The scream descended.

Not all at once — gradually, like something losing conviction as the body processes that the situation isn’t exactly what instinct said it was.

From agony to pain.

From pain to discomfort.

From discomfort to confusion.

Until all that remained was a sound more like someone complaining about something minor but not quite knowing what.

Lira opened her eyes.

---

Everyone was looking at her.

Kai, standing next to the broken window, with his hands in his pockets and the wound on his side still visible.

Eris, at the entrance, with the expression of someone assessing whether what just happened requires some kind of official response.

Aldric, beside his desk, holding his coffee cup with both hands and looking at Lira with the specific discomfort of someone who doesn’t know if the appropriate thing is to say something or keep drinking.

The thirty vampires spread throughout the guild — some looking at the ceiling, others rubbing their arm in the universal gesture of witnessing something awkward and being unable to do anything about it.

Three of the S-ranks had completely averted their gaze.

One was staring at the quest shelf with an interest that clearly wasn’t real.

Two were whistling softly.

Serah, at the entrance of the hole in the floor, just climbed up from the catacombs with markings still irregular but functional, looking at Lira with an expression that was somewhere between relief and something she wasn’t going to name out loud.

Lira was on the floor.

---

Kai broke the silence.

"Well," he said. "This is awkward." A pause. "Looks like the movies were wrong. For once."

---

[GarcíaFTW: "LOOKS LIKE THE MOVIES WERE WRONG FOR ONCE"]

[NocheEterna99: the vampires whistling. WHISTLING.]

[StreamerHunter: Aldric drinking coffee awkwardly is the most human thing he’s done in the whole novel]

[DragonicLegacy: LIRA ON THE FLOOR WITH A FACE OF TOTAL CONFUSION]

[Jac_Moore: the vampire staring at the quest shelf pretending interest. I SEE IT AND I UNDERSTAND.]

[Mist_Of_Death: Serah arrived just to see this. Her face is worth everything.]

[RagingMutant: ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘ TWO VAMPIRES WHISTLING ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘]

[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Lira’s scream lasted so long everyone’s uncomfortable ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

---

Lira looked at her own hands.

The dawn light kept streaming through the broken window.

Direct. Unobstructed.

Onto her.

Nothing was happening.

She looked at the light.

Looked at her hands again.

Then at Eris.

"Why," Lira said, with the voice of someone asking a question they’d rather not have to ask, "am I still alive?"

Eris opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

"Well," Eris said, with the careful tone of someone defusing something potentially explosive, "actually... it doesn’t work that way."

Silence.

"What do you mean it doesn’t work that way?"

"Sunlight." Eris chose her words with the precision of someone who knows each one matters. "It’s never... killed any vampire. Actually."

Lira looked at her.

"It was a rumor among the more deluded vampires," Eris continued. "From thousands of years ago. No one knows exactly how it started but..." She stopped. "No one ever verified it because... because no one wanted to be the first to try it until it was discovered that it didn’t affect anything."

---

[GarcíaFTW: NO ONE HAD VERIFIED IT] 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

[NocheEterna99: THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF UNVERIFIED RUMOR]

[StreamerHunter: "no one wanted to be the first to try it" — makes all the sense in the world]

[Jac_Moore: And the result is she’s on the floor of the Valdris guild]

[Mist_Of_Death: Eris choosing every word like defusing a bomb. CORRECT DECISION.]

[RagingMutant: (°ロ°) THOUSANDS OF YEARS (°ロ°)]

[Pedro_Sierra: ε=ε=ε=ε=( º _ º)ε=ε=ε=ε= Lira processing this ε=ε=ε=ε=( º _ º)ε=ε=ε=ε=]

---

"And why did no one tell me?"

The question came out louder than Lira probably intended.

Eris didn’t move.

"We thought Your Eminence already knew." A very short pause. "After all, you always sent some of us on errands during the day. We thought..."

"I sent them because their presence annoyed me," Lira said, with the voice of someone arriving at a conclusion they don’t like. "And I hoped that..." She stopped.

Looked at the ceiling.

"That would explain why they always came back."

"Yes," Eris said. "That would explain it."

Silence.

"In the vampire kingdom," Eris continued, because she had clearly decided everything had to come out now, "there’s quite a bit of activity during the day. Markets. Councils. The young ones train in the outer courtyards." Another pause.

"The other nobles thought you were a... well. They used the word shameless. For sleeping all day."

Lira processed this.

"Shameless."

"That was the most frequent term, yes."

---

[NocheEterna99: "I SENT THEM BECAUSE THEIR PRESENCE ANNOYED ME AND I HOPED THEY WOULD DIE"]

[GarcíaFTW: LIRA SENT HER VAMPIRES TO DIE IN THE SUN AND THEY SURVIVED WITHOUT HER KNOWING]

[StreamerHunter: "that would explain why they always came back" — Lira said it herself. HERSELF.]

[DragonicLegacy: the nobles called her shameless for sleeping all day HAHAHAHA]

[Jac_Moore: @DragonicLegacy eight hundred years sleeping all day thinking it was normal]

[Mist_Of_Death: Eris decided everything had to come out and let it all loose. ERIS.]

[RagingMutant: ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘ SHAMELESS ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘]

[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) eight hundred years of misunderstanding ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

---

Lira stared at the floor.

Not the guild floor specifically. The general concept of the floor.

She processed.

Kept processing.

Processed a little more.

"I give up," she said.

Not with drama. With the specific resignation of someone who has calculated what awaits her back home and has found that the calculation yields no acceptable result.

"Once I return to the kingdom," she said, more to herself than to the room, "I’ll be the laughingstock of all the nobles. Of the entire kingdom." Her red eyes stared at a fixed point on the floor. "The Vampiric Duchess who discovered the sun doesn’t kill vampires by screaming on the floor of a human guild."

No one said anything.

"I give up."

---

[GarcíaFTW: "I GIVE UP"]

[NocheEterna99: Lira calculated the social consequences and decided to give up]

[StreamerHunter: viewers: 11,200,000. ELEVEN MILLION.]

[DragonicLegacy: Lira’s ego just collapsed in real time]

[Jac_Moore: @DragonicLegacy and she did it in the most dignified way possible. Just said "I give up."]

[Mist_Of_Death: Aldric is still drinking the coffee. Hasn’t said a thing. He’s the wisest of all.]

[RagingMutant: Serah has an expression I don’t know if it’s satisfaction or something more complicated]

[Pedro_Sierra: ε=ε=ε=ε=( º _ º)ε=ε=ε=ε= "I give up" said with all possible dignity ε=ε=ε=ε=]

---

Kai looked at Lira on the floor.

"The damages to the town," he said.

Lira didn’t look up.

"What?"

"The damages. The catacombs. The guild door. The window." Kai paused. "The people who had to spend the night locked up."

"Yes. Whatever." Lira made a vague gesture with her hand. "Take care of it."

She turned toward her vampires with a minimal nod of her head.

The thirty — plus the S-ranks, plus the A-ranks — moved.

Kai watched what followed with something that in other circumstances might have been called admiration.

In less than two hours, the guild was repaired.

The window had new glass.

The inner door Kai had crashed through with his body was replaced.

The hole in the floor was sealed — not patched, sealed, with stone of the same quality as the original.

The catacombs, according to the report Aldric wrote while observing, were in better condition than before Lira arrived.

The A-rank and S-rank vampires worked with the efficiency of things that have spent centuries doing whatever is asked of them and that for some reason included high-quality structural repair.