Lizzy took the same route she took to get to the ruins and returned back to homebase. She was feeling dejected, like a failure. Because that was what happened, she failed, the Great Vampire Lord had the orb in his possession. And everything thanks to a werewolf! If he hadn’t appear, then maybe Lizzy would have taken the shot, ended with the misery of that ur-vampyr and taken the orb back home. But nope! She had to defend herself against a bigger threat! It was like the universe was mocking her…

And to make matters worse, she killed the mayor of Riverbel. She, who had sworn to protect the village from now on, killed a human being. This was a complete and absolute failure.

She opened the door utterly depressed and frustrated, which made Paul worried.

“What happened? It’s everything all right, lassie?” he asked.

Lizzy shook her head. “I failed. They took the orb…”

“Oh, Lizzy, it’s fine…”

“No, it’s not fine!” she yelled, letting all that frustration out. “I heard what the ur-vampyrs said, the vampire lord already has more than one orb! I don’t know how many those are, two? Three? All of them? I needed to get that orb back and I couldn’t! We’re probably screwed now and it’s all my fault!” Lizzy noticed that there were tears in her eyes and sat down on the living room, wiping them. “And the worst part is that I killed someone…”

“W–What?! What do you mean by that?!” exclaimed Paul.

“There was a werewolf, he distracted me and I had to fight him instead of going after the vampire. I shot him and it turns out that it was the mayor! I killed the mayor!”

“The mayor… was a werewolf?”

“Yes! God, I’m such an idiot!” Lizzy continued to belittle herself on her mind. She couldn’t help but chastise herself for failing, for not living up to the expectations she put on herself. She wasn’t even sure that her identity hadn’t been discovered, that ur-vampyr was too close to her… She made so many mistakes and now the village would pay the price for it.

Paul, ever so calm and understanding, sat down beside her and patted her back. “It’s not your fault, lassie. In fact, you probably did a favor to the mayor by ending his cursed existence.”

“But what are we going to tell the people of Riverbel?”

“Nothing, it is normal for people to disappear, they will just assume that he was taken by the vampire lord.”

“I should give up, you shouldn’t have chosen me…” Finally, Lizzy understood her father. How failure and disappointment could destroy you from the inside out. She didn’t want to do anything anymore, she wanted Paul to find a proper vampire hunter to do the protecting of Riverbel, someone stronger, faster and more agile.

“Don’t say that! It was just your first mission, you will be able to succeed next time!” Paul encouraged her.

“What if there is no ‘next time’? What if he already has all the orbs he needs? What if he’s going to use them to cause an eternal night? Then nobody would be safe from him! And it’s all because I took too long to train and I didn’t even get the orb!”

“Have a little faith, we don’t know that yet! Yes, he probably has a couple of orbs, but it’s not over yet! And even if it was the case, we still need someone to protect the village! You can’t give up, Lizzy, Riverbel still needs you!”

Lizzy wiped the rest of her tears and sniffled. Paul was right, they didn’t have any time to train her replacement, Lizzy was the only one capable to stop the Great Vampire Lord now. “Fine, I guess that I’ll keep being The Hunter, for now… But what are we going to do now? He already has the orbs.”

“I don’t think he has every single one,” Paul explained. “You see, I’ve been doing some research and I found out that some of the orbs were taken by researchers. He probably doesn’t know where they are either, meaning that we still have the chance to retrieve them!”

“So there’s a chance that we might get them before him?” she asked for confirmation with hope.

“Yes!” Paul laughed. “For now, you just need to do the job of a hunter and take those vampires down!”

“Thanks, Paul, I’ll do that…”