"Hey, bro! You should get some more sleep. Once it's fully daylight, I'll wake you up and we can head to the hospital cafeteria for breakfast."
Royce said with a long yawn when he noticed Ethan was still standing there with a bewildered expression on his face.
"Where's your arm? What happened to you? Are you okay? Can your arm grow back like Piccolo's? Do you need to drink human blood to regrow it?"
Ethan asked anxiously.
From what he could see, Royce was wearing the same Field Hospital patient uniform as him. But judging from the way Royce had effortlessly evicted Felix from the room, his health was clearly more than fine.
"Hold on, bro! How am I supposed to answer all that at once when you're throwing so many questions at me? It's a long story. I think you should focus on recovering first. Later, when there's time, I'll tell you everything."
"No! Tell me now. I want to know everything. Right now!"
Ethan blurted out impatiently.
He didn't want to waste any more time. He needed to understand the current situation immediately.
Although, to be honest, Ethan wasn't entirely sure what he would do with that information. At the very least, focusing on Royce's story would stop him from sinking further into regret and self-pity.
Faced with Ethan's determination, Royce simply flopped back onto his bed with one hand resting across his chest.
His dark eyes, framed by long lashes and naturally elegant eye corners, slowly drifted shut. For a moment, Ethan thought Royce was about to fall asleep - lying there exactly like the Vampires sleeping in crypts from those old movies.
"Let's see. It all started when Camellia was assigned to escort a Vampire Hunter to Harmony Town to take on a mission there…"
"Yeah. I know a little about that already. Camellia mentioned it in the letter she left for me."
The words from Camellia's letter resurfaced vividly in Ethan's mind, as though those events had happened only recently.
But could Royce's accident really have begun ten years ago?
Well…
Here we go again.
Ethan had a growing suspicion that the teenage Vampires of Harmony Town all shared the same annoying habit of telling stories strictly in chronological order.
There had been one time when Ethan asked his friends to explain the bizarre events happening around town. And they had started their explanation with something that happened a thousand years ago. Literally.
Even so, Ethan wasn't planning to interrupt Royce this time. All he wanted was for Royce to tell him everything and not hide a single detail."
"Yeah. You already know how terrible Camellia's combat abilities are despite being a Vampire Hunter, right? The train station is only a few kilometers from Harmony High, but I still couldn't stop worrying about her. There was no way I was letting that walking disaster go alone."
"Yeah. You did the right thing."
"While we were waiting for the train, we chatted for a bit. But as usual, we couldn't have a civilized conversation for very long. We ended up disagreeing about…"
"About…?"
Ethan pressed, but Royce fell silent.
After hesitating for a while, he skipped the cause of their disagreement entirely and jumped straight to the outcome.
"…Camellia pulled out her Tarot deck and shuffled it about fifteen times. Then she flicked three cards straight at my face. You should know that deck is pretty solid, and the edges are metal-plated. If those cards hit an ordinary person like you, for example - they could cause some serious injuries."
"I'm actually curious about those three cards."
"I remember them perfectly. The first card was The Emperor, the second was Three of Swords, and the third was The Tower."
"Oh. Two Major Arcana cards? That sounds pretty serious."
"Camellia said I was The Emperor: authoritarian, arrogant, selfish, controlling, obsessed with power, and always eager to impose that power on others, especially on her!"
Ethan quietly observed Royce's face gradually turning red without saying a word.
The Tarot's assessment of Royce left Ethan feeling rather conflicted. The Royce he knew was generous, easygoing, funny, and capable of getting along with almost anyone.
Well… not exactly anyone.
At Harmony High, Royce spent most of his time hanging around with other boys and went out of his way to avoid girls whenever possible.
Male students from grades ten, eleven, and twelve all respected him - not because of his looks or popularity with girls, but because there seemed to be no game he couldn't play: Billiards, pickleball, kickboxing, AAA games, hyper-casual games, MMORPGs, strategy games…
Most impressively of all, he was unmatched when it came to playing and organizing a certain game involving: 'Lucky Numbers'.
And even though most of the girls at Harmony High were completely infatuated with Royce, the only person he was truly close to was Autumn.
(Like family - Royce had put it.)
But Autumn wasn't exactly a gentle, delicate, or fragile girl. Growing up alongside several older brothers, she sometimes behaved no differently from a boy herself, especially when a situation called for fighting. And despite how close they were, even her playful attempts at physical contact were enough to make Royce scream in terror.
As for Ruby, Anya, and Yara, there was no need to mention them. Even though they were all rather weak Vampires, Royce would start shrinking back the moment any of them came a little too close.
In short, Royce 'seemed' to be a guy who was ridiculously, unbelievably afraid of girls.
And yet, for some reason, Camellia - the Vampire Hunter with ash-gray eyes and white hair - was an exception.
But being Royce's exception didn't seem to be a good thing at all. Royce never behaved appropriately toward Camellia - at least, that was how Ethan saw it.
For example, during the Mid-Autumn Festival Event earlier that October, Ethan had personally witnessed Royce pin Camellia against a wall. He had even held both of that defenseless girl's wrists above her head.
Even worse, Royce had threatened to throw Camellia from the second floor of the Clock Tower down to the first because she had betrayed him. Fortunately, he hadn't actually done it.
Damn.
Perhaps this was Royce's greatest flaw - the dark side of him that Ethan simply could not understand.
But was it really fair for the cards to judge him as authoritarian, arrogant, selfish, controlling, power-hungry, and constantly eager to impose his will on others just because of one excessive outburst like that?
Was The Emperor truly describing Royce himself, or merely the way Camellia saw him?
"…And according to the Three of Swords, all I'll ever bring her is pain."
Ethan couldn't see Royce's expression because he had turned to face the wall. But his voice sounded utterly miserable - the kind of misery only a lovesick guy could have.
"Three of Swords…?"
Ethan murmured.
After a few Tarot readings from Camellia, he had become somewhat interested in Tarot himself. He had looked into it briefly, but apparently fate hadn't blessed him with the talent. He could vaguely remember the names and images of the cards but never their meanings or keywords.
The Three of Swords, however, was one card Ethan remembered vividly: against a stormy gray sky, three swords pierced straight through a heart. Just looking at it was enough to imagine how much pain the owner of that heart must be suffering.
And what did a heart symbolize?
Love, of course!
Oh!
Love!
Camellia and Royce?
A Vampire Hunter and a Vampire?