Q97 crawled behind a towering boulder and silently climbed it. His yellow-green eyes locked onto a vampire standing near the vampire security commander. Since childhood, whenever this man appeared, Q97 had only known pain. And what did they mean by again? This was the first time an experiment had managed to escape, right? He hadn't found any evidence of others successfully leaving in those hidden notes.
"How did he escape?" a cold, emotionless voice echoed from where the man stood. A psychotic, calm smile—heartless and cruel—was the only way to describe this pureblood.
The head of the "Q Series" project researchers was one of the core nobles of the pureblood vampires—Lord Rosencraft.
Some scientists began to whisper into the vampire's ear. Sylene could only catch parts of it: "He likes to disappear for a short time and always comes back. The security didn't notice until they checked the lock on his bedroom—it was actually open. It had been locked from the outside, but it seems he locked it again after escaping."
The pureblood vampire only laughed and looked around the cave. "Good. When we catch him, we can transfer his genetics to our prepared hosts."
Those words made Q97 tremble—not just in fear, but in hatred. There were no words to express how deeply he despised this vampire.
Memories of Q96's lifeless body on the laboratory table flooded his mind. He remembered how Rosencraft had casually dragged his twin's corpse into a trash bag and sneered in dissatisfaction.
"What a pity; I was sure that guy would like her appearance," he said lightly as he discarded the body before Q97 managed to steal his now useless twin sister's body in secret.
To the scientists, perhaps none of the experiments had any worth. As long as the vampires collected their data, they entertained themselves by testing the limits of the experiments, watching as each one perished with delight.
Lord Rosencraft didn't always oversee the sessions, but when he did, Q97 would be bedridden for days due to their brutality—the kind of experiments that severed his limbs. Fortunately, he healed quickly after minor operations, thanks to his impressive regenerative ability. The 90 Series possessed the best regeneration, enhanced by the genes of a rare creature recently captured and kept as a pet by one of the noble families—well, it was his family.
This made Q97 exceptionally resilient. Perhaps that was why his sessions were the harshest. But lately, Rosencraft had been ignoring him—likely to focus on overseeing the new hosts.
During those brutal times, he could barely move while recovering. His gaze, full of pain, could only settle on the melted remains of an ice sculpture carved by Sir Draven, left on the bedside table. By morning, the sculpture would be gone, leaving only water stains, because the heater worked too well and could be considered too hot, and his limbs were reattached. In those moments, Q97 promised himself he wouldn't die by Rosencraft's hands. If death were to claim him, he wanted it to be by Sir Draven's own hands.
But as the experiments grew crueler, his mind began to deteriorate. He could endure no more. Escape became his only option, even if it meant leaving behind his favorite vampire.
Sir Draven did not know who Q97 was or why he was there, but he despised the Rosencraft family. He had once been a vampire soldier, but now served as a guard to the emperor's forgotten rose garden—an empty post, more like an exile than a duty. It was the kind of position most would abandon entirely, yet Draven remained. Over time, he began to care for the withering garden, not because it was his task, but because he chose to. In doing so, he became its silent gardener.
When he heard the name Rosencraft from the child weeping over his twin's cold body, Sir Draven chose to help him—hiding him in the rose garden without question, without suspicion about the young hybrid boy's past. He didn't ask his name, why he was there, what his intentions were, or why his twin had died.
Although the vampire didn't know his name, that didn't discourage Q97. He knew the vampire's name from the whispered murmurs of the castle maids: the mysterious Sir Draven—the quiet guard and self-made gardener of the rose garden.
No one dared to enter the emperor's beloved garden, and the researchers never suspected Q97 would be there. The garden was watched over by an eccentric vampire, and no one wanted to deal with such a strange figure. The last time anyone had seen the place, it had been lifeless and abandoned. But Q97 remained silent—because what he saw was different. The rose garden had bloomed. It had become a beautiful sanctuary for him. And he didn't want any other vampire to ever find it.
—especially those scientists.
From the rumors circulating around the maids' quarters, they said the gardener's strange power was only good for creating ugly ice carvings. Yet, vampire soldiers who visited could never defeat him—nor even get close to the garden. No one ever saw him move when attacked, but the vampires who dared to provoke him would fall mysteriously for no apparent reason. Shards of ice would wrap around their bodies, melting away as they lay motionless on the ground.
They say people fear the unknown—apparently, vampires did too.
When Q97 accidentally wandered into the rose garden, not a single vampire was nearby. The corridors were dark and empty, but the stone floors were clean. He ran through them, thinking: clean stones meant they were rarely stepped on, and that meant vampires rarely came this way. That was how Q97 ended up in that garden.
Since then, Sir Draven's strange reputation alone was enough to shield Q97—and his twin's body—from the hands of those cruel scientists.
Suddenly, he sensed a strange presence nearby. The sound of shifting stones beside him made the boy jump in alarm. A pair of hands clamped over his mouth. Q97 hadn't detected anything with his heightened senses—where had this vampire come from?! He immediately struggled to shake the figure off, but the grip held firm.
"Shh. It's me."
A sliver of icy wind brushed across his face, like something grazing the edge of his mind before fading. A silvery trail, like glittering snow, shimmered on the ground—slowly fading back toward the vampire behind him.
The familiar voice made Q97 freeze, his eyes widening in disbelief as the unmistakable scent of roses and blood filled the air. His heart pounded with excitement. The boy turned, tears in his eyes, and saw Sir Draven crouching behind him.
Q97 nodded, signaling his understanding. The vampire slowly released him, golden eyes gleaming with a reddish hue and his signature gentle smile in place. Q97 noticed the bloody mist surrounding them and the vampire soldiers prowling nearby.
A strange feeling washed over him—the red, veil-like aura felt oddly comforting rather than threatening. He looked at Sir Draven questioningly.
What is this? Was this another one of the vampire's abilities?
Why did Sir Draven always have to be so cool? Q97 felt his heartbeat quicken but chose to ignore it.
In the garden, Sir Draven never asked why Q97 was there or why the soldiers were trying to capture him. He was never the talkative type, and he always seemed to understand everything—though the boy suspected that, sometimes, this guy was just an airhead.
Q97 would even bet that the vampire didn't know his name—if a code and serial number could even be considered one. It was strange how someone with such incredible abilities could spend all day mindlessly tending to roses, as if that was the only thing that mattered in his world.
Maybe their relationship was just that strange—probably nothing more than that of acquaintances. The vampire had never told him his name, nor had he ever asked for Q97's. It was as if his mind was always elsewhere, like he was physically present but mentally far away—so far, in fact, that he seemed to forget even basic manners like introducing oneself. But then again, neither of them was normal.
So without a word, Q97 didn't resist when the vampire quietly led him up a towering boulder, almost like a hill. Sir Draven pointed downward, directly above the train tracks, and tapped twice—indicating for Q97 to jump onto the roof of the train from there. The boy looked and nodded. If he jumped from the side, he could escape undetected, shielded by the massive boulder, and the gap between the roof and the tracks would be just enough for him to squeeze in.
Q97 never explained his escape plan, but Sir Draven helped him anyway—without asking, without speaking.
Tears welled at the corners of Q97's eyes. The red veil thickened protectively around them as the vampire crouched beside him.
"You can talk freely now," he said.
The boy tugged at the corner of the vampire's sleeve, where fresh mud and a faint stain of old blood clung to the fabric. He must have come straight from the rose garden, which puzzled Q97—He hadn't told him he was going, or where he was going to be...
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Q97 whispered, his hands clutching the fabric tighter. "I can't go back into their hands. Not anymore, please…"
All of this wasn't without reason. It had begun seven months ago, when he first rebelled—by stealing his twin's body. Just a few days after that, Q97 saw what he believed to be his replacement: a beautiful vampire woman being dragged out of the underground chamber where they kept the "livestock"—vampire criminals, fallen nobles, exotic hybrids, and commoners who had once rebelled against the system.
From whispered gossip, he learned she was pregnant, likely intended to give birth to the next experiment: Q98.
The scientists' excitement, paired with the escalating cruelty of their procedures, made something painfully clear to Q97—his time was running out.
That suspicion was confirmed 4 months ago when he saw the woman in the lab, heavily pregnant, with looks of satisfaction on the scientists' faces and a doomed expression directed at him. Tubes connected to her swollen belly, bruises marked her arms from countless injections, yet her face held a glimmer of anticipation—he overheard that the scientists would pay her handsomely, and that mean he would meet his end soon.