Esper Harem in the Apocalypse

"There is only one difference? Surely, you jest. Even if you do the simplest comparison between the two, you can't possibly narrow it down to only one—"

"I said 'for me'. It's more like the most basic difference," Rudy interjected.

"Still…" Nyxia sighed after looking at Rudy and said, "Sure, go ahead and educate me, boy."

Rudy stayed silent for a while to increase the suspense. Then, he looked into Nyxia's eyes and uttered, "A hero would sacrifice his loved ones to save the world, and a villain would sacrifice the world for his loved one."

"Oh. I never considered that since this was about perspective. If I sacrifice the world for my loved ones, I wouldn't consider myself a villain, to be honest."

"They say it's lucky to be a hero and that to be a hero is a blessed job. I consider it a cursed job," Rudy uttered in a low voice. "They say heroes are the chosen ones, but I say they are pitiable."

"Why, may I ask?"

"Just like everyone else, a hero also wants to be a coward and save his own skin. Of course, unless the person voluntarily became a hero. It's about risking their own lives to save another. I would do that, and I bet anyone else would too. But it's also about someone who doesn't want to die."

"Hmm." Nyxia quietly listened to Rudy with a curious face.

"Back then, when I didn't have any powers and was a human, I saw many bad things happening around me. But I couldn't dare to stop them. I could if I wanted to, but I didn't. Because I knew that I would be of any help even if I tried to help. I was powerless. Instead of helping, I would cause them more trouble. But that was the mentality of a weak person like everyone else."

"Now that I have power, I will do my best to help others and punish the evildoers. But am I a hero? Nah. If doing a good deed could make one a hero, the world would be filled with them. Besides, people nowadays care more about the reward than the act itself," Rudy scoffed with a sigh.

"You wouldn't save the world?" Nyxia asked curiously.

"I would save the world anytime. But if I have to choose between my loved ones and the world, let the world be doomed. However, if it's my life on the line instead of my loved ones, then I would gladly sacrifice myself to the world. Do note that the world also has my loved ones living in it, so you can say I would do that for them, and the world is just an extra," Rudy asserted with a smile on his face.

"Now, tell me. What does that make me? A hero or a villain?" Rudy asked Nyxia with a charming smile on his face.

Nyxia's face flushed for the first time in centuries, and she broke eye contact with Rudy.

"I don't know. How am I supposed to know? I am neither a hero nor a villain," Nyxia responded.

"Well, that wasn't the response I was expecting but okay." A Brief pause later, Rudy asked, "Hey, I have been curious about this superstition if it can be considered one. Is it true that humans can become a vampire? Earlier, you said that the vampire's blood granted eternal beauty to the human but didn't mention anything about them becoming a vampire."

"Yeah, it's true. A human can become a vampire. In fact, it was a common practice back then between the lovers," Nyxia nodded in response.

"Can a vampire who was a human before become more powerful than the natural born vampires?" Rudy asked curiously.

"No, never. Even if they were high vampires, they can't become powerful just by becoming a vampire."

"What if the human is smart and knows what they are doing?"

"That's a different factor. If I have to explain it in simple words, what tastes better in your world, a chicken or an egg?"

"Chicken, obviously," Rudy replied instantly.

"Exactly. The chicken is a vampire, and the egg is a human. They can't beat the taste."

Rudy raised his brows and asked, "But the egg eventually hatches, and a baby chick is born. They grow and become a chicken, which I bet would taste the same as other chickens."

Nyxia furrowed her brows and said, "That's called evolution. Advancing from one stage to another. It takes time, a lot of time. And don't forget that the vampire would also become stronger as time passed. Just accept it. A human-born vampire can never catch up to a natural vampire."

"Whoa, lady, no need to get so angsty. I just asked because I was curious. I don't care about it. I am not a vampire. I am a human through and through."

"Do you seriously believe that you are a human with powers such as yours?"

"I believe."

"You can be a human and not at the same time."

"What's that supposed to mean? It makes no sense unless you are talking about morality, of course."

"The apocalypse; who do you think was responsible for that?"

"Humans? Scientists? Descendants of the evolved humans?"

"The leader of the so-called zombies, do you know who it was?" Nyxia stretched her arms in the air and legs in the water and yawned loudly before asking, "Who do you think he was?"

"I couldn't find his name, but he was called T. A. And he was said to be a human," Rudy answered.

"Teigo Anderson, a human. One of the last remaining survivors of the thousand-year war. He had an unfathomable amount of knowledge he acquired before and after. He realized that his time had come, so he decided to start experimenting on himself."

"He hunted down the descendants of the evolved humans and gathered their blood to get the powers stored in the genes. He probably did that for decades and had been preparing it for a long time, gathering every sample he could."

"He eventually died and revived himself. He came back from the dead. He… became a necromancer."