Chapter 115: Please, my payment!
Melina stared at Victor in absolute silence for a few seconds, like an artist observing a rare, newly discovered sculpture. Then, suddenly, she jumped up from her armchair with exaggerated excitement and clapped her hands twice in the air.
Various utensils began flying from the walls of the VIP room as if they had awakened from some kind of magical hibernation.
Measuring tapes floated, spinning slowly through the air, golden needles arranged themselves in small rows, enchanted scissors spun dangerously close to the ceiling, and dozens of pieces of fabric began emerging from hidden compartments scattered throughout the hall.
Victor observed this in silence as a metal ruler literally flew past his face. "...This seems dangerously illegal."
"Art has no laws," Melina replied immediately as she walked towards him, her eyes shining with excitement.
"Now that he’s here, take off your shirt. Let’s measure those muscu—" She coughed falsely mid-sentence before regaining her professional composure. "—measurements to create a battle suit."
Victor narrowed his eyes slowly. "...You literally changed the sentence halfway through."
"Slander."
Serafall, still sitting calmly on the luxurious sofa, simply rested her face on her hand while observing all this with clearly genuine amusement.
"You’re going to be harassed a little," she commented without any trace of pity. "Endure it. At least it’s worth it when you’re wearing it in battle."
Victor slowly turned his face toward her. "You’re saying that with worrying nonchalance."
"Because I’ve seen her do worse."
"I HEARD THAT!" Melina shouted immediately as several measuring tapes began encircling Victor like extremely invasive magical snakes.
Then, before he could react, the main measuring tape simply wrapped around his arm and pulled. Victor was dragged a few steps forward until he was standing before the elf.
"...Okay, this is definitely illegal."
"Stop complaining and cooperate," Melina replied, narrowing her eyes and analyzing his body like a researcher staring at rare experimental material. "I need to understand muscle proportion, body density, bone alignment, and especially combat mobility."
"You just made up half those words."
"I didn’t."
"She did," Serafall retorted immediately from the sofa.
"TRAITOR."
Victor was still about to retort when Melina simply raised a huge, enchanted black pair of scissors.
SNAP.
A single cut happened too fast for human eyes to follow.
Victor’s shirt simply fell to the floor in perfectly separated pieces. Silence filled the room for approximately two seconds.
Then Melina looked at his chest and froze. Her eyes slowly widened... The professional expression vanished completely.
"...What’s wrong?" Victor immediately noticed the change.
Melina didn’t answer... She continued staring at his torso like someone facing a divine revelation. Victor possessed the kind of body created exclusively through constant, brutal combat. He wasn’t simply muscular like ordinary warriors who trained for aesthetics. Every muscle seemed functional, compact, and refined by real violence. The discreet scars scattered across his chest and abdomen only worsened the situation because they gave him that absurdly dangerous appearance vampires naturally found attractive.
Melina literally started drooling.
A drop slowly trickled down the corner of her mouth.
"My panties..." she murmured, almost breathless. "They’re soaked as hell."
Victor looked like he was about to say something, but ultimately remained silent.
Serafall, meanwhile... was watching with a demonic look that clearly said, You better shut up. But Melina completely ignored it.
She slipped her hand through the opening of her pants, reached for her panties, touched the inside, then pulled her hand back out and showed it to Victor. "Here! Soaked!"
Serafall’s murderous aura returned instantly.
"Melina." She spoke almost like she was about to kill her.
The elf continued staring at his chest, completely mesmerized, her fingers wet with moisture. "This isn’t a man..." she murmured as she slowly brought her hand closer. "This is offensively perfect architecture..."
SLAP.
A bloody ball hit her forehead again.
"OW!"
Melina staggered back, clutching her head as she glared indignantly at Serafall.
"STOP ATTACKING ME!"
"Stop drooling over my husband-son."
"I can’t, he’s too hot!!"
Victor slowly massaged his forehead as he watched the two of them.
"...You two seriously need therapy."
"We’re vampires," Serafall replied naturally. "That’s basically our therapy."
Melina continued rubbing her forehead as she took a deep breath, trying to regain some semblance of professionalism.
Then she pointed dramatically at Victor.
"Listen here, you ridiculously handsome man, I need to concentrate, so stop existing in such an offensive way. You’re seducing me, you cheeky incubus!"
"..." Victor was speechless. He was just existing... Was that really a problem?
"Very well!" she responded immediately. "Let’s get to work!!" She slapped her cheeks to encourage herself.
’She’s going to take this seriously now...’
Serafall began chuckling softly on the sofa as she watched Melina pace around Victor, analyzing every physical detail of him with extremely critical eyes.
This time, however, she actually got to work.
Measuring tapes flew swiftly across his body, recording measurements on scrolls suspended in the air. Small magical runes appeared around his shoulders, arms, and back as Melina murmured extremely specific calculations under her breath.
"Hmm... excellent mobility..." she commented, squeezing his arm without permission. "Absurd muscle density... regeneration will probably interfere with the automatic adjustment..."
Victor watched with growing concern.
"Is there a reason these needles are following me?"
"Yes."
"...What?"
"If you complain too much, they’ll stab you."
Victor remained silent.
"She’s joking," Serafall commented calmly.
The needles immediately turned menacingly toward Victor.
"...She is?"
"Fifty percent."
"Melina!"
"Okay, okay..."
The elf sighed dramatically before snapping her fingers.
The needles immediately recoiled, still looking disappointed.
Victor decided not to comment on it.
It was probably healthier mentally.
Melina then approached again, now holding several pieces of enchanted black fabric. She pressed some of them against his torso while analyzing magical reaction, body temperature, and supernatural blood flow.
The fabric literally pulsed.
Victor looked down.
"...This is alive."
"Yes," Melina replied naturally while writing magical notes in the air with her finger. "Dead fabrics don’t keep up with blood evolution during combat."
"...Of course."
She then placed another cloth over his shoulder.
This one immediately began to smoke.
Melina’s eyes widened.
"Oh."
Serafall noticed the reaction instantly.
"What is it?"
Melina slowly pulled the burnt cloth away from Victor’s body while watching the black smoke rise from the material.
"...His blood corroded high-level vampiric fiber."
The atmosphere grew slightly quieter.
Victor raised an eyebrow.
"Is that bad?"
"Well, yes? I mean, I’ll have to use a more powerful fabric," Melina replied slowly as her eyes began gleaming with scientific excitement. "This is incredibly interesting."
Serafall sighed immediately, recognizing that tone of voice.
"Don’t turn my son into a research project. Charlotte already did that. We don’t need another researcher studying him."
"But look at this!" Melina held up the partially destroyed fabric. "His blood adaptation is completely abnormal!"
Victor observed the burnt piece of fabric without much reaction.
"So the suit is going to explode?"
"Not if I do it right," Melina replied instantly, now completely focused on the work. "But like I said, I’ll need to use much more expensive material."
Serafall crossed her arms.
"How expensive?"
Melina was silent for a few seconds.
Then she smiled.
That smile was dangerous.
"You love him, don’t you?"
"Melina."
"Then open your wallet."
--
The next two hours were, in Victor’s view, one of the most absurd experiences he had ever had since officially entering the vampire world.
And that said a lot.
Melina transformed the entire VIP room into something between an arcane laboratory, a war workshop, and a psychological torture center disguised as an aesthetic consultation. The instant Victor agreed to participate in the process, dozens of instruments began floating around the room automatically through refined blood magic. Enchanted measuring tapes circled his body on their own, magical needles stitched living tissues in the air without the need for physical touch, and small arcane circles constantly appeared on the floor as Melina changed materials, measurements, and construction concepts.
She took it absurdly seriously.
Unfortunately... she also took his chest absurdly seriously.
Victor lost count of how many times Melina "accidentally" ran her hands across his chest during measurements that clearly didn’t require physical contact. At one point, she literally pressed her face against his abdominal muscles, claiming she needed to "analyze the structural density of muscle blood flow."
Serafall tried to kill her three times.
The first was when Melina called Victor a "living sculpture made for sin." The second was when she casually asked if vampires could develop a visual addiction to six-pack abs. And the third occurred when Melina tried to measure the width of his back using her own legs because, according to her, "the traditional method didn’t convey artistic inspiration."
Victor remained silent through almost all of it.
Mainly because any reaction only made the situation worse.
The real problem began when Melina finally tried to produce something functional.
Initially, she used refined elven fabrics, magical fibers capable of naturally absorbing blood energy. The first prototype lasted exactly four seconds before the fabric literally disintegrated upon touching Victor’s skin.
Melina stood silently, staring at the burnt remains on the floor.
Then she tried again.
The second material was a living alloy traditionally used in noble vampire armor. The suit was supposed to automatically synchronize with the wearer through blood circulation.
In Victor’s case...
The suit began writhing violently like an organism trying to escape before exploding into coagulated blood in the middle of the room.
After that, the attempts became progressively more expensive and more dangerous.
She used demonic leather treated with ancient magic.
It melted.
She tried using silk from infernal spiders.
The silk literally died.
Then she tried using fibers made from the crystallized blood of extremely resistant subterranean monsters.
The fibers simply refused to adapt and broke apart on their own.
At a certain point, even Serafall began frowning as she observed everything.
Because it didn’t make sense.
Victor wasn’t consciously destroying the clothes. His own body simply rejected everything.
As if any external material was considered incompatible.
Or inferior.
Melina then stopped.
She stood in complete silence for a few minutes, observing Victor sitting in the center of the room while dozens of pieces of destroyed living tissue lay scattered around like war casualties.
She slowly crossed her arms.
Then she sighed.
"Okay... this is ridiculous."
Victor raised an eyebrow as he watched another charred piece of clothing fall to the floor.
"You’re the one who started throwing magic fabric at me."
"No, I’m talking biologically." Melina slowly walked around him, analyzing his body like a scientist observing a flaw in reality. "Nothing suits you."
Serafall rested her face against her hand on the sofa as she calmly observed.
"I figured it would be difficult."
"Difficult?" Melina pointed at the pile of destroyed materials in the corner of the room. "I just lost enough resources to buy a small castle!"
"You’re rich."
"THAT DOESN’T CHANGE THE EMOTIONAL TRAUMA."
Victor sighed wearily.
"So it’s over?"
"No," Melina replied immediately.
That made Serafall narrow her eyes slightly.
The elf remained silent for a few seconds before finally snapping her fingers, making all the instruments in the room stop moving.
The atmosphere became strangely more serious.
"Actually..." she murmured while looking directly at Victor. "Maybe there is a way."
Victor immediately realized from her expression that this probably wouldn’t be pleasant.
"What?"
Melina tilted her head slightly.
"Your body rejects any external structure because apparently your blood tries to dominate everything that comes into prolonged contact with it." She walked slowly to a table full of destroyed fabrics and picked up one of the burnt remains. "So instead of creating something that adapts to you..."
She squeezed the fabric between her fingers.
"...we create something from you."
Victor remained silent.
Serafall didn’t interrupt either.
Melina then asked the strangest question possible in that context.
"How many people have you killed?"
Victor answered without hesitation.
"Only one." He looked away slightly. "And he was a son of a bitch."
Melina remained silent for a few seconds, analyzing the answer.
Then she nodded slowly.
"Let’s say that’s probably the best-case scenario."
Victor frowned slightly.
"What does that have to do with it?"
"Living armors carry mental residue," Melina responded naturally as she began rearranging the materials in the room. "The greater the number of deaths, the more unstable the blood core tends to become. Blood too heavily laden with murderous intent usually creates aggressive structures."
She casually pointed to a red suit of armor displayed on a distant wall.
"That one tried to eat three users."
Victor remained completely silent.
"...Okay."
"But in your case..." Melina continued as she slowly brought her face closer to his, "your blood still seems absurdly pure emotionally."
"That sounds wrong."
"That’s because you still think like a human."
Serafall smiled discreetly on the sofa.
Melina then began walking around the room again while talking to herself out loud.
"If I use pure blood as a structural core... mix it with living tissue... add adaptive elven fibers... maybe I can create a stable symbiotic organism..."
She stopped abruptly.
Then turned toward Victor.
And smiled.
It was a dangerous smile.
"Okay. I can do it."
Victor immediately became suspicious.
"How much will this cost?"
"A criminal amount of money."
"Specific."
"And five liters of your blood."
Silence hung in the room.
Victor looked at her without any immediate reaction.
"...Five liters."
"You regenerate," Melina replied casually with a shrug. "Besides, I’ll need a lot of material to form a functional living core. Less than that increases the chance of rejection."
Serafall slowly crossed her legs while smiling to the side.
"She’s excited. That usually means the idea is good."
"Or illegal," Victor replied.
"The two usually go hand in hand," Melina confirmed immediately.
She then clapped once.
Instantly, several magic circles appeared across the floor while crystal containers began flying out from hidden compartments.
Her expression now resembled that of a completely obsessed scientist about to commit an academic crime.
"So let’s go," Melina said, pointing at a huge metal chair emerging from the floor. "Give me five liters of blood and two hours."
She grinned with absurd excitement.
"And I’ll make you a living adaptive suit of armor."
Then she tilted her head slightly.
"Again... it’s going to cost a hell of a lot."
—
In the end, the two hours promised by Melina turned into twelve.
Twelve full hours of explosions, hysterical screams, black smoke billowing from the VIP room doors, and employees running through the store’s internal corridors, honestly believing some kind of magical attack was taking place.
Victor spent most of that time lying on one of the enormous golden sofas, observing the chaos with an increasingly blank expression. At a certain point, he simply gave up trying to understand exactly what Melina was doing.
Because even she didn’t seem to understand anymore.
With each new attempt, something went wrong.
Either the blood reacted aggressively.
Or the living structure tried to grow on its own.
Or the armor literally changed shape mid-creation.
In one of the explosions, an entire wall of the VIP room disappeared.
In another, several arms made of blood tissue emerged, trying to grab Melina while she screamed, "NO, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TURN INTO A COAT!"
Serafall no longer seemed surprised after the fifth partial destruction of the environment.
She simply sipped her tea calmly while watching Melina slowly lose her sanity.
"The core is growing on its own!"
"Is that bad?"
"I DON’T KNOW!"
Later, a creature resembling a living suit tried to escape through the ventilation system.
Melina chased it for forty minutes while holding a chair.
Victor honestly began to believe the entire shop operated on improvised magical crimes.
And yet...
She continued.
Because the more she tried to interrupt the process, the more evident one thing became:
The armor wanted to exist.
Victor’s blood simply absorbed any concept Melina inserted into the project. Defense. Mobility. Resistance. Adaptation. Camouflage. Regeneration.
Everything.
That thing wasn’t just being created.
It was evolving during its creation.
The problem was that apparently it wanted to become absolutely everything at the same time.
So Melina continued altering structures, destroying absurdly expensive materials, and rewriting spells until her own body began failing from exhaustion.
When she finally finished...
The VIP room looked like a war zone.
Half the ceiling was broken.
Smoke billowed from holes in the walls.
Dead living tissue was scattered across the floor like discarded corpses.
And Melina...
She looked like a vengeful spirit fresh out of an industrial accident.
Her silver hair was completely blown upward, covered in soot and occasional tiny magical sparks. Her face was smeared with black dirt, her eyes red with utter exhaustion, and her clothes partially burned in several places.
She literally crawled across the floor.
Slowly.
Like a war survivor.
Victor watched this while lying on the sofa and holding a glass of blood, completely calm.
Serafall raised an eyebrow.
Melina then slowly raised one trembling hand.
There was a small black ring stuck between her fingers.
"..." She took a dramatic breath.
Then she fell face-first onto the floor before murmuring in a completely lifeless voice:
"I’m done..."
Serafall sighed as she calmly rose from the sofa.
She walked over to Melina, who was still lying on the floor, and simply took the ring from her hand without any ceremony, leaving the elf there like a disposable corpse.
"Thank you for the effort."
"I saw hell..." Melina replied without even lifting her head.
Victor continued observing all this without any significant emotional reaction.
Serafall then casually tossed the ring in his direction.
Victor caught it automatically mid-air before examining the object.
The ring was completely black, made from a strange metal that seemed both liquid and solid at the same time. Small crimson veins slowly moved across the surface like living blood circulation.
It pulsed.
Literally pulsed.
Victor narrowed his eyes slightly.
"...How does this work?"
Melina remained lying on the floor, too weak to even lift her head.
Her voice came out muffled against the destroyed floor of the room.
"I-I spent more time because this thing wants to be everything..." She let out another exhausted sigh. "So it injects blood energy... and thinks of an outfit... that it must create based on the way you imagine it..."
Victor looked at the ring again.
Then he blinked a few times.
"...Oh."
Serafall crossed her arms as she watched his reaction.
Victor slowly twirled the ring between his fingers.
"So this thing works like a complete wardrobe?"
Melina slowly raised a trembling thumb without leaving the floor.
"Adaptive..."
Victor calmly placed the ring on his finger.
"...How practical."
Silence hung in the air for a few seconds.
Then Melina began laughing like a completely mentally broken person.
"Practical..." she repeated in a lifeless voice. "I wasted twelve hours of my life... destroyed forbidden materials... almost died three times... and he calls it practical..."
Serafall gave her a small pat on the shoulder.
"But it looks good."
"I’m never making clothes for monsters again..." Melina murmured dramatically.
While Melina was still lying on the floor looking like the victim of an industrial explosion, Serafall simply opened a small dimensional pocket beside the sofa with absolute tranquility.
Melina’s eyes widened instantly.
That woman practically resurrected.
She appeared standing in an absurd blur of speed, her hair still completely blown upward like someone who had lost a war against magical electricity. Her face was covered in soot, one eyebrow partially burned, and smoke literally billowed from her clothes as she desperately reached toward Serafall.
"MY PAYMENT!" she cried, tears welling in her eyes. "One billion Vels! Finally! I’ll recover my emotional, financial, and spiritual losses—"
Serafall placed something in her hand.
A card.
One of those birthday cards.
Silence.
Melina blinked slowly, staring at the card decorated with golden flowers and a cheerful Happy Birthday :) written on the front.
She froze completely.
"W-what is this...?" she asked weakly.
Serafall calmly crossed her arms.
"Your payment."
"W-where’s my money?"
"There."
Melina slowly flipped the card over, trying to understand whether it was some kind of offensive magic.
"...It’s paper."
"Exactly."
The elf began trembling.
Victor, still lying on the sofa, watched everything with a completely dead expression while holding the newly created ring between his fingers.
"B-but..." Melina stammered, looking at Serafall like a widow abandoned by life. "B-but the deal was one billion and two million..."
"I deducted it."
"D-deducted what?"
Serafall smiled.
It was an extremely beautiful smile.
And terrifying as hell.
"All the times you sexually harassed Victor while measuring his muscles."
Silence.
Victor slowly looked away.
Because she wasn’t wrong.
Not even slightly.
During those twelve hours, Melina had "accidentally" run her hands across his chest approximately fifty times, squeezed his arm "to test muscle density," licked blood "for scientific reasons," and at one point tried to measure his waist using her own legs.
"B-but I was working..." Melina replied in an offended tone.
"You groaned while measuring his abdomen."
"IT WAS PROFESSIONAL!"
"You called his chest a cultural treasure."
"STILL TRUE!"
Serafall continued smiling.
"I also deducted compensation for the three psychological heart attacks you caused me."
Melina looked like she was about to faint.
"Damn it..." she murmured, lowering her head in defeat as she slowly opened the card.
Then she saw it.
Her eyes widened so much that Victor became absolutely certain this was not biologically healthy.
"...Huh?"
She brought the card closer to her face.
Then moved it away.
Then brought it close again.
"...Huh?"
Silence fell across the entire room as Melina began counting the zeros with a trembling finger.
"U-one..."
Another finger.
"T-ten..."
Another.
"H-one hundred..."
Yet another.
Her hand began trembling violently.
"M-my god..."
Money literally started pouring out of her eyes.
Not metaphorically.
Small magical bills began trickling down like tears as she stared at the check hidden inside the card.
Money also came out of her nose.
And her mouth.
Victor stared at it for a few seconds.
"...Is she bleeding money?"
"She does that when she gets emotional," Serafall replied naturally.
"Oh my god..." Melina repeated again, clutching the card against her chest and trembling like someone holding their newborn child. "I-is this check real...?"
"Go cash it at a bank before you die of happiness," Serafall replied calmly.
Melina fell to her knees.
"I love money so much..." she whispered tearfully.
"Everyone noticed."
The elf immediately stood up again in an absurdly fast movement, tucked the check into her clothes like a criminal hiding drugs, then grabbed Serafall’s hands with tears in her eyes.
"Sera... I take back everything I said about you being emotionally impoverished..."
"You literally called me that twelve hours ago."
"I WAS BLINDED BY ENVY!"
Victor let out a tired sigh as he finally stood up from the sofa.
"Is it over?"
"No," Melina replied immediately. "Now I want to measure him again by celebrating."
"No fucking way," Serafall replied before Victor could even open his mouth.
"Dictatorship." Melina crossed her arms indignantly.
Serafall simply ignored her, turned to Victor and pointed to the door.
"Let’s go."
Victor nodded immediately.
Any opportunity to get out of that place before Melina had another criminal idea seemed excellent.
As the two walked towards the VIP room exit, Melina remained kneeling, clutching the birthday card like a religious entity finally finding financial salvation.
Victor paused for a moment before looking at her.
"...You really suffered twelve hours doing this."
Melina slowly lifted her face.
Her eyes were sunken.
Her hair looked like the result of a nuclear explosion.
And there was a hand-shaped burn mark on the wall behind her.
"...Your blood is a biological crime," she replied in a completely lifeless tone. "I hated every second of it."
"You literally called it a work of art."
"BOTH THINGS COULD BE TRUE!"
—
"How much did you give her?" Victor questioned as they walked, he still hadn’t tested the suit.
"I didn’t give her anything. It was fake." Serafall shrugged.
"What?" Victor asked incredulously.
"She’s too naive, who uses checks? I’m a woman of principles. I only have treasures in pure gold." She smiled.
Victor chuckled slightly, and then... "HAHAHAHAHA~" he laughed a little more, "I can imagine the face she’ll make when she realizes~"
