Brother and Sister

Transylvania's bars were never bustling.

Apart from a few drunkards, most villagers preferred to hide in their homes—nighttime belonged to the undead. While taking cover served no real protective purpose, it did provide psychological comfort to the fearful.

Van Helsing sat alone in a corner of the bar, his peace disrupted by the clamor of the drunkards. The noise abruptly died down as Keanu appeared in the doorway.

The boisterous drinkers fell silent instantly, looking at Keanu with awe-struck eyes.

Keanu comfortably took a seat next to Van Helsing. "Gasken, a drink if you will," Keanu requested as he tossed a silver coin.

Gasken filled a large mug of beer for Keanu and pushed the coin back to him. "This one's on me. While I may not agree with your methods, I admit that you're right."

Keanu was somewhat taken aback. While all the villagers were eventually persuaded by him, Gasken was the only dissenter. Now, when all the villagers started fearing him, Gasken had become the sole supporter again.

"Thank you," Keanu acknowledged, raising his mug to Van Helsing in a toast. He then drained his mug in one gulp.

Van Helsing reciprocated the toast, "I have to admit, I was wrong about you during the day. You are an excellent devil hunter. Oddly, I hadn't heard about you before."

"Perhaps it's because your evaluation wasn't entirely wrong. My strength is indeed low, and I have to rely on my intellect to compensate. But if possible, I wish that my physical strength were greater," Keanu chuckled, "Perhaps you could advise me on that?"

Van Helsing regarded Keanu with surprise.

Keanu quickly added, "You won't think that Count Dracula would be easy to handle, would you? A stronger companion is always better than a weaker one, right?"

After some consideration, Van Helsing finally nodded, "What do you want to learn?"

"Whatever you teach" Keanu answered forthrightly. He currently had a strong desire to enhance his fighting capability, and like a traveler parched in a desert, his number one goal was to acquire before selecting.

"In that case, I will teach you some tips about using firearms," Van Helsing said.

He explained to Keanu the deficiencies in his handling of guns. When he concluded, Keanu received a notification: "You received guidance from Van Helsing. Your gun mastery has leveled up to a basic level. Your shooting skills and accuracy increased, and your hit rate for moving targets also increased. You've learned to load your bullets with SP, enhancing bullet attack. Each SP permanently increases bullet damage by 10, with a maximum of 10 SPs in one shot, causing 100 additional damage. This method is non-specific and cannot be powered up."

Keanu stared at the notification in shock. He hadn't anticipated that Van Helsing's guidance would bring him such apparent benefits. What excited him more was the method of loading SP.

Although Keanu had two skills, what he lacked most was attacking power. Van Helsing's teachings effectively granted him an attacking ability — and while its potency might be ordinary and weak, it still was better than nothing. This also made him realize that not all rewards stemmed strictly from grueling battles. Engaging in deeper communication with plot characters could also yield some valuable returns.

After giving Keanu his guidance, Van Helsing resumed his solitary drinking, not bothering with him anymore. Realizing that he wouldn't gain any more benefits for the moment, Keanu returned alone to Anna's house.

Anna was still awake. Seeing Keanu return, she swiftly approached him. With her arm around his neck, she kissed him on the cheek and softly whispered, "For our hero."

Hero? This label took Keanu by surprise, but he quickly understood. This was more a gesture of Anna's confidence in him than reverence. Comparing Anna's initial perception when they met with her looking now, which was brimming with hope, was like night and day.

Killing Vampire Bride Marika had filled Anna with unprecedented confidence. She believed in Keanu and trusted that he could bring about further miracles. This belief was more valuable than empty promises.

However, alongside this trust, Keanu also noticed something unusual. The girl's heart was ablaze with passion…

He was confident that he could easily take Anna to his bed right now. He wasn't an overly rigid man. Though he had been deeply in love with another girl, that was all in the past. Grace was dead, and he couldn't mourn for her forever.

But faced with Anna's ardor, he questioned the worth of it. Perfectly aware that he would eventually leave, he was uncertain about the fate of this world post his departure. Everything seemed unreal — each person lived, breathed, thought, and felt emotions, whether anger, hatred, or love. They were real people, not just simple NPCs. If they were real, his departure would undeniably inflict severe damage on the girl.

From a rational perspective, Gasken was deeply infatuated with Anna. Love could drive people mad, culminating in irrational and foolish behavior. Keanu didn't want his relationship with the villager to deteriorate for such reasons.

In the grand scheme of things, Anna was the princess of the town, bearing the mission of eliminating vampires. Being with her would blur the line between business and personal, inciting suspicion among the villagers about Keanu's motivation behind his actions, whether it was to save the town or the Villares family.

This could threaten their faith in him.

From all angles, it was necessary to keep a proper distance from Anna.

So, he had to eventually ignore the girl's passion. Just as he was about to turn her down, he felt a heat in his chest.

It was a warning from the Tear Crystal pendant.

Keanu quickly pushed Anna away, shouting, "Be careful!"

A shadow rushed upon him, robbing him of his time to draw his weapon. He grabbed a nearby weapon rack to protect himself. The massive shadow hit the rack and Keanu, knocking him backward.

The shadow lunged at Keanu once again, pinning him down. Its sharp teeth flashed as it aimed for Keanu's neck.

It was a giant werewolf.

Reacting quickly, Keanu lowered his head, clashing against the creature's teeth. Despite the werewolf's sharp teeth, they shattered against Keanu's skull— the hardest part of the human body. Coupled with his enhanced attributes, the headbutt was enough to break the werewolf's teeth, causing it to scream in agony.

However, Keanu was not unscathed either. The impact left him light-headed.

Anna grabbed a knife from the scattered weapons and attacked the werewolf aggressively. However, the werewolf managed to deflect her attack.

Taking advantage of the diversion, Keanu quickly regained his senses and, suppressing the ache in his head, lifted the werewolf and threw him against the wall.

Surprisingly, the werewolf spun mid-air, grabbed onto the wall, and hung there like a picture. Unscathed, it glared back at Keanu with its green eyes.

Keanu drew his gun and started shooting. It howled, leaping onto the ceiling to evade the bullet, running smoothly as if it were horizontal ground.

"That's not an ordinary werewolf!" Anna exclaimed in horror.

Keanu could only smile wryly. He knew all too well that it wasn't an ordinary werewolf.

His spiritual exploration had been released, a necessity before every battle.

Elite Werewolf

attack 12-20

defense 7

HP 400

Weakness: head

Skills: none

This elite werewolf was very close to a silver wolf in attributes but lacked any special skills.

At this moment, it swiftly darted across the ceiling and pounced above Keanu, viewing him as a mortal enemy.

Its enormous claws ferociously tangled with Keanu, who didn't dodge the strike but accepted it. Simultaneously, he fired a bullet at the werewolf. Both sprayed blood.

However, in the next instant, Keanu's hand was already on his chest, healing himself immediately. With his vile healing powers, Keanu's endurance in battles had drastically improved, even if he still lacked a great damage skill.

The elite werewolf's speed was remarkable, possessing a strong ability to evade bullets. Trading blows was Keanu's best option.

Yet opting for a trade-off wouldn't last long, since the cooldown for the healing spell was a full minute. In serious battles, even a second was crucial, let alone a minute.

The elite werewolf didn't plan on giving Keanu another chance to heal, charging at him once more. Yet, Keanu still chose not to evade and took another hit.

Bang!

A bullet hit the werewolf square in the chest, inflicting a terrifying damage of 155. The werewolf howled in agony, clearly stunned by Keanu's destructive power.

10 SPs loaded on the bullet, causing an additional 100 damage on top of the bullet's original power, resulting in such an effect.

Simultaneously, the werewolf's claw hit Keanu's chest right where the heart was, dealing double damage. Keanu's freshly restored HP was instantly reduced by a third.

As the furious werewolf prepared to attack Keanu again, he drew an axe from his left hand.

It was the hand axe from the globon chieftain.

The axe's boomerang skill was activated. Keanu's attack value was now at 10, on top of the axe's initial 6-10 damage, resulting in a boomerang damage of 16-20. Facing the werewolf at close range, the axe swiftly flew out of his hand, carving a path through the werewolf's shoulders before returning to his hand. The werewolf's entire forelimb was nearly chopped off by the axe, causing it to howl in pain, and crash into Keanu's chest. The colossal impact made Keanu feel as if his bones were about to shatter, but he stubbornly raised his right arm to take another shot at the werewolf.

9 SPs loaded, 145 damage.

This was his last 9 SPs.

The werewolf's chest exploded in a dazzling spurt of blood, almost exposing its bones and innards. However, the moment Keanu discharged his shot, he instantly felt extreme dizziness from the complete depletion of the SP force in his body.

The intense sensation of nausea and weakness occupied his entire body at once, and his sight filled with a dim vision. It was as if a pedestrian got brutally hit by a car and felt utterly powerless while looking at the sky at the last moment.

Keanu felt as if he could no longer stand.

This was his first time running out of his SP in a battle, and he had not anticipated the extreme side effects it would cause. Knowing that something was off, he noticed Anna, with her knife raised, advancing towards the gravely injured werewolf that could barely move.

"Don't kill it!" Keanu yelled.

Taken aback, Anna withheld her attack, "Why?"

"Because... it's your... brother," Keanu managed to utter before collapsing.