Just as Kurushimi set off to begin her hunt, she suddenly spun around, “Ah, before we go… Atelier!” Stating Atelier’s name, she faced her once again, exclaiming, “I have a question!”

“Ask away.” Atelier, not too fazed by the sudden turn around and announcement, casually gave her the go ahead to ask away.

“Voice-san and I talked about this before but now that you’re here… do you know how to evolve your race? It says I’m a lesser vampire here and I think it may be downgrading my potential strength or something…” Kurushimi explained. As she had said, they had discussed this topic as a potential reason for her being behind other monsters in stats. No results on the method could be figured out due to lack of knowledge, but with Atelier here it was different!

“Evolving your race? I’m afraid I have no idea.” Atelier gave a short and blunt response to the hopeful Kurushimi, shattering that hope instantly.

“You really don’t know…?” Kurushimi found herself sulking a little, having gone nowhere in terms of discoveries. Truthfully, her stats weren’t even looking that bad any more. Opening her status revealed the following values; 479 HP, 466 STR, 448 END, 419 SP, 455 AGI, 378 MP. And those were before counting the stat buffs gained under the effects of night walker.

Right now, her stats were comparable to those of the monsters from the scorched land. However, if she was able to become a proper vampire, her stats would be significantly greater than before. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say she could beat the rock golems at that point, even without using the kami state.

Sadly, sulking didn’t somehow manifest the knowledge needed. Atelier shook her head and explained, “The problem is with the race itself. I know a lot of methods to evolve, but not how the vampires evolve. They are incredibly rare to begin with and then they are also very secretive. They don’t exactly like to go around telling others these things…”

Hearing what Atelier had to say about vampires, Kurushimi couldn’t help but become a little interested. After all, this was about her very own kind. And it was also the first time she was actually finding anything out about the race, like how they behaved or how others treated them. Curious to know more, she asked, “Have you met any vampires before?”

“Yes actually, back before I was sealed away. There was this strange vampire I was a little close with.” To Kurushimi’s surprise, Atelier actually had an account of meeting a vampire. Although, she wondered exactly how close they were considering that stingy vampire apparently didn’t want to share anything.

Just before she was going to ask another question, Kurushimi suddenly remembered the memory she had seen after drinking the aberration’s ‘blood’. If that person besides Atelier was indeed herself, could the vampire she was referring to be that person after all? “Could you tell me a little bit about this vampire…?” Kurushimi inquired.

She didn’t have any ulterior motives initially when asking about Atelier’s encounters with vampires, however this could be a good chance to gather information about the version of herself she had seen in the memory. She had decided to keep the memory a secret, so for now she would have to discreetly ask questions and gather the information that way.

Atelier held her chin and looked off in a random direction, appearing to be in thought, before speaking, “She looked a lot like you actually, her name was Sylvia. She was a lone vampire, unaffiliated with others hence having no second name. And she was incredibly secretive, keeping a lot of personal information herself, even for a vampire.”

Kurushimi knitted her eyebrows. The vampire Atelier knew had to be the person in the memory, considering this affiliate looking like herself was too much of a coincidence for it not to be that person. But… ‘She had a different name? Maybe it wasn’t me after all… but it’s strange that someone that similar looking, who is also a vampire, was an affiliate of hers!’

“Well anyway, it looks like I’m going to need to experiment for a bit to find out how to evolve…” Kurushimi sighed and accepted her fate that she wouldn’t be finding a way anytime soon. Turning around, she showed her intent to begin the hunt as originally planned. But as she did so, she cleared her mind and thought out as clearly as she could, ‘Hey, Atelier can you hear me?’

Sneakily looking back to Atelier, Kurushimi observed no reaction to her question. From the looks of it, she was unable to hear her thoughts even when Kurushimi tried to communicate them to her. Repeating the same thought, she changed the target of communication this time, ‘Hey Voice-san?’

“What is it?” As expected, an immediate albeit confused response came from Voice-san. Kurushimi already knew that she could talk to Voice-san through this method, but it seemed like the same couldn’t be said for Atelier. ‘I wonder why… Maybe it’s to do with how strong the bonds are? Atelier did mention something about that before…’ After briefly thinking over it, Kurushimi went to consult Voice-san about the reason she had decided to talk in private like this.

‘Since Atelier is a companion now, we will eventually have to tell her about the revival…’ As Kurushimi went on, she was suddenly cut off by Voice-san, “Are you asking about whether we should tell her now?” Kurushimi was impressed that she was instantly able to figure out her main point. However, it didn’t really come as a surprise; as Kurushimi expected, Voice-san was quite sharp!

‘Yeah yeah, what do you think about that? I wanted to consult with you first this time-’ As Kurushimi explained herself, Voice-san cut her off once again with an immediate and stern answer, “Don’t tell her for now.”

‘Why not?’ Kurushimi asked, curious as to why Voice-san was so adamantly against it. “We… don’t know enough about her yet. For now, absolutely do not tell her!” As Voice-san planned earlier, she wanted to see what would happen with Atelier after a revival before revealing anything. Although, Voice-san kept that part out of what she told Kurushimi.

Accepting Voice-san’s command not to tell Atelier, Kurushimi paused for a second before deciding something. Now was a good time to bring up the memory, no? ‘I think that vampire Atelier was talking about might be me.’

“Hah?” Voice-san responded back, as if she had just heard something absolutely absurd. Hearing this response, Kurushimi quickly realised how such a statement would absolutely make her sound crazy to anyone without proper context on that memory. She quickly explained about her experience after passing out, ‘After drinking the aberration blood, I stole a memory. But… It was one of Atelier’s memories that I saw! What’s even stranger is that I saw someone who looked just like me in it! The only difference was that she looked older.’

“Is that so…?” Voice-san asked, her voice actually sounding a little bewildered. After a moment of silence, Atelier speculated, “Could it be you in the future? If it were actually you, that would explain the older experience and why neither of us are able to recollect it yet…”

‘But it’s supposed to be a memory… And I’m pretty sure the memory took place before she was sealed. So it doesn’t make sense for it to take place in the future.’ Kurushimi pointed out the things that didn’t add up. It was a memory, so it should take place in the past right?

“Up until now I had suspected your current body to be the same as your old one, just changed due to the transportation here.” Voice-san suddenly diverted the topic, confusing Kurushimi about where she was getting at. Nonetheless, she continued, “Assuming… in the case your current body existed prior to arrival, perhaps it was the previous owner. That would explain the differing name and the timeline inconsistencies. As for your appearance, perhaps our arrival caused a regression to the body along with a level reset?”

‘Ohhh, that makes sense! Maybe you’re right!’ Kurushimi was amazed as the puzzle pieces slowly fit together from Voice-san’s explanation. Seeing her get excited, Voice-san hastily made it known that, “In the end, it’s just a theory. With little actual evidence, we can’t say that is how it is for sure. By the way, we should stop speaking like this now. We’ve talked for a while, so Atelier may begin to suspect something… and besides, we’ve got company.”

‘KREEEEEE-!’ Kurushimi looked ahead, a pack of canisfangs entering her vision. The giant crystals surrounded her now and the canisfangs were showing the strange aggression that she had seen before. Earlier, the canisfang she tested dimensional magic on actually tried to run away, unlike the suicidal maniacs she encountered upon first entering the area. This all but confirmed that the large crystals did have an effect on their behavior after all.

“Canisfangs truly are strange creatures. They are one of the most common monsters in this forest and the only one that can be found in every part of it. It shouldn’t be so, considering that they are one of the weakest, but that is how it is. They are a lot like humans in that sense~” Atelier said, watching the canisfang pack in front of them.

Dismissing the strange comment on canisfangs and their similarity to humans, Kurushimi noticed that the canisfangs weren’t approaching her. Rather, they seemed to be directing their aggression towards something closer to them. Confused, she tried to get closer to see what was happening. However, as she did so, a sudden ‘ZzZSHz-!’ accompanied what looked like some kind of flying object rapidly approaching her.

“Uwahhh?!” Kurushimi shouted out, hurriedly jumping to the side to avoid the flying canisfang. It roughly landed next to her, caving in the poor dirt that happened to become its landing site. However, despite it many visible injuries, it got up after flailing around a bit before running back towards the canisfang pack and whatever had flung it. Meanwhile, Kurushimi simply stood there having been completely ignored.

“Nani…?” She asked, dumbfounded.

“Ah, so that’s what’s going on.” While Kurushimi had no idea what was going on, Atelier had an expression of understanding as if she had figured out what was happening. “I recommend using farsight to see what is happening. Although, you’ll need to get closer or climb a tree since yours is a low level.” Atelier explained.

“Ah, okay.” Kurushimi nodded and made her way over towards a tree. The sound of fighting was beginning to get louder and she had no clue what it was the canisfangs were clashing with. Opting not to find out when it was too late, Kurushimi decided it would be safer to climb up a tree and see if she could see what it was with farsight.

Naturally, it didn’t take long for her to get onto a decently high branch and get her view from above. With mana gleaming in her eyes, she activated farsight and tried to see what it was in the centre of the pack.

An armoured man stood in the middle of them. Despite being surrounded and having a huge numbers disadvantage, it was incredibly one-sided. ‘Is that a living armour? …No, it isn’t.’ Upon first seeing it, Kurushimi thought it was a living armour, the situation being almost identical to her last encounter with it.

However, this one was clearly different from the living armour. It was larger, much larger, being about twice the size of the living armour, with it having a vastly different appearance as well. To Kurushimi, it actually looked very reminiscent of samurai armour, though with some differences. And the last major difference from the living armour, was the ethereal purple glow and lightning wrapping around it. Combining her usage of farsight with appraisal, she viewed its name.

“Vengeful… spirit?” Kurushimi read aloud.