Ch.7Equipment Items

# Blood Carnival

At its core, Blood Carnival was a game where you could farm food from convenience stores and restaurants, basic materials for armor from clothing stores, and weapons like gunpowder and firearms from gun shops.

These rules applied in this world too.

Of course, materials for crafting weapons or armor didn’t actually appear, though.

The first place we visited was a large supermarket.

It was half-collapsed, but it seemed to have been sturdily built as quite a lot of the interior facilities remained intact.

“Gasp…! Charlotte! There’s frozen pizza here!”

I examined the frozen pizza Aurel brought over.

She must have found it stashed away in some freezer, but how could pizza possibly be intact after the electricity had been cut off for years?

The packaging box of the frozen pizza was covered with black stains in places and even had mold growing on it.

“Are you planning to eat that…?”

“No… I just thought it was interesting.”

“Throw it away.”

“Okay…”

Aurel seemed to have been trying to lighten the stiff atmosphere, but it wasn’t a particularly good choice.

I continued to search the surroundings while staying alert.

The only things that could be called edible food were gum and chocolate.

But even those had long passed their expiration dates and likely lost their original taste.

To think that all we could get from this vast food section was just gum and chocolate.

It meant someone had already thoroughly scavenged this place.

After leaving the supermarket, the next place we searched was a large hospital.

What would have been white exterior walls were now covered with black mold and climbing plants.

The interior was in an equally terrible state.

Dusty white coats and rotted bandages.

A stark white skeleton wedged between dented wheelchairs.

Medical tools scattered messily across the corridor.

I couldn’t help but sigh at the devastating scene that made it difficult to even imagine what had happened here.

“Charlotte! Red potions!”

Aurel, who had been scouring various parts of the hospital, came back with intact bandages and a red potion.

Judging by the lack of other items, it seemed this place had also been swept through by someone else.

I stuffed the items Aurel handed me into my backpack and left the hospital.

“Sigh…”

I sighed as I looked at the vast city that unfolded before us after leaving the hospital.

The thought of two small vampire girls having to search this entire city was nothing short of daunting.

Just as I was about to move on to the next building…

My sensitive hearing caught an unusual sound.

Tap-

The sound of someone stepping on the ground.

Aurel seemed to have heard it too, as she was looking around with her head held high.

I held my breath as much as possible and perked up my ears.

Tap-tap-tap!

My head turned toward the now clearer sound.

It was distinct enough that I could tell exactly where it was coming from.

Aurel and I moved toward the source of the sound without needing to discuss it.

We crossed through the center of the city, climbing over collapsed buildings.

After walking carefully for quite some time…

“Charlotte…!”

“Shh.”

Aurel and I finally discovered another person.

They were completely covered in thick clothing—a motorcycle helmet and a black leather jacket—so I couldn’t tell if they were male or female, but I could immediately tell they weren’t an ordinary person.

Their light yet graceful gait.

The physical ability to easily jump over the debris of collapsed buildings was definitely not something an ordinary person could demonstrate.

Sniff sniff-

I nodded as I caught the faint scent wafting toward us.

A sweet yet captivating smell of blood.

The person before us was definitely a [Human] user.

“Should we attack?”

“No.”

“Okay!”

I shook my head at Aurel’s question.

What was our purpose for coming here?

None other than to find any shop NPCs that might be around.

Who knows?

That human user might know the location of a shop NPC.

Aurel and I carefully followed behind the human user.

“They seem very familiar with this place…”

I nodded at Aurel’s words.

As she said, the human user seemed very familiar with the terrain here.

Their unhesitating movements, quickly going back and forth between buildings, made it clear.

“There are no fusion bodies. They must periodically scout this area.”

“Gasp…”

How much time had passed?

The human user, who had been darting around without hesitation, suddenly began looking around very cautiously, unlike before.

Very suspicious movement.

At that moment, the human user sat down on the ground and lifted a manhole cover.

Then they slipped down into it.

The situation was so sudden that I was at a loss for words.

What should I do in this situation?

Without thinking, I looked at Aurel, who was also looking at me with a tilted head.

“Should we follow?”

“…No.”

I hesitated but shook my head.

Following that user now wouldn’t be a good choice.

How could we follow without knowing what was down there?

We might be ambushed suddenly.

“Let’s wait…”

“Can’t we just open another manhole and go in?”

“Are you serious? Do you have any idea how complex and dirty sewer systems are?”

“Hmm…”

We couldn’t just stick our heads in out of curiosity.

With only one life, we needed to be careful, extremely careful.

So we sat there waiting for a long time.

Finally, the human user who had gone down into the sewer reappeared.

There was a noticeable change in their appearance.

On their back, which previously only had a small bag, there were now two katanas that I hadn’t seen before, and a long sword dangled from their waist.

“That’s…!”

No doubt about it.

What the human user brought out were two [Matte Katanas] and a [Military Longsword]—weapons from a shop.

Definitive evidence that there was a shop NPC.

The NPC seemed to be down in the sewer.

The opponent was clearly alone.

That meant there was nothing to worry about.

I moved carefully, gripping my katana tightly.

“Ah…! Are we attacking?”

“You stay put.”

I wouldn’t need Aurel’s help for this.

Looking at my opponent, I was confident of victory.

The distance between us was a straight line.

If I ran at full speed, I could cover it in one second.

Fortunately, the opponent hadn’t noticed us yet.

I took a deep breath and drew up my shadow.

Swooosh-

The more time passed, the more I used my abilities, the more familiar I became with being the vampire [Charlotte].

The shadow that rose from beneath my feet climbed up my legs, past my waist, and extended toward my katana.

Right after, black bats began to scatter behind my back.

Flutterflutterflutter-!

Now.

Tap-!

The moment I lightly stepped on the ground, my body began to slide with the shadow.

A silent charge.

The human user belatedly turned to recognize me, but it was too late.

The moment the tip of my extended katana touched the motorcycle helmet.

Crunch-!

With a chilling sound, red blood spurted up.

A clean instant kill with one skill.

I stopped in place and pointed my katana at the staggering corpse.

It was a defensive stance in case of any unexpected situations, but the human user, having lost their head, would never move again.

Splash-!

Thud-

I surveyed the surroundings, leaving behind the user’s corpse that had collapsed while spewing red blood.

The shadow, now highly sensitive after absorbing blood, growled fiercely.

After keeping watch for a while…

Only then could I finally breathe a sigh of relief and sheathe my katana.

I gestured to Aurel, who was watching cautiously from a distance.

It meant it was safe for her to come out now as there was no danger.

“Charlotte…!”

Aurel came running over.

She was looking at the fallen corpse with a greatly excited expression.

It was like the face of a child in front of delicious food.

She looked a bit cute as she stuck out her small tongue to lick her soft lips.

Vampires need to drink human blood to survive.

Feeling hungry at the smell of blood is a natural instinct.

After hesitating briefly, I turned my head and said to Aurel.

“You can eat.”

“Gasp… Really?”

I silently nodded and picked up the weapons that had fallen to the ground.

Suddenly, my blood-stained hand caught my eye.

I had killed someone without any hesitation.

I sighed and shook my head.

The world had changed, and people had changed too.

Shouldn’t I change as well?

The first human user I encountered had pointed a gun at me without a moment’s hesitation.

I was able to win because I was a level 20 vampire; if I had been at a lower level like Aurel, I would have ended up no different from the hunted werewolf.

So.

This was only natural.

With a composed expression, I rummaged through the human user’s backpack.

“Gasp… Gasp… Delicious…”

Aurel began drinking the blood hurriedly.

Aurel’s build focused on increasing blood control for close combat.

That meant she didn’t necessarily need to drink blood through her mouth.

But Aurel deliberately stuck out her tongue to lick the blood that had fallen to the ground.

She looked just like a puppy.

I frowned and turned away.

“Drink quickly. We need to enter the sewer.”

“Gasp… Yes!”

I was troubled, holding what had now become four weapons.

Even if Aurel and I each took one, there would still be two left.

It’s not like we could wear dual swords just because we had extra weapons.

That’s when my shadow suddenly caught my eye.

On a hunch, I extended my katana toward it, and the shadow swallowed the katana very naturally.

“Gasp…”

I found it.

My inventory.

After stuffing two swords into the shadow, I handed one of the remaining katanas to Aurel, who had finished her meal.

“Here.”

“Are you really giving this to me?”

“Yes.”

Aurel received the katana with both hands extended politely.

She was as happy as a child who had received a desired gift on Christmas.

I stared at her blooming smile for a while.

I cleared my throat and turned away.

This wasn’t the place to be leisurely.

Aurel and I opened the manhole cover and entered the sewer.

“Ugh…”

As soon as we entered the sewer, my face naturally wrinkled at the terrible stench of rot.

Aurel even groaned and held her nose.

The inside of the sewer was quiet.

There were no dangerous fusion bodies, nor were there any other human users in sight.

Now we just needed to explore this sewer to find the shop NPC.

But Aurel and I couldn’t move forward.

An instinctive aversion. Something ingrained in our minds was refusing to let us move forward.

“Water…”

Aurel and I groaned as we looked at the polluted water flowing beneath our feet.

Vampires cannot cross over water.