Chapter 9: Who Is the Monster, and Who Is the Prey?

The Dark Demon Tiger slowly lowered its massive body.

Its proud beast instincts told it that the prey before it, exuding an enticing aroma, was an extremely rare delicacy.

It couldn’t wait any longer, wanting to swallow the whole thing in one go.

In its line of sight, that prey seemed to have been frightened silly, actually standing there motionless.

The petite girl with white hair and red eyes was bending over, hands clutching her stomach.

Her body trembled slightly, her head buried low, completely obscuring her face behind white hair.

But the demon tiger did not rashly attack, because it vaguely heard some sound from her.

“What a joke…”

The girl murmured.

“What a joke? It’s just a beast!”

Sevitis lifted her head sharply. Anger twisted her delicate, petite face into a ferocious expression, and crimson mana surged around her with her emotions.

Her blood-red eyes also completely transformed, becoming eerie and dangerous vertical pupils that emitted a soul-shaking light.

At the same time, a row of semi-transparent information panels materialized out of thin air before Sevitis’s eyes without any warning:

[Status Window]

Name: None

Race: Dark Demon Tiger

Rank: Fourth Tier

Description: A feline demon creature residing at the edge of the Blood Burial Forest, thick-skinned, skilled in stealth and biting. Due to irresistible forces, it ended up here, followed someone after sensing their powerful mana, ready for a full meal.

Weakness: Just a big, bad-tempered hungry kitty.

……

Sevitis’s consciousness was pulled back by this inexplicably appearing information.

Although this sudden thing was somewhat absurd, she wasn’t too panicked.

She seemed to have heard about it in stories Eulalia told her.

This thing seemed to be called “Golden Finger,” an ability that protagonists awaken in critical moments.

‘But… isn’t this thing coming a bit too late?’

Right now, she had no time to think about why this thing appeared before her.

Because her attention was completely drawn to the last sentence.

‘A cat? This is a cat? What breed of cat can grow this big?’

Sevitis’s ferocious expression gradually turned blank, and she froze for a few seconds.

Would anyone really treat a monster that can slap a person into meat paste as a cat?

‘But you know… looking closely, it really does look a bit like one. If it’s for the Demon Race. Wait, Demon Race? It seems she is of the Demon Race now.’

Sevitis blinked, suddenly realizing, and then pulled her attention back to the demon tiger before her.

Its furry ears twitched. The plum blossom prints left by its huge claws on the ground— she didn’t need to think to know that the paw pads’ feel would be great.

And the tail irately wagging behind it kept drawing Sevitis’s gaze, tugging at her heartstrings.

‘It really doesn’t seem that scary. Not only not scary, but even a bit stupidly cute. Yeah, after all, this thing is just a beast. She is now a merciless Demon Race. The one who should be running is clearly it.’

Thinking this, Sevitis lowered her head, and her shoulders began to gently shake.

“Heh heh…”

A low laugh came from her throat.

Then.

“Hahahahaha—!”

The girl’s crisp but somewhat manic laughter echoed through the dark forest.

The demon tiger instinctively stepped back two paces, but the enticing aroma still tempted its taste buds.

So when it saw Sevitis now defenseless, with openings everywhere, the demon tiger lunged straight out.

It had already deemed this petite prey to be its meal. But its plan failed. It missed.

With a dull thud, the demon tiger landed where the girl had stood.

Its furry head turned in confusion— its proud fangs and claws hadn’t even touched a single white hair.

Where’s the prey?

But just then, an untimely sound broke the awkward atmosphere.

Gurr~

The demon tiger, with its limited intelligence, couldn’t help but show a flash of pure confusion in its huge beastly eyes.

This sound didn’t come from its stomach—after all, those low-level demonic creatures that fled for their lives earlier had already given it a nice appetizer.

Then where did this sound come from?

The demon tiger barely lifted its head and looked up.

Finally, it found its long-awaited prey in the night sky.

The girl’s white hair gently fluttered in the moonlight.

She hovered in midair, the pair of pitch-black bat wings fully spread, nearly blocking the moonlight.

Vaguely, one could see a huge crimson blood eye and the shadow of a broken, shattered crown.

And the iron sword in her hand was already stained with blood at some point.

Until now, the belated sound finally rang out.

Pfft.

A stream of blood spurted from the demon tiger’s rear. The wound wasn’t big, but the humiliation was strong.

The Dark Demon Tiger finally realized it had been toyed with by this inconspicuous prey.

“Roar—!”

Its fur bristled all over as it let out a deafening roar.

At this moment, it had completely given up on directly swallowing the prey.

It would first tear this damned little thing to shreds!

However, facing the demon tiger’s powerless rage below, Sevitis completely ignored it.

She leisurely brought the blood-stained iron sword to her nose, lightly sniffed it, then looked down and touched her little stomach, which had again let out a protesting sound.

At this moment, her heart rate had reached its peak.

“What’s this…”

“So those reactions earlier weren’t because of fear at all.”

She stuck out her pink tongue and licked her lips.

“Just hungry.”

But even so, she didn’t intend to lick the blood off the sword.

Sevitis didn’t think she had any OCD, but she genuinely believed this stuff would definitely taste awful. She was just a little curious earlier.

“It seems a tiger’s rear isn’t completely untouchable.”

As she said this, she seemed to suddenly realize something, tilting her head slightly and tapping her cheek with a finger.

“Ah… or rather, are you actually not a tiger at all?”

The girl’s mouth slowly curled up, revealing a cute little fang. But in those dangerous vertical pupils, a harmless smile appeared.

“But a…”

“Disobedient, little, kitty?”

The Dark Demon Tiger naturally couldn’t understand what she was saying, but its simple brain could clearly feel that this prey was mocking it.

It angrily lunged and roared at the sky, but unfortunately it couldn’t fly, and there were no tall enough trees nearby for it to use as leverage.

So it could only stand there and roar wildly, trying to roar that annoying little thing down from the sky.

Sevitis raised an eyebrow. Honestly, the more she looked, the more this thing’s hissing seemed like a cat.

It was exactly like the stray cats that used to wander near the orphanage.

Every time she got close, those little things also arched their backs and bared their teeth.

She used to think they had bad tempers.

But then that bad woman would appear, and the next second, those stray cats that were hissing at her would tuck their tails and burrow into that woman’s arms, rubbing their heads against her, leaving her standing by and watching alone.

How infuriating. Cats are like this, people are like this, totally shameless.

‘It’s definitely not because she can’t touch them and is envious.’

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got, making her very annoyed at this oversized cat below.

Expecting her to come down just by roaring a couple of times? Dream on.

But the next second, Sevitis, who had been hovering high in the sky, actually dove straight down.

‘Since you want me to come down so much, I’ll indulge you.’

Sword in hand, Sevitis streaked past the demon tiger like a white lightning bolt.

By the time the demon tiger reacted and tried to swing its claw in retaliation, Sevitis had already lightly returned to the air.

And on the demon tiger’s body, a long wound had appeared.

But Sevitis couldn’t be happy at all. Although this thing looked fluffy, its hide was absurdly tough.

Even though she had used all her strength with the diving momentum, she could only inflict a superficial scratch.

At this scratch-rate, even if she hit it a hundred times, she couldn’t wear it down.

More importantly…

Crack.

The long sword snapped with a sound.

The demon tiger below was already furious at missing again. Seeing this, its roar changed pitch, as if mocking.

Sevitis frowned deeply. An ordinary steel long sword could no longer withstand the explosive power of her current body.

‘But out in the wild, where could she find a stronger weapon? Although she was now a vampire, she couldn’t really fight with teeth and claws, right? What difference would that make from that beast below?’

But the next second, Sevitis’s thoughts came true.

The black silk stockings on her legs suddenly turned into a large cloud of crimson mist.

The blood mist continuously surged and solidified, as if responding to her thoughts, and finally, in her hand, slowly formed a dark red giant blood scythe.

Sevitis instinctively gripped the long handle.

But the next second—

“Wha—?!”

She was nearly dragged down by the scythe’s weight.

She frantically flapped her bat wings, barely stabilizing herself, avoiding a headfirst dive into that little glutton’s mouth below.

‘So heavy!’

Sevitis was secretly shocked. She could clearly feel that this scythe contained an extremely vast amount of blood energy.

And not only blood energy, but also an exaggeratedly rich flow of mana within.

‘However, with this weapon, it seemed like it might actually work.’

Sevitis’s brow relaxed, the gloom on her face swept away, and a smile uncontrollably curled on her lips.

Her vertical pupils looked down at the demon tiger below, and the icy killing intent made its hair stand on end.

“So now, who is the monster and who is the prey?”

“Lit-tle, kit-ty~”

The white-haired girl holding the giant blood scythe said thus.