Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 11 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Moonlight Vampire

When the witch opened the window of the timeworn inn, a splendid spring breeze blew in out of the night and caressed the back of her neck.

The full moon, suspended in the cloudless sky, bathed the town in its light.

With a hand on her swaying ash-gray hair, the witch turned back around and got straight into bed. The evening light illuminated her room just as brightly as the town outside.

She wasn’t planning to go to sleep just yet.

She pulled the bookmark out of the book she had bought that afternoon and resumed reading. As someone who wandered from unknown land to unknown land, buying a new book at each destination was one of the things she enjoyed.

She mostly knew what to expect when she headed into a new bookstore. Most of the books set out on display would be popular sellers in the region. It gave her a way to learn about the interests of the people living there.

That was why visiting bookstores held a special meaning for her, a witch and a traveler. Though she did sometimes also wander in to visit bookstores simply because she loved books.

The book she had purchased that day was a mystery novel.

It was about a murder mystery that had happened at an inn. The bodies just kept piling up, one after another, every morning. Not knowing who the culprit was, the guests and employees at the inn began to suspect one another… The book had a typical story setup. If there was one thing that was different from an archetypal mystery novel, it was that the main character, who was acting as the detective in the story, was entirely nocturnal and didn’t even leave their room during the day. That, and that the victims had all had the blood drained from their bodies.

As the witch turned the pages, the story finally headed for its inevitable conclusion.

The culprit became clear.

“A vampire…?”

The witch was a little bit disappointed.

The culprit was actually the detective who had been moving the story forward, and the victims hadn’t had any blood flowing through their veins because the detective had sucked it all out. It was a ridiculous trick.

What the heck? the witch thought.

“What the heck?” she grumbled out loud.

Despite her disappointment, she went ahead and read the story to its conclusion. When she had turned the final page, she set the book on the edge of the bed and went straight to sleep.

In the moonlit city, the witch, just like all the other residents, quietly greeted the end of the day.

However—

“Good evening, young lady.”

There was someone in the city who greeted the start of her day just as all the people in town fell asleep.

Sitting unnoticed on the frame of the open window was a young woman with light brown hair. She looked to be in her twenties. She wore a flashy red-and-black dress that was gaudy for her age. Her eyes were red, and fangs were visible in her mouth as she smiled suggestively. On top of all that, she even had bat-like wings on her back.

She was obviously a vampire.

“I am a vampire.”

She even described herself as one.

“I hold no grudge against you, but—I’m hungry tonight, you see, so I’ll be taking a bit of your blood.”

The vampire hopped down from the windowsill and, without hesitation, slowly approached the sleeping witch.

The floor of the old inn creaked terribly each time she took a step. But perhaps the witch was having a particularly pleasant dream, because she gave no sign of waking from her slumber.

At last, the vampire came to a stop beside the bed and looked down at the witch with the ash-gray hair.

She brushed aside the long ashen hair and slowly exposed the witch’s pale throat.

The vampire whispered.

“I’m sorry.”

Then she placed her hand on the defenseless witch’s throat, opened her mouth wide, and prepared to bite down.

But—

“All right!” The vampire delivered that idiotic line, but the taste that spread through her mouth as she said it was not the delicious flavor of a young woman’s blood, but something much more pungent.

An ingredient with such a tenacious taste that it would linger in her mouth for days.

A vampire’s weakness.

It was garlic.

“Gross!”

As soon as she recognized the taste filling her mouth, the vampire spit it out right then and there, but the persistent smell of the garlic irritated her nose terribly. It stank so badly, she couldn’t stand it. It was so bad that her eyes started to tear up.

“Looks like the rumor that you can’t handle garlic was true, huh?”

The witch gazed at the suffering vampire triumphantly. She sat up in bed, and with a yawn, she asked, “I suppose you thought I was really asleep?”

The witch smirked. She had put on an act in order to draw the vampire in. She hadn’t actually been sleeping. The witch had just been pretending to fall into a defenseless slumber so that she could toss garlic into the vampire’s mouth.

“Bleeech…how awful… It stinks! You’re the worst…” The vampire didn’t really understand what had happened; she was just suffering the effects. Bits of the garlic that she had carelessly bitten down on tumbled out of her open mouth.

Faced with such a sight, the witch said, “Uh, sorry, but I can’t have you messing up the sheets…” and picked up the garlic bits with her handkerchief. While she was at it, she wiped the vampire’s mouth.

By the way, just who do you think that witch was?

I don’t have to tell you, do I?

That’s right, it was me.

“It hurts… It stinks… How awful…ewwwwww!”

“I’ve already wiped your mouth, and I’ve removed the garlic, so I think you’ll be fine. Will you take a deep breath for me? Like this…haaah.”

“Haaah.”

“…That stinks.”

“…………”

First, I suppose I’d better tell you why I was facing off against a vampire.

In order to do that, I first need to back up and tell you about an incident that happened right after I arrived in the city.

It was only the previous morning that I had knocked on the gates. I had not come all that way, flying over pleasant spring meadows on my broom, by accident.

As a matter of fact, I was invited there by individuals working for the local government.

Be that as it may, I am a traveler and a witch, so of course, the reason for the invitation was not for sightseeing.

I was there for work.

“The fact is, we’ve got a vampire in our city,” an official told me with a sigh as soon as I arrived at the government offices. He said it with a very serious look on his face.

It didn’t seem to be a joke.

“A vampire?”

Are you serious? They actually exist? I tilted my head, making my skepticism obvious.

“Yes.” The official nodded gravely. “The sightings began in our city about one month ago. We think she probably slipped in from some other land without anyone noticing. The citizens are very worried about this vampire. We don’t even know where she is hiding. So we want to exterminate her quickly.”

“Exterminate.”

So in this city, vampires are treated on the same level as vermin?

“Having to be on guard against the vampire seems to be causing a lot of stress for our residents.”

“The only damage is emotional…?”

“And recently, there have also been repeated incidents of wallet theft. Eyewitnesses report that the culprit was sporting black wings, so people are saying it’s probably the vampire.”

“…There haven’t been any injuries from blood sucking?”

“There have been some, but there have been more reports of robbery…”

“…………”

“All this is to say, we would like to ask you to exterminate the vampire using some cunning spell, Lady Witch.”

I’m not sure what to say…

“I’m sorry. I have never met a vampire before, so even if I wanted to exterminate her, I don’t know how I would do so.”

It seemed a little strange for me to say such a thing, given that I had readily answered the city’s summons, but unfortunately, when it came to vampire extermination, I was a complete amateur. At best, I only had a few scraps of knowledge that could be true or entirely false, like that vampires couldn’t stand garlic, or that they were susceptible to sunlight, or that they didn’t show up in mirrors.

There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to help you, you know?

“Sure, we thought that might be the case.” The official nodded. “That’s why we invited a vampire expert here today.”

At that moment, the door to the office was thrown open with great force.

“I am the expert.”

He was a bearded old man.

“I’ve compiled a report on the characteristics of the vampire who has appeared in our city. I hope it will help you to exterminate her.” The expert pulled a single scrap of paper from his pocket.

“Uh-huh…”

So she has so few characteristics that you could fit them all on a single piece of paper?

Then the expert read out the supposed characteristics of the vampire.

“Night after night, she sneaks into houses where people have left the windows open, sucks their blood, and flees.”

Night after night, she sneaks into houses where people have left the windows open, sucks their blood, and flees…?

“Isn’t that a mosquito?”

“No.”

“So then, what happens to people who have their blood sucked? Do they turn into vampires?”

“No, that’s never come up in any of the victims’ reports.”

“So what happens, then?”

“Mostly, the area around the bite gets itchy.”

“That is a mosquito, then!”

“No. To start with, the vampire that’s been skulking around the city has all the characteristics of a biological female.”

“The female mosquitoes are the ones that suck blood, you know.”

“…It might be a mosquito after all.”

The expert folded easily.

…………

“Is this man really an expert?”

He’s obviously a questionable character.

I whispered my question to the government official quietly enough so that the self-proclaimed expert could not hear me.

The official nodded.

“He’s an author who wrote a mystery novel in which the culprit is a detective and a vampire. He’s rather famous.”

So all he did was write a book, is that what you’re telling me?

“…Haven’t you got the wrong person?”

“But he was the only one in the city who seemed to know anything about vampires… And personally, I’m a fan of his work, so I decided to invite him here today.”

“…………”

“By the way, I’m planning to get him to sign my copy later.”

“…Isn’t that abuse of public office?”

“Do you want a copy, too, Lady Witch?”

“No thanks.”

At any rate, that’s what I went through before deciding to face off against the vampire.

I had accepted a fairly large sum of money as a deposit and gone out of my way to travel all the way there, so I felt it would be foolish not to take the job.

And besides, even if I’m unfortunate enough to get bitten, it sounds like I’ll just get itchy, so I should be fine, right?

I felt fairly carefree about the whole affair.

Once I had decided to accept the commission, my course of action was clear.

I had purchased a huge quantity of garlic from a merchant, and bought a book while I was at it. Then, after killing time until the evening, I had opened the window of my room and lain down on the bed to wait.

You know what happened after that.

The vampire waltzed shamelessly in, and I threw garlic into her mouth.

“How awful…! You humans are always this way! All I want is just a little bit of your blood, but I get nothing but harassment! Oh, how I hate humans!”

The vampire spit out saliva and abusive language at the same time.

“…………”

The bedsheets, and even the floor, were soiled. Irritably, I wiped at them with my handkerchief, then looked up at the vampire.

The vampire was scrubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse.

Is she—?

“…Are you crying?”

“Huh? I’m not crying.” She glared at me.

“Oh, but—”

“I am not crying! I just got something in my eye! Jeez!”

The vampire was angry.

“By the way, what’s your name?” I asked as I folded my handkerchief. “And for what reason did you come to this city?”

“I don’t want to tell someone as mean as you.” The vampire looked away in a huff.

“I’ve got plenty of spare garlic, you know.”

I pulled out some of the garlic I had stocked up on earlier in the day. I broke off a clove and held it up for her to see.

Sure enough, the vampire seemed to have some kind of intense aversion to garlic. She stared at my hands and let out a little shriek as she flinched.

“I—I won’t give in to threats!”

My, my.

“But if you don’t tell me, I’ll throw it at you!”

I was getting kind of into it.

“Stop! That’s harassment, that is!”

She shrieked again. There were tears in her fearful eyes as she trembled and put her head in her hands.

I didn’t really understand why, but I was feeling very excited.

“I’m just saying, if you won’t tell me, I might pull out the big guns,” I said, fighting to maintain my composure despite the sadistic urge that was welling up inside me.

“A-agh…”

Then she asked, defeated, “I wonder if I could borrow a chair?” When I nodded, she took several deep breaths in and out, and after expelling the remaining garlic smell from her mouth, she began to speak.

“My name is Oronella… May I ask your name?”

I nodded.

“Elaina. I’m a traveling witch, the Ashen Witch.”

“I see. Listen, Elaina, as I’m sure you can tell from looking at me, I am not an ordinary human. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“You’re a sneaky thief?”

“No! Jeez!” she shouted angrily. “I’m a vampire! A vampire! The creatures that suck human blood!”

I had guessed as much from the fact that she felt an intense revulsion toward garlic. Even with my limited knowledge, I was certain she was indeed a vampire.

“I thought vampires couldn’t enter people’s homes without permission?”

I feel like there was something like that written in the book I just read.

“No, that’s not true at all.”

“Oh, but—”

“By any chance, are you the type of person who thinks they’re an expert just because they read a book?”

I flung a piece of garlic at her.

“Ouch!”

Okay, pull yourself together.

I gazed at the vampire—or rather, at Oronella.

Judging from appearances, she seemed to be in her twenties, but often, people who looked like humans but were not human were quite a bit older than they appeared.

“How old are you?”

“Tch. Who suddenly asks a girl her age like that? You’ve really got no tact.”

I readied myself to throw another piece of garlic.

“I’m ninety-two.” Oronella shuddered.

“I see.”

So that means you’ve been alive nearly one hundred years?

Interesting.

“That’s quite an advanced age…”

“How can you say that?! In the vampire world, I’m still an adolescent! My age isn’t even into the triple digits, and my skin is still fresh and young! Look!”

The vampire suddenly brought her face close to mine. She got her cheek right up near me with a huff, as if to encourage me to take a closer look.

“So?”

Sure enough, her skin was beautiful, but—

“The smell of garlic on you is overwhelming.”

“…………”

Oronella looked totally disheartened. She pulled her knees up to her chest in her chair and whined feebly, “Ugh…you’re so mean. What did I ever do to you…?”

From what she had said, it wasn’t difficult to infer that there were communities of vampires out there somewhere. I wasn’t sure what kind of lives they lived in those communities, but at the very least, I was certain it had to be more pleasant than heading out to human cities and going around drinking their blood.

I reasoned that she had to have some very good reason for going out of her way to come to a human settlement, like a small-town girl hoping to make it in the big city.

“Why did you come to this city?”

So I asked her directly.

She opened her mouth and huffed, “Humph!”

“You still won’t tell me?” I asked, looking up at her coyly.

She’s wearing down…

“I don’t know whether I should or not.”

It’s pretty shameless of me to ask, considering I was hired by the people of this city to exterminate her.

But I guess she won’t mind me asking about the circumstances that brought her here.

“…………”

Oronella stared at me silently.

Then she slowly opened her mouth and said, “Well, it’s not much of a story, but do you want to hear it anyway?”

Usually, people who start their stories with an expression like that end up describing very difficult circumstances. I know that perfectly well.

So after preparing myself adequately, I nodded.

“Okay,” she said simply, then started to tell me.

“I found myself prowling around this human city about half a year ago now—”

With a serious air about her, she told me a story from a long time in the past.

Several decades earlier—

“Say, human blood is really tasty, you know.”

When Oronella was still quite young.

Apparently, Oronella’s grandfather had once spent some time living outside their community, in a human city. He often told Oronella and her younger sisters his old stories.

“Human blood…?”

The two girls were puzzled, but their grandfather went on.

“Especially the blood of young women. It’s incredibly delicious. I used to have one girl after another, a different one every night… Ah, what good memories…”

Oronella had probably developed an interest in human cities because of the way her grandfather’s eyes always sparkled greatly when he told his old stories.

“…………”

I’m very sorry to cut in when you’ve just started your reminiscence, but—

“What kind of man was your grandfather?” I interrupted.

“From what he told me, he was a vampire who used to be the cock of the walk in the human world.”

“Is that so? Hmm. Oh, and by the way, no one says ‘cock of the walk’ anymore.”

“Plenty of people use that phrase where I’m from, you know!”

“That’s just because you’re from the country.”

At any rate, time went on.

Then, not long ago—

The young woman passed every day in boredom in the vampire community.

The community where she lived was deep in the forest far away from human habitation, down in a cave system, both as an escape from the sunlight that hurt them and as a way of avoiding unnecessary conflicts.

Many vampires were perfectly happy living peaceful lives there.

But that wasn’t the case for Oronella.

“I can’t take it anymore! There’s nothing interesting to do out here in the middle of nowhere! And all there ever is to eat is animal blood! It’s damp and depressing down here! I hate it! I want to party it up every night in a human city! I want to drink real live human blood!”

The ninety-year-old vampire complained every day, loudly enough that her shouting echoed off her neighbors’ houses.

That’s right, she was right in the middle of her troublesome rebellious phase (at ninety).

She was a sheltered (ninety-year-old) girl who knew nothing of the world and longed for the big city.

Ninety years old…

Apparently, her parents were awfully perplexed by this rebellious phase. For a human, it would have come preposterously late in life.

“I can’t believe you’re saying that stuff again! Nothing good will happen if you go to a human city. That’s why I’m always telling you to give up on the idea! Be a good girl, stay in the community, and get yourself a job as a blood collector!” her mother scolded.

Apparently, in the vampire community, they mainly harvested their blood from livestock like cows and sheep and used that as food.

“No! I want to go!” But at ninety, the girl wouldn’t listen to reason.

“Say something, please. You’re her father!”

“Uh…okay. Right. Humans are, uh, scary. I’m against the idea of you going to a human city.”

“Too bad!” But she was truly a stubborn troublemaker and wouldn’t listen to anything they said.

“Good grief… Who on earth has been filling this child’s head with silly ideas…?”

“Hoh-hoh-hoh,” laughed her grandfather.

“Dad! Please don’t tell her those ridiculous stories!”

Nearly every day, all she did was cry, “I want to go! I want to go!” “I want to go! I want to go!” “I want to go to the city!”

As day after day passed, the girl finally arrived at the following conclusion:

“I should just run away!”

Just. Run. Away.

She was already ninety, after all. It was a good age. A good time to overcome her parents’ objections and live freely.

And so—

After all that—

At long last—

“Bye-bye, boondocks!”

She gathered up her things and left the countryside to pursue her long-desired city life—that is, she began her life in a human city.

What kinds of things do humans know about the typical vampire?

They can’t stand the sunlight, they have a strong life force, and they generally have an attractive outward appearance, but they are also dangerous creatures that cause injury to humans.

That’s basically what we know about them, right?

After arriving in the human world, Oronella spent six months wandering aimlessly through all sorts of places, but for the most part, no matter where she went, knowledge about vampires was mostly the same.

“Good evening, young lady. I wonder if I could have a little bit of your blood? I’m hungry, you see.”

The first place she went, she was naively honest. That was more or less what she said as she pestered people for blood.

The reaction of the young ladies of the city to this innocent and ignorant girl was thus:

“Huh? Gross.”

She was flatly rejected.

“Wha…?”

Humans did not simply give out their blood. Even though it’s made inside their bodies, which would simply make more to make up for the loss, they didn’t just readily say, “Sure, go ahead,” and offer up their necks.

Oronella kept traveling from place to place but never found anyone who would generously give her their blood. No matter who she asked, she was always flatly rejected.

She traveled around to various places for about a month, asking people to let her have some of their blood to relieve her hunger, but no one would grant her request.

“I’m so hungry… I don’t know what to do…”

Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer.

Apparently, when vampires got extremely hungry, they could lose control of themselves and go on a fitful hunt for human blood, so she kept drinking small amounts of animal blood to keep herself from reaching that state. But in the human cities, there were so many delicious-looking young women right before her eyes.

It was the very definition of agony for her to endure it.

Because of that, she did something a little bad.

“…I’m coming in!” Oronella took to sneaking into human dwellings through windows that were left open. She would snuggle up close to a sleeping girl, push her hair aside, and then bare her fangs against the girl’s neck.

Oronella drank just a little bit of blood each time, not even enough for a full mouthful.

By the way, she told me that the body fluids of vampires had a special characteristic. Whenever they drank too much, there was a possibility that the human body would react to the vampire’s fluids and the victim could turn into a vampire, so Oronella had been taught that a single mouthful was the right amount.

Apparently, taking just a mouthful of blood also caused a change in the human body: a faint itching that developed around the area of the bite.

That made me think she was like a mosquito after all.

After that, Oronella told me, she began sneaking into people’s houses through their windows night after night, drinking girls’ blood.

And why was it she only drank girls’ blood?

When I asked her this, she said, “Because my grandpa told me that the blood of girls is the most delicious…”

She seemed a little embarrassed when she answered. She added that she was afraid of adult men and couldn’t get close to them.

What is this vampire doing, talking like an innocent young woman?

“So was it actually delicious?”

“Oh-hoh-hoh, would you like to know, Miss Witch?”

“…………”

But no matter how sneaky she was, people tended to notice when their blood was being sucked out by someone in the middle of the night. There was no way she could avoid notice forever when she was sneaking into people’s bedrooms after dark.

The rumor that a vampire was sneaking into houses and sucking people’s blood night after night quickly spread around the city.

Before long, the citizens came up with some countermeasures.

One day, Oronella snuck in through a window as she always did.

“Chow time!”

When she opened her mouth, the girl who she expected to be sleeping sat up.

“You darn vampire!” The girl threw garlic at her.

“Ow!” The garlic hit Oronella directly on the forehead.

A sharp pain spread through her whole body, starting from the forehead. Garlic was a vampire’s natural enemy.

That night, Oronella fled into the evening air, holding her forehead.

From then on, things didn’t go well for her at all. The people in the city all decorated their windowsills with garlic, and in households without garlic on the windows, the residents would start throwing it at her as soon as she entered.

Most of the houses without garlic around the windows were those where young women lived—the houses of the victims who had previously gotten their blood sucked by Oronella. She ended up completely covered in garlic after sneaking into their houses. Her victims got their revenge on her.

“H-how cruel! Why are you doing such things to me?”

Sounds like just deserts to me.

Ultimately, Oronella ended up fleeing the city.

Once she arrived in another city, Oronella started sneaking into dwellings night after night again. At first, no one noticed her, and she was able to drink their blood. But after about a month went by, the people recognized her as a vampire, and all started throwing garlic at her.

Once they started throwing garlic at her, Oronella set off for yet another city.

She repeated the same pattern over and over again. She sucked blood, got discovered, and had garlic thrown at her. That was how she passed her days, one after another, and her situation never improved.

When she arrived at this city, for some reason, the people had thrown garlic at her as soon as they saw her and accused her of being a thief. It sounded well deserved to me, but of course Oronella lamented, “S-so mean! Why would anyone do such a thing?!”

Right.

That was how the last half year had gone.

“…………”

So to make a long story short—

To sum it all up—

“That’s not a big deal at all, is it?”

In summary, that’s a very ordinary running-away-from-home story.

As she listened to my words, Oronella looked out the window. She had a very, very faraway look in her eyes.

“That’s what I said in the first place, isn’t it?”

I was certain that if I was going to complete the commission given to me by the city government, I would have to quickly drive Oronella out of the city, and then the matter would be resolved.

But would that fundamentally solve the problem?

Even if I were to drive her from this city, certainly she would do the same thing in a new city: sneak into houses night after night to steal people’s blood, only to wind up getting garlic thrown at her by the inhabitants, in just the same way, all over again. Surely it was important for me to admonish her here and now, to thump her on the head and scold her, to tell her that she couldn’t do this anymore.

Most importantly, and this hadn’t come up in her story, but according to the city official, she was apparently trying her hand at theft as well—not a good state of affairs by any means.

What a dilemma.

“Say, by the way, my throat is a little dry after telling that long story. I’d really like to drink something tasty.”

What a dilemma.

“Could you give me a mouthful of your delicious blood, please?”

A real head-scratcher…

I let out an exaggerated sigh and told her, “First of all, how about you stop sneaking into people’s houses through their windows?”

You’re getting involved in bad things because you’re sneaking around, isn’t that right?

“If I promise to stop sneaking into people’s houses, will you give me some of your blood?”

What are you talking about?

“I’m not letting you have any blood from my neck, sorry.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want the area around my neck to get itchy.”

“Jeez…”

She seemed dissatisfied. She stared at me with her cheeks puffed out.

I still didn’t like the idea, even if she looked at me with that face, and I wasn’t going to push my hair aside and expose the nape of my neck for her sake.

More importantly, shouldn’t my first priority be to think of a way she can be accepted in a human city?

“There’s something I’d like to ask you,” I inquired of her. “If there was some way for you to get blood legally, you would stop sneaking into people’s houses in the middle of the night to take theirs, wouldn’t you?”

“Hmm?” She tilted her head in puzzlement at my words, screwed up her face in a somewhat cranky expression, and groaned, “Mm…I guess so. I mean…if there was such a way, I could stop sneaking around at night.”

It sounded like at first, she had been foolishly honest, asking the people directly—mainly young women—as she had asked me a moment ago, to give her some of their blood. She wasn’t necessarily prowling around people’s houses because she wanted to.

She had been sneaking in simply because she had not come up with any other way to get blood.

I briefly pondered the problem, trying to think of something so that she would not have to sneak into people’s houses anymore.

Isn’t there any way to make this work—?

“…Ah!” Then suddenly, I hit upon something.

I can’t say that it was anything groundbreaking, but it wasn’t that bad.

There is one way.

“…Oronella, do you have any interest in detective work?”

As I said that, I glanced at the side of the bed.

Sitting there was the detective novel I had just finished reading.

The absurd novel in which the detective was a vampire.

“So you’re saying that I could take blood as a reward for helping people?”

Oronella and I were walking side by side through the streets of the moonlit city, having a discussion.

She was a little skeptical about my suggestion.

“But I’m not particularly good at solving puzzles.”

“No, I’m not saying I want you to force yourself to solve cases.” I shook my head slowly. “I’m calling you a detective, but what I want to get you to do is to find people in town who are in trouble and offer them help, that’s all. I’m thinking you’ll mainly be providing physical labor, rather than mental labor.”

“…So you’re saying I’d basically be a jack-of-all-trades?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“So shouldn’t we call me a jack-of-all-trades and not a detective?”

“Oronella. For something like this, it’s best to start with the right look…”

Though it’s not clear whether or not Oronella possesses the physical abilities that will enable her to help lots of people—

“…Well, okay.”

Ultimately, Oronella seemed to agree. Just then, she stopped walking and suddenly stared at one of the boutiques lining the street.

There were pretty clothes lined up in the window.

Oronella was reflected in the glass, gazing blankly at the clothes, and so was I, tilting my head to the side in puzzlement at her.

And then, before long—

“So what about something like this?”

She spun around once on the spot.

Immediately after she did—

The red-and-black dress she had been wearing was transformed.

On her head was a hunting hat. On her body, she was wearing a camel-colored trench coat. In that state, she was somehow or other the very picture of a classic detective that I imagined in my mind. Between the clothes and the mature air she was putting on, she looked strangely appropriate for the role.

But wait—

“…How did you do that just now?”

It looked like she had projected the clothes lined up in the boutique’s show window straight onto her own body.

“It’s because I’m a vampire. Tricks like that are my specialty.”

According to Oronella, vampires like her had the ability to control their looks as they wished. Particularly when they had enough blood, they had complete control over not only their faces but the clothes they were wearing, and even their voices and figures. She told me she wasn’t all that hungry that day, so she could change her outfit, and she turned around a number of times right there and showed me.

She went back from the trench coat to her original dress, then put on my robe, and then changed a number of times into clothes from the shop window before putting on the trench coat again.

By the way, there’s something about this that’s bothering me.

“I thought vampires didn’t show up in mirrors?”

I feel like there was something like that written in the book I read earlier.

“No, that’s not the case at all.”

“Wait, but—”

“By any chance, are you the type of person who thinks they’re an expert just because they read a book?”

I flung a piece of garlic at her.

“Ouch!”

But I see now.

It seems like she has some very special abilities.

“That trick seems like it has some promise when it comes to your new job…”

And so the curtain went up on my and Oronella’s little detective business.

We walked around town, and as we went down the road, we called out to every person—

“Wait a second! I don’t want the blood of anyone except for cute girls!”

…We called out to some of the people we passed, focusing our attention mainly on the cute girls. Since it wouldn’t do Oronella much good if I spoke to everyone, she did most of the talking. She was going to have to do this on her own, after all, so this was like a rehearsal.

“Hello, young lady. How are you doing today?”

“Is there anything troubling you just now?”

“I recently started a detective business, and I’m available for hire if you like!”

That’s pretty much how it went.

As she worked, I supported her.

“She’s an amazing person who’s super smart and can do anything!”

“There’s really nothing that’s troubling you? Cross your heart?”

“You’ll be her first customer! How about it? We’ll give you a good deal!”

I interjected like this at every opportunity. In short, I had nothing better to do.

We worked our way from girl to girl, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone reported us as a couple of suspicious characters going around talking to every girl in the city that night.

However, as you can probably guess from the way I described it, our business activities did not go well at all.

“Huh? Gross.”

Every single girl curtly turned down our proposition. They were completely unapproachable.

Are all the girls in this city so unfriendly?

No way, that can’t be true. Every girl in the city, without exception, has looked at us like we’re garbage. It can’t be that every girl here is a cold person like that.

I think it’s mostly Oronella’s fault.

“Oh…? A detective? That’s perfect! Actually, there is something I’m having trouble with!”

It was our good fortune that the fifth person we encountered was a strange girl who said she wanted us to take her case. Looking back and forth between us, she asked, with a doubtful look in her eye, “…But detectives are expensive, right?”

This is our chance.

Oronella doesn’t want money. She just wants you to give her a mouthful of blood.

“Oh-hoh-hoh. There’s no charge.”

So, wearing an overjoyed expression, Oronella answered the girl.

She answered her like this—

“You can pay me by letting me kiss you.”

That was what she said.

“Huh? Gross.”

Ultimately, even that kind girl looked at us like we were utter garbage, thanks to Oronella’s creepy statement. Without hesitation, she said, “Never come near me again,” before spitting at the curb and leaving.

“…………”

I looked over at Oronella.

I suspect I looked at her like she was a piece of garbage, as we had been looked at countless times over the course of the night.

“Um, Oronella? Do you always ask for blood like that?”

“Back where I’m from, giving someone a kiss means sucking their blood.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“You ought to stop saying that.”

“You think?”

Oronella seemed to have an unfortunate habit of accidentally asking the girls who were walking down the road to let her kiss them when she ought to be asking them to let her suck their blood, so I started accepting jobs from the citizens at just the right moment, jumping in to interrupt her thoughtless words and actions.

Fortunately, though people did give us puzzled looks and ask, “Give you my blood…? You kind of sound like a vampire, you know…” there were no more outright rejections or people saying, “Huh? Gross,” and spitting at us. We were able to take cases from citizens (mostly young women) without trouble.

Our first customer—

I called out to a young woman walking alone through the city at night.

“I’ve got a date, but I don’t really know where I’m going… Can you do something to help me?”

In short, she was lost. It was extremely sloppy of her not to know the location of her date and to get lost, but I supposed that was all right, since it meant we could take the job.

“Understood. So all we need to do is find the right bar, yeah?”

Oronella readily accepted the job.

Then the two of us split up and went hunting for the place where the woman was supposed to meet her date. We had her wait where she was, and we searched for the bar from the sky, me on my broom and Oronella using her wings.

Luckily, we found the place quickly.

“The bar is located straight down at the end of this street, and then turn left and it’s there. I’ll show you the way.”

Then Oronella took the client by the hand and started walking, escorting her to the bar. When they got there, the woman bowed and said, “Thank you! I never thought it would be this easy to find—”

Then she tilted her head questioningly. “By the way, how am I supposed to give you the blood to pay for this?”

How, you ask? Well, I suppose that for Oronella, the best way would be for her to chomp down on your neck and slurp out the blood, but—

“Oh, there’s no need to pay.”

But strangely enough, even though we had fulfilled the woman’s request, even though she could get her blood, Oronella shook her head.

“Sucking the blood from the neck of a girl who was about to go on a date would sully my name as a detective, wouldn’t it?” she asked with a smile.

Ultimately, Oronella’s first job ended with a simple act of kindness. She escorted the girl to the bar for no reward.

As she saw her client off with a smile, she looked far removed from anything vampiric.

“Are you all right, Oronella?” I asked.

As soon as I did, she turned to me with a stiff expression on her face and said, “…I was trying to look cool.”

“…………”

“Elaina, let me kiss you instead—”

“I respectfully decline.”

And so ended Oronella’s first commission, which produced a good outcome but yielded no remuneration.

So then, our second customer—

“Actually, there’s a female customer who has locked herself in our bathroom…”

We played it by ear and went into the bar. The woman shaking the shaker behind the counter hired us for the job with a frown.

Though she did express some bewilderment at the suggestion that we would like to receive blood as a payment.

“…How am I supposed to give you blood?”

I knew there was a possibility that if I didn’t explain in detail beforehand, Oronella might try to look cool again and refuse payment while saying something strange, so I got out ahead of that and explained, “The detective over there has a terrific enthusiasm for getting blood directly from the necks of young, beautiful women. She’d like to get about one mouthful from your neck in the event that we successfully complete the job.”

“Oh… That’s a little…embarrassing…”

The bartender’s cheeks flushed slightly. I wondered if she had been drinking.

Nevertheless, she didn’t reject the idea outright, but gave her consent. She was a good person.

We stood in front of the bar bathroom.

“Excuse us, are you okay in there?”

I started by knocking on the door a couple times.

“Bleeeh…”

From inside, a groan rang out like the cry of a wild beast.

Oh-hoh.

“Sounds pretty serious.”

Well then, how are we going to get her to come out of there?

“Elaina, I wonder if this is a case where I can make use of my detective sense?” Apparently, it was Oronella’s way as a vampire to say nonsensical things when struck by nonsensical moods in nonsensical situations.

“I can tell at a glance that this is a locked-room case. The door is locked, and it looks like there is only one entrance. Cries ring out from inside. I can detect signs that the person inside has been throwing up for quite a while. I’m afraid there’s no doubt she’s been doing some substantial drinking. Now then, when it comes to methods for getting her out of this locked room, off the top of my head, I can think of thirty-five different methods—”

“Oh?” The clinking sound of the lock breaking rang out from my hands.

Would you look at that? It seems like I carelessly destroyed the lock with a spell. My goodness, what rotten luck.

In the end, I easily unlocked the door without trying even one of her supposed thirty-five different methods.

“You’re so impatient!”

“Before a mage, a locked door is as strong as a scrap of paper.”

By the way, I completely fixed the lock afterward.

The person who was delivered from inside was a young-looking woman in her early twenties. Apparently, her boyfriend had recently broken up with her, and she had drowned herself in drink to try to forget the shock. As a result, the toilet bowl had ended up drowning in her effluents.

And so we recovered the female patron from the bathroom.

In that way, we easily completed our second job.

“Oh, there’s no need to pay.”

However, right after I thought it was time for her to get her promised reward, Oronella yet again said something nonsensical.

“It would be terrible for you to lose blood while you’re on the job, wouldn’t it? Please, keep your blood and keep your strength up.”

Her whole demeanor made it clear that she wanted to look cool.

Even though the bartender had already taken off her jacket and was pushing back her hair to expose her neck, despite all that, Oronella winked and said, “No charge.”

“Detective…”

I just stared at her.

She, on the other hand, let out a sigh before long, holding her belly as she suffered from hunger.

“…I did it again.”

“Will you ever learn?”

“I-I’m fine… Next time, for sure, I’m really going to get some blood.”

“Oh really, you are?” By that point, in my mind, my level of confidence in her detective business had sunk to the bowels of the earth, but even so, for the time being, I kept helping her.

We moved on to our third client—who we decided would be the last job we accepted that night.

The client was the customer who had been continually vomiting in the bathroom earlier.

“Bleeehhhhhh…”

Allow me to translate.

She had been drinking alcohol at the bar all night, but she had carelessly forgotten her wallet at home, so she wanted us to go get it for her. That’s what she asked.

“I see. That is a problem. Allow me to solve it for you.”

Oronella accepted the woman’s request as she rubbed her back. The woman at the bar vomited again.

“Uuugh…thank you…thank youuu…”

“Look here, Toilet Lady. My job is to see to the happiness of others!” Oronella said something that I didn’t quite understand as she kept on rubbing the woman’s back.

“How about you save the happiness for after you get paid?”

Besides, she doesn’t look so happy.

“Bleeehhhhhh…”

She’s been puking this whole time.

When we talked to the client, whose body was wrecked by alcohol, she kept whining that she would be alone even if she went home, so she didn’t want to go, even as she told us the location of her house.

Her place was apparently rather close to the bar.

We borrowed her house key from her and headed for her home.

“Are you always like that?”

I had nothing better to do while we were walking, so I questioned Oronella.

She tilted her head in the same puzzled expression that I had on, as if she was imitating me, and asked, “Like what?”

I simplified the question a little bit.

“Do you always treat people kindly like that?” I asked.

“Oh, I wasn’t trying to be nice to her, but…” Oronella made a slightly displeased face. “Right now, I’m not particularly famished for blood, and besides, I’ve got you with me, Elaina. So it would be hard to say that I fulfilled their requests by myself. I’d feel kind of awkward accepting payment.”

“Uh-huh.”

You’re taking this very seriously.

But I had a feeling that her overly earnest or foolishly honest personality might be a little different from the way she usually behaved.

Sneaking in windows night after night to drink blood—now that I could understand because there was a reason behind it. She couldn’t help it when she was hungry.

But she had been committing one more crime in this city.

I had heard from the government official that many thefts had been committed in the city by a vampire.

Oronella was working overearnestly at her detective work, ostensibly to receive blood, but she always said she felt awkward accepting payment, even as she endured an empty stomach. Yet she had been stealing.

A very curious story indeed.

“…………” I was pondering the matter when we finally arrived at the house of the drunk woman at the bar. I stuck the key in the lock, and as I was turning it, I whirled around to ask her, “Come to think of it, Oronella, why have you been stealing things?”

Now that I had met her, and talked to her, and walked around with her like this, I suddenly couldn’t help but feel that such a rumor was, at the very least, somewhat implausible.

I was sure she had to have some profound reason for committing theft.

I couldn’t help believing in Oronella. She was a vampire, and I was a human, but I trusted her, to a certain degree.

“Huh?”

She made a confused face in response to my question.

She didn’t seem to be playing dumb; she just didn’t seem to understand the meaning of my words. She wore a genuinely puzzled expression.

Then she said—

“But I’ve never stolen anything from a person’s house.”

And then that was the exact moment when I opened the door.

Before I could respond to Oronella, I felt a stab of alarm. Something was off about the room before me. I stopped in my tracks with my mouth hanging open.

Inside the woman’s house, where no one was supposed to be, the lights were turned on, and the sounds of someone rummaging around echoed quietly through the room. I was sure she had told us she lived alone, but for some reason, there were signs that someone was already in her house.

No, it wasn’t just signs.

“…Ah.”

Inside the house.

The woman who turned around to look at us had her face screwed up in a very, very displeased-looking expression.

The room was a mess. The woman had turned around toward us with her hand still stuck in a drawer that was hanging open. I first noticed the necklaces and rings, then the obviously expensive-looking bags, watches, and other things that were piled up together. Clearly, she was just about to carry them out of the house.

On top of that, the thing that bothered me most of all was that the woman’s appearance was curiously familiar.

There were fangs in her half-open mouth, and wings sprouted from the back of the dress she was wearing. She looked just like Oronella as I had seen her earlier in the day.

In short, she looked just like a vampire.

She did, but—

“…………” I stared anxiously at the woman in the room.

“……Huh?” Behind me, Oronella just stood there with a puzzled expression on her face.

Unlike a real vampire’s, the wings growing from the woman in front of our eyes were papier-mâché, and the fangs were so cheap-looking that they seemed like they would break right off the first time she bit down on them.

In short, she was a fraud.

“…Um.” At that point, the detective standing behind me made a very detective-like deduction. “Elaina, do you think that might be the vampire who’s been stealing things from people’s houses?”

“Seems that way, yes.”

“But no matter how you look at it, that’s an ordinary human.”

“Seems that way, yes.”

“Doesn’t that mean she’s just a burglar?”

To state it in a little more detail—

The ordinary burglar was dressed in a costume, pretending to be a vampire, and had been trying to pin her crimes on Oronella. That was what was going on.

Apparently, even the good-natured Oronella was not so good-natured as to smile and offer forgiveness when witnessing a burglary firsthand.

Oronella slipped past me and walked over to the vampire—or rather, to the burglar dressed as a vampire.

She transformed back from her detective’s trench coat into her vampiric dress.

Slowly, teasingly, she approached.

As Oronella walked over to her step-by-step, the blood drained from the burglar’s face.

“Ah, um, I’m…a real vampire, okay? I’m very scary! Got it? Okay? I’ll suck your blood if you come any closer! I’ll really do it! Ah, wait—”

By the way, Oronella hadn’t eaten anything all day, and she had been rushing around working nonstop, so apparently she was a little hungry.

Given that—

I suppose it was probably unavoidable that she would help herself to a snack.

“Ohhh…thank you…thank youuu… I love you, Detective…! Marry me!”

After recovering the wallet from the house, we went back to the drunk woman and finished the job. Apparently, the client had been drinking water the whole time she waited for us, but even so, the lingering drunkenness seemed to be clouding her consciousness.

“Take this as thanks…,” the woman said, exposing her own neck. “You can have all of me…if you like?” She collapsed into Oronella’s arms as if surrendering herself.

“Huh, wait…are you okay?”

The woman who had foisted herself onto Oronella had her eyes closed and was obviously half-asleep. In fact, she was already snoring.

Tomorrow, she most likely won’t remember what she did at the bar.

“…………”

After politely fixing the drunk lady’s disarrayed clothing, Oronella set her down and stood immediately back up.

Then she said—

“Oh, there’s no need to pay.”

Even though the client was already in dreamland, she made a show of it like always, but at the same time, licking her own lips, she added, “I already got paid.”

The following day.

Around sunset.

I headed to the offices of the city government.

“My goodness, Miss Witch. This is quite the accomplishment! The vampire you caught yesterday—the one who was just a burglar in costume—it seems she’s been burgling in this city for a long time now. We discovered quite a lot of stolen goods in her house.”

Once the sun came up, I turned in the burglar we had encountered the night before to the government office.

After an investigation by the government office, it became clear that the burglar had lately been committing her crimes dressed as a vampire. The culprit testified, “I heard that a vampire had shown up recently, so I figured I wouldn’t be caught stealing if I looked like a vampire.”

In fact, things had surely gone better than the burglar expected, since groundless suspicion of theft had fallen on Oronella, who had been going around town sneaking into people’s houses night after night and sucking their blood.

Honestly. What an awful person!

“By the way, that burglar was a little anemic when you brought her in. Did something happen?” the government official asked, tilting his head questioningly.

“Hmm?” I tilted my head the same way, feigning ignorance.

Then Oronella, who was sitting beside me, chuckled slightly bashfully. “Eh-heh-heh. I drank a little too much,” she said. Her skin was so glossy, you would never think she was a venerable ninety-two years old.

Oronella had not only grown up in the remote countryside, she had been raised in a cave far away from human habitation. And as long as she had blood, she could change everything, even her clothes, at will, and on top of that, didn’t even need to eat food. So taking that into consideration, she didn’t have any great need for money or material goods.

There was basically no reason for her to commit a string of burglaries.

But since neither I nor the people of this city had any detailed knowledge about the habits of real vampires like Oronella, we had totally mistaken her for the culprit in the burglaries.

We did something inexcusable, didn’t we?

“We are terribly sorry, Miss Vampire.”

The official sitting across from us bowed his head deeply. “The residents of this city seem to have behaved very rudely. I really wonder how we can make it up to you…” His words were evasive.

“This isn’t necessarily an apology, but—” As he spoke, the official pulled several gold coins and two pieces of paper from his breast pocket. “This is your reward for a job well done—plus two passes to a luxury hotel that is said to maybe be one of the top three in the whole country. It’s got an attached restaurant as well, so by all means, the two of you please relax and rest your wings.”

A luxury hotel with a luxury restaurant attached?

Luxury…

That’s got a nice ring to it… Wait, but—

“You’re doing an awful lot for us, aren’t you?”

I tilted my head questioningly, and the official smiled, looking a little bashful.

“Yes. This incident has turned me into a fan of Lady Vampire.”

“Isn’t that abuse of public office?”

“So I shouldn’t give the passes to you after all?”

Casting a sidelong glance at the puzzled official, I turned to look at the person right beside me.

“Huh…? Is it okay for me to accept something like this? Really…?”

There was Oronella, bewildered by the money and the luxury hotel passes that had suddenly been handed to her, flustered and unsure whether it was really okay for her to take them.

“Well, I guess it’s all right, isn’t it?”

That very day, we immediately went over to the luxury hotel, and while we were there, we made our way to the luxury restaurant.

“Hey, chef. I’d like to have some fresh blood.”

As soon as we sat down, Oronella snapped her fingers and made this loud declaration. Wearing a slightly bewildered expression, the waitress paid no attention to what Oronella had said and asked me, “Are you ready to order?”

I went ahead and ordered the set course.

“Hey, chef. I’d like to have some fresh blood.”

Oronella snapped her fingers again, not at all bothered by being ignored.

I let out a sigh and requested, “Excuse me, could I ask you to severely undercook her food? And please prepare it without any garlic.”

“Certainly.” The waitress looked a little puzzled, but she took the order, which must have seemed rather ridiculous, and went straight to the back of the house.

“Well, it’s probably not your very first preference, but I think it will be pretty tasty.”

This is a three-star restaurant, after all.

Oronella nodded at me and said in a lively voice, “I’m looking forward to it! To tell the truth, I actually haven’t eaten a thing since yesterday. Do you know why that is, Elaina?”

“I’m guessing because people view it as a problem when you suck their blood.”

“It’s because I was looking forward to this dinner!”

“No, I bet it’s because people view it as a problem when you suck their blood.”

If you broke into someone’s home through the window again after what happened yesterday, they might think, Huh? This vampire is a bad person after all, isn’t she? I bet that even though you felt the urge to drink people’s blood, you restrained yourself and came here.

But just as you would expect at a luxury restaurant, we had barely gotten into this trivial conversation when dishes were carried one after another to our table.

With pleasure, we enjoyed the new flavors that arrived back-to-back, and after making short work of the food, we began to have a pleasant conversation.

“So, I’ve been thinking about it. I’m a vampire detective, right?”

“Yes you are.”

“I think detectives really do need sidekicks, Elaina.”

“Unfortunately, I am a traveler, so it’s impossible for me to become your sidekick.”

“…I could give you my meat?”

“If you’re trying to bribe me, I have no intention of accepting.”

Not to mention that it’s basically raw, isn’t it? I definitely don’t want it.

“If you won’t become my sidekick, then who am I supposed to pair up with from now on to do my work?”

“As an experiment, how about you try putting your hand in a puppet or something?”

“You’re not even trying, are you?”

“This meat is delicious, isn’t it?”

“Want mine?”

“Nope.”

Speaking between bites, we finished our meals in a flash. After I was done eating, I looked at my watch and realized that a fair amount of time had passed since we arrived at the restaurant.

Apparently, I had been enjoying myself.

After our meal, tea was brought to the table.

“That was so good…” Looking idly around the restaurant, I let out a sigh, then suddenly turned my eye on Oronella.

She had just started her work as a detective in this city, but—

“How long are you planning to stay here?” I tilted my head to one side. She seemed to be a wanderer as well, so it wasn’t difficult to imagine that she was not planning to remain in the city forever.

“Hmm, good question…” Oronella put a finger to her lips and let her gaze wander.

“For now, I think I’ll be here for about another month,” she answered. “I still haven’t found a single clue leading to my little sister, after all,” she added.

Right, right, of course.

“I wonder where your sister could be?”

“Seriously.”

Something had happened not that long ago.

About a year before all this.

There had been a young woman passing day after boring day in the vampire community.

The younger sister who had once listened to her grandfather’s old stories alongside Oronella had developed a terrible longing for the city, or rather, for the world in which humans dwelled.

“I’m getting out of this backwoods town!” she’d said as she left the vampire village.

Her big sister, Oronella, had apparently given her fanciful younger sister a very chilly look, but she had never expected her to actually leave their hometown.

Their parents had been terribly worried about her when she suddenly ran away.

“Seriously, what could that girl be thinking…?”

“Unbelievable…”

“Hoh-hoh-hoh, oh, youth!”

Though it was largely the grandfather’s foolish stories that had caused things to go that way, he had adopted the same carefree attitude as always.

“Well, I’m sure she’ll come back after a little while.”

Oronella told me that she, too, had not taken the situation very seriously.

But even after several months had gone by, her little sister hadn’t come back.

“Dad! She hasn’t come back at all, has she?! How are you going to fix this? I can’t believe you!” The girls’ mother was furious.

“Hoh-hoh-hoh, I bet she’s draining one girl after another right now in the city!” Their grandfather hadn’t changed.

Eventually, when there were no signs that her little sister was going to come home, Oronella had been recruited to bring back the runaway.

So for six months, Oronella told me, she had been traveling from place to place, searching for her younger sister. But everywhere, they had thrown garlic at her, and she hadn’t been able to look for her sister properly.

Dear me, what a quandary.

“Honestly, where could she have gotten off to?”

“What did you say she’s been doing for work?”

“Mm…if I’m not mistaken, she’s been doing detective work in this city. At least, that’s the rumor I heard, but—”

Oronella rested her chin idly in her hands as she looked around the restaurant.

That’s when it happened.

All the lights in the restaurant were shut off.

When I looked around the room to see what on earth was going on, the flickering light of small candles appeared, being carried over to a window seat along with a cheerful little song.

“…Miss Witch, what’s that?”

Oh, apparently she’s not familiar with the customs of the human world.

“It’s a celebration cake.” A waiter was carrying the cake over to the window seat. “Probably an anniversary cake or something, for a couple.”

Good for them.

I set down my after-dinner tea and clapped my hands, joining in with the applause that had started to resound sparsely through the room. In the seat across from me, Oronella followed suit, clapping to congratulate the couple.

As soon as she started clapping—

“Kyaaaaaahhh!”

From the back of the restaurant—right next to the toilets—someone’s scream rang out.

“…What’s going on?”

I cocked my head.

Then, when the lights in the restaurant were turned back on, I found out.

“…………”

“…………”

Oronella and I were both at a loss when we saw her.

Behind the woman collapsed on the floor—we spotted a lone young woman looking out at the restaurant from the area near the toilets.

While the woman whose clothes were covered in wine was panicking and making a fuss, the other young woman disappeared into the bathroom. I only saw her for an instant, but she had a strange look to her and appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Her light brown hair and red eyes were very distinctive, and I couldn’t help but notice that she resembled Oronella, who was sitting right beside me.

In other words—

“Wasn’t that your sister just now?”

“That was her.”

I stared blankly toward the toilets, and before long, the girl with light brown hair—that is, Oronella’s little sister—suddenly popped back out.

She had donned a hunting cap on top of her light brown hair. Wrapped around her body was an extremely long trench coat. She was dressed in true detective fashion, and for some reason, there were puppets perched on both her hands.

Apparently, she had used her vampiric ability to transform. But—

“Why do you suppose she changed into a detective’s outfit?”

“Maybe she intends to make some deductions or something?”

“But she’s obviously the culprit, right?”

“She sure is.”

“By the way, why does she have puppets on both hands?”

“She’s kind of a weird girl.”

Uh, yeah, I could tell that just by looking at her for a minute.

It was obvious at a glance that she herself was the very culprit who had assaulted the wine-soaked woman on the floor. But at the same time, it was also clear that she had every intention of presenting some preposterous deduction and then running away.

Despite all that, needless to say, there would probably be trouble if she encountered Oronella then and there.

No helping it, then.

So I stood up—

“Oronella, wouldn’t you fancy some exercise after that meal?” I said to my stunned companion. “Please transform for me. Into a puppet.”

“…Can you do ventriloquism?”

“I can’t, so please talk normally.”

“Wait, but if I talk, she might know me by my voice…”

“Ah, then maybe you should use a falsetto voice?”

“Uh…”

Although she was hesitant, Oronella did ultimately transform into a puppet, asking, “I wonder if this will do?” in her falsetto voice. She was unexpectedly enthusiastic about the whole thing.

I don’t suppose I have to tell you what happened after that. I solved the case, and the detective wound up working in the restaurant to pay off her debts.

And I watched the whole spectacle intently, accompanied by the puppet on my right hand.

To make a long story short—

Not only do birds of a feather flock together, this bird had actually managed to call her family member to her side.