The Villains Must Win

Right now, I was lying on a creaky cot inside a cold barracks, dressed in stiff leather armor and surrounded by rookies with big swords and bigger egos.

Outside, the moon hung low over the jagged cliffs of what they called "The Crimson Frontier"—the edge of no man's land between human and vampire territories.

The air smelled like ash and iron. Somewhere in the distance, a siren blared. A hunting party must have gone missing again.

So . . . how was I supposed to make him win?

Step one: Stay alive. Always a great start.

Step two: Gather intel. About Salister, the war, and any potential plot twists the system wasn't telling me.

Step three: Infiltrate his world.

And that's the fun part. Because how does a low-ranking vampire hunter waltz into the vampire prince's court without getting skewered?

That's what I needed to figure out.

And I would. Because I've played this game long enough to know one thing:

The story never goes how you expect it to . . . especially when you become the villain's most valuable piece.

So buckle up, system.

Selis Everhart has officially entered the game.

And me?

I play to wiiinnnn~

But before I could even strike a dramatic pose, the base-wide alarm blared like a banshee on steroids. Red lights flashed, sirens wailed, and chaos erupted from outside.

Vampires!

They had infiltrated our base.

Of course they did. No tutorial, no warm-up—straight to bloodshed.

I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck.

Alright then . . .

Time to get into character.

====

How do you fight vampires again when you're only human?

Simple. You rely on tools blessed and crafted to maim nightmares.

You grab your consecrated silver daggers, etched with ancient wards and dipped in holy water blessed under a blood moon.

You load up your crossbow bolts carved from hawthorn wood, laced with powdered garlic and sealed with protective prayers.

Around your neck hangs a rosary forged from black iron, each bead engraved with sacred inscriptions meant to burn through vampire flesh on contact.

And then there's your vial of sanctified oil, slick and deadly, used to coat your weapons before a strike—it clings to their skin like poison and sizzles through their healing.

You've got your sunburst grenades, little glass bombs that explode into holy light, searing to the undead but harmless to human eyes.

You don your hunter's jacket, a relic passed down by slayers before you, reinforced with defensive enchantments and lined with hidden compartments for stakes, knives, and vials.

You've been trained for this—Selis Everhart's body remembers.

Every dodge, every swing, every blessed curse. She felt it in her bones.

Selis smirk.

She was not just any recruit.

She's the worst nightmare of anything with fangs.

Bring it on.

====

Fighting vampires in the game was one thing.

In real life? Totally different beast.

They weren't the clean-cut, handsome aristocrats from dating sims or those tragic antiheroes with sculpted jaws and tragic backstories. Nope.

Real-life vampires—whatever this version of reality meant—were faster, meaner, and ten times uglier than Selis remembered from the game interface.

Stronger? Absolutely.

Quicker? She couldn't even blink fast enough to follow some of their movements.

Gorgeous? Only if you were into sunken eyes, gaping mouths full of centuries-old teeth, and the faint scent of dried blood mixed with grave dirt.

She gripped her blessed stake tighter and muttered to herself, "Alright, Selis, this is fine. You've trained for this. You've got rosaries, holy water, anti-vampire grenades—wait, do I even have those anymore?!"

Then one of them hissed—a truly bone-chilling sound, like a snake gargling broken glass—and lunged at her.

Selis screamed, not because she was scared (okay, maybe a little), but because she realized she'd just dropped her one enchanted dagger. Again.

In the tutorial, a vampire lunged in slow motion. You'd parry, roll left, counter, and stab its heart with dramatic flair.

Here, you parry—maybe—and they still fling you into a wall like a paper towel roll.

Her boots skidded on blood-slick stone as she dodged. Her stake caught on her coat. Her rosary tangled in her hair.

"Oh, for the love of garlic—!"

A vampire snarled and lunged again.

Too fast. Too real. Too gross.

Selis was absolutely rethinking all her life decisions when suddenly, the vampire attacking her let out a sharp grunt—then slumped to the ground, a blade sticking out of its back.

She whirled.

And that was when she saw him.

That short, slim man with enough deadly grace to put trained assassins to shame. His sharp black hair looked like he'd cut it himself with a dagger. His fitted hunter's uniform didn't just cling—it sculpted him like a marble statue brought to life. He had a jawline that could slice bread, and those amber eyes . . .

Those eyes. Like two burning coals that had never known sleep, only war. Such familiar eyes. Very familiar pair of eyes.

His mouth was set in a permanent scowl, like he'd been born angry and just . . . never outgrew it.

Selis blinked. "Who the hell are you, Blade Daddy?"

He didn't answer. He just turned, sliced through another vampire, and barked, "Next time, don't drop your weapon. Fucking trainee."

"Next time, mind your attitude," Selis huffed, but obediently picked up her dagger.

He glanced at her. "You're new."

She puffed her chest. "You don't say. Did the flailing give me away?"

A vampire screeched behind her. She turned to swing but was already too slow. The man in front of her, the rude man—Lucian, she overheard someone yell his name—had already impaled it.

She blinked again. "Okay . . . I take it back. Please keep saving me."

"You're not cut out for this," he grumbled.

"I'm totally cut out for this!" she lied as she slipped on vampire goo.

He caught her elbow without looking. "You smell like lavender. Didn't they teach you in class to mask your scent with garlic?"

"I'll have you know this is tactical aromatherapy."

He didn't smile. Not even a twitch. But she saw the way his eye twitched.

Who is this guy? Selis thought. Based from his killer aura and from the way people feared and respected him, she thought that he wasn't just a vampire hunter. Maybe a higher rank?