kscans

Chapter 31 - Can Vampires Get Stomachaches?

Gurgle...

"Ugh..."

My stomach let out an ostentatious gurgle as I lay buried in my coffin. The reason being, my stomach had been hurting for a while now.

"Mmmgh..."

It seemed my feeling of having a stomachache wasn't some mental, stress-induced pain, but the real deal. My stomach hurt, yet for some reason, nothing would come out.

"Why am I constipated when all I drink is blood?"

Ugh, I thought becoming a Vampire would free me from such human-like problems...

"Oh, how pitiful you look. If I could take your place, I would gladly do so."

Adolnel comforted me with a pained expression, gently rubbing my stomach. Ugh, just hearing you say that makes me happy.

"Still, I'm surprised to learn that Vampires can get upset stomachs."

She had a point there.

GURGLEGURGLEGURGLE!

"Nngh!"

A particularly sharp pain shot through my belly, and I curled into a ball to try and bear it. The pain was becoming unbearable, yet with nowhere to go, it just kept building inside me. Then, just as I thought my stomach was about to burst...

Plop.

Something rolled out.

""Huh?""

What rolled onto the floor was...

"An egg?"

Yes, it was an egg. But why? Where did an egg come from?

"This is... Big Sis's egg?!"

"Of course not!"

I'm human—well, a Vampire now. But Vampires don't lay eggs! I was a Vampire Bat before this, but bats don't lay eggs either... right?

"Big Sis."

Adolnel stared at me with a dead-serious expression.

"Whose child is it?!"

"It's nobody's child!"

"Then it's an unfertilized egg?!"

"Why are you so convinced I laid it?!"

"Who else could have laid it! And your stomachache... could it have been, you know... l-labor pains?"

Adolnel suggested something outrageous, her face blushing bright red. Where did you even learn a word like that?! What? The library? Ah, I see. I'd better inspect the books in there later. Seems like there's a lot of material that could be bad for Adolnel's education.

"But in all seriousness, how is your stomach now?"

"Eh? Hmm..."

At her words, I placed a hand on my stomach.

"The pain is gone."

Miraculously, the ache in my stomach had vanished completely.

"See! I knew you laid it!"

"I told you, you're wrong!"

"Confess! Whose child did you have behind my back?!"

It was at that very moment. We heard a sound. Crack, crack.

"Huh? What was that?"

I frantically looked around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. And yet... hearing a clack, clack sound, I glanced down to see the egg was shaking!

"What? It's moving?!"

The egg's movements grew more violent, and the cracking sounds were joined by sharper snap, pop noises as fissures spread across its surface.

"I-Is it hatching?!"

"No, no, no, that's way too fast! I just laid it!"

"So you admit you laid it!"

"No! That was just a figure of speech!"

As we argued, the cracks in the egg widened rapidly. Finally, with a loud CRACK, the egg split open.

"Kiii!"

From inside emerged a single, tiny bat.

"A... bat?"

What's going on? Why a bat?

"Um, are Vampires born in bat form when they're young?"

"I-I don't think so..."

I mean, I myself went from a Vampire Bat to a Vampire, but that was because I evolved. Besides, I'm pretty sure Vampires are beings that increase their numbers by drinking blood and turning others. I seem to recall my master telling me as much during my lessons at the castle.

But if that's the case, then who is this little one...?

While we stood there baffled, the bat that came out of the egg shook off the shell still stuck to its head and began looking around curiously. The moment it looked up at me, I felt a wave of joy from it.

"Nithe to meet you, Mathter!"

This was the moment of the third fateful encounter that would shake my life to its core. You know, there are surprisingly a lot of life-shaking moments in my life.