notice two small holes in the spirit, resembling holes after Yana’s fangs greatly, around which the spirit turns slightly pink, and see the soul inside being disturbed and broken down bit by bit. The large fragments remain still inside the soul more or less where they should, but there are a lot of tiny fragments and something that looks like glittering dust flowing out through the two holes and disappearing somewhere.

At the end there is no change to the spirit, but the soul inside is in fragments with at most eighty percent of its previous volume, attempting to connect itself properly. There is no change to the Origin though, so it seems she drinks only the soul along with blood, and she can’t even take it all now.

‘Um, Master? What’s that pink color?’

{It’s pleasure.} – She gives simple answer straight up. – {It is one of the most addicting feelings of pleasure you can experience, making target limp and unable to resist as the vampire sucks out its blood. And as a side note, it also masks the pain to the spirit as her fangs pierce it.}

‘Um, okay.’

I soon notice Yana sucking at the rat like a dehydrated person on empty bottle and gently reach my hand to her red cheek, lightly pushing her away from the rat. Her eyes clear out and she looks at me with disappointment mixed with happiness as if she just finished a tasty meal and was sad it ended, which in the end is pretty much true.

“Was it good?” – I ask with an understanding smile. I, after all, eat whole Origins with most of souls and spirits, which in theory should be even tastier and more intoxicating.

The fact she consumes only soul also says a lot about what she can get from enemies whose blood she drinks. She can’t get any bloodlines and abilities coming from them, but she directly gets quite a lot of raw power.

She licks her lips with a bit of rat’s blood remaining and smacks her lips, then she mutters in low voice and red face, though not from embarrassment, at least mainly not. – “That was… delicious… I thought the blood Laura gave me was tasty, but…”

“Yeah, I know.” – I pat her head and look at her soul, noticing it is getting just slightly, but noticeably larger as the dust floating inside her soul is assimilated into it. It’s much less than one percent difference comparing to the previous size, but it can be seen if you focus as it happens. – “You might not notice it yet, but you got slightly stronger just now. I’ll try to get you some more things like that and you will grow quickly, okay?”

“Okay!” – She says cheerfully.

I nod, seeing her enthusiasm. – “Just make sure you don’t lose yourself in this taste, okay? It’s just like good food in a way. It is sometimes so good you would run to the shop and buy more if you could. You need to control yourself not to kill just for blood. Can you promise me that?” – I look at her seriously.

She hesitates for a moment hearing my words, but gets serious too and replies with her head high and resolution in her eyes. – “Yes! I promise!”

“Good.” – A smile forms on my face.

I take the rat from her hands and pull its soul out, eating all that remained myself, and place the body in my pocket for later.