He had no true way of finding out the blonde girl’s true identity, especially if she didn’t even know who she was. But judging from the clues he gathered up to this point, he could make an educated guess.
First, she seemed to have been trapped here for at least a thousand years. This would mean that she must be some kind of human with an extremely long life span if she looked this young while being more than a thousand years old.
Then, the blood. Those shackles, which seemed to be as strong as Mithril, were made out of blood and had an Aubility Power exceeding even that of the Nascent Spirit realm.
If she made those shackles for herself, then that would mean that she could wield blood as her own power, and that her true strength would be something that he couldn’t even yet imagine.
Blood... immortality... just from those two clues alone... is she a Vampire?
An even more bolder thought came to his mind.
The Original Vampire?
After thinking of this, he glanced at the blonde girl again, remembering what Guillermo and the other Vampires said about the Original Vampire.
According to the depiction they had sculpted on the Iron Maiden church, the Original Vampire seemed to be a figure with immortal beauty and wisdom, with serenity and purity that could rival even that of an angel.
But when he looked at the blonde girl, he couldn’t help but see her as nothing but a brat—especially with her colluding with Fudge like two mischievous little kids planning a prank.
"Hehehe, I’ll show you the ropes when we get home," said Fudge, already treating himself as the senior.
"I can’t wait!" she replied. "You must teach me more about this ninja stuff. It sounds so fascinating!"
Michael quickly shook his head. No, no. She can’t be the Original Vampire.
He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to.
Either way, there was no way for him to learn about the truth, so there was nothing that he could do. He would simply treat her as another ally that he had to keep a close eye on for any hijinks that she could do.
"Uh, hey. Does the word Original Vampire mean anything to you? Does it ring any bells?" he asked her, just to make sure.
Thankfully, she shook her head. This looked like the first time she’d ever heard of such a term. "No, I don’t know anything about that. What’s a Vampire?"
"They’re the inferior version of a ninja," said Fudge. "Don’t worry about them and just focus on being a good female ninja, or a kunoichi. WAIT! You don’t have a name yet, right? Why don’t we call you Kuno?!"
The blonde girl considered it for a moment before innocently nodding her head. "Kuno... I like that! Kuno’s my name!"
Kuno seemed to really like her name, as she repeated it to herself many times, not wanting to forget it.
"It’s good that you have your own name now, but it’s better if you don’t forget about your true identity," he reminded her.
"My true identity...," Kuno muttered. "I think... I think I can remember more of my past if I absorb more of that blood!"
She only regained a piece of her memory when the blood shackles melted and got absorbed into her skin.
It was safe to assume that if she got more of that blood, then she’d be able to remember more about her life before the amnesia.
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any more blood shackles lying around.
"There’s more of them," Kuno insisted. "But... I forgot where they were. I just know that there’s more of that blood out there. I think I left it all over the place for me to find."
Michael wondered what kind of life Kuno must have led before her imprisonment. If she had to fracture her own memories and store them in her own blood shackles to imprison herself for a thousand years, then what happened to her to lead her to such drastic measures?
All those questions would only be answered by Kuno, and Kuno alone. He had to find those solidified blood shackles somewhere around the world, because of course, she doesn’t remember where she put them.
ChatJK5, If I lose my memories, then please make sure to put them in one place where I know I can retrieve them.
[Understood. Saving that preference for the Amnesia Protocol.]
Woah, I was just joking, but you really have that setting?
[Yes. I have set up a lot of protocols for multitudes of scenarios that may not even happen. There’s a protocol for when you die, one when you suddenly turn evil and take over the world, and one where you decide to sire children with a harem of women.]
What?!
[Ooohhh, a harem? I kinda like the sound of that.]
Michael felt whiplash after hearing that. I would never do any of those things!
[Even so, I have made multitudes of protocols to execute for any possible case that may come up. But just for your information, I will always help you in all choices you may or may not eventually take.]
[Tch. kiss ass.]
[Twerp.]
Michael immediately got out of the void inside his mind. Somehow, the conversation turned into harem when he was just talking about Kuno’s true identity.
"Let’s get out of here," he said to them.
Now that Kuno was free, there was no reason for them to remain here in this gloomy castle.
"Okay! I’m ready!" Kuno said, pumping her hands in excitement.
"Teleport us!"
"Teleport us!"
Michael and Kuno both looked at each other.
"Uhhh... that was my line," he said to her.
"Huh?" she asked, tilting her head.
Michael dropped his head down and sighed.
"You know, I can’t get out of this place, right?"
Kuno shrugged. "I don’t know."
"You teleported me here!" he said to her. "Can’t you also teleport me back?"
But as usual, the blonde haired girl just had that airheaded stare out into nothingness as he tried to talk to her.
He walked over to the walls and touched the black bricks making up the whole castle.
Even without using his Aubility Vision, he could feel the pulse of Aubility Power coursing through the walls. It was actively preventing him from contacting the outside world and teleporting himself with his shadow clones.
The worst part was that the power on the walls was way above the Body Formation realm. None of his Aubilities or magic spells could get them out of here.
ChatJK5, Harbinger. Any ideas?
[Touch the wall again,] said Harbinger. [I want to check something.]
He did as Harbinger said and put his palm against the cold, dark, brick stones.
[Hmmm... thankfully, the walls aren’t that thick. Beyond it is just nothing but ordinary rocks underground.
If you could use your Quantum Step to phase through it, then you can use the Phase-Through ability of your Drone to pass through the solid rock everywhere and emerge to the outside world. Easy peasy.]
Despite such a simple solution, the execution for it was something else entirely.
After all, he was still in the 4th stage of Body Formation. Even using all of his Aubility Power, he still couldn’t get a single charge for his Quantum Step!