I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

Pandora’s gaze dropped to the hem of Elsa’s skirt a second later.

The deep crimson maid outfit retained its same familiar texture. But those tiny, ruby-like granules that had once been scattered along the hem—they had changed.

They were no longer scattered decorations. They had converged and intertwined, forming patterns that were vaguely, hauntingly... like gaping slits. The edges of those “slits” were lined with thorn-like spiked tracery.

“Hm?”

Pandora’s brow furrowed slightly.

Wait. That wasn’t right. Those weren’t slits. The moment she tried to get a better look, the patterns seemed to shift, becoming instead something restrained and prim—like the subtle smile of a well-mannered lady.

But with her current level of mental force and perception, how could she be seeing things wrong?

The only explanation was...

“Interesting.” A tiny smirk tugged at the corner of Pandora’s mouth.

She was genuinely a little curious now.

Still...

“Let’s go.”

She gently set the greatsword back on the weapon rack along the wall. As much as she wanted to immediately feel out what it was like to use the freshly-Reshaped Elsa at Rank-3, it was no longer necessary. The Raider she’d just disassembled was the strongest combat golem this facility had on offer. Without an opponent of sufficient caliber, her full strength couldn’t be properly tested. Just “swinging it around” was pointless.

As for what came next?

That was obviously... time to go meet her future “Mentor.”

..................

But that raised a question.

How was she supposed to find her?

All Pandora had right now was the calling card Faye had given her. That eerie, cryptic woman had said it once: if you can’t find a Mentor you’re satisfied with, come find me.

But all she had was this one simple card.

She held it in her palm. The feel of it was surprisingly high quality. Deep purple metallic material, the edges inlaid with fine black-gold filigree that radiated an understated, luxurious sheen under the light.

The front held just a single clean line of text: Amanda Adam.

The back held a single simple character: “6.”

No address. No contact method. Not a single word of extra explanation.

How was she supposed to use it? A blood offering?

Pandora scraped her fingernail across her fingertip. A bead of vivid crimson blood dropped onto the card’s smooth surface. The droplet rolled across it.

Then... nothing happened.

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“Maybe it’s voice-activated?”

Pandora cleared her throat and tried speaking to the card directly.

“I’m looking for Amanda Adam.”

No response.

“I, Pandora Douglas, wish to meet with Amanda Adam.”

Still silence.

In the time that followed, Pandora and Elsa—who was standing off to one side—tried several other possible methods. All of them failed.

She stood in place, staring at the black-purple metal card, feeling, for once, completely at a loss.

Right at that moment—

The Palmfiend, which Pandora had casually left in the corner of the rest area, jumbled in with the rest of her things, suddenly stirred. As if sensing her frustration, it pried five tiny little fingers out from the pile of clutter and went tap-tap-tapping over toward her.

Pandora watched the Palmfiend scurry to her feet and tip its head back to look up at her. On a whim, figuring it was worth a shot, she held the black-gold card out in front of it.

The Palmfiend’s five little fingers closed around the card.

Then its entire body seized up. Completely still. Not a single movement.

About five seconds passed.

Squeak—

A faintly jubilant chirp came from somewhere inside it.

And then—

Pandora looked at her Palmfiend’s contact list. A new name had appeared, clear as day.

“Amanda Adam.”

And the other party had already sent a message. It was an address.

..................

The building in front of her was... unusual.

It sat in a relatively secluded corner of the campus grounds, surrounded on all sides by leafy trees, the whole area hushed and tranquil.

The structure itself was comprised of sweeping, floor-to-ceiling glass curtain walls. But you couldn’t see much further than that—because through the glass, all that was visible was an overwhelming, impossibly dense wall of plant life. Vines, ferns, broad-leafed tropical plants—all growing in rampant, untamed profusion, filling every last inch of space, forming a vibrant, exuberant green wall of living matter.

This was the campus’s one and only “Deep Forest Oxygen Bar.”

For the majority of Demon Hunter apprentices, an oxygen bar—a facility that provided high-concentration pure oxygen and simulated forest environments, supposedly useful for relaxation and mental purification—was frankly not a necessary expense compared to potions that could directly boost combat effectiveness.

But despite the “non-essential” nature of the Deep Forest Oxygen Bar itself, it was actually quite well-known among the student body. Nearly everyone had heard of it.

Because its prices were astronomical. Astronomical enough to make the vast majority of apprentices balk at the door. And yet, you could regularly spot actual Master Demon Hunters coming and going from the place.

Once upon a time, a few curious or socially ambitious apprentices had gritted their teeth, dumped a significant pile of contribution points on admission, and gone inside. But once inside... all they found was a perfectly ordinary deep-forest oxygen bar. The plant landscaping was admittedly stunning—astonishing enough that you genuinely felt like you were standing in the depths of a primeval wilderness.

But still. A deeply terrible deal. After that, no apprentice had ever been willing to throw away money on it again. At most, it occasionally surfaced in idle conversation, treated as a kind of campus urban legend.

Now, it was Pandora’s turn to see what this particular urban legend was actually made of.

“Come to think of it, I really do have an unusual affinity for urban legends...”

She drew a deep breath.

Pandora and Elsa exchanged a glance. Even though she had long since prepared herself mentally, and in every other sense of the word, the moment she actually thought about the very real possibility of coming face to face with that eerie “Faye” again, her heart still couldn’t help crawling a little, and her throat went uncomfortably dry.

Though this time around, she was going as a prospective student seeking a Mentor—asking the other party to take her on. By rights, she should go in alone as a show of sincerity.

And yet. In the interest of minimizing the impact of that unsettling cognitive-alteration ability, she had still decided to bring Elsa along.

As for whether or not it would seem disrespectful or improper in terms of etiquette...

She had one thing to say about that: in the face of keeping her own cognition intact, those concerns were completely hollow and utterly meaningless. Besides, given the other party’s obvious power, they presumably wouldn’t care about her bringing one extra person.

As for what bringing Elsa actually accomplished—

Back when Elsa was Rank-1, she had been capable of generating some degree of resistance against Faye’s psychological suggestion, under Pandora’s orders. So what about a Rank-3 Elsa?

She had no idea what Faye’s actual combat power looked like, but surely there had to be some change, some improvement. Plus, the many precautionary instructions Pandora had already fed Elsa beforehand—even in the worst case scenario, where they turned out to be completely useless, they would at least buy a little time...

“Hopefully.”