This Is My Last Respawn

Chapter Seventeen

The Winter

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The hospital doors slid open. Cold air hit Abo's face hard. Outside, everything was white. Not from sun or ash, just cold. Snow blanketed the streets, sidewalks, and parked cars. It clung to tree branches and coated the ground in a fine layer. The sky was pale and overcast, and the sun barely showed behind the clouds.

Abo stared, wide-eyed. He'd seen this before. That day in the swamp, when the rift opened and everything went wrong, he remembered seeing snow on the other side, a land covered in white. At the time, he'd thought it was part of the rift, a sign the monsters had come through. He'd assumed the cold, like the blood and the fire, violence and destruction, was just something they carried with them.

Abo was pissed off at how confusing the world had become. "The ground is broken. Again," he muttered silently.

System: Frozen precipitation. Called "snow." Common here.

Abo puffed out a breath and stared, horrified, as it came out visible. "Why is my soul leaving my mouth? Is this normal here? Do people die every time they talk?"

The nurse carried him down a salted ramp, her boots crunching over the snow. Something zoomed past on the road. A strange thing blurred past on two narrow wheels, a human hunched over it, wrapped in dark clothes and a flashing red light on their back. Abo's mouth dropped open.

"What the fuck is wrong with that horse?" He blinked furiously. He'd never actually seen one before, he was blind, but he knew they didn't look like that. "Is that what a fucking horse looks like?"

System: Correction. That was a motorcycle. Two-wheeled, human-powered land vehicle.

"…I hate this place."

They reached the curb, and that's when he saw it. The vehicle. It wasn't speeding by like the others. It was parked, waiting. Its matte-black frame reflected the cold light faintly. A thin strip of blue LEDs glowed above the windshield. The tires were thick, built for snow. The engine was running, quiet and smooth.

Abo froze, and instinctively, he tensed. "Holy shit. They made a metal karakoa... and cut the head off the horse."

System: It's a van. Standard transport. Heated interior. Child-safe restraints. GPS navigation.

"You're just making up words now."

The nurse pulled the sliding door open. Warm air hissed out. Inside were seats fitted with car seats, some were occupied: toddlers, infants, a few dazed older children. No one spoke, and no one cried. One girl stared at Abo like she recognized something wrong with him. Abo stared back, already pissed off.

He muttered under his breath, "I hate kids."

System: Yes. Your kill count of under-tens has been alarmingly consistent.

He was lowered into one of the pods, clipped in gently but firmly. The nurse hesitated before stepping back, giving him a final glance that sat somewhere between pity and something else. Then she shut the door. The van began to move. Smooth, quiet. Not pulled by anything. Just... gliding on wheels. Abo's jaw dropped. "…What the fuck is this sorcery?"

System: Not sorcery. Internal combustion engine. Welcome to the modern world.

Abo dropped his jaw, slowly. "…So that's why everything looks so stupid."

System: Roughly 500 years have passed since you died—maybe a little less.

"…I'm five hundred years in the future?"

System: Correct. You are currently in the year 2025, Common Era.

He squinted, like the knowledge might leak out of his eyes.

System: You are in Skandevia. Specifically, southern Svethna, on the outskirts of Gottenvik. Since the emergence of the rifts just under three weeks ago, this region has been designated a provisional safe zone. Existing trauma centers have been reclassified as Rift Casualty Sites, and emergency shelters have been repurposed into temporary state-run orphanage wards to house displaced minors like you.

"…Is this where Magellan came from?"

System: Magellan was Portuguese. He sailed under the Spanish crown.

Abo snorted. "Yeah. I remember that bastard, he called us savages."

He leaned back, grinning like a wolf.

"So we showed him what savages were really like."

"He got stuck in the shallows, armor dragging him like a dumb, wet rock. I crawled up, grabbed his leg, and jammed a spear right through his foot. He screamed like a boiled pig."

"Tried to run, but he slipped. Then someone cracked his skull with a coconut. Might've been me."

He sighed fondly. "I pissed on him after... out of respect."

System: That detail is not recorded in any historical account.

"Then they weren't there."

A pause, it was a long one. The kind of silence that stretched out like an awkward funeral prayer, where even the System didn't speak, until it became unclear whether Abo was reflecting... or just mentally napping. Then the van jostled over a stone, just enough to make the children sway in their seats. Abo flinched instinctively, eyes flicking to the windows.

System: Why are you acting like it's your first time seeing a vehicle? You were transported in one when you arrived at the hospital.

Abo blinked, frowning. "Yeah. That. I wasn't exactly taking in the scenery. I was busy throwing fits and wondering why everyone looked like walking pork cuts."

He glanced across the van. His eyes lingered a beat too long on the other children.

System: ...It's your race. You're undead now. A vampire, specifically.

The van kept rolling, soft and smooth. The hum of the engine never stopped. Abo squinted out the window, taking in the sight of unfamiliar structures. "…Vam...fire?" He frowned. "I don't know what that is, but if it explains why humans suddenly look like walking snacks, then yeah, sure. That race thing, makes sense."

He paused, brow furrowing in thought. "I've had goblins, orcs, and direwolves sloshing around in my guts. I guess humans are just next on the menu."

System: It's vampire, and yes. A vampire-class undead. Blood-dependent, your mana pool is now a hemoreservoir, meaning blood is your core resource. Any creature's blood works, though I'm not sure why you insist on eating the flesh too. I suppose it's practical. More blood per bite. Pale skin, red eyes, pronounced canines, your classic blood-sucking monster, minus the melodramatic cloak and bad accent.

"No weakness to the sun? No bursting into flames?"

System: No. That's a myth, made up long after your time. Mostly European folklore. They loved their pale, aristocratic undead.

"Figures, we had something like that too. Except she wasn't pale, and she didn't speak like her nose was full of snot."

System: Elaborate.

Abo tilted his head, squinting upward. "Woman during the day. At night, she'd tear herself in half, grow wings, and drink blood. Usually from babies or pregnant women. Nobody had a name for her. Just... that thing you better not piss off unless you want your belly sucked out while you sleep."

System: Early regional variant. Consistent with other folklore across the archipelago. You are describing a pre-colonial precursor to the entity later demonized and named post-conquest.

"Cool. So... can I do that too?"

System: Do what?

Abo's eyes lit up. "Split in half, leave my butt at home and go flying around to drink people. Like old times."

System: No.

Abo scowled. "Not even if I try really hard?"

System: Your torso is not detachable. Attempting to separate it may result in extreme inconvenience, also death.

Abo crossed his arms with a huff. "Ugh. What's the point of being a monster if I can't even ditch my legs?"

System: Logging complaint: "Wants to leave legs at home. Denied."

Abo was about to speak when the van slowed to a stop. Then came the hiss of hydraulics, and the side door slid open. Cold air spilled in, and a woman with wind-reddened cheeks appeared at the entrance, holding a clipboard and wearing a thick jacket with the emblem of the State Children's Authority.

"Alright, little ones. This is Sankt Erik's," she said, stepping aside to reveal a large institutional building of red brick and concrete, three stories tall, with rows of identical windows that caught the pale winter light. Pine trees pressed close on either side, and a high fence topped with wire ran the perimeter, half-buried in snow.

In Skandevia, they had once avoided mass orphanages, even after the world wars, favoring foster placements and community-based care. But that was before the rifts. Entire regions had vanished overnight. Neighborhoods, schools, towns, ripped from the earth and replaced with fragments of faraway cities, alien wilderness, or terrain no one could recognize. What had once been familiar ground was now stitched together with pieces of elsewhere. Families were split. Homes were gone. Thousands of children were left behind, separated, or orphaned in an instant.

Then came the monsters.

With the foster system overwhelmed and no time to rebuild, the State reopened what it had long abandoned: institutional orphanages. Former schools, community centers, and old shelters were hastily converted into centralized care facilities, fortified, monitored, and just barely keeping up with the need, while the world outside remained something unrecognizable.

The van's engine purred low as the woman stepped back, ushering in the bite of cold. Behind her, another adult emerged from the building's heavy doors. Tall, tired-eyed, wrapped in a thermal coat with a patch that read "Sankt Erik's Children's Home, Ward Supervisor"—and strode up. He was built like a vending machine and looked equally expressive.

"Let's get them inside," the man grunted. "Schedule's tight."

"Littles first," the woman murmured, reaching in.

One by one, the younger toddlers and infants were unstrapped and scooped up. A few of the babies whimpered. One yawned, blinking with that wide, ancient confusion babies always had, like they'd woken up in the wrong universe. Abo was among the last to be collected.

"Here we go," the man muttered, unbuckling him with the awkward caution of someone who knew exactly how fragile kids could be, and didn't want to fill out another incident report. His name tag read "K. Larsen, Supervisor."

Abo didn't struggle. He just stared at the guy, wondering how much blood was under all that fabric.

System: Don't.

"Just a thought," Abo muttered under his breath.

The older children were last. One of them, a freckled boy who looked maybe six or seven, climbed out himself but stuck close to Supervisor Larsen like a barnacle. Another refused to move.

"Out," said the supervisor, voice firm but weary with repetition.

The child stared at him blankly, unmoving. His eyes were dull, not defiant, just... hollow. Abo didn't remember faces. But he recognized that look. It was the kind kids wore when they'd run out of things to cry about. Or when they'd learned too early that staying still was safer than drawing attention.

Larsen eventually sighed and lifted the boy anyway. Carried him like a sack of potatoes, gentle but without ceremony. There was no struggle, and no sound. Just snow, breath, and boots crunching over ice.

They crossed the courtyard. The snow here was deeper, but a rough path had been shoveled to the main entrance. Pine branches drooped overhead, heavy with frost, and the fence loomed like it was tired of keeping the world out, or keeping them in.

Stone steps led up to reinforced double doors. The woman pressed her keycard to a reader, entered a code, and multiple locks buzzed open in sequence. "Inside, everyone," she said.

They entered through a security vestibule, kicked snow from their boots, and passed into institutional warmth.

It smelled like heating systems, industrial detergent, and mass-produced food. The entry hall was wide and echoing, with notice boards covering the walls and a reception desk behind reinforced glass. Hallways branched off toward different wings. From somewhere deeper in the building came the distant sound of many children: talking, playing, the occasional adult voice calling for order.

Abo was carried toward the infant wing and placed into a padded rocker. He didn't squirm. Just narrowed his eyes, scanning the room they'd entered, a nursery with rows of cribs, changing stations, and soft padding on every surface.

A few other babies were already here, some sleeping in cribs, others in rockers like his. None of them seemed particularly interested in the new arrivals. Through the reinforced glass window in the door, he could see the toddler area across the hall, a separate room with different equipment for the walking, talking chaos that came after infancy.

"Welcome to Sankt Erik's," the woman said, voice softer now but with the practiced tone of someone who'd given this speech many times. "You'll be in good hands here."

Then she left. Supervisor Larsen lingered a moment longer, making notes on a tablet, then followed her out.

The heavy doors clicked shut behind them.

✦ ✦ ✦

End of Chapter