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Volume 16, Prologue

Happy Tepes!! This is Monica, the idol reporter who can both dance and kill! How do you like my black cape and bat bikini vampire costume?

I’m here in the southern part of Eastern Europe’s Transylvania District. That’s the famous tourist destination where the wealthy have gathered. It will soon be 8 PM local time.

Voting soon begins for a local referendum and a crowd is gathering outside of Vlad III Stadium which is being used as a polling location! It’s truly a rush to the polls!! As I’m sure you’ve heard, if this referendum passes, the southern tourist area, where most of the wealthy live, will break away from the existing Transylvania District. This drive for independence comes from complaints about the tax system and the rising crime rate from the northern Transylvanians visiting on the weekends.

Simply put, the wealthy are sick of having to put up with the poor.

Rumor has it the referendum has a lot of support and more and more analysts are predicting it will pass, but since the southern tourist area is a massive source of income thanks to Transylvania’s popularity in the vampire mythos, it seems unlikely both the north and the sound will accept each other’s demands without issue. There have been a few events that sound a lot like political sabotage, such as the tabloids and online news releasing a bunch of scandals about pro-independence city councilors or the Rifle Bureau performing unorthodox forced inspections of political offices, so the political response to the referendum’s result is going to be something to keep an eye on.

By the way, the south will establish a new constitution after they break away, so full-auto weapons, the organization of prostitution, and gambling with no upper limit will suddenly be legal. And there is even talk of legalizing marijuana (while claiming it’s for medical purposes) and the opening of a tax haven for investors. Sounds like fun!

Now, setting aside how many of those promises they’ll actually follow through on, I bet the ‘no’ side is afraid the referendum will gain a lot of ‘yes’ votes for those things alone. The managers of tourist sites already refer to the southern tourist area as perfect for visiting but unpleasant to live in, so I bet this will only push things further in that direction.

Oh?

This sure is a lot of noise. It’s almost like an earthquake! It seems the polls have finally opened. On cable channel 2929, you can watch my concert to celebrate this historic-...oh, no! Can you believe it? The free broadcast just so happens to end now at 8!! If you want to catch every second of this event, now is the time to call or log on and sign up as a premium viewer for only 19.99 euros a month.