Faye crossed her arms at Tsukuru's question.
"Because if he were from one of them, he wouldn't be walking around with an umbrella over his head," she replied. "He'd have a…"
Her gaze drifted down towards her right hand, where her Vampire Ring should have been placed on her middle finger. However, her hand was now suddenly bare.
Her eyes widened.
"My ring!" Faye replied in shock. Instantly, her head began swinging back and forth.
"Looking for this?" Tsukuru asked, causing her head to snap towards him.
Tsukuru had his right arm raised, holding a small black ring between his thumb and index finger. The ring had a red jewel in the center. The loop of the ring looked like a pair of bat wings wrapping around one's fingers.
Faye's eyes widened even further to the point that her pupils became pin-pricks.
'How did he?!' she thought.
"So this is the special Vampire Ring that lets one remain unaffected in the sunlight," he muttered.
As Tsukuru looked at the Vampire Ring in his hand, a System Message appeared in front of him.
[Would you like to scan the Basic-Grade Vampire Ring?
[Yes] [No] ]
''Basic Grade', huh?' Tsukuru thought. 'I guess that means that there's stronger versions of the ring out there.'
Tsukuru then imagined selecting the "yes" option, and the first rectangle on the System screen lit up.
A moment later, the cone of light-blue shot out of his eyes, as his System began the scanning process.
However, moments later, the cone of light-blue light began to flash red, and a moment later, it dissipated.
In Tsukuru's vision, a large "!" could be seen, and an electric beep reminiscent of a rejection could be heard by him.
A System message then appeared. However, this one was red instead of light-blue.
[Notice: A System Error has occurred.. Basic-Grade Vampire Ring is incompatible with the System's mainframe. Item cannot be scanned. Scanning Process failed.]
Tsukuru let out a "tch" of annoyance.
"Looks like I can't replicate Vampire Beast Gear," Tsukuru muttered. "Well, that's annoying."
However, his eyes then narrowed.
'But, wait,' he thought. 'My System scanned that Intermediate-Tier Paleneedle Rapier just fine, and that was also a piece of Vampire Beast Gear!'
Tsukuru then began to think for a moment.
'Is it because it uses an unusual number of Beast Crystals?' he thought.
It was then that he saw Faye's slender hand grab the ring out of his grip.
"Give me that!" she muttered, a tone of annoyance in her voice.
She then looked down at him with an irritated expression.
"How do you even know about this thing, anyway?" she asked, her tone still having a sharp edge to it. "You just said that Student Talen wasn't from one of the Vampire Families."
Tsukuru glanced back at her.
"He's not," he replied. "However, he does seem to have some information about them."
"Apparently not enough to not cover his tracks," Faye retorted in a passive-aggressive tone as she placed the ring backon her finger.
Tsukuru gave her an amused smirk.
"You mean like choking on a food pillin the middle of the canteen?" he asked.
At Tsukuru's words, Faye's eyes widened, and her face flushed.
"I mean, like leaving bite puncture marks on people when he drinks their blood!" Faye shot back, flustered with embarrassment. "Hayley thinks that some imaginary Beast is prowling around the base, attacking people, because of him!"
Instantly, Tsukuru's smirk faded.
He wanted to start slamming his head repeatedly on the surface of the picnic table.
Tsukuru was unaware of this. To his knowledge, the only person Quinn had actually bitten was Layla. But apparently, he had bitten enough people for the Base to start to notice a pattern.
'Quinn…' Tsukuru thought in annoyance.
***
Back in Logan's room, Quinn was looking at Logan like he was crazy.
"Didn't you just hear me?" he asked. "I just told you, the Ability isn't mine. It belongs to…"
"...your friend's Original Family," Logan interrupted. "Yeah, I heard. I never said I was going to make your Ability public. If you want, you can come up here and play the game on a private server. That way, you can practice using your Ability in the game. You won't be able to fight against anyone, but you will be able to use your Ability freely without anybody watching. I get to study you, and you get to practice using your Ability. It's a win-win."
After Logan was finished, he turned around and took a sip out of a cup of coffee.
"Ahh, the perfect temperature," he muttered.
He then turned back to Quinn.
"So, what do you think?" he asked.
***
Back in the storage building, Tsukuru continued to work. By this point, he had made around half of the required Beast Daggers. A set of around twenty-one of his Basic-Tier Black Obsidian Daggers was clattered haphazardly on the top of the Glathrium picnic table.
Faye gritted her teeth, Tsukuru's earlier jab still fresh in her mind.
"And the only reason that I ate that pill in the first place was that I saw Student Talen eating food!" she retorted, her pride compelling her to defend her stupid actions. "I thought that if he was eating food, then we Vampires must be capable of consuming human food!"
Tsukuru let out an amused snort.
"That wasn't normal human food," he replied, before looking back at her. "It was something special that I made for him so he wouldn't raise suspicion by not eating in the canteen."
Faye's eyes narrowed.
"What kind of 'special food'?" she asked in a sharp tone.
Tsukuru's smirk widened.
"Raw meat," he replied.
Instantly, Faye's eyebrows rose in surprise.
***
Back in Logan's room, Quinn was thinking hard about Logan's suggestion.
There seemed to be no downsides.
The only thing was that he would feel a bit like a lab rat, but this did solve a few of his problems.
Before leaving on the Portal Expedition next week, he wanted to unlock that "Shadow Void" Skill from the Shadow Tab. That way, if he were stuck in a dangerous situation and in the sun, he would at least have a fighting chance to survive.
"I'd say go for it," the voice of the blonde-haired man replied in Quinn's head. "If you want to unlock the Shadow Void Skill, you'll need to obtain 20 Skill Points. And the only way to do that is by leveling up your current Shadow Skills. Once you do so, you'll be able to unlock the Skill. Personally, I think this is perfect for you."
Although Quinn found the voice of the man annoying most of the time, it was clear that he was on his side. Trying his best to help him whenever he could.
"Alright, Logan," Quinn replied finally. "I'll do it."
Hearing his words, Logan jumped out of his chair, a wide smile on his face.
"Great," he replied. "Let's get to work."
***
Back in the storage building, a silence had filled the room.
Faye stood there, stunned, as she tried to process the words that Tsukuru had just said.
"Did you just say…'raw meat'?" she asked. "You gave your friend raw meat to eat?" she
Tsukuru still bore his amused smirk.
"As crazy as it sounds, raw meat seems to be the only'human food' that Vampires seem to be able to eat," he replied. "Everything else is…well, you saw for yourself."
Faye narrowed her eyes.
'In other words, eating anything but raw meat will just make me throw up again,' Faye thought in annoyance.
"There," Tsukuru replied, snapping Faye from her thoughts. "All done."
On the picnic table in front of him, there were thirty Basic-Tier Daggers.
Tsukuru then turned to Faye.
"That should be just about everything," he replied.
Faye nodded.
"Good," she replied. "You can go."
Tsukuru began to walk away from the picnic table and towards the door.
"Student Hikiko," Faye replied, causing Tsukuru to freeze when he reached the door.
Tsukuru glanced back at her.
"You're right to not trust the Vampire Families," Faye replied, a dark expression on her face. "According to my Leader, they are not a united front. In fact, they are split down the middle into two factions."
Faye's eyes then narrowed.
"One wishes to protect Humanity, while the other sees us as food," she continued. "The Vampires who killed my subordinates on Pioletic fall under the second faction."
Tsukuru remained quiet for a moment.
"Yeah, I got it," he replied eventually. "Thanks for the warning, Sergeant Faye."
Tsukuru walked out the door.
Starrk gave Faye one last look before he walked out as well.
Now the only one in the storage building, Faye let out a sigh.
'Well, in the end, I found the Vampire on base,' Faye thought to herself. 'Technically, I did complete the secondary objective that Lady Muka gave me. I don't know if I exposed too much information than what I was supposed to, but at least I can report back this new information.'
However, Faye's eyes then narrowed, and she glanced back down at her ring.
"Student Quinn Talen," she muttered. "You really are quite unfortunate. I'm afraid that you won't do wellon the upcoming Portal Outing."
Caladi is quite possibly the worst possible option for a Vampire.
Especially one without a Vampire Ring.