After

  getting over her sudden disappearance, it took Vincent a few seconds to

  process Verona's words. Come on, she wasn't going to help them at all.

  Just wait. She would just wait and watch. She would just wait and watch.

  Come on, just like the professors had done in the initiation test.

  Nothing more. It was a hassle, but it could be worse, he supposed. It

  could also be better.

  Regaining his composure easily, he suggested something that should have been on everyone's mind, if they had any sense.

  "We could, we should cooperate."

  It

  shouldn't have surprised him, but his suggestion wasn't very well

  received. One of the guys crossed his arms and glared at him.

  "Cooperate? Don't give me that nonsense."

  "We're alone, in a strange city."

  "What's in it for us?"

  "And what good does not cooperating do us?"

  "This is a test, just like any other," a girl said—it was frustrating, not being able to put names to faces. "A competition."

  "What are you talking about? The professor didn't give us a single fucking explanation. You're just assuming that."

  "I agree," another guy said. "We're enemies, not allies. No need to complicate things."

  He knew he wasn't going to win any points with this, but...

  "Are you all idiots? Do you think she gathered us here just so we can all go wherever the fuck we want? Without cooperating?"

  His words, though true, were as poorly received as the suggestion to cooperate. One even put a hand on his sword, though he didn't draw it.

  "Who do you think you are? Your ego has gotten way too big."

  "Vincent," Ayame called him softly. "If they don't want to cooperate, let them not cooperate. We don't need them, anyway."

  "In a civilized kingdom, a creature like you wouldn't be allowed to talk back to your betters."

  Vincent froze. Suddenly, he no longer cared about cooperating, or anyone's name. Vincent took a step, a couple of steps forward, until they were face to face, until he was standing in front of the asshole. The difference in height, in their height and musculature, was obvious. Vincent, you might just be a mere warrior at heart, but fieldwork was also great exercise.

  "That's right, whatever your name is," Vincent said, very slowly. "In a civilized country, a creature like you wouldn't be allowed to speak. We don't need to cooperate."

  "You think you intimidate me, you bastard?"

  But his words were hollow. You could hear the slight tremor in his voice and the gesture he made to take a step back. He stopped himself at the last second, but Vincent knew. They all knew. It wasn't exactly his ground.

  "I think I don't give a damn," Vincent replied. "I think I'm going to cut out your fucking tongue so you can never speak again. I'm going to go ahead and use it."

  "You're insane."

  Vincent brought his hand to the pommel of his sword.

  "Vincent," Ayame said softly, insisting. "That's enough. He's not worth it."

  "I don't want him to get away with it."

  Ayame crossed her arms, turning away, looking at the city with a slightly strange, hard-to-read expression.

  "Then you already got what you wanted. You've already humiliated him."

  "Whore—" the asshole spat indignantly. Only it came out more like a choked grunt because he couldn't finish the single word.

  Vincent hit him in the face with his sword. With the pommel of his sword. Only. Escalating things, though not too much. Anyway, he deserved it. One of his companions helped him up while the idiot complained. Coughing, glaring at him.

  "Fine. If a fight is what you want."

  "Vincent," Ayame called him again. "I said that's enough. You have nothing to prove. Let's stop wasting time and go investigate, that's why we're here."

  Vincent was burning to beat the shit out of that son of a bitch, but on the other hand, he was too angry. Part of him was afraid of really losing his temper and going so far as to cut out his fucking tongue in a fit of rage. That could get him expelled from... That could cost him his place at Runehaven, not to mention it would also... Not to mention it would also affect his companions for not stopping him. So he turned around.

  "You're lucky. I would have torn you apart and enjoyed it immensely."

  "This isn't over. You hear me? I'm going to fuck you up, you and your bitch. Your vampire bitch."

  Vincent clenched his fists. He was on the verge of turning around. Of saying to hell with it all. He was on the verge of not stopping at just cutting out his tongue but also slitting his throat to start. But then Ayame took his hand and squeezed it. He forced himself to relax. He reminded himself that this wasn't what she wanted and it wouldn't fix anything.

  They weren't the only ones leaving. Anyway, a few others had stopped wasting time too, and besides the asshole's group, the rest who remained standing there, the few who were left, were probably just, well, enjoying the show. Vincent didn't speak until they were far enough away. He just didn't trust himself. He knew that if he started talking about it while the asshole was still within reach, he would probably lose his temper completely and definitively, even with the heat, even with the warmth of Ayame's hand squeezing his—which, by the way, was still there; she hadn't let go. That made him feel good, no doubt, but it didn't distract him from his thoughts, from his rage.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "What's his fucking problem?" Vincent said, his voice still trembling. "It didn't even seem real, it was like a fucking caricature."

  Tara felt, swallowed, she didn't know what to say, of course, neither did he, but he couldn't stay silent, that was all.

  "It's because nothing about him is real," Ayame said. "He hates vampires, but not because of anything that's happened to him. He learned it from his parents, his grandparents, maybe he's just fitting in with his friends. In any case, nothing real."

  "That's it," Tara said. "That's so unfair."

  "That's reality," Ayame said.

  "It shouldn't be like this," Vincent said.

  "Of course not, but..."

  Ayame took a deep breath, lowered her head.

  "It doesn't matter," she added, though her words contrasted a bit with her somewhat melancholic expression. "There are better things to focus on. As long as they don't hurt me or my friends, words are just words."

  In theory, that was the ideal response, to be better than them, not to let them drag you down to their level or cause you trouble when they themselves didn't dare to act. However, it wasn't a satisfying answer, not by a long shot. Vincent needed something more, but what the hell could he do. Even if he beat up the entire academy, things wouldn't get better, in fact, they would only get worse. What could he do about it? As horrible as it was, the answer was probably nothing. The problem was bigger than him, it was something that had been this way, even worse, before he was born and would continue to exist after he died, for sure. Just thinking about it was fucking depressing and it didn't even affect him directly, well, it did, but what he meant was, he wasn't sure how Ayame could handle it so well, at least on the outside, he thought.

  "What do we do now?" Vincent asked her, the only thing he could do to distract himself from his thoughts was to focus on what he could change.

  "I have no idea," Ayame admitted. "I don't even know where we are. I was just walking."

  "Oh."

  , he thought. He would never say it.

  However, Tara looked at him and he knew she was thinking the same thing.

  They walked down the streets of Viewpoint for a good while, studying the field, fumbling in the dark, it was all the same. He should have paid attention to what the students from the first round had said when they returned.

  It probably wasn't the exact same test, not even in the same city, but at least he might have gotten an idea. It didn't seem like a very fair test when Professor Verona hadn't even bothered to give them the slightest detail. Not what to do, not where to go, not even a small clue to start. No, just the starting gun, nothing more.

  Vincent didn't feel like anything had begun, he just felt like an idiot walking around, wasting time in a strange city where of course they stood out like a sore thumb. This was a city, so all the inhabitants must have seen a vampire before, unlike him. But Ayame attracted stares not just for her blood-red eyes.

  Vincent was a village boy with little experience, but by now he felt qualified to say that Ayame was a beauty by anyone's standards. She seemed to be wrapped in an ethereal light, and all her movements were graceful. He sounded like a fool she had bewitched, but Vincent believed that no matter how exaggerated his words sounded, he was simply being as objective as he could be.

  he thought.

  That made him feel guilty for the way he sometimes just stared at her, entranced.

  Anyway, I'm an idiot and I lost my train of thought a while ago. The city, the field study, yes, yes. Where was I?

  "We could try our luck in a tavern," Tara suggested suddenly.

  "A tavern," Ayame repeated.

  The archer shrugged.

  "Why not? It happens a lot in novels."

  "Our lives are not an adventure novel."

  "Well, but sometimes clichés exist for a reason."

  That was true, Vincent supposed.

  Anyway, it was a better idea than what they had, which was nothing. They approached the tavern Tara had pointed out. Vincent sighed, he didn't like the idea of going into a place full of drunks, but well, they had to try. They went through the entrance. Immediately.

  "No weapons allowed in here," said, presumably, the owner, without lifting his head from the bar.

  Vincent raised an eyebrow, that hadn't been a rule in any of the establishments in his village and no one would have dared to implement it. People who could afford it and wanted to went around with hunting tools and self-defense weapons mainly everywhere.

  But of course, the city was bigger, more chaotic, he supposed it was true and it made sense.

  Tara and Ayame didn't seem surprised, in any case.

  Still, or rather precisely because of that, he didn't trust that no one would try to steal their equipment. He tensed up, considering things.

  He saw Tara approach and deposit her bow and quiver, though nothing could make her part with her arrows, inside a box with many other weapons. Seeing that, he made up his mind. He might not like it, but well, those were the rules. He left his sword and shield there, but kept a hidden knife, just in case. He'd have to be crazy to leave himself defenseless in a strange place like this.

  Ayame had no weapon other than her skills and her own body, so she had nothing to deposit, but he worried that the asshole owner would say something like "no vampires allowed in here." He hadn't looked at them yet, after all. That horrible rule could very well exist. There were stares and whispers, but no one tried to kick them out of the place.

  Good. He had never seen a bar fight in his village. He didn't want to start now.

  Vincent refused to order a mug of mead; the same went for Ayame and Tara, they just ordered food. He felt relieved, to be honest. He didn't mind it in moderation, of course not—he wouldn't have split from them if they had been drinking—but he preferred not to have alcohol in his life in any way or amount. They had ordered something so the owner wouldn't kick them out, of course, and so they could go around asking, in not-so-subtle ways, to be honest, if anyone had seen anything interesting or out of place.

  Even the smallest clue would have been enough. However, they left the place empty-handed, just as they'd entered. Well, not quite.

  Empty-handed, he thought, and with full stomachs. That's something. Luckily, they didn't get very far before something interesting found them.

  To be more precise, a guy came flying out of the nearest alley, screaming at the top of his lungs, and landed hard on the dirt, not far from them. Which made them look at each other; well, it wasn't something you saw every day. In the training hall, maybe; in the middle of the city, no, or at least you weren't supposed to.

  "This might be it," Tara suggested, "something the professors set up."

  Half a dozen armed men emerged from the alley. Apparently, they wanted to finish what they had started.

  "Maybe, maybe not," Vincent said, "but I'm not just going to stand by."

  That man was just a stranger and maybe he even deserved what he was about to get. However, that didn't mean he could or should just stand by. He was a knight, wasn't he? Well, it was time to act like one.

  Vincent drew his sword.

  He didn't have to leave this to the authorities. If things got really ugly, the guy and maybe a few others would be dead before the police arrived. Anyway, someone had to do something and, apparently, volunteers were in very short supply.

  Well, well, he thought. Who would have thought?