Little feet crunched in the snow next to Emma, and Sora’s little voice was like a machine gun, rattling off questions.

  “So what is a vampire anyway?”

  “Why are your teeth so sharp?”

  “How did you learn magic?”

  “Are you the best mage?”

  “Hey, hey, are you listening to me?”

  Emma sighed and frowned at the small girl. “Are you always so annoying? If I knew you were going to do this the whole way, I would not have taken you.”

  Sora pouted as Emma picked up the pace. The small girl made an effort to run through the thick snow coating her feet. “You don’t really mean that!”

  “Aren’t your little legs getting tired? I think we won’t reach a city for a while.”

  “What makes you say that?” Sora asked.

  “Because if there were sounds of people, I’d be able to hear them.”

  Sora tilted her head and squinted her eyes. “Do vampires have better hearing?”

  “Something like that. How do you still have so much energy? Don’t you get hungry or anything?”

  Sora smirked smugly before reaching into her little jacket pocket. Her mitted hands pulled out pieces of old dried meat and bread crumbs. “I already ate the bread, but this is all of the meat.”

  Emma wrinkled her nose at the few scraps of jerky. “Are you kidding me? That’s nothing! And I am guessing you have no idea how to hunt either.”

  Sora looked down towards the snow.

  Emma sighed deeply and put one hand to her temple. “Is there anything you know how to do?”

  Regret filled Emma’s mind as she saw how the little girl recoiled, tears threatening to break the dam. Once more, Emma found herself sighing and taking a knee before Sora. She pced a cold hand on the small girl’s shoulder.

  “Look, little girl...You don’t have to do anything. I am pretty sure I can hunt your food for you. As for cooking it, well…”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know how to use fire magic or make a fire.”

  Sora’s smile in response was so much the vampire had to look a way.

  “So, there are even things you don’t know how to do!”

  “Of course there are things I don’t know how to do. I don’t know how to do most things, as a matter of fact.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “But, my mom said…”

  “Your mom was probably trying to make you feel better. I’m not gonna tell you little white lies, girl, so give up on it. In fact, being out in this wilderness is very dangerous. If a monster comes, it could kill both of us.”

  “But you killed that thing!” Sora protested.

  “That thing was a fluke. It made a fatal error and died for it. How are you so clueless anyway? Shouldn’t a little vilge way out of the way have toughened kids?”

  Sora’s little cheeks grew red. “W-well, not me!”

  Emma chuckled, and she couldn’t stop her hand from ruffling the little girl’s hair. “Alright, alright, don’t worry. You will just have to eat the meat raw.”

  “Raw!?”

  Emma nodded and pointed her staff at a nearby tree. “You wait here, and I will find food.”

  “But, I already have…”

  “Those meager pieces of bacon won’t even feed a squirrel.”

  “Bacon?”

  “Forget about it! Just sit next to that tree!”

  Sora moved halfway to the tree before turning around. “Wait! You aren’t going to leave me are you?”

  “No! Just sit. Be a good little girl.”

  Sora frowned and sat against the tree. “I’m not a little girl!”

  Emma sniffed out the lingering strong scent of an animal. However, this one was not nearly as strong as the troll from before. The reaction from the olfactory organs convinced her it was a smaller animal or monster.

  Speaking of monsters, Emma found it odd that she’d only seen the troll since arriving here. She had a faint memory of several adventure books where monsters were more numerous, bandits were spotted on the roads, and some adventurers would defend merchants with their lives.

  She didn’t know how wise it was too leave a little kid against a tree, but she had no choice. This pce was definitely nothing like modern Earth. Besides, she managed to discover a spell for this very purpose. Using the cold winds, she could feel the presence of creatures she’d seen before.

  Interestingly enough, she could even use it to locate those vilgers to see how far she’d come, but the toll on her mana was too much. Using it only for the nearby girl made it so she barely lost more than she gained per second. If Emma had to guess, at night time, she’d actually gain more than she lost.

  Either way, she focused on the wilderness in front of her. They’d traveled quite a distance from the vilge, and the trees had become thicker. The yers of snow beneath them had become smaller gradually, and there were even missing patches here and there like the one she had Sora sit on.

  In front of the vampire, a rge white rat hopped around in the snow. It reminded Emma of those jumping mice she’d heard about. It had big and round white ears, but it was the size of a rge white rabbit. Luckily for Emma, this one didn’t seem malnourished at all.

  She crouched next to a tree and pointed her staff towards the creature. With a pull on her well, the staff released a blue glow, and a small shard of ice accelerated forward from the staff’s tip.

  In less than a second the small shard hit the rat mid air, hitting the vital point in its neck before it could even whimper or know who killed it.

  Emma looked down at Karck in awe. “Wow, did you control the direction of my spell?”

  What answered her was a smug glow, much to the vampire’s chagrin. Emma threw the staff at a nearby tree, but incredibly, it reflected like a boomerang, swinging through the air before smashing against the vampire’s nose, and knocking her to the ground.

  “You little shit!”

  She began strangling the neck of the staff, only to realize the only thing she damaged was her own pride.

  Emma groaned as she picked up the small rat by the ears. She looked at the blood that slowly flowed out of the wound in its neck.

  “Well, here goes nothing!”

  Her sharp fangs bit down into the creature, and she began sucking out all of its blood. The vampire felt her raging hunger from before slowly fading, and her mood slightly improved.