Chapter 7

Things seemed to settle down as Miranda spent the rest of her days with her new mentor. She learned the trade of vampire hunting, and began to join her master in actually vanquishing the demons, helping out as much as she could.

Her training was ruthless as usual, Alberto hardly giving her another breathing room, giving her the most difficult tasks, and most of them involving her dealing with the contraptions her master was also using. She would be asked to hit all six of the moving targets in one sitting, regardless of the sharp rise of the difficulty curve. Or be asked to hit a target almost a hundred meters away. "You don't want to take any chances," when questioned why she had hit such a far target.

Naturally, she was also taught how to arm herself with as many daggers as possible. Alberto brought her a set to call her own, but due to the little girl's miniature size, she could only bring eight at a time: four around her waist, one at each limb. Alberto reasoned that any more would prove too taxing for the girl's body, as the weight would be detrimental to her agility.

For the next five years, Miranda coped well with her new life. She would have to be diligent with her training almost every day, with occasionally Alberto would toss some books for her to read, some on the knowledge of vampire hunting, while some were just basic knowledge of everyday life. "Can't have you knowing nothing but killing," was all he had to say.

From those books, she learned that vampires were weak against silver, which was what the knives her master was using made of. Vampires may appear to be brainless, but their brain was still intact, and their hearts still pumping to force movement over their twisted limbs. By destroying either one, their movements would be halted. Once the sunrays hit the surface, their flesh and bone would be fried and reduced to dust.

What caused their sudden change of behavior and attack in packs was not known by any of those books. Before this happened, they were kept in check very well. One would become a vampire when one was bitten by a vampire, mostly from the woods, where an unwary animal hunter would had fallen prey to one. Due to their weakness against sunlight, vampires were thought to be hiding in caves.

Not just her dagger throwing skills, Miranda was also tasked to improve her entire body maneuvering, she did a lot of roadwork just to improve her stamina daily, as well as some strength training with the smaller logs she could find herself. "Mine's too heavy for you, find some yourselves." So that's that. She would have to chop them down by using the axe found outside the wooden shack, heck, trying to wield the big axe seemed to be the start of her weight training.

Alberto would even further extend their training to sparring between themselves. Miranda would sometimes find herself being the target of her master's knives, being tasked to dodge them as he flung them to her mercilessly. It was insane, but extremely fruitful, so Miranda wasn't complaining.

When it came to the real job itself, Miranda held herself well, helping out by slaying any amount of vampires she could on her own. At first her mentor would stick close to her, but gradually they began to part from each other, even splitting up and eradicate the foes from different sides of the town.

There were times where they were summoned to guard a town where there were rumors of an imminent vampiric attack, by doing so the town was always saved. Their combination was well known throughout the land.

These attacks mostly occurred once a week, sometimes as often as two days consecutively, while sometimes they managed to catch a breather with being idle for a month.

But there was a trend going on, the requests for vampire hunting became less as days had passed. "There are more hunters now." Alberto remarked, providing a very possible explanation. When Miranda first met Alberto, he mentioned that it had only been two months since something "changed" inside those vampires, people were ill-prepared against this sudden onslaught. But after some time, definitely countermeasures had been taken, with more and more brave warriors encouraged to transform themselves into vampire hunters.

Age didn't seem to be a factor, Miranda had met several young ones, but mostly almost entering their teens, Miranda was still notably young for a vampire hunter.

Miranda was about to hit her eleventh birthday, when she felt her undies dampening, there was a sharp pain going inside her lower abdomen as well.

She had begun her menstruation.

Of the many books she read, she hardly had any knowledge about this. Among the books, there weren't one specifically about women's physiology.

"Oh no… what's happening?" She wondered, clueless as what to do. Her pain gradually caused her to roll up as she pressed her hands against her abdomen. Not knowing what to do, help was the only option, as she called out for her master.

"Master..."

Alberto entered the shack, just finished his training. He saw the sight of Miranda curling at one corner of the house. His eyes were different, from the usual aloof ones which rarely gave someone a gaze, they somehow turned wild and large, as if surprised. The master hunter licked his lips and gritted his teeth, reaching out to a cupboard, not to his distraught student.

Opening the cupboard, Alberto took out what looked to be a bottle of booze. Miranda looked upon her master in one go consumed the entire bottle, she could not remember her master drinking any alcoholic drinks.

After gulping his bottle of alcohol, unbeknownst to Miranda of its contents, he tossed it hard to the ground, breaking it into pieces. He wiped his mouth with his hand like a wild animal, his gaze predatory, looking upon Miranda as if a lion had eyes onto a trapped rabbit.