The trip down through the cave had been a dark, dank experience, dotted with skeletons. It was clear that, whatever the reason was, something had animated a great deal of the dead here. Perhaps more disturbing was the sheer number of dead people. Just what had happened here? After all, the clergy feared that such a mob of undead would be a serious threat to nearby villages. The natural choice had to be sending a paladin to deal with things.

Skeletons were, thankfully, easily felled. Though something did seem... unusual about them, especially as the paladin was venturing deeper. Did they have fangs? Some of the skeletons still had moldering flesh clinging to their bodies... and at the deepest level of the cave, there were instead emaciated, mindless undead. They, too, would be easily slain beneath the weight of a blessed hammer.

Far down, at the bottom layer, when the final walking corpse fell, there would be a rather... unusual sight. It was a coffin, sitting upright against the wall opposite to the entrance of the chamber. Indeed, it seemed to be embedded in the very stone, or perhaps carved from it. Was this perhaps the source of the undead?

If that was the case, whatever was inside would need to be dealt with.

The paladin had found the whole experience rather unfulfilling, really. As much as she enjoyed ending the unnatural existence of the undead, this was just... There was no challenge or glory in this. It was just wave upon wave of mindless, shambling corpses, who effortlessly fell as she swung her mighty hammer, Sunsetter. She was doing Reon's work, of course, and it needed to be done lest the townsfolk be overrun by undead, but still...

Corona Solberg, Paladin of the sun goddess Reon, didn't find much satisfaction in this work. Still, she carried on, Sunsetter carving a path through the tomb as a trail of walking corpse were laid to rest behind her. Soon, she entered the very heart of the crypt, and in the middle stood a an upright coffin. It was... Most curious, but she wasn't willing to take any chances. Raising Sunsetter, she prepared to bring the hammer crashing down upon the coffin...

As Corona approached, raising her hammer, something barely noticeable pricked her. It was hard to tell exactly where it had come from, but blood had been shed. And just as soon as it had been shed, the droplet of blood vanished. Before there was much time to contemplate what had just happened, the front of the stone coffin creaked lightly. Ages-old dust fell from the stone face, now more clearly seen to be emblazoned with a grinning, horned face... It fell slightly with a clunk, and toppled to the side, the stone splitting as it hit the ground. Just what kind of abomination would have been within this coffin, so deeply in such a terrible place?!

Surprisingly, what fell from the coffin, hitting the cold, hard grown with a soft thump, was no monstrous horror.

It was the body of a little girl who looked no older then nine, perhaps ten. Black hair adorned with a rose ornament, clad in a rather elaborate and frilly red and black dress. For a few moments, she simply lay there silently, curling tighter into a ball as she felt the cold, hard ground beneath her. But, eventually, her eyes slowly opened, large and deeply red. She blinked a few times, as if trying to banish the sleep from her eyes, before drawing herself into a sitting position.

"... Mn... wha...? I'm... awake..." the girl said blearily, rubbing her eyes with her hands.

Slowly, her eyes traveled up the form of the armored girl... and fell on the heavy metal head of her hammer.

"... Just what were you planning on doing?!" she cried, pointing at the weapon.

"...Eh!?"

Well, that was... Unexpected. She'd expected there to be something a bit more threatening at the bottom of the tomb, not... Not a little girl. That was probably the last thing she expected to be down here, really. Then again, it was a little girl sleeping in a coffin at the heart of a horde of undead, so there was really only one conclusion Corona could come to.

This girl had to be a vampire. There was no other explanation. But... She seemed completely unaware of what was going on. And even if she was a vampire, she still had the body of a child, and even Corona couldn't bring herself to strike a child in cold blood.

"Hey, I was... I was just doing Reon's work and wiping out the undead abominations in this tomb!" Corona yelled back, lowering her hammer. Maybe she was shouting a bit too loud, though, as her ginger pigtails bobbed frantically with each word she uttered. "Speaking of which, do you have any idea why so many of those wretched things were in here? This isn't your doing, is it... Vampire?"

"..."

Aurella, for that was the little vampire girl's name, folded her arms and looked away. Though... her eyes were still on that hammer, even if she had stopped looking directly at the paladin. Reonite? Hmph, them and their... their big, blazing ball of pain up in the sky! Oh sure, the sun was important or whatever, but why did they have to worship it when it hurt so much? Sure, technically they were worshipping a goddess, but that goddess represented the sun, so it was basically the same as worshipping the sun itself! And that hammer...

"What, do you think I could animate all these bodies while I was asleep?" Aurella complained with a huff. "Hmph, there wasn't even any bodies here when I went to sleep!"

The small vampire paused for a moment, and glanced around, now looking a bit worried.

"... Come to think of it, er... where did all these come from..." she said. And a lot of them had... fangs? That meant one thing to the girl.

"... We should leave right now."

Aurella suddenly looked rather concerned. Of course, inspection of the bodies would indicate they were the skeletons, or dried-out remains of dead vampires. "They definitely weren't here when I went to sleep. Hey, you're a Reonite, so you'd be worried if there were bad vampires plotting something, right? Then we should leave right now."