Project Necro is an official initiative by Re:Library.

The scenery spreading out below is shrouded in the darkness of night. The only light I can rely on is the moonlight.
But the vampire’s eyes are undeterred by such darkness, providing me with accurate information.
What I see is a small village. There aren’t even twenty houses.
There are fields surrounding every house; the term “rural village” fits perfectly.

Judging by the scent, there seem to be several small villages in the vicinity of where we are now… but this one is the largest, and it’s close to the ramshackle hut where Kuzuha-chan lives.
Her mother is here. The main reason I think so is the two-story mansion in the center of the village.
While the surrounding houses are made of wood, that mansion alone appears to be built of something resembling brick. It has the air of a small castle.
The scent wafting from the mansion clearly contains something other than human.

…The smell of a beast.

An nonhuman creature. Or perhaps the distinctive, faintly animalistic odor characteristic of creatures with such attributes. On top of that, there’s a sweet scent that seems to suppress that animalistic smell.
It’s probably a unique scent that only a race with a keen sense of smell, like mine, could detect. Kuzuha-chan’s scent was similar to what I’m sensing now.
The scent of someone who resembles Kuzuha-chan, but isn’t Kuzuha-chan—It can only be her mother.

I flapped my bat wings and flew toward the mansion.
Judging from the view from the sky, there are no guards. It’s a small village, so they probably don’t have the manpower for that. Though, naturally, there might be security inside the mansion.
After confirming no one was around, I darted through a nearby window. I didn’t break it. I vaporized my body just before impact.
Literally like mist, I slipped through the gap between the window and the wall into the mansion.

“That was easy.”

I returned to human form.
From the looks of it, quite some time has passed since the mansion was built.
Considering that the surrounding houses are single-story wooden structures, I suppose it was built in a hurry long ago to show off.
Not only is it old, but the construction seems rough overall. The closed windows had tiny gaps, allowing me to slip inside easily.

“It’s the kind of gap you couldn’t get through unless you turned into mist, though.”

It’s a gap just wide enough for something like fog or liquid to pass through. It’s probably enough to keep people out. But for me, it’s more than enough.
I can barely smell any humans. It seems there aren’t many people guarding the place after all.
It’s clearly the countryside, so I suppose that’s to be expected. This way, I should be able to walk around freely.
I lightly brushed my hair—glistening in the moonlight—out of my eyes and began walking through the mansion.
The night air feels a little cold on my bare skin, but I didn’t pull out the blanket because it would get in the way when I walk.

……I really should get some clothes soon.

I want to avoid being treated like a pervert again.
I’m only not wearing clothes right now because I have no choice; it’s not like I’m showing off. Though I’m not actively trying to hide either.
If there were a maid or someone like that in this mansion, there might be some clothes for me, but I have other things to do, so it’s a hassle to look for them, and I don’t know if they have sizes for a small child like me. I’ll give up on that for now.

“Hmm…”

Now that I’m inside the mansion, the animalistic stench feels even stronger.
The scent rising from the floor at my feet indicated that the person I’m looking for is on a floor below this one.
I’m currently on the first floor. Anything below this would mean the basement. It seems this mansion has a basement.
If it’s the basement, I’ll have to find the entrance. My sense of smell can tell me the general direction, but I can’t pinpoint the exact route. Hmm, what a hassle.

Outdoors, I could just head in the direction the scent is coming from, but indoors, it doesn’t work that way.
There are walls and floors all around me, and I can’t reach my destination in a straight line—I have to go through stairs or doors.
Feeling the hassle and regretting coming here just a little—that’s when I sensed something off.
A sensation that tingled my skin. I recognize this. In fact, I just learned about it today.
It’s the same sensation I felt when I was playing with Kuzuha-chan. Something you might call the remnants of magic.

“…Is it calling for me?”

Somehow, I had a feeling that was the case.
A faint sensation, like being tugged by a small child grabbing my fingers.
It was very faint, but I could definitely feel it. Following that sensation, I walked down the moonlit hallway.
I passed several doors and stopped in front of one. It was slightly larger than the other doors I’d passed on my way here.
It opened with a light push, so I peeked inside. It was a spacious, elongated room with a large rectangular table in the center.
The table was covered with a large white cloth, and three-pronged candlesticks were placed at regular intervals.

“A dining hall?”

The sensation of my finger being tugged still lingers. I enter the dining hall, go around a table, and continue on.
I open a door on the exact opposite side of where I came in, and this time I find myself in the kitchen.
It’s much larger than the kitchen at Felnoute-sans house. It feels well-equipped, so it was probably built with great care.
There were two large stoves. The oven was massive, too. The refrigerator looked like it could hold at least twice as much as the one at Felnoute-san’s house.
There were more than ten kitchen knives alone hanging on hooks mounted on the wall.
The knives were arranged so that the ones with shorter blades were on the right and the ones with longer blades were on the left. The layout revealed the meticulous nature of the person in charge of the kitchen.

……It’s not here either.

The scent is getting stronger little by little, so I must be getting closer, but it’s still faint. The sensation of magic hasn’t faded either; it continues to prick my skin.
I stop gazing at the kitchen for a moment and start walking in the direction my senses are leading me. I arrive at a small door next to the cold storage unit.
Having come this far, I can at least guess what the next room is.

“The pantry, is it?”

It’s probably a space for storing ingredients that don’t require refrigeration.
The scent wafting from behind the door is sharp and pungent. I wonder if that’s the smell of onions.
However, for a pantry, this door was strangely heavily secured.
There were three locks. The door itself was clearly made of thick metal. It was built as if to prevent anyone from entering or leaving.
I understand that food is important, but would anyone normally go to such lengths?

“If this isn’t normal, then what lies beyond might not be normal either.”

As if to leave my mutterings behind, I transformed my body into a shadow.
The shadow is, quite literally, a shadow. It has no substance and can slip through any gap, no matter how small. On top of that, it’s nighttime, and since the kitchen lights aren’t on, it’s pitch black.
My Shadow Form skill is highly advanced, so I can turn into a shadow even in sunlight, but transforming to blend into the shadows is less tiring. As long as the conditions are right, Shadow Form is the least exhausting of all my transformation skills.
I can’t move very fast, but I can move while remaining a shadow. I slowly made my way into the pantry.

The flow of magic is growing stronger by the moment.
It seems this search is nearing its end.