Epilogue (6/30)

The gentle afternoon light shone through the clear windows and splashed onto a table that was littered with pens and papers. A bit of it fell on a girl’s face and she couldn’t help but close her eyes to bask in the soothing warmth.

It even made her a little sleepy. Although it was almost time for her dance lessons, Karin decided that now would be the perfect time to take a nap. It was only natural for living things to nap in the afternoon, and who was she to go against the natural order?

Her mind made up, Karin tossed the pen that she had been twirling onto the table to join the rest of its brethren. She kicked back her chair and stood up, stretching her stiff limbs and back, and fanned out her feathery wings.

The feeling of air flowing over her wings was pure bliss and she closed her eyes to bask in it a bit more. A long moan escaped from her mouth.

“Nap… nap…” Chanting her mantra to herself, Karin headed toward the cushion-filled couch at the back of the room. Then she saw the book that she had been reading sitting on one of the cushions, and just as quickly, her mantra changed. “Book… book…” 

As long as she had books to read, something as minor as sleep and her classwork could wait.

“Book…” She was just about to reach paradise when something large passed by her balcony, causing her whole room to flash for an instant as that “something” blocked and unblocked the sunlight. “Hmm, what was that? Bird? No way, something so big can’t…”

Her curiosity piqued, she abandoned her plans once more and rushed to her balcony, pulled the sliding glass door open, and ran outside. Once again, she felt the wind brush past her wings…

A ruckus interrupted her enjoyment and her eyes fluttered open to catch a few of the palace’s guards flying past her. But as much as they seemed to be in a hurry, obviously chasing after that shadow from earlier, they did not have their weapons drawn. That was strange.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked, calling after one of the guards. 

The guards exchanged glances and the slowest of them turned and flew back to hover at attention in front of her. He saluted. “Good afternoon, Princess! To answer, we’re chasing after Princess Callia.”

“Callia? Princess?”

Karin racked her mind for the name, and after some thinking, she finally remembered that her parents had told her about a delegation from the vampire coming over soon. That had been a few days ago, and since she wasn’t particularly interested in governance, it went in one ear and out the other…

So the “Princess Callia” must be someone accompanying that delegation.

As the guard began to explain, Karin cut him off and switched a question. “Uh huh. So why are you chasing after a princess? Are you even allowed to do that? Wouldn’t that sour relations?”

The guard grimaced. “Well… Princess Callia knocked over her Highness’s vace and decided to run when her mother asked her to apologize. So… we were tasked with bringing her back.”

“Why didn’t they send their guards?”

“I don’t know. The Princess— I mean Princess Callia’s mother— asked us to do it. I think this is a trap, because the guards from the vampire entourage were laughing…”

“Uh huh. I see, I see,” Karin said, nodding. “Well, do your best!”

The guard stood at attention and saluted again. “Yes, your Highness! We will definitely succeed in catching her!”

As she waved after him, the guard turned and flew off after the rest of his squad. Yawning, Karin headed back inside and closed the balcony again. The sunlight made her sleepy, but still, books waited for no one.

Almost skipping, she jumped onto the cushions on the couch and picked up her book. The sunlight flooding into the room and reflecting off of everything else was more than enough light to read by even without conjuring her light source.

Burying herself in the cushions, she began to read. As always, she became absorbed into it, but as she turned the page, the sunlight in her room flashed, making her blink and yanking her out of the book. Annoyed, she looked up just in time to see a few more figures flash past— guards, and that princess they were chasing.

Wrinkling her nose in annoyance, Karin settled back down and tried to get back into her book, but just as she found her place again… another flash.

“You have got to be kidding me! Why is it taking them so long?” she asked in exasperation. The guards in the palace weren’t weak at all, or they wouldn’t be working in here. How could they not catch a single mischievous princess?

Sighing, she looked back down and… another flash. Karin slammed her book closed. They were definitely doing this on purpose. Putting the book down next to her, she marched over to the balcony and yanked the door open just in time to catch a squad of palace guards passing by at top speed. 

“Hey!”

One of the guards broke off from the squad and flew over. “Yes, your Highness?”

It was the same guard as the one that Karin questioned earlier and as she stared at him with her hands on her hips, a bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face. The exhaustion was clear on his face and seeing him like this, Karin’s mouth twitched once and she softened her tone.

“You still haven’t caught her yet?”

“No, Princess… she’s too nimble and quick. It’s impossible to corner her with just one or two squads. Worse, she keeps hiding…” He sounded defeated, but after a moment, he straightened up. “But don’t worry, we’re getting another squad together!”

“Like hell you are!” Karin snapped, unable to bear hearing much more. The gentleness in her voice disappeared. The guard froze. “Three squads to catch one girl? Why don’t you call up the army too?”

The guard hung his head and with a deep sigh, Karin waved her hand. “Well, whatever. It’s not like you guys can catch me either. I’ll go see for myself what this ruckus is all about…”

Without waiting for the guard’s reply, she slipped on her shoes and lifted off, leaving the guard behind. 

Only then did the guard react and took off after her, only to fall further and further behind. “W-wait, Princess! It’s almost time for your dance lesson! You can’t just…” And then he was too far for Karin to make sense of his words, although it’s not like anything would change even if she could understand him.

A smile rose to her lips. She hated dancing lessons.

“Now, now, let’s see… vampire…”

There was no one flying about except her and the guard she left behind, so that vampire princess should be hiding somewhere. But where?

She closed her eyes and expanded her senses over the fortress-palace. Although the barrier interfered and scrambled the results she got, she could still approximate the location of a lone foreign signal wandering down the halls of one corner of the building. The nearest squad was nowhere near her.

The barrier was a double-edged sword, because it made it so that the squads could not use their mana sense to find that elusive princess. After all, not everyone was quite as talented as herself.

Laughing to herself, Karin took one look at the guard that had nearly caught up to her and shot down toward the palace again, entering through a window. She ignored the shouts of surprise of a few cleaning servants and continued to run.

First step was to lose that guard…

“Princess, isn’t it time for your lesson? Are you running away again?”

…and all those other servants. Sighing again, Karin rounded a corner and disappeared. When the guard finally reached that corner, his princess was nowhere to be seen…

“Now let’s see… where is she?” Karin muttered, closing her eyes. After taking a moment to pierce through the barrier’s interference, she quickly found her target. The elusive vampire princess had moved since the last time Karin checked and she was now surprisingly close. Just above her, in fact.

She looked around for a window, and when she found one, she did her best to hide her mana. She crawled through the window and onto the roof, and there, she saw a silver haired girl in a black ruffled dress laying flat on the roof, belly down.

The vampire princess was looking at something below her and giggling. 

Without checking, Karin knew that she was laughing at those palace guards that tried again and again to catch her but failing each time.

Don’t worry, everyone. I will avenge you!

Tiptoeing right up to the vampire princess’s side, she suddenly cleared her throat loudly, causing the vampire princess to jump to her feet like a startled cat. When Karin saw the girl’s face, she froze, stunned by the girl’s appearance…

Pretty…

She shook her head. No, she mustn’t be distracted. As she opened her mouth, a strange sense of familiarity rushed over her.

A tear traced a line down her cheek. 

“Hey, what are you doing?”