The summer heat was scorching.
The late-July sunlight poured down without any cover.
The asphalt road was baked until it softened slightly.
A layer of heat haze visible to the naked eye floated above the ground.
Yukina had already left home and was walking along the road to school.
Before going out, she had changed out of that fluffy dress.
After all, wearing it directly to school would be far too strange.
She might actually get treated as a chuunibyou patient.
However, her current appearance was not much better either.
She was wearing a clean school uniform. The lower half had also been changed into low-key white pantyhose.
Yet several conspicuous bandages were still wrapped around her body.
Several skin-colored adhesive bandages were stuck to the side of her neck.
Her right eye still wore that white eye patch.
Wait. Didn’t this look even more like chuunibyou?!
But there was no helping it. She couldn’t just expose the wounds directly.
The most she could do for concealment was only to this extent.
I’m just a small fry. I’m just a small fry. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me…
Yukina muttered continuously in her heart. After taking a deep breath, she mustered her courage and continued walking forward.
The weather today seemed hotter than usual.
Sunlight filtered down through the gaps in the leaves overhead, breaking into small patches of light that fell on her pinkish-white hair and felt slightly hot.
Because of the injury on her shoulder, Yukina could not carry the school bag on her back the way she usually did.
Otherwise the shoulder strap would dig into the wound and hurt badly.
She could only hold it in her arms and walk slowly. The posture was a little awkward.
Having bandages wrapped around her body was no different from wearing an extra layer of clothing. The air was sticky with heat.
By the time she had only walked halfway, a thin layer of sweat had already formed on her calves under the pantyhose.
Even through the soles of her shoes she could feel the high temperature of the asphalt.
In order not to let others notice anything strange, she also had to constantly pay attention to her walking posture.
She could not limp. She had to try her best to walk straight along the white line painted on the road surface.
Fortunately, this road to school normally did not have many people.
The convenience store had not yet opened. Newly arrived beverage crates were stacked at the entrance.
Sunflowers were stuck in water buckets in front of the flower shop. The edges of the petals had curled slightly from the sun.
Although this was the world inside the game, no matter how many times she looked, she still felt there was not much difference from her original world.
There were far too few otherworldly elements.
Of course, that was excluding some of the strange billboards along the roadside.
「Werewolf Brand Hair Removal Cream — No Fear Even on a Full Moon! Let Your Lover Fall in Love with the Completely Bald You!」
「Elf Ancient Wood Essence · Age-Odor Eliminator. Look Forty Years Younger. Let Your Hundred-Year-Old Self Smell as Fragrant as a Sixty-Year-Old.」
「Ice Skating Brand Catnip Cigarettes. Contains 500% Catnip Ingredients. Pure Additive, No Natural Content. Once You Use It You Simply Can’t Stop. This Is the Exact Flavor Meow! (Banned from Sale)」
「Succubus Tail Care Oil. Make Your Tail Smooth and Silky, Charm Doubled! Strongly Recommended Product by the Succubus Association.」
When she walked past a shop window, the voluptuous succubus on the poster threw her a wink. The little heart at the end of the tail stood high.
Tail…
Yukina blinked and subconsciously turned her head to look behind herself.
Her tail was currently hanging listlessly.
It had already been two months since she transmigrated.
Even now she still had not grown used to having an extra long, slender thing behind her, let alone controlling it.
Under normal circumstances, Yukina would roll the tail into the storage device.
But the storage device had already been destroyed by Mashiro yesterday, and Onee-chan’s size did not fit. Right now she could only let it sway outside for the time being.
Should I put some care oil on it?
Yukina thought about it for a moment, but quickly shook her head and gave up.
She did not even know whether she could survive past tomorrow.
Where would she find the time to leisurely maintain a tail.
Tap tap.
Black dress shoes stepped onto the slope leading to the school.
Without realizing it, the flow of people around her gradually increased.
Figures wearing the same school uniform also grew more and more numerous.
At first Yukina felt a little uneasy, worrying that her strange appearance would attract other people’s attention.
But she quickly discovered that she seemed to have overthought it.
The weirdos on this road were far weirder than she was.
After all, this was the world inside the game. There were plenty of people wearing modified versions of the school uniform.
Setting aside the colorful hair colors, there were also many guys who did not even possess a “human form”—creatures such as penguins, dog-headed people, and slimes.
Just as she was still worrying whether the bandages on her body were too conspicuous, not far away a mummy wrapped entirely in bandages was already moving.
…How bizarre.
When she had played the game before, she had only focused on the plot.
How had she never noticed that the game’s world view was this strange?
Was the author of this game even competent?
“Did you hear? Something big happened at the neighboring school.”
A conversation floating from not far away drifted into her ears.
Something big?
Yukina paused slightly and turned her head to look. She discovered three beast-eared girls huddled together whispering.
“A student was attacked after school and is still lying in the hospital even now!”
“Eh? Is that true or fake? How scary…”
“It’s true. I heard about it too. The culprit still hasn’t been caught. It’s said that it is very likely the work of a bloodsucker.”
“No way. Another bloodsucker?”
Yukina’s footsteps slowed by half a beat.
Bloodsucker.
In her original world, another name for this word was more familiar—vampire.
Ancient, mysterious, elegant… living on blood.
According to the game’s settings, bloodsuckers were feared by most races precisely because of their bloodlust.
Combined with the existence of the dangerous Blood Moon Disease, they had unknowingly become the “other” in people’s mouths.
Whenever a bloody incident occurred, no matter what the truth was, people’s first reaction was always to suspect that a bloodsucker had done it.
This kind of inertial thinking had already become the “racial discrimination” of this world.
“How scary… Can’t they just lock all those bloodsuckers up?”
“They can’t, right? The law wouldn’t allow it. Those guys have human rights just like us.”
“Ugh, who wants to be the same as those guys.”
“Wait a second. Our school… also has a bloodsucker, doesn’t it? I think it’s… Rei… Rei…”
Mashiro.
Reizuki Mashiro.
Yukina finished the name for them in her heart.
Just like the known information, Mashiro was a bloodsucker.
Therefore, no matter how excellent her grades were, no matter how outstanding her abilities, even if she possessed beauty so stunning it made people stop breathing, she received no recognition whatsoever.
Instead it only invited jealousy, rumors, and endless smearing.
At the same time, this led to the fact that when Mashiro suffered bullying, the majority of students chose silence.
Even the teachers did the same, as if everyone had tacitly approved the existence of this violence.
Although the game’s settings were written this way, Yukina had always felt it was very strange.
That feeling was like…
“Hey, did you hear? A bloodsucker transferred to our school.”
“Oh my god, a bloodsucker? You mean the kind that, after receiving strong stimulation, might develop a murderous impulse?”
“Oh God, this is truly terrifying. We must do something. For example, bully her and properly let her taste the flavor of shoe soles.”
“Exactly, Jack. We must collectively bully her. I swear on the apple pie my grandmother made that she will quickly be provoked by us into developing a murderous impulse and then kill every last one of us.”
The above was the little skit Yukina had made up in her head.
Too bizarre. Did this world also possess a “will of bullying”?
There were actually people risking their lives to engage in bullying, and the school and classmates were not worried that a murder case might occur beside them at any moment?
But there was no helping it. The settings were written this way.
The author had probably filled their head entirely with blood plasma and emotional drama and never considered these logical details.
It was not hard to imagine how long Mashiro’s heart had been suppressed while growing up in such an environment from childhood to adulthood.
“…It’s been a very, very long time since anyone… treated me as well as you have.”
The words Mashiro had spoken yesterday flashed through her mind.
Yukina’s heart felt as if it had been tightly clenched by something invisible.
She was so worried.
She did not know what state Mashiro was in right now after everything that had happened yesterday.
Was she still angry? Or was she sad?
When they met again, what kind of reaction would she have.
Would she be willing to speak with her? Or would she once again… attack her directly the way she had yesterday.
Yukina’s footsteps paused for a moment. Her dress shoes came together.
Both hands unconsciously hugged the school bag in her arms tightly. The wound on her shoulder ached faintly.
Wait. Stop. Don’t keep overthinking.
The most urgent matter right now was to return to school as quickly as possible, find Mashiro, and find a way to make things clear.
Yukina shook her head hard, throwing away the chaotic thoughts.
Just as she stepped forward again and prepared to quicken her pace toward the school—
“…Finally found you.”
Warm breath suddenly brushed past her ear.
In the next instant, two arms reached around from behind and tightly encircled her body. Immediately afterward…
A sharp pain.
At her shoulder, the sensation of being bitten arrived.