Blood Queen Reborn-Chapter 23: A Promise of Strength

Erin stomped off from Fex, frustrated.

She could’ve gotten some sort of bonus in her fight against Nill, but Fex just had to swoop in and ruin everything.

Still, with how injured she was from the fight, she found herself growing hungry for blood. Since Layla was willing to give her blood, Erin was planning on heading back to her dorm room. That was then she remembered that Quinn was right there. She was about to ask him, when she hesitated. Erin, for some reason, felt off thinking about asking.

’Wait, am I actually caring about what Quinn thinks?’ Erin thought, ’Do I... think of him as a friend?"

Erin shook her head, and instead held her hand up. There was Nill’s blood on the tips of her fingers, and grimaced at the thought of tasting it. It wasn’t because it was blood, but because it was on the floor where a ton of people had walked over it already. Tasting it didn’t seem very appetizing.

"Well... If I’m a vampire, then surely I can’t get sick," Erin whispered before licking her fingers.

[Blood type B+ has been absorbed]

[+ 1 Agility point has been added]

Just like before, the blood didn’t taste bad, and Erin was thankful for that.

Quinn had managed to catch up to her, and he was looking at the same system message that Erin was looking at.

"This blood gave me agility, but when I drank my roommate’s blood, I got strength," Erin began.

"Do you still not remember her name?" Quinn asked.

"That doesn’t matter. What matters is if drinking her blood again would make me stronger," Erin retorted.

Quinn sighed, but ultimately, both him and Layla weren’t close friends. Similarly, both he and Erin weren’t the closest of friends either, or at least, shouldn’t be due to their level disparity. It was probably better if they talked about this stuff more privately.

"Hey, lets take this into the chat tab," Quinn brought up, "It would be hard to explain this... vampire stuff in case anyone heard us."

Erin rolled her eyes.

{Erin} Fine.

{Quinn} If I had to say, then maybe it could, but if all you had to do was just drink one person’s blood, then you could gain power very easily.

{Quinn} Games are meant to be balanced, right? But the inspect skill displays everyone’s blood types, so it would make sense to need to drink a lot of different people’s blood...

The mental image of Erin going around and serial biting people for blood played in Quinn’s mind.

"Right..." Erin whispered.

{Erin} If having a large variety of blood types is what allows me to gain stats, then that has to be the fastest way to get stronger.

{Quinn} By the way...

{Quinn} Thanks for helping that guy earlier.

Erin glanced behind herself, before sending another message.

{Erin} Help? I wasn’t even able to beat that Nill guy.

{Quinn} It’s not just about beating up the high levels.

{Quinn} It’s also about helping out the low levels when you can.

{Quinn} That guy we helped, I saw that they were able to get away.

They entered the school and continued walking down the halls.

[Erin is no longer being hit by direct sunlight. All stats will return to normal]

Erin let out a slight sigh of relief, her posture relaxing.

{Erin} You said it yourself that you guys need change, and just because we helped one guy escape, doesn’t mean that Nill guy won’t go and bully another student.

In a way, they were both right, change needed continuous efforts to come into effect, but even small achievements should be celebrated.

Quinn was getting tired of all the bullying, he was tired of never having the ability to fight back, and he was tired of waiting for something to change. He was going to unfortunately need to bite the bullet.

He was going to accept the military’s offer of learning the earth ability.

Honestly, Quinn had considered asking Erin to buy him an ability book, but they’ve only known each other for 3 days, and she had done a lot for him already. Quinn just didn’t feel close enough with her to ask for monetary help anyways. He had waited long enough to get an ability.

"Then I’ll do something about it," Quinn replied with determination. He stopped in his tracks, looking at his hands, which caused Erin to stop as well.

"How exactly are you going to do that?"

Quinn looked up to meet Erin’s eyes, "I’m going to get stronger."

Erin stared at him, confused, "Why are you staring at your hands?"

"...Isn’t that where power comes from? You know... like your ice powers?" He said as he wiggled his fingers.

"They come from the mutant cells in your body, and ability books."

Quinn awkwardly chuckled, "You know, I used to have one too, but a certain someone had stolen it."

Erin rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. Go get your book."

—

Erin returned to her dorm, a hunger growling in her stomach. After changing into a new set of clothes, Erin was hoping to see if Layla was around.

When she left the bathroom, she spotted her brunette roommate hurriedly put away a book under her pillow.

"Girl..." Erin said before slowly shifting her gaze towards the pillows. What was her roommate hiding?

"H—hey! I thought you were going to be out!" Layla stammered.

"I was."

{Erin} Is my roommate a vampire too?

{Quinn} What?

{Erin} I think she’s hiding something.

{Quinn} I thought you drank her blood already.

{Erin} So? What if vampires could drink vampire blood?

{Quinn} Use the inspect skill if you’re unsure. It told you Fex was a vampire.

Erin decided to inspect her roommate anyways, seeing as it cost no time at all to do.

[Name: Layla Munrow]

[Race: Human]

[Ability: Telekinesis]

[Blood type A+]

[HP 12/12]

{Quinn} See? She’s human.

Erin gazed down at her roommate, who happened to be nervously fidgeting with her hands as if wanting to tell her something.

"Why did you hide your book?" Erin stated.

Layla immediately flinched, laughing obnoxiously, and began stammering over her words.

"AHAHAHAH WELL— UH— SEE HERE—" she laughed.

Holding her in place by the shoulders, Erin gazed into her eyes.

"Layla... I need you—"

"Wh-WHat?" Layla squeaked, her eyes went wide as she heard the words coming from her roommate.

"Don’t interrupt me, I was about to say I need your blood," Erin said, unamused.

Layla froze. Perhaps she had been reading too many romance fantasy novels.

"Uh— um— yeah sure. Let me just... uh... get some towels—" Layla stammered out, trying to clear her mind of thoughts.

Before she could get up, Erin pushed her back down.

"Where are you going? We can do it right here," Erin bluntly stated.

’Erin— If it weren’t for your tone, I would’ve thought you were going to ask me to...’ Layla thought, her face red.

Shaking her head, Layla pulled down on her shirt collar a little, which was the signal for Erin’s fangs to elongate, and bite into her neck.

[Blood type has already been consumed]

[No additional stat point will be added]

The wave of paralyzing pleasure that followed soon washed over Layla. Like a drug bringing her to a high she had only felt once before.

[HP 10/20] 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

[HP 14/20]

Taking note of how limp Layla was getting from her bite, Erin relaxed her jaw. When she did, Layla’s body collapsed onto her bed, and spirals were circling in her eyes.

[Inspect]

[Name: Layla Munrow]

[HP 4/12]

Thankfully, she was still conscious, but Erin was surprised at how quickly she drank her blood.

"Why’d you faint? I didn’t drink all of your blood," Erin nonchalantly said.

{Quinn} Whoa, what happened to Layla?

{Erin} I drank her blood.

{Quinn} You drank her blood again? You have to be careful, I don’t there’s that much blood in a person.

{Quinn} How hungry were you?

{Erin} I don’t know, I just bit into her, and started drinking.

{Quinn} You bit into her? On the neck? I would’ve used a vial or a cup.

Not knowing what to do, Erin just sorta awkwardly left her there. She wasn’t even at full health, and yet she had nearly brought Layla to unconsciousness. If Layla went to the doctor’s office again for the same exact reason, then the doctor might start asking more uncomfortable questions.

However, Layla eventually managed to shake off the paralyzing effect that came with Erin’s bite, a woozy smile on her face.

"I’m... I’m more than good!" Layla slurred.

Erin stared at her roommate, and scrunched her eyebrows, "I’m eating from the fridge."

—

Later that day, Quinn found a box shipped outside of his dorm room, which held the glasses purchased earlier that day. He put them on and looked at himself in the mirror. They didn’t look too bad on him, and with how sturdy they were, he wouldn’t need to get another pair for a long time.

As Quinn looked at the blue color, he couldn’t help but be reminded of Erin’s icy blue eyes. They were fierce, and held an intensity to them.

"Do I... Like her?" Quinn thought.

He didn’t exactly have a lot of experience when it came to thinking about romance, girlfriends and dating, and he was spending a lot of time with a girl.

Not only that, but he hadn’t garnered any friends close enough to talk to about this. Sure, he now had Peter as a friend, but he seemed to have even less experience than him somehow. Fex seemed to know more, especially with his good looks, but it would be a little awkward to ask after he just saved him. He’d probably just tease him about Erin anyways.

Instead, Quinn decided to look around the school for his favorite teacher, Leo.

Leo didn’t look down upon him despite his lack of an ability. He was the most approachable of all the staff Quinn had met so far.

Heading to the classroom where Leo taught the beast weapons class, he found himself in the dojo with dark wooden floors, and paper windows letting soft light aluminate the room. The warm light made the place feel quite cozy.

His elder was practicing his swordsmanship skills on a fighting dummy. He took out his sword, threw out a slice, before quickly sheathing it, and the top half of the dummy slid off. Quinn couldn’t help but be amazed by his teacher.

"Wow, what kind of ability is that?" Quinn blurted out.

He was thinking that there was a potential chance that he could learn the ability of the war time hero, Leo Suiyan, and wanted to know what it was.

"It is not an ability, but a skill in honing my body," Leo stated, unsurprised by the appearance of Quinn.

"A skill?" Quinn asked, "Do you think you could teach it to me someday?"

Leo’s milky white eyes seemed to look towards Quinn’s direction, to which he just assumed that Leo only ’looked’ at him to make him feel a bit better when conversing. The older man stroked his beard, before chuckling and saying his response.

"...I am not entirely against the idea, but if you do, I would like you to train your body to grow stronger first."

"Oh..."

Quinn’s body was on the smaller end. He had skipped a few meals in the past due to the lack of money he had growing up, and he couldn’t afford the time to work out when he was busy taking care of himself and opening that damn book.

"But I see that isn’t the only thing you wanted to talk about today, now what is it, boy?"

"I... I would like to take the military’s offer."