NOVEL NEXT “There’s a saying: ‘Those who sin in their past life must pay for their crimes in their next.’
Usually, it’s meant to encourage people to live well, but I absolutely hated it.
According to that logic, my being diagnosed with an incurable disease at eleven, fighting against it for over a decade, and then dying a painful death at twenty-three was all just the result of my past life’s karma — what nonsense!
But even though I thought it was all rubbish, I never recalled any past-life memories until I died at twenty-three, so I couldn’t definitively prove the saying was a load of crap.
Finally, now that I’ve died once and been reincarnated, I’ve proven that saying is the biggest pile of garbage ever.
I mean, seriously.
I have no clue what I was up to in my previous life.
So, was the pain I suffered in my past life just punishment or utterly unreasonable?
In my current life, all I can remember from my past is getting that incurable diagnosis as a grade schooler, suffering, and eventually dying in a hospital at twenty-three.
Is that really a sin? Did I really do something wrong?
What sort of gigantic sin is it that I ended up like this just because I was sick and suffered all my life?
Tch—
Tch—
Tch—
I pounded my fists on the ground while lying face down.
It hurts. But even the sharp pain rising from my hands on the ground can’t wipe away the dark feelings in my chest.
“Damn this stupid world…”
There’s no god.
If there were, would they really just turn a human who lived their whole life wishing for a normal life into a vampire and toss them into another world?
If a higher power exists that would want to see someone who wished for the most ordinary life turn into a freak that sucks human blood, then that’s definitely not a god; that’s evil incarnate.
If that’s the case, they might as well not give me a second life at all.
If I had died and it had simply ended there, then it would’ve just capped off the tragedy of a poor soul seeking peace.
It should have been something that ended with the notion that life is unfair and sucks, but that’s just how it is.
But here I am, still alive.
With memories of my past life, still holding onto the desire in my heart to live a simple and ordinary life while stuck in this pathetic mosquito-like body of a vampire.
“Should I just die?”
When you think about it, it’s pretty easy.
If living as a vampire in this second life is worse than just dying and going back to nothingness, then choosing to end it is just opting for the less terrible option, right?
Yeah, let’s die. I’ve never been reborn.
I just lived my life on borrowed time and ended up dead.
Instead of living as a miserable parasite that sucks human blood, it’d be better to just die a human death.
So, I gathered my trembling legs and stood up.
The forest behind the orphanage is half just forest, and the other half is mountain. While there are plenty of flat sections, there are definitely steep areas as well.
Of course, it’s just the neighborhood hill. Even if it’s steep, it’s not like it’s a big height, but there should be at least one spot where a person could jump off and die.
Or maybe I’d encounter some dangerous beast.
This place is a hunting ground for the village hunters. They may call them beasts, but according to my previous life’s standards, there’re dangerous creatures here that could well be called monsters.
Even though my body is that of a vampire, my life force is still human.
From what I heard from Plona, the stronger vampires have incredible physical abilities and regenerative powers, but as I fell, my scratched limbs remained the same, and my strength, which was strong for an ordinary village woman, was still just average.
This means that if most people were in conditions that could kill them, I’d be dead too.
Ordinary people die from falls from heights and being eaten by beasts, so if I do that, I will surely die as well.
If I were to express a personal wish, I’d rather die from falling than being torn apart and slowly eaten by a beast; that just sounds terrifying.
So, I started to walk without any particular purpose.
Heading towards the uphill, looking for a higher spot.
As I aimlessly walked, my view suddenly opened up to one side.
A jutting rock. A cliff that almost drops straight down.
I’m not yet at the mountain’s peak, but the height is sufficient. It’s better than having to roll around needlessly; just a single plummet to the bottom will do.
Let’s do this.
I took a step or two towards the cliff.
The wind isn’t that strong, but it’s freezing.
Are my trembling legs due to the cold or hunger?
I don’t know. But if I take one more step, I won’t feel cold anymore.
I can’t bear to look down, so I shut my eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I can hear my pounding heart even clearer.
If I take just one more step forward, I’ll die as a human.
And that’s enough.
That’s really all I need.
It’s just…
“Huh… Huh…”
Just one more step. Just one more, and yet I can’t take it…
Tears I thought had dried up long ago suddenly overflowed uncontrollably.
I didn’t cry when I received my terminal diagnosis long ago, nor did I cry when I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sleep even after taking painkillers, but suddenly the tears wouldn’t stop.
What a fool. A parasite. I can’t even manage to end my own life properly.
My legs feel heavy, as if I have weights on my feet. Even though they tremble like a quaking aspen, I can’t lose my balance over the cliff.
Every part of me that makes up my existence is resisting death.
Just one more step forward, or if I just topple over, it would all end, yet I can’t topple in.
I didn’t realize there would be such a colossal wall between deciding to die and actually taking that last step.
I understood the feelings of those people who often appeared in the news, standing on bridges and threatening to commit suicide.
Some may have climbed up just to attract attention, but there are certainly those who, despite firmly deciding to die, couldn’t muster the courage to take that last step and end it.
“Coward. Coward…”
I’m a coward. Even knowing that living as a vampire has no good ending, even recognizing that ending my life is the easiest way to a peaceful conclusion, I still can’t do it.
I wanted to live. Even like this, I wanted to live.
Even though I experienced death once and it’s no longer a mystery, it still scares me.
The cold, transient finality fills me with fear.
I can’t bear to think of my existence coming to an end.
I cried for a long time.
Pathetically realizing I didn’t even have the courage to take my own life.
If that’s the case, my remaining choice is—
The sweet scent carried by the wind interrupted my thoughts.
As I absently shifted my gaze, a beast resembling a wild boar was slowly making its way up the path from below.
Alright. This works.
If I don’t have the courage to die myself, then this is just fine.
But something felt off.
That beast wasn’t looking at me.
It was just moving along the path, as if trying to escape from something following it from behind.
I noticed that the beast had a large wound on its body and leg.
Understanding why I had been smelling something sweet, my mouth watered at the sight of the red liquid trickling out.
In this bizarre situation, seeing a bleeding beast made me painfully aware that I was indeed an unavoidable vampire.
On the verge of ending my own life, I wasn’t looking at a person but a bleeding beast and thought—
“Wait, a beast?”
My head raced with thoughts of survival.
I didn’t want to be a monster that sucks human blood.
I had lived as a human and loved being human.
That’s why I wanted to end my life.
I couldn’t bear the guilt of feeding on humans, and I feared the hostility of people who would want to kill me once my identity was revealed. I couldn’t face that version of myself, and thus I wanted to die.
But what if.
What if truly…
I could live without killing people?
What if there’s a way to survive without sucking human blood?
A dying beast. Blood. Steak.
Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier? After eating the steak that Plona bought for me, I had been healthier, at least for a short time.
Could it mean that perhaps this vampire body also treats the blood of beasts as a source of nutrition?
It wasn’t a certain thing.
Just as a person can fill their stomach drinking only water but can’t survive on just water, it’s possible that beast blood might only provide temporary relief from hunger but lack the energy needed to live.
Yet if that’s not the case…
What if, miraculously, I could live just off beast blood?
I ate meat even when I was human.
Although I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the idea of bloodsucking, it’s not unreasonable to think of it like eating beef or pork.
It’s not a repulsion strong enough to risk my life over.
Considering that I had been fine for a few weeks after first opening my eyes to this world, it doesn’t seem like a vampire’s meals are that frequently needed.
If I could sometimes come into this forest and hunt beasts like the hunters do to solve my meals, and if I could prove that I’m able to live without harming humans,
Then maybe, just maybe, I could survive.
With a human heart, perhaps I could live as a somewhat unique human with different dietary needs.
Yeah, I just need to observe a little longer.
To see if this body can indeed be satisfied with just beast blood, whether or not I can live on it.
My body, having discovered a chance for survival, started moving on its own.
Just as the trembling moments ago felt like a lie, I deftly moved towards the wounded beast making its way up the path.
The injured beast noticed my presence approaching from behind.
But it wouldn’t be long before it succumbed, and it could barely evade a regular human girl’s movements.
“I’m sorry.”
I took off like I was on a bicycle, kicking off the ground and leaping onto the struggling creature’s back.
It barely swayed, offering little resistance, allowing me, an average human, to easily clamber onto it.
“I’m really sorry.”
I slowly buried my face into its hair.
Instinctively, I sank my fangs into the beast’s nape.
Though it was my first time, the motion felt as natural as if I’d done it thousands or millions of times before.
My little fangs pierced the coarse skin of the beast as if it were merely butter.
Pulling my fangs back a little, the warm liquid began to gush into my mouth from the two holes I made.
Gulp, gulp—
I didn’t even have the time to feel repulsed as I plunged my face into that oasis like a wandering desert traveler, greedily seeking the warm, sweet liquid until it stopped flowing.
After a brief moment, the wounded beast stopped moving altogether.”