I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

The bear’s attack had, indeed, injured Pandora.

A ghastly wound, deep enough to expose bone, appeared along her flank. It stretched from the side of her waist to the edge of her spine. The flesh was split and curling outward, blood seeping from the edges and staining the fabric of her dress.

The force behind it was so immense that even the vitality of the flesh near the wound was briefly suppressed. It could not knit itself shut as swiftly as lesser injuries would have. The bear’s terrifying power actively resisted the healing process.

The bear’s strength was beyond question.

But—

Pandora’s was far more dreadful.

In that very instant she brushed past the bear!

The crimson greatsword traced a bewitching arc. It was not the slash of ordinary swordsmanship. It was the extension of some dark choreography—elegant, fluid. And yet within that fluidity lurked a lethal, cutting edge.

Where the blade passed, a scarlet afterimage lingered in the air. It coiled like a sinuous ribbon of blood, remaining vivid in the vision for a full second before slowly dissipating.

There was no earth-shattering boom.

No harsh clang of metal meeting metal.

Only a soft, wet squelch—the sound of a blade sinking into flesh. It was quieter even than the crash of the oven being knocked aside moments ago. So faint it could almost be dismissed.

But that single, almost gentle strike was followed by the heavy thud of a massive object hitting the floor.

Thud!

The bear’s colossal, headless corpse toppled straight backward.

The severed neck was mirror-smooth. There was not a single ragged tear or frayed edge. Black blood gushed from the wound, but the moment it touched the shadows pooling on the floor, it was silently devoured. The vitality within that monstrous body had been extinguished entirely in one blow. The crimson sword had not merely parted flesh and bone. It had severed every wellspring of power that sustained that terrifying form.

The severed head lay on the ground. Its scarlet eyes were still frozen in that final, fleeting moment. They held a mix of savage excitement and sheer, uncomprehending shock. Even in death, it never understood. It never understood how that blade could slice through its proudly twisted flesh. How it could pierce its supposedly impenetrable skeletal armor. And how it could—

so effortlessly end its life.

The battle was over.

Dust and smoke slowly cleared. The air was thick with mingled scents. Charred ruin, blood, and that peculiar, sickening musk of the Anomaly all hung heavy in the space.

The members of the auxiliary squad finally recovered their wits from behind the bone wall. Cold sweat beaded on their foreheads, and their hearts had yet to settle. Even filtered through the bone wall and the shadow web, the residual force of that final clash had carried a suffocating pressure. It had been like standing in the face of a hurricane, watching everything around them being ground to rubble.

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And now, the hurricane had passed. A lingering fear still clung to their hearts as they took in the scene before them.

The kitchen was unrecognizable. The stainless steel worktables were twisted and deformed. The oven was embedded in the wall. The floor was littered with scattered ingredients, shattered porcelain, and pools of various sauces. Everything mixed into a Technicolor sludge.

Yet, the room itself had not been breached. The building’s structure had not suffered catastrophic damage. The walls were laced with fresh cracks and claw marks, but the load-bearing framework remained intact.

All of this was thanks to Pandora’s shadows.

The layer of darkness that had enveloped the room had absorbed the brunt of the impact. It had also formed buffers at critical points, confining the destructive force to the kitchen’s boundaries. Otherwise, with the sheer, horrifying power behind the bear’s strike, this wall—and the adjacent rooms—would certainly have ceased to exist.

With a faint, skeletal clatter, the bone-white wall rippled, then retracted. The individual bones, as if in a reversed recording, receded and vanished back into the chest cavity of one of the squad members. He was one of the two Rank-2 Limit members in the auxiliary squad, besides their captain.

During that shockwave, his bone wall had been a crucial second line of defense. It withstood the residual force that had slipped past the shadow web. Without it, that remaining shock would still have been enough to injure the other members present.

Pandora gave him an approving glance.

To be acknowledged by this Rank-3 superior made the man’s complexion visibly brighten. The tension drained from his muscles, and the pallor brought on by his exertion receded somewhat.

Then, Pandora’s gaze fell upon the massive corpse of the black bear.

The once-strongest of “The Seven” was now nothing more than raw material awaiting processing. Its enormous body lay sprawled in the center of the ruined kitchen. The clean, chilling precision of its severed neck was a stark testament to what had occurred. The black blood had ceased to flow, completely and silently swallowed by the shadows on the floor.

“This Anomaly’s corpse cannot be burned,” Pandora stated. “I require it for materials.”

The squad members nodded in affirmation, asking no questions. The needs of a Rank-3 were not theirs to question.

Pandora pondered for a moment, then her gaze shifted. It landed on the quiet, round-faced girl who had remained silent within the group.

“Betty,” she spoke. “Can I leave the dissection to you?”

The others instinctively looked toward Betty among their ranks. She was dressed in a waitress’s uniform, looking wholly unremarkable. Her features were soft and plain. It was the kind of face that would never draw a second glance in a crowd.

Upon hearing the order, she immediately straightened and gave a slight bow. “Yes, My Lady.”

No one thought this was unusual. It was entirely normal to treat a Rank-3 superior—someone they might never become themselves—with such deference.

At the same time, they all felt that Betty was indeed the most suitable person for this dissection task. Beyond her exceptional culinary skills, Betty’s other area of expertise lay in anatomy. Gastronomic Crafting and Gastronomic Anatomy had once been her chosen electives.

What no one present realized was that Betty and the formidable Lady Pandora had once shared a much closer connection. It was a piece of their past. One that, with the passage of time and diverging personal choices, had faded until they were now little more than strangers.

……

Inside the bathroom.

At some point, a thick mist had begun to seep in, filling the cramped space. It possessed an eerie texture, flowing slowly like a living thing. It devoured nearly all sound.

The showerhead was off, yet droplets still slid silently from its rim. The faint, distant noise of the city outside the window had vanished. When had it stopped? There was no telling.

No sound remained.

Except—

for those steadily approaching footsteps.

Click. Click. Click.

Crisp, elegant, unhurried.

Butterfly’s severed head still lay quietly on the floor. Its lusterless compound eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling.

And Crocodile stood beside it, still as a statue. His breathing was nearly imperceptible. His heartbeat was deliberately suppressed to its lowest ebb.

He knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.

The ever-closer footsteps had already proven that. Each one seemed to fall on the rhythm of his own pulse. They carried with them a subtle, unspoken urging.