The cold, suffocating static in my brain suddenly cleared, replaced by a sharp, desperate line of tactical logic. The internal monologue faded, leaving behind a freezing, mathematical absolute. I couldn't stay hidden in this room while Olive bled for my silence, and I couldn't let the Bureau hunt me until they tore House 132 apart.
I had to control the narrative. I had to manipulate the ledger.
Slowly, I pushed myself up from the light blue sofa, my newly healed left hand pressing firmly against the cushion to stabilize my 5'5" frame. I looked past the tears blurring my vision, locking my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes onto Elicia, then onto Evelyn.
"Elicia... Evelyn, Let's go to the Bureau. The gates will open at dawn. I have the purebred's head wrapped in velvet inside my inventory ring. I will deliver the head directly to Chief Roman." I said, my voice dropping its hysterical edge, returning to that flat, deadpan, mechanical register.
Elicia blinked, her silver hair swaying as she stared at me, caught off guard by the sudden, clinical shift in my posture.
"If I hand over the high-value target that liquidated Branch 2, the Bureau will close the file. They will believe the high-rank bounty hunter, Eirene, successfully terminated the threat. They will think the 'blood-sucking winged demon' reported at the oasis was either a myth, a misidentification by Elias, or a monster that I destroyed out there in the sand. Once the bounty is turned in and the ledger is balanced... I'm free. And Olive is safe."
It was a dangerous gamble… stepping directly into the lion's den while carrying the infection in my spine… but it was the only way to redirect the hounds away from my family.
Before Elicia could vocalize the heavy, protective doubts swelling in her expression, Evelyn stepped forward.
She stood straight, her small boots avoiding the spilled pool of strawberry jam on the floorboards. She adjusted the collar of her pristine, white-and-scarlet Luminous Knight uniform jacket, her small chest swelling with a sudden, fierce sense of purpose that defied her young age. The innocent, jam-smeared child vanished beneath the rigid discipline of her training.
"Yes, big sister," Evelyn said, her little voice surprisingly firm and unwavering as she looked up at me with absolute loyalty.
"I will join you. I will walk right beside you into the Bureau. I still have my official duties as a Luminous Knight, and I will use my standing to make sure they respect your claim. They won't dare look at you suspiciously if one of their own uniform guards is standing right by your side."
The sight of her… so small, yet so entirely determined to shield me with the very institution that wished to destroy me… sent a profound, aching warmth through my frozen core. I couldn't change what I had become beneath the cloth, but as I prepared to face Chief Roman, I knew I wasn't walking into the jaws of the Bureau as a solitary monster anymore. I was walking in with my family.
The absolute, suffocating tension in the room fractured, leaving behind a fragile but solid resolve. I looked at both of them… Elicia standing by the sofa with her silver hair catching the first true rays of morning light, and Evelyn standing proud in her sharp white-and-scarlet uniform jacket.
"Thank you, sisters," I whispered, my voice finally sounding grounded, the mechanical deadpan softening into something genuinely human.
Elicia let out a long, dramatic sigh, placing her hands on her hips as her intense, worried expression suddenly melted into a classic, older-sister smirk. She stepped forward, wrinkling her nose as she pointedly looked down at my tattered, sand-scuffed dress, which was heavily stained with dried camel blood and grime from the dunes.
"Well, if we're going to march into the Bureau and demand an audience with Chief Roman, we need to get you cleaned up,"
Elicia declared, her tone shifting into a lighter, teasing rhythm to break the lingering psychological dread.
"Let's get dressed, Eirene. Please don't wear that dress of yours. It reeks of sweat and blood. It would be highly embarrassing for the Bureau to see the legendary bounty hunter who killed the purebred vampire walking out of the battlefield looking… and smelling… like a swamp creature. Better yet, I didn't know my little sister had such a sour odor."
My face instantly flushed a brilliant, hot crimson, the heat rushing to my cheeks so fast it practically bypassed my Pain Manipulation.
"Stop it! I... I will change! It was a long flight through a desert storm!" I stammered, my deadpan mask completely shattering as I defensively crossed my newly regenerated left arm over my chest
"Mmhmm. Go on, shoo," Elicia teased gently, though her crimson eyes still held a lingering, fiercely protective warmth.
I stood up from the light blue sofa. My massive, translucent crimson blood wings gave one final, powerful rustle, their sharp skeletal joints flexing naturally as I balanced my 5'5" frame. Moving with a lighter stride than before, I carried the weight of my wings across the living room, stepping carefully around Evelyn and her spilled pool of jam, and headed up the stairs toward my bedroom. The ledger wasn't fixed yet, and the chief was waiting, but as I reached for the doorknob of my room to find a clean outfit, the crushing terror of the dark felt just a little bit lighter.
The heavy wooden door of my bedroom clicked shut, locking out the rest of House 132. Moving with practiced urgency, my first action was to glide across the floorboards and pull the thick, velvet curtains tightly across the window frames. I couldn't risk it. If a single stray beam of the rising morning sun pierced the glass and touched my hypersensitive skin, it would scorch me instantly, and any nosy neighbors glancing up at the second story would see the horrific, translucent crimson silhouette of my blood wings.
Once the room was encased in a safe, artificial twilight, I finally let out a ragged breath and looked down at myself.
True to what Elicia had said, the scent hit me properly now that the adrenaline was fading. I smelled aggressively sour… a wretched, stale combination of heavy desert sweat, dried camel blood, and the metallic tang of volatile mana. It was repulsive. Keeping my wings tightly folded against my spine to avoid snagging the fabric, I unbuttoned the ruined, scuffed outfit and stripped off my soiled garments and undergarments, throwing them into a discarded pile in the corner.
I grabbed a basin of cool water, quickly washing the grime and dried stains from my 5'5" frame, before pulling on a fresh set of undergarments and a clean, simple white linen dress. The fabric felt incredibly light and soft against my skin, a stark contrast to the heavy, armor-like tactical gear I usually wore to the battlefields.
With the clean linen dress settled over my frame, I turned around to face the full-length vanity mirror in the corner of the room, intending to check my hair and present a proper, dignified front for Chief Roman.
I froze.
I stared forward, but the glass showed absolutely nothing.
The light blue walls of my bedroom, the edge of the wooden wardrobe, the heavy drapes… everything was perfectly reflected in the glass. But where my body should have been standing, there was a void. The white linen dress blended seamlessly into the illusion, entirely invisible alongside my body and my folded wings.
A cold, sudden wave of realization washed over my processing core, bringing a quiet, chilling reminder of my physical reality. I had completely forgotten. The Phase 5 virus hadn't just altered my cells, my appetite, and my back; it had stripped away my very presence from the physical laws of light. I had a total lack of reflection.
I raised my newly regenerated left hand, watching the empty space in front of the mirror where my fingers should be flexing against the glass. I was whole, I was clean, and I was surrounded by a family who loved me… but the empty mirror stared back, a silent, psychological horror reminding me that beneath the clean white linen, the human girl named Eirene was permanently gone.
I walked down the creaking wooden stairs, the hem of my fresh white linen dress brushing against my ankles. The clean fabric felt light, but the empty void I had just seen in the mirror still weighed heavily on my mind.
At the bottom of the steps, my sisters were already waiting, fully geared up and anchoring me back to reality.
Evelyn stood straight, adjusting her pristine white-and-scarlet Luminous Knight uniform. Because of her unique slime biology, her physical form was incredibly deceptive; though she was chronologically only six years old, her magically stabilized body possessed the striking silhouette of a 20-year-old woman. Standing at 5'6" with an F-cup bust, her curves easily filled out the custom-fitted breastplate she wore over her uniform.
Beside her, Elicia stood even taller at 5'8", her imposing G-cup frame radiating a mature, authoritative aura. She held her polished wooden casting staff firmly in her right hand, its magical conduit humming with a faint, reassuring warmth.
As I stepped onto the living room floorboards, Elicia's crimson eyes softened, a warm smile breaking through her serious expression.
"Eirene, you look magnificent in that dress, Before we leave for the Bureau, mind you take a breakfast? You're going to need your strength for what comes next."
I looked at the two of them… my little sister ready to represent the Knights, and my older sister holding her staff like a shield. The tactical calculations for our meeting with Chief Roman were still spinning in the back of my mind, but looking at the breakfast table, I felt a rare sense of peace.
"Sure, sister," I replied softly, offering them a small, genuine nod as I walked toward the kitchen, ready to take a moment of comfort with my family before we stepped into the lion's den.
I stepped into the kitchen, the familiar scent of wood smoke instantly mixing with the underlying, faintly chemical tang of the room. This wasn't a normal culinary space; because of my specialized alchemical work for the Bureau, this kitchen doubled as a built-in laboratory where I synthesized everything from advanced tear gas to volatile mustard gas compounds. Glass beakers and sealed crucibles sat on the far counters, safely sterilized and put away.
Walking past the experimental setups, I opened the cupboard. My eyes scanned the shelves before landing on a basket of fresh fruit, and I immediately reached in to pick out a standard, crisp red apple.
The movement was entirely instinctual. Lately, my pregnancy cravings had been kicking in with a sudden, aggressive force. My baby was now two months along in the womb, a silent, developing life resting just beneath the fabric of my clean linen dress. Even though the infection had altered my biology and filled me with a monstrous hunger for blood, my body still screamed for raw, tangible nutrients to sustain the pregnancy. I needed the sugars and vitamins.
I took a sharp, crisp bite of the apple, the sweet juice cutting through the lingering metallic taste in my mouth, and walked back out into the living room.
As soon as I stepped over the threshold, Elicia caught my eye. With a fluid, practiced motion, she lifted a heavy, dark traveling cloak from the coat rack and threw it toward me.
"Wear it, Eirene, You can't reveal your wings in public. The streets between here and the central district are going to be crawling with patrols after that newspaper report." Elicia instructed, her voice dropping into a serious, tactical tone as she adjusted her grip on her casting staff.
Catching the thick fabric with my newly healed left hand, I nodded silently. With the apple still held firmly between my teeth, I draped the large cloak over my 5'5" frame. I carefully pulled the heavy hood up to shade my face and my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes, then reached down to secure the front fasteners. The thick, reinforced material fell over my shoulders, completely enveloping my back and compressing my massive, translucent crimson blood wings safely beneath the dark cloth. Not a single skeletal joint or feather was visible from the outside.
With the apple in my mouth, my wings hidden, and my sisters fully armed and uniform-ready beside me, I gave them a sharp nod. Evelyn gripped the hilt of her sword, Elicia held her staff, and together, we stepped out of House 132 and into the cool morning air, locking the door behind us as we marched toward the Luminous Knights Bureau.