The landlord was momentarily distracted by Autumn's appearance. He stretched out his neck, his oversized mouth filled with rows upon rows of jagged teeth, and let out a guttural roar. A spray of bloody saliva burst out from his mouth, splattering the surroundings.
"Ew!"
Autumn grimaced at the thoroughly disgusting scene in front of her.
Without wasting a single second, she lunged toward Ethan.
She effortlessly pulled the landlord off him. The man struggled violently, but it was all in vain. His strength compared to Autumn's was like that of a child going up against an adult.
Still, the landlord's body was significantly larger than Autumn's. His skin appeared sticky and gelatinous, and Autumn's expression clearly betrayed her revulsion at having to touch him.
And the moment she slightly loosened her grip, the landlord lunged straight at Ethan again.
Autumn had no choice but to violently kick him to the ground, pinning him facedown. She swiftly mounted him from behind, restraining him with precision.
"Rope! I need something like that to tie him up!"
Autumn shouted to Ethan.
Her claws had extended. One hand pressed the man's face hard against the floor while the other twisted both his arms behind his back.
The long, sharp claws proved to be a perfect aid to her small hands as she pinned down the monstrous landlord.
Ethan, still staggering to his feet, quickly scrambled into the bathroom.
He looked around but couldn't find anything useful. So he grabbed the only belt he had and threw it to Autumn.
"Don't hurt him!"
Ethan cried out when he saw Autumn pull something out of her waist pouch - what looked like a pistol.
Autumn said nothing.
She pressed the weapon to the landlord's neck and pulled the trigger calmly.
There was no loud bang. Because it wasn't a real gun. It was a tranquilizer dart gun.
The landlord stopped struggling once the fluid in the syringe had fully injected into his system.
Autumn let go and backed away from him.
Ethan had seen firsthand the transformation of the landlord from a normal human into a grotesque creature. The process hadn't seemed painful at all.
But the reverse: the return from beast to human, seemed to be excruciatingly painful for the man.
The landlord lay sprawled on the floor, writhing and groaning in agony.
He began coughing violently, hacking up razor-sharp teeth amidst a gush of fresh blood. It seemed that as his grotesquely oversized mouth was shrinking back to normal, there simply wasn't enough space left for all those extra teeth.
His muscles twitched and shifted unnaturally, as if something with a will of its own was squirming beneath his skin.
Ethan could hear the cracking of bones and the sickening squelch of flesh rearranging itself inside the landlord's body.
Eventually, after a series of spasms, the man's frame began to shrink back toward its original proportions. The network of bulging, purplish-pink veins that had marred his grayish skin slowly began to recede.
Only one thing refused to return to normal - the gruesome gash that stretched from the corner of his mouth to his ear remained.
At last, the man fell silent and motionless. He lay there, limbs splayed out in the middle of Ethan's room. A pool of bright red fluid leaked from his mouth, spreading across the floor. Ethan couldn't tell whether the man was alive or dead.
But judging by the lack of reaction from the Bloodbound mark on his neck, Ethan guessed the man was no longer a threat.
"What… What is he?"
Ethan finally managed to ask, still shaken. He couldn't even find the right words to frame the question.
"He's an Infected."
Autumn replied with a sigh.
"An Infected is a human who was injected with Vampenom through a Vampire's bite and then made to drink that Vampire's blood. Within seven to fourteen days, the symptoms start… like what you just saw."
"Will he go back to normal?"
"He'll become a Vampire after his first blood feeding. If he's lucky, he'll turn into a Semi-Vampire. They look just like me. But if not… he'll become a Feral Vampire - hideous, grotesque, and foul-smelling. It's like rolling a Gacha."
Autumn shuddered.
Ethan remembered what Autumn's mother, Mrs. Marina had said: The chance of someone becoming a fully formed Vampire through infection was only 0.01%.
"Judging by his symptoms, this guy is 100% turning into a Feral Vampire. Thankfully, he hasn't fed on anyone yet."
Autumn knelt beside the limp figure and gently touched the man's neck with her delicate fingers.
"In the old days, they'd just stake Infected straight through the heart. But now, all we need is one injection of AntiVamp before their first feeding. Then they go through a full course of oral AntiVamp treatment and they'll be almost as good as new."
"AntiVamp… That's what you just injected him with?"
Ethan asked.
"Exactly."
Autumn's expression visibly eased when she felt signs of life from the man.
"Send an ambulance. And dispatch a support team as well. Seven-story mini apartment, No. 07, SunFlowers Street."
Autumn issued the command crisply over her phone.
"As for you… You should wash up and change, Ethan."
She added, her expression clearly on the verge of nausea.
"Uh… okay!"
Ethan darted into the bathroom. Even he was disgusted by the reflection staring back at him in the mirror. His face and hair were smeared with a mix of blood and slime from the landlord, and no words could describe how utterly foul he smelled.
"Here's a clean set of clothes. You've got five minutes to shower."
Autumn hung a neatly folded outfit on the towel rack inside Ethan's bathroom.
"Uh… could you wait outside, Autumn?"
Ethan called out, noticing that she had been washing her hands at the sink for quite a while.
"What? I have to wait outside? But what if something dangerous happens?"
"How am I supposed to shower with you standing right there?"
"Just pull the curtain shut, Ethan!"
Ethan's face flushed bright red. He was utterly bewildered by how casually Autumn treated the situation. The shower curtain wasn't exactly thick. His skinny frame and everything else would be clearly outlined on it.
"But I still have… other stuff to do besides just showering."
He mumbled awkwardly.
"Hmph. You've got four minutes left, Ethan!"
Autumn grumbled but finally stepped out of the bathroom.
For a boy, a three-minute shower was more than enough. So by the time the four minutes were nearly up, Ethan had scrubbed himself clean from head to toe.
He stepped out confidently in the fresh clothes Autumn had provided.
Confidence brought clarity of thought and that's when Ethan's mood plummeted again.
He had been bitten by a Vampire before, even if it wasn't intentional. But still… if he accidentally ingested Vampire blood, would he become an Infected - just like the landlord?