Chapter 55: A Tier 3 Angel’s Woes and Vampire Revelations

“Flora, could you perhaps show me your wings?”

‘How is it that Blanche, just like Tiffany, seems intent on my wings?’

“Uh, I can’t just reveal them now; it would expose me.”

I gently declined her request.

“Flora, have you truly lost your memory? Do angels even experience amnesia?”

This was Hayden’s query.

“It’s true; I can’t recall anything from before.”

‘Apologies, but whether angels suffer from amnesia is beyond my knowledge.’

‘However, I haven’t actually lost my memory, nor will I admit it, which means another poor soul has fallen victim to my deception.’

“Flora, what’s your Adventurer’s Guild score? If we manage to return, perhaps we could form a team together…”

Erica, a touch bashful, produced her own adventurer’s ID card, and I noticed it boasted several thousand points.

‘Wow, that’s impressive!’

‘This is precisely what I need most.’

However, as I reached for my own ID card, my hand abruptly froze.

I remembered the glaring words emblazoned on it: ‘Rank: Tier 3’.

‘If anyone saw that, it would be utterly humiliating.’

“Ah, haha… it seems I only have a little over a hundred.”

I could only offer a rough figure from memory.

“Oh, wait! After taking this mission, it’s practically gone, unless I can safely escort Sally back.”

“Hmm, where’s your ID card?”

Predictably, my failure to produce it had aroused suspicion.

“It’s… it’s lost. I think it went missing last night when I was being chased by the Ghost-faced Dragonflies.”

Against my conscience, I was forced to tell another lie.

“It’s fine; just remember to get a replacement when you can.”

Erica, harboring no doubts, even offered advice, reminding me not to forget to report it lost.

‘I’m sorry, my conscience aches.’

‘I’ll strive to reach Tier 4 as quickly as possible before I show you.’

After everyone else, spurred on by Alfred, went upstairs to rest, only Amos and I remained downstairs on watch.

“Amos, don’t you need to rest for a bit?”

‘I couldn’t possibly sleep during the day, given how energetic I feel.’

‘But Amos is different from me; he’s just a regular human, and he’s just returned from an outdoor expedition, so he must have expended a good deal of stamina.’

“It’s fine! If I went to rest, someone else would just come down to accompany you, and wouldn’t they all be the same anyway?”

“Besides, this gives us a good chance to catch up.”

Amos shook his head, his thoughts clearly far-reaching.

‘This was, after all, a matter of trust.’

‘Even if I was an angel, in a city controlled by the enemy, Alfred, as the captain, had to consider everyone’s safety.’

‘It was utterly impossible for him to let a newly joined member like me stand guard alone while everyone else slept.’

“How is Tiffany?”

As expected, he immediately inquired about Tiffany’s whereabouts, a question that coincidentally also troubled me.

“That, I truly don’t know…”

I briefly explained the situation: after he and Brook departed with the army, Tiffany had joined an urgent mission and hadn’t returned since.

“Still not back, and no word at all?”

Amos’s brow furrowed visibly upon hearing this, a hint of worry in his expression.

“Uh, she did say she’d be gone for ‘a while,’ but I have no idea how long ‘a while’ actually means…”

Seeing his troubled look, I too grew uneasy.

‘It’s been almost a month now; surely nothing bad has happened, right?’

“It’s hard to say,” Amos murmured, scratching his head before offering me a rough explanation.

“Because occasionally there are long-term assignments. For instance, Brook and I, even as mercenaries, were away for at least one or two months on this expedition, weren’t we?”

“So, she’s probably fine for now?”

Hearing his words, I finally let out a sigh of relief.

‘I still don’t know what kind of mission Tiffany took; she didn’t reveal a single hint to me.’

‘If I knew, I’d at least have some idea how to react.’

“Let’s wait another month and see,” Amos stated gravely.

“If there’s still no news after two months, that would be highly unusual, and it would most likely mean something has happened.”

‘With that conclusion… my heart immediately sank again.’

“How is Brook doing now?”

I recalled what Blanche had mentioned earlier: their Fifth Legion had suffered heavy casualties in an attack.

‘Surely the redhead isn’t among them, is he?’

‘If something truly had happened, it would be an unbearable twist of fate.’

‘Had I not transmigrated here and met Amos, the situation for the three of them, from the capital’s perspective, would have been a tragic tale of one casualty and two missing persons.’

“He should be fine. Before our team transferred here, he was part of another small squad, participating in the search mission for the Kaga Mountains.”

Noticing the sudden shift in my expression, Amos looked at me strangely, unsure of my thoughts.

“He’s considered the strongest among the three of us. Nothing will happen to him.”

“Oh, that’s good!”

I wiped away a bead of sweat, realizing I had indeed been overthinking things.

The atmosphere then abruptly plunged into an awkward silence, leaving both of us seated, unsure of what to say next.

‘I truly had no idea what more to talk about.’

‘My relationship with Amos, as a male, wasn’t as familiar as my bond with Tiffany.’

‘It felt as though ever since I transmigrated into this world and became a girl, I’d mostly been mingling among women, growing increasingly distant from men.’

‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want to approach them; it was just that I always felt a certain barrier between us.’

‘Our conversations lacked the uninhibited, heart-to-heart candidness I used to share with friends back when I was a boy.’

Even Angelina, that brazen and unscrupulous angel, had less and less contact with them after securing her own place.

“Did you really lose your Guild ID card?”

Finally, Amos broke the silence.

Yet, I hadn’t expected him to ask such a question, and I felt a sudden pang of bewilderment.

“Th-th-this…”

‘He must have known that I was only Tier 3, which made his question all the more intriguing.’

“No!”

Deciding to come clean, I dejectedly pulled out my ID card and handed it to him.

“You truly do care what others think, don’t you?”

Amos couldn’t help but chuckle as he read the words ‘Tier 3’ on the card.

“What’s so funny about that!”

Seeing his smile, I grew a little flustered.

‘This rank issue had become a festering wound in my heart, and having him bring it up to my face felt nothing short of another public execution.’

“Let me tell you, I’m completely different from before now! My strength has definitely increased significantly!”

“Oh? Is that so?”

He looked somewhat unconvinced.

“Of course it’s true! I’m super powerful now…”

I then immediately recounted all my ‘great achievements’ to him once more, from rescuing the residents of Tedles Town with Purification magic and battling the Ghost-faced Dragonflies, to ultimately kicking the Tier 5 demon lord Buck flying.

I omitted no details, naturally skipping over the more embarrassing parts.

Throughout my narration, Amos listened quietly, a constant smile on his face, never interrupting.

Only after I finished the part about the demon Buck did he speak.

“Why did that demon Buck disappear afterward? He only took one kick from you, and he shouldn’t be weaker than that Succubus. Even if he was drunk, he shouldn’t have fallen into a room and then just not reappeared, should he?”

“Exactly, that puzzles me too!”

‘I’m actually quite confused about it myself,’ but I still offered my thoughts.

“Perhaps he drank too much and simply passed out the moment he fell, or maybe it’s because the Succubus and I left the area so quickly that he didn’t have time to pursue us.”

“I, however, don’t think either of those reasons is very likely.”

“Something inside that house must have snagged him.”

Amos abruptly offered his analysis, his tone growing serious.

“That house?”

At his mention, I immediately remembered that Buck had fallen into the very ‘coffin-like’ house that had given me an unsettling feeling.

‘Could there truly be something terrifying inside?’

A shiver ran down my spine at the thought.

‘Sally had even been clamoring to target those houses back then; thankfully, she didn’t get the chance, or it would have been another perilous situation.’

“Actually, we’ve seen a few of those coffin-like houses ourselves during the time we’ve been trapped in the city,” Amos suddenly shared, recounting his own experiences.

“Our squad members were quite curious at the time, and Blanche even wanted to go in and investigate.”

“But based on my personal judgment, I suspected it might be a vampire’s dwelling, so I stopped her.”

“Vampires?”

‘Ah, yes!’

A wave of realization washed over me.

‘Coffins, and dark creatures at that—it was just that the “coffins” had become house-sized, so my mind hadn’t made the connection immediately.’

‘In truth, describing the house as coffin-like was merely my subjective impression; its exterior was simply windowless and rectangular.’

‘It differed somewhat from the actual shape of a coffin, so perhaps it was normal not to have considered it from that angle.’

“Are vampires very powerful? Powerful enough to hold back a Tier 5 demon?”

Being less adept at judging strength, I could only consult Amos, who was well-versed in such matters.

“Vampires are actually somewhat similar to you angels, though their elemental affinities are exact opposites.”

“You angels are beings composed purely of light elements, whereas vampires, when in human form, are composed of dark elements, yet their true form, bats, are not elemental creatures.”

Amos paused to organize the knowledge in his mind before explaining to me.

“Therefore, their strength is generally not weak; like you angels, they start at least at Tier 4.”

“Most hover around Tier 5 and 6, and a select few who have lived for thousands of years should easily exceed Tier 7.”

“Tier 4 start again?”

I grumbled, feeling a surge of displeasure at the mention of ‘Tier 4 start’.

‘However, if vampires are that formidable, then it’s quite normal for them to have held back Buck; that was truly a stroke of luck.’

Seeing my reaction, Amos seemed to instantly discern my thoughts and offered a comforting smile.

“Your Tier 3 status was a month ago already; your current strength should have advanced to Tier 4.”

“So, if you get tested again, you’ll definitely refresh your rank, and you won’t have to fear embarrassment anymore.”

“Really? Am I truly Tier 4?”