Blood Queen Reborn-Chapter 14: Ticking Time

While Quinn was eating breakfast consisting of cold cereal with Peter in their dorms, a system message appeared in his vision.

[Would you like to level up?]

He wasn’t fully paying attention as he was in the middle of eating his food, so without a second thought, he selected "yes" to dismiss the notification window. Halfway through selecting the second "yes," he received Erin’s warning, but it was too late.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, then Quinn felt a pang of regret because he felt he had done something bad to Erin. Because of this, he decided to quickly finish his cereal and leave his dorm for class.

Right as he was partway through the door, he saw the last few messages.

[Erin’s hunger grows]

[She can no longer suppress her need for blood]

[Her HP will decrease by -1 HP every hour until she has consumed human blood!]

"... Crap ..." Quinn whispered to himself.

He was worried about Erin, but he was also worried about what Erin might do to him for clicking "yes".

—

Erin and Quinn both made it to class in time, but despite Erin looking like her usual self, she kept staring daggers into Quinn whenever she had the chance. During class, Erin was struggling to focus, all of her senses were enhanced; she could hear all of the students breathing, tapping their fingers, smacking their mouths together, making it hard to pay attention to her teacher.

Instead, Erin tried to focus on something else, her status. Earlier, her system stated she wasn’t human and was instead a halfling, whatever that was, and was curious about that. She opened up her screen to look.

[User: Erin Heley]

[Race: Halfling]

[Level 2]

[20/200 EXP]

[HP 20/20]

[Strength: 15]

[Agility: 15]

[Stamina: 15]

"At least something improved..." Erin thought, referring to her health, "But what even is a halfling?"

Every hour she was in that class, she would just silently wince in pain as more and more HP chipped away. Not only that, despite eating right before entering the pods, she felt hungrier than ever with no sign of the pain decreasing.

Experiencing yet another pang of hunger, Erin decided to send a piece of her mind to Quinn.

{Erin} Quinn...

{Erin} When I figure out a way to fix this mess, I’m going to make you regret ever bumping into me in that hallway.

{Quinn} I didn’t expect you to steal my book!

{Erin} I didn’t want your dusty old book.

[HP 17/20]

After class was over, Erin left the room early, but Quinn was notably taking his time putting his things away.

’Damn, I’m failing that test...’ Quinn thought. He wasn’t able to focus at all when the threat of Erin was constantly on his mind throughout class.

It almost made him not want to help Erin out with the blood issue. Sure, he did feel bad for effectively taking away her ability, forcing her to go through all of these strange changes, and linking her to himself mentally, but it’s not like he wanted all of this to happen in the first place.

As Quinn left class, he saw Erin standing not far from the entrance, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. The way that she stared at him was... unsettling. Her eyes were fierce, and piercing him—no, it was more like she wanted to devour him.

Before he could react, Erin had walked up to him, pushing his back against a wall. It was then that Erin felt far taller than him.

It was strange. Despite being bullied all his life and getting beaten down more times than he could count, it was the first time he felt like prey, cowering beneath a predator.

It was the kind of fear that the rabbit feels when the fox has its jaws clasped around its throat, when the bird feels the snake wrapped tightly around its body. An animalistic sense of imminent doom, as if his life were undoubtedly going to end in that very moment. There was something different about Erin now, and it was clear she wasn’t quite human anymore.

Erin’s glare did not let up as she began to speak, "Meet me in the library."

Quinn did his best to keep his face calm, but he gulped in fear, unsure how to respond. Instead, he just stood there, shaking a little.

"Alright, good," Erin muttered before heading to the library, not bothering to get confirmation.

Before he knew it, Erin was gone. Ever since she got the system, Erin’s body had improved in nearly every physical way, making her far faster than Quinn was.

Quinn waited, questioning if he should help Erin out. He had been a little scared of her before due to her high-level ability, but those bloodthirsty eyes? What if she drank him until there was nothing left?

Then, Quinn’s thoughts were interrupted by a system notification.

[-1 HP]

[HP 16/20]

In the end, he decided to head towards the library.

There was the obvious fact that having Erin’s HP drop to 0 was most likely not a good thing, then the thought of her dying from reaching 0 HP hit his mind, and he began sprinting. Even if he didn’t like her at times, she didn’t deserve to die a slow cruel death. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Unfortunately, Quinn had a bit of a reputation for being someone without an ability, easy pickings, and with him hanging out with a known high level ability user lately, the news spread to a few particular ears.

—

{Erin} I’m already here. What’s taking you so long?

{Erin} We left at the same time.

Sitting in the same booth as yesterday, Erin was getting frustrated. Her fingers were anxiously tapping the table she sat by. She never understood why people like Quinn were always so late. He was often in a rush to leave but never got anywhere on time. It was strange to her.

{Quinn} Where are you?

Erin wanted to smack him. What could he mean by this? She’s obviously in the library, like she said earlier.

{Erin} Library, I just told you this.

{Quinn} Where in the library?!

{Erin} Your glasses aren’t the only thing broken about you...

Quinn started to get annoyed with her. That wasn’t what he meant. She just said the library, but nothing about where she was or anything. He was getting so caught up in trying to find Erin, that he almost didn’t notice a group of teenagers trailing him.

He walked to a section of the library that was more secluded from everyone else. Surrounding him at all sides were shelves of books except for the way he entered were walls of books..

Seeing as there was no one around, Quinn was about to leave when he turned around to see 5 students. One of them walked up closer to him, no doubt the leader with his air of confidence. Due to the library being open to both first years and second years, Quinn noticed that the leader was wearing a black armband, marking him as a second year. He was tall, taller than Quinn, maybe even Erin, and had brown hair in a ponytail.

"Say, I’ve been hearing some noise about a high-level student hanging out with a low-level," The second year student spoke with a faux casualness.

Sweat began to form on Quinn’s forehead, he wasn’t sure how to get out of this situation without getting hurt. Not only that, but Erin was going to need him soon.

{Quinn} Sorry, Erin, I’m going to be late.

"So what?" Quinn returned, trying to act tough by standing straight, but his shaky voice betrayed him.

"Well, we can’t have trash like you thinking they’re hot stuff just because someone actually useful to society decided to take a liking to you," the boy took a step closer, "and if a low-level thinks all that, then they might start to get a big head."

He leaned in close to Quinn’s face, his eyes piercing his very being. "We’re here to keep weaklings like you in check."

Quinn knew he couldn’t win, but he didn’t want to make it easy for them. He threw out a punch, hoping to get the boy off guard, but he lazily stepped to the side, easily avoiding his punch. Before Quinn could recover, the boy roundhouse-kicked him in the back. Quinn fell to the floor, and the other students by that boy’s side came over to kick him to the ground.

"Aren’t you going to join us, Mono?" Another student asked the brown-haired boy.

"He’s not even worth my time, just make sure he can’t get up anytime soon," Mono said coldly.

A second later, Quinn lost consciousness.