Blood Queen Reborn-Chapter 11: Library Researching

Erin’s eyes were glaring at his bloodied nose, and for a brief scary moment, Quinn was fearing what exactly she was about to do.

It was as if his book turned her into a monster.

That was, until she dropped him. Quinn quickly wiped away the blood on his face, and when he looked back at Erin, she was transfixed by a drop of blood that landed on her hand while she was still lifting him up. Slowly, she held it to her mouth, a bit of her teeth were shown through the crack of her lips. The entire situation had Quinn worried for her well-being.

"Erin!" he called out, snapping her attention back to reality.

A few students glanced over, curious about how someone like Quinn was on a first name basis with the ice queen herself. While some were thinking that Quinn was lucky to get picked up by Erin, both Fex’s and Leo’s attention was brought to that part of the room for another reason.

Erin looked at Quinn, then back at her hand. There was certainly something strange about this system, and they needed to do some research on this after class.

{Quinn} Erin.

{Quinn} Let’s meet at the library.

Quinn would’ve normally whispered this to Erin, but he didn’t want to get close to her... just in case.

{Erin} K

His facial expression turned into a very visible frown at Erin’s response, but she seemed to ignore it.

Erin wiped away the drop of blood on her sleeve, and the two continued to practice using their weapons like normal.

While Leo had his attention drawn there just in case he needed to intervene, he had something on his mind, and it was the fact that he noticed something about Erin changed.

’Just what had happened to her?’ Leo thought, squinting his eyes, ’She matches the other boy now.’

—

After class, Quinn went to the library alone as Erin apparently wanted to do something first before they met up together, which he didn’t fully mind, he liked visiting the library alone.

He initially came to the library because he was researching different abilities he could learn in case his old book couldn’t be opened, but it was genuinely a nice place to hang out, and he was less likely to get beat up here. There was even a puzzle corner where he could fit two puzzle pieces together before ultimately getting frustrated and giving up.

The library was vast, as it was quite tall, with its numerous floors and nearly as wide. He wasn’t allowed on those floors, since they were for the second years, but it was not as if the first floor slacked off; there were walls and walls of books.

Heading to the back of the library, Quinn went to his usual spot which had very few people around. There was a reading booth embedded into the wall with a table, a window, and some cushioned seats that were quite comfortable, making it his favorite spot. Not only that, but a wall of books covered the area giving him some privacy.

He sent a system message to Erin where he was and immediately got to work collecting books about anything that resembled what Erin was going through.

—

Before Erin went to the library to meet up with Quinn, there was something she wanted to do first. At the moment, she was three thirds close to leveling up, and wanted to get closer to level 2.

Currently, she had a theory about the system, and walked down the hallway away from the library to test it out. Since fighting one of the beast weapon students and Quinn, she was able to gain EXP that way, which made her wonder about a game that she used to play. One quick game to test out her theory before meeting up with Quinn shouldn’t take too long.

Something Erin noticed ever since she acquired the system was how much faster and stronger she felt. There was a limit to what the natural human body could accomplish without outside help, like from beast gear, but somehow, Erin felt like she could easily surpass that now.

Entering the VR room, Erin purchased an hour of run time for one round, then entered a giant white egg-shaped device that was able to house a whole person inside. As she entered and sat down in the dark pod, she closed her eyes, and the game was activated.

Immediately, it was like she was teleported into a white room, but her real body was right where she left it. She was currently playing Power Fighters using the VR pod.

She took a quick look at her profile, and saw that it still listed that she had an ice ability. A bittersweet feeling tugged at her.

Because the game was VR, or virtual reality, any person playing Power Fighters was able to pick out an ability for themselves to try out, or practice using their own real-world ability. The other thing about this being virtual reality was that Erin didn’t actually look like her real world self. She had what was known as an in-game skin, which gave her pure white hair, and a blue crystalline romper that matched the theme of her old ability.

Ignoring her emotions, she hit ’Quick Play,’ and waited to get matched up with a random player. Quick Play made it so that Erin would get randomly matched with another player who had also clicked on Quick Play. As the name suggested, it was fast, and only after a few seconds did the game assign her to fight against a level 1 ability user, much to her disappointment.

[Quest: Defeat FalseStepper]

[Reward: 15 EXP]

Upon seeing how tiny the EXP gain was, Erin was just saddened by the quick play giving her such a weak fighter. Not only that, but judging by their username, their ability had something to do with false footprints, one that really seemed weak in her mind.

Erin sighed, and was this close to canceling the match. It was almost not worth her time, but she needed to see if she would actually get the EXP.

The fight began, and the other fighter projected some footsteps around her. Yawning, Erin shot out a simple ice spear to the opponent, stabbing him in the chest. She was declared the winner, and immediately left the game after that.

[EXP: 80/100]

—

Quinn was basically knee-deep in his books, going through every book he could find that recorded abilities, but not a single one of them listed anything about getting weaker in the sunlight, glowing red eyes, system messages, or even blood. He was skimming the books somewhat so as to save time, but even then there was nothing that matched up with what Erin was going through. The most he could find was something relating to soul weapons causing eyes to glow, but Erin simply wasn’t old enough to get one.

Partway through his research, Quinn was able to see a message about fighting someone named ’FalseStepper,’ but he was instead more bothered by the fact that Erin was getting into a fight instead of being here with him at the library.

’Is she really that focused on trying to get experience?’ Quinn thought. Erin was more power hungry than he expected.

After about 15 minutes, Erin made it to the library spot Quinn was at, and she took a seat next to him.

"Couldn’t you have come sooner?" Quinn asked, a little bitter.

"I’m trying to level up. Why does it matter to you what I do anyway?" Erin shot back.

’I thought you wanted to get rid of the system?’ Quinn questioned in his mind.

"... Anyway, after doing some research, I can’t seem to find anything that seems to match whatever ability we have. There’s conditional abilities which seem to match us the most, but that requires something to happen first before being activated."

"What about the blood then?" Erin asked, "Couldn’t that be the so-called condition?"

"I thought of that already, but if we already have a video game system without you drinking blood, then it’s probably not the condition, and what about you losing your ability?" Quinn brought up.

His head then dropped as he placed his hands under his glasses, rubbing his eyes, and sighing, "Ugh, research is not my thing... I wish I had some sort of ability expert to help me out."

Right at that moment, a certain teenager with black, slicked-back hair, and very pale skin came walking outside the library holding a book he hoped to return. However, he began to sniff the air, noticing a strange unusual scent that he had smelled earlier that day. Following it through the library, he came across his roommate, Quinn, hanging out with a beautiful blonde haired girl in a secluded part of the library.

Quinn hadn’t noticed him yet, and a thought came to mind. Fex decided he was going to have a little fun.