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Overlord - Chapter 15
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1
Two shadows were sprinting through the forest—Shalltear’s minions and concubines, the vampire brides.
Most people would have had trouble with their footing on this animal trail cutting through the woods, branches sticking out from either side. But even in the darkness, the vampire brides hurried down the coarse path at an unbelievable speed in their high heels without getting their dresses caught at all.
The one running in front was carefully carrying Shalltear with two hands, and the one in back was dragging something that looked like a dried-up tree trunk.
They weren’t far from where they had left Sebas and Solution. It wasn’t as if they had an odometer, so they weren’t sure how much farther it was to their destination, but they figured they still had quite a ways to go. But suddenly, a hard, metallic sound rang out, and the vampire in front stopped in her tracks.
There was one narrow path. If the individual taking the lead stopped, the one behind had no choice but to follow suit.
“Why did you stop all of a sudden?”
The vampire bride in front tried to answer the question that came from behind, but before she could, she shuddered from the cold glare being shot at her from the small form held within her arms. The icy feeling creeping up her spine came from knowing her mistress had a personality that was neither gentle nor merciful.
Shalltear was still being cradled—like a girl swept off her feet—as she crankily moved her legs.
Keenly sensing the meaning behind the gesture, the vampire relaxed her arms.
Shalltear hopped down like a bird flying out of a cage. She floated lightly through the air; first the high heels she was still wearing touched down, and her dress slipped down afterward to cover her slender legs. Once on the ground, she pushed back her long silver hair in annoyance and turned her head slightly.
The vampire swallowed hard in the cold glare of her mistress.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The only reasons Shalltear didn’t run through the forest herself were that it was simply a pain and she didn’t want to get her shoes dirty. Actually, there was one more reason, but there was no one present who dared say or think it. In all of Nazarick, there was only a handful of people who could say it to her face.
As long as a vampire bride was acting as Shalltear’s feet, it was unforgivable to stop without an order to do so. Shalltear didn’t need legs that moved of their own free will.
The punishment depended on the reason. That was implied. One would think it would be enough if it ended in punishment, but Shalltear’s question had contained a bit of murderous intent.
In the Great Tomb of Nazarick, the power of life and death over anyone not directly created by the Forty-One Supreme Beings rested with the floor guardians who ruled over them, or their domain guardians. Upsetting Shalltear any further could end in death.
With a sense of foreboding that they might be her last words, the vampire slowly opened her mouth to speak. “Please forgive me. I’m caught in a bear trap.”
Shalltear’s eyes moved, and she saw that one of the vampire’s slim legs was sandwiched in a roughly made metal trap.
This wasn’t something made to use against humans but more for tough wild animals, like bears. If a human’s ankle was caught in it, the bone would probably snap even if they were wearing protective greaves, just from the impact. But vampires were different from humans in every way imaginable.
Although the teeth of the trap had dug into her leg, there were no signs that she was experiencing pain or that any bones were broken. In fact, it didn’t seem like she was injured in any way at all.
Vampires had a power that reduced most effects of any physical attack not done with weapons made of silver (or a special metal equivalent) or weapons with a certain level of magical power. She may have been bitten by the bear trap, but because it was merely iron, it couldn’t hurt her. If she got it off, the holes would heal up instantly.
However, even if she was completely immune to the bear trap’s damage, it was fulfilling its other aim—of preventing her from moving—perfectly well.
It was clear from the fact that it wasn’t poisoned that this trap wasn’t meant to kill its captive. Its purpose was to slow down the target by giving it extra baggage. Shalltear shook her head, all but berating the vampire as hopeless.
“Hurry up and get out of it, then.”
“Yes, right away!”
Taking Shalltear’s order, the vampire reached down with her skinny arms, grabbed either side of the toothy jaw, and pried it open without difficulty. The bear trap freed its prey, unable to cope with her bear-surpassing strength.
A beautiful lady prying open a bear trap. It was the kind of scene that seemed almost laughable, but those who knew a vampire’s strength wouldn’t have been surprised.
“If there’s this sort of trap around here, we must be getting closer to our destination. I thought we had quite a ways to go still.”
“One moment, please.” The vampire following behind them threw on the ground the dead branch-looking thing she’d been carrying.
It was a human corpse that had lost all its moisture, completely mummified. But it wasn’t just a corpse. As proof of that, it began to jerk and move with false life. Long claws began to grow from the ends of its withered hands, and in its vacant orbits, a red glow that was the same as the vampires’ began to flicker. Oddly sharp canine teeth jutted out of its slightly open mouth. It was a monster called a lesser vampire—this was what had become of the bandit from before, after they drank all his blood.
“I have a question. Are we getting close to your hideout?”
The lesser vampire nodded deeply and made a sound between a grunt and a scream.
“—Apparently so, Mistress Shalltear.”
“I see. I wonder why there aren’t any linked traps?” It would have made sense for there to be a noisemaker and secondary trap, but there didn’t seem to be anything like that.
Shalltear scanned the area. Perhaps she was checking for concealed enemies. The vampire brides followed her lead and looked as well. Then Shalltear shook her head.
“…Well, it’s probably fine. I don’t really have search skills, anyway…”
Hearing that quiet comment, the vampire realized why she had been forgiven. Since none of them, including their mistress, had any skills that could have discovered hidden devices, they hadn’t been aware of the bear trap. That’s what had saved her life—their mistress thinking it was perhaps unfair to punish someone for being unable to do something even she couldn’t do.
“Perhaps we should have borrowed that girl…” Solution had the assassin class. With her thief skills, detecting traps and such was probably a piece of cake. “Well, it’s no use asking for the impossible. Let’s hurry onward to this den of thieves.”
Eventually Shalltear’s band reached the area near the mercenaries’ hideout. Though still in the forest, they saw the trees grew gradually sparser, and when the three of them continued toward their destination, the trees disappeared, allowing them to emerge into a meadow with a large number of rocks jutting out of the ground—a type of topography called “karst.”
It was among the bowl-shaped hollows that a hole opened up in the ground. Some light was spilling out of the cave. From the way it shone, the inside of the cave seemed like a gentle slope leading deeper into the ground.
Installed on either side of the opening to the cave were things that immediately indicated a human presence—barricades about as tall as a man’s torso. Not that they were so tough looking; they’d just been thrown together with a few logs. There was, however, a guard posted on either side for a grand total of two.
They used the barricades as cover for their lower bodies, and if arrows started to fly, they would no doubt duck and sound the alarm.
In a normal battle, a charge from this distance would give their opponents time to ready their weapons and call reinforcements from inside the cave. They could try to sneak up on them, but anything big enough to hide behind among the rocks had been cleared away. Furthermore, the guards had large bells slung from their shoulders. Even if they could take them out in a sneak attack, the bells would sound, alerting those inside to an enemy attack.
They had put quite a bit of thought into this.
But there was one way to break through a seemingly impossible physical situation: magic. Shalltear could cast Silence and kill them in one shot. She could approach using Invisibility. She could lure them away using Charm Person. She could also break the bells.
Which way is the most fun? Shalltear had gotten that far when she realized she was missing one vital piece of information. “Is there just the one entrance?”
The lesser vampire answered her question with a jerky nod.
Shalltear broke into a smile. Then there was no need to stand here thinking any longer.
Sturdy guards were effective against sneak attackers as well as against people who thought fighting outnumbered was a disadvantage—but Shalltear and her vampire brides were different.
They could crush the worms known as humans with their overwhelming power, so there was not a single reason they couldn’t march straight up to them and attack head-on. Her caution was motivated purely by the possibility that their prey might have a back exit through which to make an escape.
“What? Well then, we’ve already come this far. No reason for us to stay hidden. I’m just not very good at this stealth business, all the tiptoeing around.”
“That’s because by Mistress Shalltear’s presence alone, everything around shines more brilliantly.”
“The obvious can’t be flattery. If you want to flatter me, you’re going to have to think a little harder.” Ignoring the vampire’s Please forgive me bow, Shalltear reached out to grab the lesser vampire. “You’re going to do the big job of leading the charge. Now, go!”
With a swing of her slender arm, she sent the lesser vampire whistling through the air toward one of the guards. She’d put some spin on the former bandit, so he flipped end over end dozens of times on his way.
The impact caused an unbelievable amount of damage. The guard lost his head but also half his chest, and blood went spraying into the air. The other guard, unable to comprehend what he’d just witnessed, stared dumbstruck at the horrific corpse of his partner as the smell of fresh blood filled the area.
From the perspective of the one who threw the corpse, it was an extremely entertaining scene. “Strike!”
“Splendid, Mistress Shalltear!”
Shalltear pumped a fist and the vampire brides clapped. It goes without saying that although the lesser vampire had been blown to bits, none of these three cared one bit. He hadn’t been a member of Nazarick in the first place, just something they’d created for a lark, so of course, they didn’t get emotional when he was destroyed. And there was no way Shalltear would remember a promise with the likes of a human.
“Okay, one more…” Shalltear looked between the vampires. Alarmed, the two of them quickly found a suitably sized rock to hand her.
“Here we go.” Bells could be heard in the distance as she hefted the somewhat large rock.
Her slender arm whipped down at a tremendous speed, and in the next instant, upon seeing the far-off results of her action, she happily announced her battle performance. “Uh, next is…strike two! That’s what you say, right?”
Another round of applause.
They could hear a guard in the interior who, alerted by the bells, was shouting that they were under attack.
As the commotion in the cave gradually spread, Shalltear smiled tenderly at its entrance and gave orders. “Now then, let’s go. You, climb a tree and watch for anyone running away. And you, go in ahead of me. If there are any tough guys, let me know so I can look forward to them.”
“Yes, Mistress Shalltear.”
“Off you go.”
The vampire ordered to go ahead of her took a big step, slowly proceeded toward the entrance to the cave—and disappeared.
The ground had caved in. No, it hadn’t—it was a pitfall.
Shalltear may have been able to evade it, but apparently the vampire wasn’t fast enough to avoid losing her footing.
“Are you serious?”
This vampire was a low-level minion with no trap detection skills. There was nothing that could be done about that. That’s why Shalltear had forgiven her before, but she couldn’t help but let a disappointed comment slip out, even knowing all that.
Then she pasted a grin on her face. It wasn’t kind, full of goodwill, or embarrassed. Certainly a pitfall in front of the entrance to a cave should have been predictable. She felt foolish for not having thought of it and angry about being caught. It was those emotions that bubbled up and manifested as a smile.
That a minion of Shalltear Bloodfallen, guardian of multiple levels of the glorious Great Tomb of Nazarick, should have been caught in such a trap was inexcusable. Words brimming with murderous intent escaped her lips. “I’ll butcher you! Get the hell out of there!”
The vampire leaped out and appeared on the edge of the pit. She was unharmed; just her clothes had gotten dirty.
“Don’t be so disappointing!”
“My apologi—”
“Whatever, just go. Or should I hurl you in? Like that garbage from earlier?”
Shalltear made a clutching motion with one hand and the vampire acknowledged the order in a voice that was also a shriek and went trotting into the cave. Shalltear walked leisurely after her.
2
There was some kind of commotion going on. Pausing from the weapon maintenance he’d been doing in his private room, he pricked his ears.
A clamor, the thudding of multiple people running, a faint scream.
They were definitely under attack. But it was impossible to tell how many enemies or how strong they were, despite the fact that everyone was trained to shout that information.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear. His room was private, but it was still inside the cave. Instead of a door, there was only a curtain hanging over the hole in the wall. The fabric was thick, but he could still hear the voices fine.
The mercenary gang Sowers of Death had a little less than seventy members. Even if there was no one as strong as him, there were other battle- hardened veterans. A sneak attack by a small force wouldn’t cause this much panic, though, so it could have meant that there was a large number of enemies. But in that case, he couldn’t explain why he was unable to hear them moving around or sense much of anything.
“Then…adventurers?” If there was a small number of enemies with high combat ability, then this off feeling might have made sense.
He stood up slowly and slung his weapon from his hip. His armor was a mail shirt. It took no time to put on. Then he hung a leather pouch filled with ceramic potion bottles on his belt and tied it fast. He was already wearing his necklace and ring containing defensive magic, so his preparations were complete.
He whipped aside the curtain so fast he practically ripped it off the wall and entered what could be called the base’s main corridor.
Several stolen lanterns containing the spell Continual Light were hung at regular intervals along the wall, making it so bright it was hard to believe this was inside a cave.
Light illuminated his whole body. He had a slim build, but he wasn’t skinny. The flesh under his clothes was solid as steel—a product of not only weight training but also actual battles. His hair had been cut haphazardly, so it just grew mop-like in every direction without lining up at the ends. His brown eyes gazed sharply forward, and he had a smile close to a sneer about his mouth. His chin grew stubble like mold.
All this combined to give him an undisciplined appearance, but when he walked, he practically glided; he had the grace of a wild predator.
As he walked toward the entrance that was under attack, a man rushed at him. It was a face he knew, one of the mercenaries. When the man saw him, he broke into a smile as if they had already won.
“What’s going on?”
“Brain, we’re under attack!”
Smiling wryly, he—Brain—replied, “I got that. How many? Who are they?”
“There are two enemies, both women.”
“Women? Two women? The Blue Roses? …Nah, can’t be.” Cocking his head, he strode off toward where the clamor could still be heard.
The strongest party of adventurers in the kingdom, the famous Blue Roses, was made up of five women. What’s more, the one member Brain had a run-in with, which ended in a painful draw, was an old lady. He’d also heard rumors that the best assassin in the empire was a woman. Strong women weren’t a rarity. Even if there was often a gap in the sexes’ physical ability, magic was easily able to close it.
Of course, Brain was sure that piling the highest-level magic on top of the strongest possible physical body would simply make someone invincible, but still…
Brain’s mental state was gradually taken over by his building excitement, his respect for the opponents who pulled off a sneak attack with small numbers, as well as a will to fight that came close to a hunger to face powerful enemies.
“You don’t have to come along. Hang back and fortify the rear or something,” he said to the sellsword, and then set off resolutely toward his unknown adversaries.
He was Brain Unglaus.
In the beginning, he had been a simple peasant, but he had ability that could have come only from heaven. Ability with a sword, that is. And he was born a talent holder to back up his sword skills, so with a weapon, he was invincible. He was a combat natural who never got more than a scratch on the battlefield.
He had never been beaten with a sword and had planned to carry on his undefeated record. Everyone believed so, and he himself had no doubts. Then the royal tournament changed his life.
He hadn’t participated with any strong conviction to win. He just wanted the whole kingdom to know how strong he was. Then everyone would bow at his feet. But he met an unthinkable result: defeat.
His first defeat since grasping a weapon—no, perhaps the first in his entire life.
The one who defeated him was named Gazef Stronoff. He was the current captain of the Royal Select and known throughout neighboring countries as the strongest warrior in the region.
Up until their bout, both had amassed a pile of nearly instant wins. But their clash was a long fight that ended up taking all the time they had previously saved.
In the end, it was Gazef’s martial art Fourfold Slash of Light that decided the match. The fight was still talked of, but the fact that the lowborn Gazef was now captain of the Royal Select really said it all. It was such an impressive fight that even the nobles who detested the captain couldn’t say he was weak.
While the winner got the glory, for Brain, the loser, it was as if everything he had built up so far in life had been destroyed. Even though it had been a narrow defeat, he learned that he had only convinced himself there were no warriors stronger than him because he’d been living like a frog in a well.
After spending a month holed up in isolation, he broke through the despair that would drive many to the bottle and picked himself up.
He turned down multiple invitations from nobles and sought power for the first time in his life. He sought technique and trained his body. He sought magic and increased his knowledge. The prodigy put in the effort of a successful hard worker. Defeat took Brain to another level.
The reason he decided not to work for the nobles was that he didn’t want his ability to decline. To pursue the skills he had learned, he needed opponents. He wasn’t interested in swordplay for sport or show. He wanted a job with decent pay that would give him frequent opportunities to fight real battles.
The reason he didn’t choose to become an adventurer and earn their exceptional rewards was that adventurers didn’t have much chance to cut down people. Monsters weren’t bad opponents, but Brain’s ultimate goal was to defeat Gazef, so he needed to fight humans.
From the slim number of options left to him, Brain chose the Sowers of Death, although in reality, he would have joined any mercenary gang. He was after only one thing—rewriting his defeat with a victory.
To acquire the weapon he wanted, the power he needed, he gave up everything. Magic weapons were expensive, but the one he wanted wasn’t just any magic weapon.
There was a city far to the south of the kingdom in a desert. The weapons that found their way up from there every now and again could cut better than most magic weapons even unenchanted. People’s eyes literally bulged at the extreme prices. This was the kind of weapon he was after.
Then he finally acquired a katana.
Now, he had arrived at the furthest reaches of strength. He was sure he would easily be able to beat Gazef, but he didn’t let that make him arrogant; he never missed a day of training.
If he closed his eyes, he could see it: that tournament, Gazef’s elegant fighting, his figure as he smoothly evaded a blow no one had ever dodged before, the four slashes he’d unleashed at once.
He couldn’t remember himself being beaten. The only thing burned into his brain was the sight of the man who had beaten him.
As he proceeded toward the entrance to the cave, a faint smell of blood reached his nose. The fact that he couldn’t hear any more screams meant all the men who had crowded into that area had already been killed. It had taken about two or three minutes.
The reason he had given at least ten men standing orders to rush the entrance was to buy time with defense for the ones farther in to get ready. If they had been killed already…
“They must be as strong as I am if there are only two of them.”
Brain grinned.
Continuing with the same light step, he took a potion from his belt pouch and guzzled the contents. The bitter fluid washed down his throat into his stomach. Then he had one more—
The heat in his stomach ignited and expanded, flowing to every corner of his body. His muscles reacted by powering up with audible bulging noises.
This sharp increase in physical strength was a result of the magic in the potions: Lesser Strength and Lesser Agility.
Potions didn’t need to be swallowed—sprinkling an appropriate amount over the body would also work—but Brain simply believed that the effects were greater when he drank them. Of course, it may just have been him, but sometimes faith in something could produce powerful results.
Next he took out some oil and dripped it onto the blade of his katana. It left a pale gleam on the blade and disappeared as if being soaked up. The name of the oil was Enchant Weapon. It was only temporary, but it increased the sharpness of his blade by imbuing it with magic.
“Engage one. Engage two.” Reacting to the keyword triggers, his ring and necklace gushed magical energy that enveloped his body.
His Eye Necklace protected his eyes while it was active. It conferred Blindness Resistance, Infrared Vision, Lowlight Compensation, and more. If a warrior’s weapon didn’t connect, it wasn’t worth a thing.
If their opponent’s eyesight failed them, adventurers would take advantage of their weakness and use projectiles to safely attack from a distance as a matter of course. In fact, some adventurers had caught Brain in just that sort of trap before he acquired the necklace.
And his ring, which was a Ring of Magic Binding that could be injected with a low-tier spell for use when the wearer wished, casted Lesser Energy Protection to reduce attribute damage.
If they were really attacking in small numbers, then he had to go at them at full power. Better to cast it now than regret casting it too late.
Now all his preparations were complete. He expelled the intense heat erupting inside him with deep breaths. Brain, as he was now with the powered-up physical strength, probably stood at the peak of human swordsmen. The fierce look of someone completely confident in his abilities appeared on his face.
I’m all ready for you, so you’re going to have to entertain me.
With each step, the smell of blood grew a bit stronger— He saw two shadows.
“Hey there, looks like you’re having fun.”
“It’s not so fun at all. Perhaps it’s because none of them are very strong, but I can’t seem to get a good pool going.”
The unguarded reply reached him as Brain slowly showed himself. They must have already known he was there. He hadn’t been trying to hide, so it wasn’t so surprising.
His brow furrowed slightly upon seeing the invaders. He said it was two women, but one of them is just a kid! And they’re wearing…dresses? However, he abandoned those thoughts a moment later—because above the head of the girl, whose beauty could have been called peerless, he saw a sphere made of what looked like blood.
“I’ve never seen a spell like that, but you’re casters, huh?” It was still strange for them to be wearing dresses, but if they were casters, he understood why they didn’t wear armor.
“A faith-type magic caster. I believe in the origin of the bloodline, the divine ancestor Cainabel.”
“The divine ancestor Kayne Able? Never heard of that god before. Is it a malicious god?”
“Yes, it’s that type of deity, although I heard it was defeated by the Supreme Beings… Apparently he was a ‘smoll fry e-vent bosse.’”
Brain looked away from the little girl as she murmured, “I would expect nothing less of the Supreme Beings”…and observed the woman who was accompanying her like an attendant.
She was also a beauty. She had voluptuous breasts and a sensual aura. Her white dress had spots of crimson here and there. So she was the vanguard? He shrugged and gripped his katana tightly. “Well, whatever. I’m ready to go. If you’re not, I’ll give you some time, so what do you say?”
The little girl looked at Brain in surprise and then covered her mouth and laughed discreetly. “Well, aren’t you brave. Are you quite sure you’re all right fighting alone? I don’t mind if you call your friends.”
“No matter how many weaklings there are, none of them will be able to lay a hand on you anyhow, right? In that case, I’m fine on my own.”
“There’s nothing I can do if none of you understand how high the stars are in the sky. Reaching out your hand because you think you can touch them should be left to little girls like Aura. When a grown man does it, it’s creepy.”
“I think we need people like that. I guess little girls don’t understand a man’s romance.” Brain held his katana with the tip pointed squarely at her eyes.
In response, she looked up at the ceiling, clearly bored, and then back at him.
“Go.”
When the young girl gestured with her jaw, the woman leaped at him.
Her motion was truly gale-like, but it was no sweat for Brain to slice like the wind.
“Chest!”
He roared and simultaneously used all the power in his body to brandish his sword overhead and bring it down instantly. It was a blow with enough force to easily cut an armored warrior in two—they all felt the gust of air.
“Guh!”
“Hmm. Not deep enough?”
He intercepted her mid-leap, but she grasped her shoulder and jumped aside. His sword had sliced through her left collarbone to her chest.
Brain frowned. There was something else bothering him besides the fact that she hadn’t been defeated in one strik—not a drop of blood came from her wound, despite the fact that a fountain of it wouldn’t have been surprising.
Magic? He squinted when he saw what was happening beneath the hand she was holding to her shoulder. The cut was closing up, albeit slowly. He’d heard rumors of rapid healing spells, but it didn’t seem like one of those. Then there was only one answer: She was a monster with regeneration ability.
Her sharply pointed canine teeth, her crimson eyes brimming with hostility, her general appearance almost indistinguishable from a human… Once he had thought that far, he realized what she was.
“A vampire…? So special abilities include rapid healing, Bewitching Eyes, absorbing life force, creating lesser kin through blood sucking, resistance to weapons, and resistance to cold? I think there was more, but… well, whatever.” He tightened his grip on his katana. “Whatever you are, I’ll cut you down.”
The woman opened her eyes wide. Her crimson pupils seemed oddly large.
The inside of Brain’s head felt hazy for a moment. He even felt some fondness for the enemy before him. But with a shake of his head, he cleared it away. “Bewitching Eyes? I’m not so mentally weak that I’d fall for a charm of that level.”
When Brain’s katana was drawn, his mind was like his sword. He could easily shake off typical mind-control techniques.
The vampire menacingly bared her fangs in hate, but there was also fear in her display. If she was confident she was stronger, she should have been able to just attack. In other words, she was on guard after being injured or she had decided he was a tough opponent.
“Clever girl, but I suppose even a wild animal could figure out that much.” Brain approached her with steady footsteps. She responded by gradually backing away.
Well, this is no fun. Brain snorted. He wondered if she comprehended his provocation. Seemingly responding, the vampire stopped her retreat and advanced ever so slightly.
They were about three yards apart. This was a distance the vampire could close in an instant. The reason she couldn’t charge was her uncertainty about how skilled Brain was; it made her cautious. Then, with a faint smile, she ****** out her arms.
“Shock Wave!”
The wave warped the atmosphere as it approached Brain. This spell could easily dent full plate armor. If he took a direct hit in nothing but a mail shirt, it would surely cause a lot of damage. And if he took even one hit, the battle’s balance would change; their baseline abilities were very different.
“If you’re gonna celebrate, you should do it after you land a hit—if you don’t want to give away your moves, that is.”
Unharmed.
Brain had no trouble dodging the invisible shock wave and smiled coolly. The vampire panicked and pulled back from him. She had considered all humans an inferior species, looked down on them, but now her face showed that she realized her mistake.
Brain didn’t show it in his expression, but he realized he needed to rethink the way he was fighting. He hadn’t expected her to use magic.
Brain’s target was Gazef, so he would be challenging him to a sword fight. For that reason, his magic wasn’t nearly as sharp as his swordsmanship. He lacked the knowledge to guess what his opponent would do next.
As a result, they both ended up cautiously staring each other down. This made the little girl impatient, and she found the scene unpleasant.
“Okay, time to switch.” She snapped her fingers—pa-ching!—and the dry sound caused the vampire’s whole body to shudder.
Keeping the vampire, who was looking around, in front of him, Brain didn’t move. It was the perfect time to attack, but he didn’t. He took his eyes off the vampire and observed the little girl.
She had a slim body. She was very thin considering how bizarrely big her chest was. Her arms were so slender they looked like they’d snap like twigs if Brain went all out.
There were all kinds of faith-magic casters: She could be a cleric, well accustomed to melee combat; a priestess, proficient at magic; or a bishop, who completely specialized in magic.
But if she was swapping in, that meant she was confident she could fight even without a vanguard. Brain cracked a smile.
It doesn’t seem like she summoned that vampire, so she must be one, too?
What’s more, from her attitude, it seemed she was the vampire’s superior. For a monster, it was a given that external appearance didn’t have to match the inside. It wouldn’t be strange if this little girl had higher physical strength than the vampire. She had seen Brain’s strength as a warrior and still chose to fight him. And wasn’t the vampire scared of her?
A master the vampire fears… She must be fairly strong—I can’t let my guard down.
Continuing to observe her, he furiously worked his brain to figure out what she must be. If she’s a vampire’s master, could she be one of the legendary vampire lords? Supposedly there was one called Nation Breaker who destroyed an entire country… The old stories say that the Thirteen Heroes slayed him.
The fact that one of the Thirteen Heroes did it meant it wasn’t impossible. Brain tensed his sword hand and slowly moved into a fighting stance. “I’m Brain Unglaus!”
He got a puzzled frown in response to naming himself to a powerful enemy.
Feeling a bit sheepish, he asked, “…What’s your name?”
“Oh, you wanted to know my name! You should have just said so. Cocytus would have understood immediately, but I don’t think of humans in that way, so it took me a while to realize. My apologies.” She picked up the skirt of her dress and curtsied as if she’d been invited to dance at a ball. “Shalltear Bloodfallen. Allow me to one-sidedly enjoy this.”
•
She bowed gracefully to the man pointing his sword at her. Was she assuming he wouldn’t attack? Or was she just confident that even if he did, she could handle it? The girl’s expression gave a clear answer: the latter. She wasn’t worried about him in the least.
*I’ll wipe that smug look off your face. Brain silently sent her a sharp glare *that would frighten even battle-seasoned warriors. He really didn’t care for that look on her face. But he was also glad she had it.
The arrogance of the powerful.
That was one thing humans had over monsters whose physical strength far exceeded theirs. Brain had taken advantage of it many times to defeat monsters stronger than him.
And what really mattered was being able to sneer at them after slaying them, after teaching them that there are some opponents you can show your confidence to and some you shouldn’t.
“Are you not planning to use any martial arts?” Martial arts.
They were special abilities warriors learned with intense training as they strove to reach the peak of their abilities. From their chi or maybe their aura, martial arts produced things that still couldn’t be explained and were called magic achieved with weapons.
If a warrior was up against an opponent with a much larger build, the martial art Fortress would absorb the shock of incoming attacks and give them the edge to fight head-on.
Fatal Edge, an intense slash attack unleashed by focusing on their blade, could slay enemies in one hit, even ones with high health.
If a heavily armored enemy appeared, it was a good time to use the blunt weapon martial art Heavy Blow.
With the temporary increase in physical ability from Ability Boost, victory was a simple matter of leveraging the momentary gap in strength.
For a warrior, learning a wealth of arts and developing their own to use in a variety of situations was the type of preparation done as a matter of course, especially if one was an adventurer, since their profession required them to be highly adaptable.
But as for Brain…
“Hah! I wouldn’t use them on the likes of you.” That’s how he replied to Shalltear, but of course, it was a lie. He wasn’t foolish enough to show his hand.
Slowly exhaling, he lowered his hips and put his katana back in its sheath. He was preparing to draw.
Long, shallow breaths.
At the moment when he’d reached extreme focus, with his entire consciousness zeroed in on a single point, it counterintuitively expanded. The area’s sounds, air, signs—he had reached an awareness of the world where he could perceive everything. This was Domain—his first original martial art.
The three-yard radius it covered was not so large, but he was aware of everything that happened within it. Put simply, the art raised his attack accuracy and evasion ability to the limit. Add to that Brain’s trained body, and the power he gained from this art was beyond compare.
Even if a thousand arrows were to rain down on him, he was confident he could pick out only the ones that would hit him and cut them down to emerge unscathed. Not only that, but he was able to move precisely enough to slice a grain of wheat, and only that grain of wheat, at a distance.
And then…
Chopping a vital point with one’s blade would kill a living thing, so pursuing that was all that mattered. Rather than being a jack-of-all-trades, Brain was instead an extreme specialist. He aimed to deliver a fatal blow even just one second faster than his opponent. It was from this intention that his second original martial art was born—Instant Strike.
His sword reached a speed that made it impossible to dodge, but his training didn’t stop there. His discipline from then on was extraordinary. He performed Instant Strike tens of thousands of times, no—probably millions of times, to the point where he developed art-specific calluses and his hand warped around the hilt of his katana.
By pursuing Instant Strike to the extreme, another art was born. His speed was such that no blood remained on the blade at the end of his swing. He felt he had reached the realm of the gods and called it Divine Strike. It was impossible for his opponent to even perceive him unleash it.
By using those two arts, his guaranteed hit and godly speed—Domain and Divine Strike—the resulting blow was both impossible to dodge and a one-hit kill.
He would aim for a vital point—most often the neck.
And then the hidden technique, Whistling Wind. He named it for the sound of the fountain of blood that resulted from him severing a head in one blow.
Even if a vampire didn’t bleed, surely severing its head would essentially mean victory.
“Are you almost ready?” Brain stayed silent, breathing in and out sharply, and Shalltear shrugged at him, seemingly bored. “Then I’ll assume you’re ready and attack. If you have any objections, please speak up now…”
A short time went by.
“Here I come,” she announced playfully and began her approach.
Shut up. I’d like to see you keep up that attitude once I’ve chopped off your head. He didn’t say it out loud. He had the feeling if he spoke, the energy he’d been gathering would disperse.
Shalltear casually stepped forward. Her gait showed no caution whatsoever. Her steps were so light she might as well have been heading to a picnic.
It wasn’t the walk of a warrior, and Brain suppressed his wry smile. He could only consider her foolish, but he wasn’t about to give her any chances.
Using Ability Boost and his Domain martial art, he eagerly awaited the instant she would be at the right distance for him to strike. The foolish monsters who behaved as though they were the strongest were generally like this. Humans were certainly fragile creatures. Their physical skills were inferior, and they didn’t have any special abilities.
But I’m going to teach her how dangerous it is to make light of humans.
Martial arts were created so that humans might oppose creatures far stronger than themselves.
She’ll fall with one slash.
The more conceited a monster was, the more desperately they floundered when forced into a corner. If he didn’t kill her in one hit, she’d probably appeal to the vampire for rescue. Then it’d be two against one. That would be a hard fight, even for Brain.
So it had to be a one-hit kill.
He scoffed at her with a straight face, at the way she approached so casually. As if she doesn’t know she’s walking up the steps to the guillotine.
Three more steps, two more…
…one more.
And then—
Your head is mine! He spat the words in his mind as he flung himself at her.
“Tsut!” His exhalation was sharp and short.
The katana flew out of its sheath and stretched toward Shalltear’s neck, cutting the air itself. If one was to liken its speed to something: a bolt of lightning. By the time the flash registered, the head was falling—that’s how fast he was. Millions of repetitions had created a strike that truly reached the realm of the gods.
Got it.
He was sure—
—and his eyes widened in spite of himself.
He had cleaved through the air. If his strongest attack was completely dodged, then he would’ve admitted that an unimaginably strong enemy had finally appeared before him. But—
Shalltear had caught it—his strike that was as fast as a bolt of lightning.
As gently as if she were pinching the wing of a butterfly.
Brain felt as if the air had frozen. He breathed desperately in and out. “…That…that can’t be…,” he panted in an almost silent whisper.
He felt like his whole body was going to start trembling, but he restrained himself with everything he had. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen, but Shalltear’s two slender, snow-white fingers—a thumb and an index finger— were right there, on the end of his sword.
She didn’t catch the cutting edge, in front of the tempering pattern, and instead pinched the ridge on the flat of the blade, with her wrist bent at ninety degrees. She hadn’t stopped it in its path but caught up with it from behind—caught up to his Divine Strike.
It looked like she wasn’t putting any effort into holding it, but when Brain tried to push out of it or pull back with his full strength, the sword would not budge. It was as if he was pulling on a chain connected to a massive boulder hundreds of times larger than himself.
Suddenly the pressure on the sword increased, and it was Brain who found his posture crumbling.
“Hmm. Cocytus has a few of these, but when the one using it is as weak as you, I can’t be bothered to feel any wariness.” Shalltear raised the tip of the sword to eye level and examined it closely.
As her words sank in, Brain felt his mind go blank. He felt the despair of having his entire way of life refuted. The reason he wasn’t crushed in spite of it was his previous defeat. In the same way a broken bone grows back thicker and harder, his tolerance for defeat had gone up.
This couldn’t be happening, but he had to accept it: She caught his godly fast strike without breaking a sweat.
Shalltear frowned quizzically at Brain, who was all but pale from shock. Then she heaved a theatrically disappointed sigh. “Do you understand now? You can’t win against me if you don’t use martial arts. If you understand, then stop holding back and fight for real.”
Those were the brutal words he heard. The reply spilled out of Brain’s mouth unconsciously. “You monster—”
Shalltear responded with a pure, innocent smile, like a flower in full, glorious bloom. “That’s right. So you finally understand? I’m a merciless, cruel, inhuman—and lovely—monster.” She let go of his blade and sprang away. She was back where she started, probably not even a fraction of an inch off.
“Are you almost ready?” She smiled playfully at him.
A hot flash of anger filled Brain’s mind upon hearing the same words as before. How much can she belittle me? Then, a shudder because he realized she was at leisure to make fun of someone who had supposedly reached the limits of human strength.
Should I run? Brain valued his life. If he couldn’t win, he should run away to fight another day. It was enough to stay alive and win in the end because he still thought he had room to get stronger.
But even if he chose to run, there was nothing he could do about the gap in their physical abilities.
He carefully selected his target, making sure she couldn’t detect where he was looking.
He would go for her legs. He would destroy her ability to move quickly, and then all he needed to do was run away.
He would stay out of the range of those hands that had caught his critical hit earlier and attack an area that was difficult to defend.
Having decided that, he continued staring at her neck and put his sword back in its sheath. With Domain activated, he could slice through his target, even with his eyes closed, so using them for a feint was the obvious move.
“Here I come.” Shalltear once again began her approach.
Whereas before he had been waiting eagerly for her to enter his Domain, this time was the reverse. Ideally, he didn’t want her to get that far.
How did you get so fainthearted? he desperately scolded himself in his head, but try as he might to rouse himself, he didn’t get fired up. His will to fight was like a flame that had run out of fuel. He clicked his tongue and observed Shalltear’s steps with Domain.
Three steps, two steps, one—
—she was in range.
Brain’s field of vision as he fixed his eyes on her neck included the borderline sneer on Shalltear’s face.
He would aim at one point—the ankle of her right foot—as she stepped forward.
He slashed his sword down, managing to raise the attack speed a fraction. He cast off any mental pressure and confirmed that he was moving faster than last time. If he had been on the receiving end, he wouldn’t have been able to block against this speed.
This’ll work!
He was about to cut off that foot, peeking out from beneath her skirt, right at the slender ankle that was befitting such a young girl—
—when his hand slipped off the hilt of his katana.
With his gaze fixed to one place, Brain didn’t see what had happened. But his special perception abilities from Domain alerted him that his beloved katana had fallen to the ground, and that toward the back of the blade the point of a high heel was holding it down.
There was no way that could have happened. But it was true.
The katana had slipped out of his hand because the impact of her stepping down on it had traveled down the blade.
There was one reason he didn’t want to believe it: Even in his most highly attuned state of focus, he hadn’t been able to detect it. Not even from within his Domain he was so proud of.
She was close enough to touch. From that distance, Shalltear looked down on him icily. The terrible oppression of her gaze made it feel like the atmosphere alone would crush him.
He breathed roughly in and out.
Every pore in his body was pouring sweat, and a wave of nausea assailed him. His vision wavered.
He’d made it through so many fights, escaped the jaws of death a pile of times. But compared to the situation he was in now, they all felt like pale imitations, as if everything up until now had been child’s play.
The heel lifted off the blade of his sword, and Shalltear sprang back.
“Are you almost ready?”
“Ngh!” What he felt more than anything this third time she called to him was despair. Next she’ll probably say, “Here I come.” But she said something else.
“Are you…incapable of using martial arts?”
The voice contained pity and surprise, and Brain just inhaled.
He couldn’t respond. Well, what should he say? Was he supposed to play the fool like a clown and say, Well, I used them, but you broke through them like they were nothing.
Biting his lower lip, he picked up his beloved katana.
“…Could it be that perhaps you’re just not so strong? I thought you were stronger than the ones by the entrance, but you seem… My apologies. My strength scale measures in yards—I can’t detect differences that amount to a fraction of an inch or two.”
His unceasing effort.
The time with Gazef he’d overestimated his ability. He hadn’t pushed himself at all, and he’d lost to a man who had. And that’s why the defeat had been incorporated within him, become a part of him.
Everything he was after clawing himself up from there and training for real—the monster before his eyes mocked his entire existence.
Something’s wrong. Up until now, I slayed every monster no matter how lightly they took me, no matter how much stronger they were—I slayed them all, so why…? His thoughts welled up that far, but he suppressed the rest of them.
“AAHHHHHHHHHHH!” he roared and slashed at Shalltear. He put all his power and weight into his katana, aiming it at her as she watched him quizzically.
This slash, mobilizing every muscle in his body, could have sliced a human in two from head to toe whether they wore a helmet or not. Brain thought that maybe he had caught her, since she didn’t try to dodge his incoming blow; she simply watched the white flash as it came down.
But the impossible scene he’d witnessed just before dismissed that thought immediately. It can’t be this easy to kill her—
A moment later, his hunch was proven correct. A sharp noise rang out, and Brain saw another unbelievable sight.
Shalltear had swiftly parried with the three-quarters-of-an-inch fingernail of her left pinkie. And it didn’t even look like she had put any effort into it. There was a gap in her fist, and her pinkie finger was gently curled.
She had parried his all-out attack with a movement that could not even be considered playful—his attack that could slice through full plate armor, break swords, and pierce shields.
Frantically gathering up his shattered will, he tensed his arm to stop the vibrations from the impact, brandishing his sword once more—and again Shalltear blocked it without really trying.
“Fwahh…” She yawned ostentatiously. With her free right hand, of course, she covered her mouth. She seemed to be deliberately looking up at the ceiling. She was no longer even giving Brain the time of day.
Still.
Still, Brain’s blade continued to be repelled—by her one pinkie finger!
“RRAAAAGHHH!” A howl emerged from his throat. No, not a howl, a scream.
Horizontal swipe—blocked.
Diagonalswipe—blocked.
Forward swipe—blocked.
Diagonal strike—blocked.
Vertical strike—blocked.
Horizontal strike—blocked.
No matter what angle, no matter where he aimed, all his attacks were blocked. It was like his katana was sucked to wherever the nail was. At this moment, Brain finally understood.
Absolute strength.
Even if he worked hard, even if he had natural ability, there were beings whose realm he would never be able to approach, much less reach.
“Oh? Are you tired? But your nail clipper is rather dull, wouldn’t you say?”
At those impatient words, Brain’s sword hand stopped. Could he chip away at a mountain with a katana? That would be impossible. Any child could come up with that answer. So, could he win against Shalltear? Any warrior who faced her would know the answer: There was no way to win.
There was no way a mere man could win against an opponent with strength beyond human conception. The only ones who would be able to put up a fight would be more than human. Unfortunately, Brain was only a warrior who had reached the pinnacle of human capability. That’s right. No matter how much effort he put in, from the moment he had been born as a human, he would never be anything more than an infant waving around a stick.
“I…put in so much effort…”
“Effort? That word doesn’t mean a thing. I was created strong, so it was never necessary to strive for strength.”
Brain laughed.
All his hard work meant nothing. Why was I so cocky? Why did I think I was so talented?
His arms and legs felt so heavy it was like being pressed between weights. “…?
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What are you crying for? Did something upset you?”
He knew Shalltear was saying something, but it was as if she was saying it somewhere far away, and he couldn’t hear.
Swinging around a heavy iron rod had been pointless—even more so when the blisters on his hands popped doing it. Jogging in heavy armor had also been pointless. Facing monsters all alone and just barely clinching victory all those times had also been pointless.
Everything was pointless, and his life was also pointless.
Before a truly strong opponent, Brain was no different from the unskilled weaklings he used to sneer at.
“I’m an idiot…”
“Are you satisfied? Shall we finish up here soon?” She drew nearer, snickering, with her pinkie finger up, and Brain cried out.
But it was no longer the cry of a warrior as before. It was practically the wail of a child.
He set off running—showing his back to the enemy.
He’d seen enough of Shalltear’s physical ability to make him sick, so he figured she would catch up to him instantly. But he didn’t think about that. No, he wasn’t at leisure to think about it. He just showed her his wide-open back and ran desperately toward the back of the cave, his face twisted into a tear-streaked grimace.
The innocent voice of a little girl—part sigh, part sinister—called after him, “Now we’re going to play tag? You’re just full of games, aren’t you? Well, let’s have fun then, shall we? Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
3
Cold air blew across the hall, coming through the gaps in the barricade, brushing at the bodies of the forty-two remaining Sowers of Death.
This hall was usually used as a place to eat. Well, that was because it was the most spacious area in the cave. But now it had been converted into an improvised fortress.
The cave that served as the mercenaries’ hideout had this long, thin, open area at the far back, and sub-caves opened up radially from there. Those were used as private rooms, weapon storage, food cellars, and so on. The men always made this their last line of defense in a raid, because if they could hold this area, they could take on their foes in a controlled way.
Not that they built the fortifications out of any fancy materials. First, they tipped a plain table onto its side and stacked wooden crates against it to make a simple barricade. Then, between the barricade and the entrance to the hall, they strung up some ropes at about the height of a human’s stomach. By doing that, they obstructed any enemy attempts to charge them and kept the invaders from pressing right up against the barricade.
Behind this defensive base, almost everyone was standing by with a crossbow. They were split into center, right, and left wings.
Even if it became a ranged fight, considering the width of the entrance compared to the size of the hall, the hall would have the overwhelming advantage. And because the Sowers of Death were fanned out, the enemy would be taking fire no matter where they tried to assault. Even an area-of- effect attack would be far from effective. They were using the tactic of crossfire, based on the principle of mutually supporting strongpoints.
It was that simple, but the men still had anxious looks on their faces despite being in a base that would allow them to fight on an equal footing even if they were outnumbered.
The chain links of their mail shirts jangled from the men’s shivers. It wasn’t that warm in the cave—to the point where in the summer it was quite comfortable—but the chills assaulting them now were a little bit different.
The loud laughter coming from the front of the cave had echoed off the walls, so it wasn’t even possible to tell if it was a man or a woman cackling. It chilled them to their very cores.
Brain Unglaus was the strongest member of the Sowers of Death. Some had said that if he was out there intercepting, they didn’t even need the barricade, but the sound of that laughter blew away those opinions.
An opponent who could defeat Brain. No one like that existed. That’s what they’d thought until now.
Brain’s strength was on another level. Not even the empire’s knights could match him and neither could monsters. He could kill ogres in one blow and would jump solo into a mob of goblins and mow them all down. If they couldn’t call a man likely capable of taking off the heads of all the other Sowers of Death the strongest, what could they call him?
And now he had lost. What could it mean?
The fact that someone was laughing in a fight against Brain could mean only one thing. Everyone knew what it was, but no one could say it. It was all they could do to look wordlessly at one another’s faces.
Everyone there stared silently toward the entrance to the hall—the entrance to the cave. Their tension grew bit by bit. And then—
There came the sound of someone running. It grew gradually louder.
Someone swallowed hard audibly.
Silence reigned in the hall, except for the overlapping sounds of crossbows being drawn.
The one who flew through the entrance as the mercenaries watched was a man out of breath. It was a miracle no arrows flew at him.
“Brain!” the head of their mercenary gang shouted. A second later the hall exploded into a cheer—a howl of happiness because the invader had surely been defeated.
They slapped their neighbors’ shoulders, and voices praising Brain echoed.
They cheered his name over and over. During the applause, Brain just stood there in the entrance, holding his sword limply in one hand, looking quietly out over their faces.
No, something was wrong. He was looking for something else.
The cheers petered out as if dampened by Brain’s unusual attitude.
He ran at the barricade.
“Hey! Wait just a sec! We’ll move it!”
He ignored the voice and proceeded to force his body through. After breaking in, as if he didn’t have a moment to lose, he set off running again without a word.
As the bandits looked on, shocked, he opened the door to a cave used as a storehouse and leaped inside.
“Huh? Was there something he left in there or something?”
“Who knows? He did seem different, but…he wasn’t…crying, right?!”
Even looking at the door that had been loudly slammed behind him, they still didn’t understand the mysterious events they had just witnessed.
Among them, there was one man whose face twisted into a grimace—the leader of their gang. Because only he—no, only he and Brain—knew the truth. But he didn’t have time to see if his thought was right or not.
With a clicking noise, someone else appeared in the entrance to the hall. Of course, they didn’t recognize her. Since no one in the gang knew her, that meant she had to be the invader who was causing so much trouble. The stir among them died down in an instant.
This couldn’t be. That would change the meaning of Brain showing up here. If the invader was alive, that meant he had run away.
There was a single invader. She had an oddly stooped posture. Her frame wasn’t so big, more like a little girl’s. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and her head was lowered, with her face completely hidden. The strange thing was, considering the position of her head and shoulders, it seemed like she had a neck three times as long as a normal person’s.
She slowly entered the hall, paying no mind to the fact that she was dragging her long silver hair along the ground. Her well-sewn dress was so black it looked like she was clad in darkness.
No one said a word. Her appearance was too bizarre, and the chill in the air threatened to stop their hearts.
Her head moved slowly. Her face was entirely covered by her fine silver hair, but behind it, two red lights burned. They slowly flattened into needlelike lines.
Everyone understood that—unfortunately—she was smiling.
In a swift movement, the horrifying girl raised her head. She had a shapely face, but for anyone who knew what she had looked like a moment ago, there would have been nothing creepier. Her features were so regular that her face seemed almost like a mask made by an extremely talented top- class artist.
“Good evening. My name is Shalltear Bloodfallen. Is this the end of the line? Are we done playing tag?”
The girl—Shalltear—saying things they didn’t understand, scanned the room. But perhaps because she didn’t find the one she was looking for, her beautiful face frowned. No one dared speak up, and the girl’s voice rang through the hall once more.
“Is it hide-and-seek this tiiiiiime?” She snickered. She must have found it quite funny, because she continued laughing with downcast eyes. Her long silver hair hid her face.
As the mercenaries held their breath, unsure how to deal with the strange situation, Shalltear’s laughter grew louder and louder.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ha! Ha! Ahhhh-ha-ha-ha-haaa! Ahhhh-ha- ha-ha!” She slowly lifted her head as she laughed.
The sight of her face gave the bandits a shock as though their hearts were being squeezed; it felt like ice had been injected into their veins.
There was no beauty there. Her eyeballs had been dyed completely bloodred by the color that oozed from her irises. Her mouth that had been lined with pretty white teeth now sprouted multiple sharklike rows of countless long white things reminiscent of syringes. Her oral cavity, gleaming an obscene pink, sparkled moistly, and clear drool spilled out of the corners of her mouth.
“Ah-ha! Ha-hah! Haaaaaa-ha-ha-ha!” With a smile that split her face open ear to ear, she laughed with the timbre of an off-key bell ringing out over and over.
The air was practically shrieking with the trembling tension. Even considering they were in a cave, this echo was unnatural. It was almost as if the atmosphere itself couldn’t handle her laughter and had to join in.
A girl?
A monster?
A beast?
They were all wrong.
She was an embodiment of fear.
The scent of blood on her breath was so thick they could smell it even at a distance. Even the air seemed to be turning red.
“Wahhhhhh!” A scream went up and one of the mercenaries, terror driven, fired his crossbow.
The arrow sliced through the air and stuck itself deep in Shalltear’s chest. She swayed slightly from the impact. “Fire!”
At the sound of their leader’s voice, the mercenaries came to their senses and, wanting to deny fear, fired their crossbows all at once. The bolts flying downrange sounded almost like rain as they pierced Shalltear’s body.
There had been a total of forty crossbow bolts launched. Thirty-one hit their target. Each one bit deeply into her body, which was to be expected given that at this range they could pierce even metal armor. There were even four burrowed into her head. If she was human, these wounds would have been fatal.
“We did it…,” someone whispered, laying bare the hope they all clung to. She was still standing, but she was a pincushion of crossbow bolts. Common sense said she had to be dead. But even if they could think that logically, the spark known as fear still smoldered in a corner of their minds.
Spurred on by something like animal instinct, the mercenaries loaded another volley.
Then Shalltear moved.
Like a conductor raising her baton, she raised both arms and then slowly opened them. The projectiles stuck in her gradually began to move, then were spat out of her body and finally landed in the dirt. None of them had any blood on them. Nor was there any wear on the arrowheads. It was exactly as if they had never been used.
She smiled—it was an ugly smile that could be perhaps better described as a derisive grin.
Shrieks of fear went up here and there, and as if that was the push they needed, countless arrows once again sliced through the air and rushed into Shalltear.
An eyeball was pierced, her neck was shot through, her stomach was skewered, and her shoulder was gouged. In the midst of all that, she seemed no more put out than she would be by a light rain.
“You guys are trying so harrrrrrrrrrrd, but that doesn’t work on meeeeeeee.”
She took one step forward—and then leaped.
The ceiling was about sixteen feet tall. After jumping high enough to easily touch it, she floated elegantly down on the other side of the barricade. Her high heels clacked on the floor. Then all the bolts fell out of her body. Her neck made a grinding noise as she turned her head, and she looked at the mercenaries behind her loading their crossbows.
She rushed and threw a punch. She didn’t even use her hips—it looked like she had just ****** out her hand. Even so, its speed was on another level and its destructive power was from another dimension.
Her fist went effortlessly through the mercenary’s body and slammed into the barricade. With a noise like an explosion, the wood was crushed, and splinters went flying in every direction.
In the heavy silence that had descended, the noise of the falling wood scraps echoed throughout the hall.
The shocked mercenaries stopped loading their crossbows and stared at Shalltear.
She inserted a finger into the glob of blood floating above her head. When she drew it out, a string of blood followed and formed a character in front of her. It was what was known as a magic letter and looked like Sanskrit or a rune.
This was a skill she’d gained from one of her classes, blood drinker, called Blood Pool. It saved up the blood of any slain enemies as a glob of malicious magic that could then be used for various purposes. And by sucking energy out of it, she could cast magic-boosting spells without using any additional MP.
“Penetrating Magic: Implosion!”
Shalltear cast a tier-ten spell—the highest tier of magic—causing the bodies of ten mercenaries to swell up. They didn’t even have time to scream. They could only look down at their bodies, realize something strange was happening, and screw up their faces in horror. The next moment, with the light popping noise of a balloon, they exploded.
“Ah-ha-ha! Haaaa-ha-ha-haaaa-ha-ha! Fireworrrrrrks! So prettyyyyy!” She pointed to the sprays of blood and clapped with a nasty grin on her face.
“Uwaaagh!” The estoc ****** at the same time as the roar pierced Shalltear’s chest and came out her back, about where her heart was. Then it wiggled up and down to widen the wound.
“Go to hell!” Next a broadsword was brought down into her head, cutting it in half and stopping with the blade sticking out from her left eye.
“Keep it up!” A war cry went up mixed with shrieks and howls, and three mercenaries swung their weapons at her.
The swords were swung over and over and over. But even with a broadsword sticking out of her face, Shalltear was unfazed. She didn’t seem to be experiencing the slightest pain and just stood there with that abominable smile on her face.
The mercenaries left their swords, fatigued from the multiple attacks, and continued hitting her with their fists and kicking her, tears streaming down their faces. Even though they were built bigger than her, she didn’t budge an inch and they felt like they were beating on a giant rock.
Shalltear cocked her head at them and began to think. Then, as if she came up with something good, she clapped her hands together. “Haaaaaahhhhhahhhhhhh!” She exhaled as if emitting built-up heat. A stiflingly thick smell of blood swirled through the area.
She leisurely removed the broadsword from her own head. Of course, there was no wound or anything left behind once it was out. About to wield it, she stopped. Rust covered the sword, and it began to crumble. She threw it away, disappointed as she remembered in her bloodthirsty brain—it was a penalty for one of her classes, cursed knight. Then she nonchalantly brandished her delicate hand.
Three heads rolled across the dirt.
“Run! Run for it! Hurry!”
“There’s no way we can win against that monster!”
Several mercenaries screamed as they all tried to flee.
Shalltear grabbed the head of one whose will to fight was completely broken as he tried to run, and she squished it with all her strength at once. With the crunching noise that sounded exactly like forcibly ripping off a crustacean’s shell, his head was smashed and his brains splattered.
“Ah-ha! Ha! Haaaaa-ha-ha-ha! What’s with that faaaaaace?! Are you scaaaaaared?! Ah-ha-ha! Ha-ha! Haaaa-ha-ha! Wait up! Tag’s not over yet!”
The bloodthirsty queen of nightmares laughed—“You’re not getting away”—at the men who, curiosity piqued by the strange noise, had turned and witnessed the sickening spectacle. Then she charged.
A mercenary who tripped over his own feet as he tried to flee fell at Shalltear’s feet, prostrate. “Please spare me! I beg you! I won’t do anything bad ever again!” He grabbed her feet, crying, and she pasted a smile like a fissure across her face. He realized instantly what that meant, and his face went past pale to white as a sheet.
“Up you goooooooo!”
“Don’t! Oh, please doooooon’t!” He clutched desperately at her feet, but she took hold of his back and hurled him lightly toward the ceiling.
Having been unable to resist her strength, the mercenary lost his grip and felt weightless for a couple of moments, his eyes shut tightly. Then gravity kicked in, his hands hit the floor, and pain shot through his arms. “Nghaaa!”
Pain was proof he was alive. Grateful for that, the mercenary cracked his eyes open—and realized he had acted too soon. Shalltear had caught him gently in her slender arms; that was why his entire body hadn’t slammed into the floor. He still hadn’t escaped her.
But more importantly—a huge mouth gaped before his eyes. He’d never smelled anything so foul—it was like a glob of coagulated blood.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ha-haaaa! This is fuuuuuuuuun! Did you think I would let you diiiiiie? Lickity-lick-lick!”
“H-help…”
“Noooooooooo, you don’t! I haven’t had a drink in foreverrrrrrrr!” Her mouth ripped past her ears with a pop and opened wide enough to swallow a human head whole.
No one there knew what a dangerous monster the true vampire from the DMMO Yggdrasil was.
Her extra-wide mouth made a huge half circle, and her two upper canines extended past her chin. Her crimson eyes sparkled, and sharp nails a couple of inches long tipped her withered-looking arms and legs. She moved almost stooped over and pounced to attack.
A regular vampire was like a mixed-blood human-bat monster. And the elite race of original vampires looked even more like a monster. About the only vampires that could be said to be beautiful were vampire brides like Shalltear’s concubines. The only reason the true vampire Shalltear was beautiful was simply because the guild member who designed her was good at drawing and the 3-D modeling happened to go well.
This was her true form. In other words, her normal appearance was nothing but a front.
She latched onto the mercenary’s neck like one of those sticky rubber toys or a hideously fat leech.
No sooner had he processed the sensation of his neck being punctured by numerous needles—or was it no sooner than the vulgar noise of all his blood being drunk?—he felt, with a chill, that he, as an entity, was being rapidly sucked out of his body. It was a horrifying sensation unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
Even if he tried to struggle, his arms and legs felt heavy. His field of vision rapidly darkened.
Eventually Shalltear had drank enough of him; she cast away the dried-up corpse and then licked the fresh blood from the corners of her mouth with her long, slimy tongue. Then she grinned broadly at the scrambling mercenaries.
“There are soooooooo many of you leeeeeeeeeft!”
Countless screams, cries of enmity, and despondent wails echoed throughout the hall.
•
A hush had fallen over the hall where nothing moved any longer, and Shalltear stood there smirking. The glob of blood floating above her had gathered quite a lot and was now just a bit smaller than her head.
“Soooooooo fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!”
The vampire brides, who had been tasked with preventing anyone from running away through the entrance to the hall, bowed their heads in reply to Shalltear’s scream of delight. “If you’re enjoying yourself, that’s what is most important, grand mistress.”
“My maiiiiiiiin diiiiiiiiish!”
Shalltear put her strength into wrenching open the door Brain had escaped through. The lock popped out and the door, hinges and all, ended up in her hand.
It was a small room, but there were many bags and wooden crates inside. And there was something she hadn’t expected. Mixed in with the dust came the smell of fresh air, a breeze from outside. She simultaneously felt the presence of a human, growing fainter. Even having lost herself in her Blood Frenzy, Shalltear still vaguely remembered her orders.
“Kwaaaa!” Unleashing a cry of what could have been anger or war, she went after the presence, throwing the bags and crates out of her way.
Behind all the stuff was a hole. Not even a yard in, it was filled with dirt and sand, but fresh air was streaming through a slight gap.
“An escaaaaaape paaaaaaaaath?!”
The lesser vampire hadn’t lied. He just hadn’t known about this escape route.
It’s an easily misunderstood fact, but even when charmed, a target can tell only what they know. They can’t say something they don’t know, and if they were convinced something untrue was true, the charmer would acquire bad information.
Unlike Mare, Shalltear didn’t have any magic to move dirt out of the way. If she used a shock wave, there was the possibility the ceiling would cave in.
He got away. When those words appeared in her train of thought, she understood, albeit vaguely, that that meant she had failed part of her mission.
She grimaced in rage. Why didn’t worthless humans act how she, a guardian of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, wanted? She wanted to make his pointless life serve the glorious purposes of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, so why couldn’t he understand that and rejoice? She was noisily grinding her teeth when she heard the voice of one of the vampire brides who had been stationed outside the cave.
“Mistress Shalltear!”
For one moment Shalltear’s vision flashed red in annoyance; perhaps she should have just destroyed the vampire bride if she couldn’t even hold her position, but she frantically suppressed that anger. She could be spared if she was here with something important to say.
“What iiiiiiiiiis iiiiiiiiiit?”
“There are several people headed this way.”
“Hmmm? Surviiiiiivors? Thennnn shall we go ouuuuuuut to meet themmmmm? Ah-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-haaaaaa-ha-haaaaa!”
4
Shalltear jumped up. She leaped like a bird taking off into the night and alighted on one foot atop the logs that made up the barricade at the entrance. The vampire brides also slowly headed up to the entrance.
Still smiling, Shalltear stared down her target.
It was a party in tight formation. The vanguard was made up of three men, warriors. Their gear was all different, but they wore scale armor, had their weapons drawn in one hand, and wore large shields on their backs. Behind them was a woman warrior with red hair wearing banded armor. And behind her, walking as if he was under everyone else’s protection, was a lightly equipped man with a staff—probably an arcane-type magic caster. In line next to him was a faith-magic caster wearing priestly garb over his armor with a sigil shaped like a flame hanging from his neck.
The six of them were astounded to see Shalltear, but there was no confusion and they kept their guard up—a composure gained through experience.
“He’s nooooooot heeeeeeeeere.”
It was fine to kill humans who held up about as well as tofu, but something with more crunch to it was definitely better. With anticipation in her crimson eyes, she smiled at them.
“It talked?!” The arcane-magic caster was shocked but for only a moment. His face hardened immediately. “Assume it’s a vampire! Only silver or enchanted weapons will work. We can’t win! Withdraw! Don’t look at its eyes!” he shouted in an overly loud voice that could be heard throughout the hollow.
His orders conveyed only the most important information and the others reacted quickly. The warriors out front grabbed the large shields off their backs and took up a defensive stance, holding them out. Their eyes strayed, focusing in on Shalltear’s chest and midriff.
While that was happening, the woman warrior behind them took their weapons and began applying something.
A faint but disagreeable odor drifted into Shalltear’s nose. It was alchemical silver, a special liniment created by alchemists. When it touched a weapon, it made an oil slick, covering the weapon in a glaze with the properties of silver.
Generally, for how expensive silver weapons were, their blades were softer than iron ones, so they weren’t geared for long-term use. For that reason, many adventurers bought this liniment and applied the properties of silver for a limited time as necessary.
Brandishing their temporarily silver weapons, they began their retreat while keeping the enemy in check.
It was a magnificent retreat. All the party members moved smoothly as if they were one creature.
“Our god, god of Fire—”
“Don’t push yourself! Prepare defensive spells!”
Stopping the priest, who was about to hold up his sigil, the arcane-magic caster began unleashing his own spells on the front line. The priest began casting as well.
It depended on the class, but the majority of priests made use of the power of the gods to exorcise, subordinate, or annihilate beings such as undead, demons, and angels. But they could do those things only to beings markedly less powerful than themselves. In other words, the priest had probably been about to attempt an undead exorcism, but the arcane-magic caster had perceived the enormous power gap; decided that if the priest had leeway to try that, his efforts were better used for something else; and given instructions accordingly.
Thus, Shalltear picked out who the leader was and thought she should follow her orders and capture him, but the crimson urge to slaughter and see more blood flooded her mind.
She wanted to kill and crush and dismember so badly. She wanted to bathe in blood. Froth gathered at the corners of her mouth as she panted.
“Evil Protection!”
“Lesser Psychic Protection!”
The two casters bolstered the warriors in front with defensive spells one by one.
A feeling of admiration, however slight, was born inside Shalltear’s maximally agitated mind. The spells they were using were the lowest level, tier one, but they were appropriate to the enemy they were facing. These opponents were different from the mercenaries who just repeated thoughtless attacks at random and the foolish warrior who faced her all alone but couldn’t even use martial arts.
That said, futile was futile. In the face of the obvious gap in ability, their efforts meant nothing.
Their adorable resistance was what finally snapped the thin thread of her self-restraint. “It’s no gooooood. I caaaan’t hold baaaack any longerrrrrrr!” she shouted in an unhinged voice and charged.
She was so nimble. It was as if she were dancing, but anyone watching saw a gale-force wind. Flowing seamlessly, her arm came up.
She pierced a shield; smashed armor; ignored the magic defenses; ripped apart skin, flesh, and bone; clutched the heart that had just been beating; and—all in one instant—ripped it out. Standing before the warrior who crumpled to the ground, Shalltear held out the throbbing reddish-black mass to show the rest of the party. The female warrior shrieked, and the priest twisted up his face in loathing.
Satisfied with the expected reactions, Shalltear grinned and cast a spell. “Animate Dead!”
The warrior who had lost his heart slowly stood up as one of the lowest- tier undead, a zombie.
But Shalltear wasn’t done there. She swallowed the heart and then reached into the glob of blood above her head. When she pulled out her hand, inside was a beating clot of blood—a caricature of a heart. She threw it at the zombie.
Wriggling like an insect and warping shape, it burrowed into the zombie’s chest. With that, the body jolted. Then, still having full-body spasms, it slowly transformed.
His skin became like the bark of a withered tree, as if all the moisture had evaporated from his body; his nails grew suddenly longer; and his canine teeth jutted out. Soon, that undead was no longer a zombie.
The adventurers were shocked by the appearance of the lesser vampire.
“This can’t be! I’ve never heard of a vampire using such high-tier spells without a penalty!”
“It just happened right in front of us. Calm down! Stay cool and we’ll handle this!”
“But…!”
“Withdrawal is impossible! We’ll take the offensive!”
“Okay!”
The priest’s vague order caused some confusion wherein one warrior slashed at Shalltear and one at the lesser vampire who was once their friend.
“Our god, god of Fire! Cast out the impure ones!” Invisible holy energy radiated from the priest’s sigil. Of course, it had no effect on Shalltear.
“Ahhhhh-haaaaa-ha-ha-hah! Ha-ha!”
One of the warriors’ swords ripped into the lesser vampire, perhaps because it had been immobilized by the holy energy. It was probably vulnerable, since it was still unstable, having not completely transformed from zombie into lesser vampire yet, but the fact that her creation was weak against the power of the gods was enough to irk Shalltear.
She glared over at it dismally while fending off sword blows with her pinkie finger. “You’rrrrrrrre innnnnnnn myyyyyy wayyyyyy!” She swung her right hand in an offhand way. With that careless motion, the head of the warrior brandishing his sword was sliced off, and he crumpled to the ground, neck spouting blood.
“Lesser Strength!” The priest gave the last remaining warrior a buff.
Now the lesser vampire’s dull movements were matched up against the magically enhanced warrior. The fight was going slightly in the warrior’s favor.
Well, it seems like they’re having fun, so I won’t bother them. Plus, there’s still other prey, Shalltear thought, still thirsting for blood, and turned to face the priest.
The woman warrior planted herself between them, holding her sword. It was only an iron weapon. How cute she was. Even twitching in fear, she did her best to take a combat stance—she looked like a little animal putting up a pitiful resistance. Shalltear was tormented by a hot, erotic joy.
How would she scream if I bit off her fingers? I could cut off her ears and make her eat them. Nah, I’d rather drink her blood. This is the first time I’ve been outside and had female prey. “Yoooooou’ll be desserrrrrrrrrrt!” she shouted with her mouth open wide and leaped.
Her jump carried her easily over the woman, and she landed in front of the arcane-magic caster and priest. Faster than the priest could move, Shalltear gripped the hand that held his sigil and crushed it in one squeeze. Overwhelmed by the pressure, the bones crunched to pieces, and the flesh and skin, with nowhere to go, were mangled.
“Gyaaargh!”
Satisfied with the sound of his scream, Shalltear kindly had some mercy on him. She thought she would relieve him of his pain.
Her hand flashed, and she nodded with pleasure as the blood spurting from the priest’s neck was absorbed into the glob above her head.
Then someone hit her from behind with all their might. But like a giant tree, Shalltear didn’t budge an inch—though the sword sticking out of her chest was a little bit in the way.
“No way! It didn’t work? This is a silver weapon!” the woman practically half shrieked, seeing that Shalltear was still moving despite the sword piercing her chest right through her heart.
The woman hadn’t had a silver weapon. She must have picked it up off the fallen warrior.
The things the caster had said were right, but they were also wrong. The only weapons that would work on Shalltear were those made of silver and imbued with a certain amount of magical energy, equipment made of general materials but containing an overpowering amount of magical energy, or weapons of a certain attribute she was weak against. She wouldn’t take damage from a mere silver weapon.
Shalltear continued to ignore the woman behind her and stared down the shocked caster.
“Magic Arrow!” He cast with a desperate look on his face, and two shards of light flew at Shalltear—and were easily neutralized.
That was due to her skill Magic Immunity. It had shortcomings that could be exploited depending on the ability of the attacking magic user, so it wasn’t a perfect defense, but with this big a gap between their levels, she was practically invulnerable. In other words, there was nothing the caster could do against her.
“Boooooooooooring!” Shalltear swiped a hand, and the head of the one she’d lost interest in fell to the ground.
When she turned around, the lesser vampire and warrior were still having a pretty good fight. Shalltear carelessly picked up the two fallen heads by their hair. As if bored, she threw them at the fighting pair. Each one was about thirteen pounds and flew at an incomparable speed. The results barely needed to be spelled out. Both fighters crumpled to the ground.
While Shalltear had been ignoring her, Dessert had been frantically stabbing her, cutting into her over and over. But what did she care? For Shalltear, who felt no pain, the woman’s actions were meaningless. The only issue was the holes being ripped in her clothing, but since the outfit was magical, the damage would repair automatically as long as Shalltear was all right.
“Okayyyyy, tiiiiiiime for desserrrrrrrt! Let’s eeeeeeat!” Like a kid saving a favorite food for last—only with a sinister grin that would make anyone want to vomit—Shalltear turned on the woman with the sword coming at her from behind.
The woman made momentary contact with Shalltear’s crimson eyes before it dawned on her that she was the only one left standing. She backed up a step at a time, tears brimming. Then suddenly, she rummaged in her belt pouch to retrieve something.
Shalltear watched, at ease in her red-tinted world. She was a tiny bit curious what the woman was doing.
Eventually the woman took out a bottle and threw it.
One glance was enough for Shalltear to smirk at the bottle as it flipped end over end toward her. The woman had surely meant to throw it seriously, but from Shalltear’s point of view, it was moving just too slowly. She could have easily dodged it, but her pride wouldn’t allow that. Plus, there was something she wanted to see: the expression on the woman’s face at the last second, when her final hope shattered.
The desire for slaughter was building, but Shalltear desperately held it back. She knew that the more patient she could be now, the greater the joy she would experience when she finally tasted the blood.
She wondered idly as the bottle approached, Is it holy water or maybe a bomb? No matter what it is, it’s futile. What a sad excuse for resistance. First, I’ll slowly suck her blood up to the point where she’s just barely still alive. If she’s a ******, I could just drink from her till she dies. If not, we can have all kinds of fun—in ways that cause her to lose as little blood as possible.
Having decided that, she ****** the flying bottle away with one hand. The impact caused a red liquid to splash out of the open mouth and wet Shalltear’s skin.
There shouldn’t have been anything but a faint pain.
But for a moment, Shalltear’s mind went completely blank. Her thirst for blood went right out the window. She stared dumbstruck at the place the pain had radiated from. It was the hand with which she had brushed away the bottle. From the spot the liquid had landed came a pungent smell and wisps of smoke.
She moved her eyes to look at the ground, at the bottle lying there. A faint but pleasant aroma came from its open mouth. She had seen containers like this many times before. It was a potion used often in the Great Tomb of Nazarick, probably a Minor Healing Potion. Undead took damage from healing items. That’s why her skin had melted slightly.
“Impossible—!” Her angry shout caused the air to vibrate. “Capture that woman unharmed!”
At her orders, the vampire brides, who had been just standing behind her watching, began to move. The woman had used the time Shalltear had been dumbstruck to turn her back to them and run, but the vampire brides closed the distance in an instant and grabbed her hands.
The woman struggled, but the muscular strength of humans couldn’t be compared to vampires’. It was so easy for them to bring her back before Shalltear.
“Look into my eyes!” Shalltear grabbed the woman’s lower jaw and forced her to look up to charm her with Bewitching Eyes. Of course, she took care with how much strength she used. It would be a mess if she pulled too hard and accidentally ripped off her jaw. Shalltear could employ some priest spells, but because she was undead, she couldn’t use the usual healing spells.
After being forced to look, something like a thin film covered the woman’s eyes and all that was left on her face that had been filled with hostility and fear was a blank, friendly expression. That was the charming effect of Shalltear’s skill Bewitching Eyes. When they sensed the effect was strong enough, the brides let go of the woman’s hands.
Shalltear had several questions. But there was one thing she had to ask before anything else. She picked up the potion bottle and ****** it before the woman’s eyes. “Where did you get this potion? Who gave it to you?”
“I got it at an inn from someone clad in black armor.” She answered as if it was no big deal, but Shalltear felt her entire body freeze.
“…Could it be…? No, there’s no way… But…an inn in which…which city?”
“It was an inn in E-Rantel.”
The surprise jolted Shalltear’s sense of balance. She had some idea who this someone in black armor might be.
If she was right, then the greater question was, why did this woman have this potion? He wouldn’t have given it to her for no reason.
“Could he have…?” Did he give this woman some kind of order? Or was it possible he gave the potion as a gift to strengthen a relationship as part of his networking outside of Nazarick?
She pictured the absolute master of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Ainz Ooal Gown, in all his bravery. The worry that she might have ruined their master’s plan shook her to the core.
“Whattaya doin’ here? Whattaya after?” She didn’t have time to speak with her usual attempts at refined language. Desperate to gather information, Shalltear now gazed intensely at the woman with bloodshot eyes for a different reason than before.
“Usually we do highway security, but we heard some thieves had a hideout in this area, so we came to check it out. Then it seemed like something strange happened, so we split our team in two. I’m here as part of the reconnaissance-in-force mission.”
“You split your team?”
“Yes. We didn’t know how many thieves there would be, so our plan was to probe their defenses and then lead them to where the other group is preparing a trap.”
“So there’s another team.” What a pain, she thought as she clicked her tongue. “And how many people came here?”
“Seven including me, and then—”
“Huh? Wait a minute. Seven? Not six?” Shalltear eyed the corpses scattered throughout the area. Three warriors, one priest, one caster, and this woman. The numbers didn’t add up.
The woman responded to Shalltear’s anxious look just like that. “Right. There was one ranger who would go to E-Rantel for help in an emergency.”
“What…?”
The caster’s voice had been awfully loud before. Yes, it had been loud enough to be heard all throughout the hollow.
“GAH!” Eyes open wide, Shalltear ran up out of the hollow at a speed far surpassing any gale-force wind. When she reached the top, she scanned the area, but even with her superior night vision, she couldn’t see through trees. She strained her ears but couldn’t pick up anything besides plants rustling in the wind. Shalltear didn’t have any perception abilities or search magic. It was virtually impossible for her to find one human in this forest.
“Dammit!” she spat. The ranger had gotten away. Frankly, she hadn’t been taking them seriously enough. The result was two escapees. She ground her teeth noisily.
“My kin!” The shadow at Shalltear’s feet began to wriggle, and a number of wolves appeared as if overflowing out of it. Of course, they were not normal wolves. Their jet-black coats made them seem as though they were clad in the night itself, and their crimson eyes harbored a malevolent wisdom. They were a type of level-7 monster, vampire wolves. There were many monsters she could call upon with her skill Summon Kin, but these were the only ones that seemed able to track and pursue.
“Go! Find any humans in this forest and devour them!” In response to her screamed order, which could also be called a howl, ten wolves raced off all at once into the woods. Watching them go, she still felt the chances they could take care of it were slim. Aura came to mind. Even if this ranger wasn’t as adept as her, they’d probably know a way to evade pursuit.
In other words, she had to think of a next move, assuming the ranger had gotten away. She hurried back and asked as if clutching at the woman.
“First, is there anyone else who received a potion from this person in black armor besides you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh! Then, next question. Is there a chance that ranger will meet up with the other team?”
“No. The plan was for him to abandon the other team and go back to town in the event our group was wiped out. That option gives us the best chance of surviving.”
They were operating with plenty of caution and had carefully considered a plan for what to do in the event they were defeated. That was why Shalltear felt cornered. This realization set the flames of her rage blazing.
“You’re a bit too smart for humans! If I end up getting permission to rule over you vermin, I’ll treat you like the worms you are!” Roaring at them wasn’t going to change anything. The news of a vampire at large would almost certainly reach the city. It wasn’t clear if her appearance was known or not, but it seemed unlikely that a human’s vision could make her out clearly in the middle of a low-lying depression at night. Still… “Shit!” she cursed and dove even deeper into her own thoughts.
Her orders from Ainz… Your prey this time is criminals—people no one would miss if they disappeared. For example, if among the thieves there is someone who can use martial arts or magic, I don’t care if you suck their blood and make them your slave as long as you capture them. If among the criminals you find there are some who seem knowledgeable about world affairs and fighting, don’t let them get away. And don’t cause a disturbance. If people found out Nazarick was behind this, it could cause trouble for us down the line… Clearly, she had failed big-time.
She desperately held back the feeling that she wanted to rip out her hair. “I’m still okay, I’m still okay, I’m still okay,” she repeated as if trying to convince herself.
The news of a vampire may reach the city, but neither her name nor anything about Nazarick had leaked. In other words, there was no way to connect the vampire who attacked this place with Nazarick. Speculating along that line, she decided the people in town would probably just think that the mercenaries were massacred by a wild vampire, if such a thing actually existed.
Granted, the scenario was full of holes, but she couldn’t come up with anything better without more information.
But she was swallowed further into her maelstrom of thought. The next question was what to do with this woman, considering the situation. Being charmed didn’t mean that she had lost her memories. The safe thing to do would be to kill her. The problem was Ainz’s intention in giving her a potion.
If he had a purpose or reason for giving it to her, then killing her could impede his goals. That would be excessively bad. If she let her return alive, the people who’d hired her would surely wonder why she was the only one who made it back. Then they’d learn all kinds of things—including what Shalltear looked like. It wasn’t such a big deal at present, but she couldn’t foresee the effects it might have in the future.
The best thing would be to contact Ainz, but Shalltear couldn’t use Message.
So what should I do?
“Ahhh, Lord Ainz will scold me…,” she whispered so low no one could hear and held her head in her hands. “If only I didn’t have Blood Frenzy… No, that’s disrespectful to my Creator, Lord Peroroncino. If only I had repressed it…”
She could regret it all she wanted, but it was too late. It didn’t matter how she got rid of the woman—she would be reprimanded either way. But which way would do the least harm? Bad was better than worse.
Shalltear thought, thought, and thought some more till steam was practically erupting from her head, and she reached a conclusion. There was a greater number of possible outcomes if she let the woman live. Killing her couldn’t be undone, but if she let her live, it seemed like things would work out one way or another.
That’s what she decided. No, she was kidding herself with all her might.
“What’s your name?”
“Brita.”
“Okay. I won’t forget it.”
She had the woman called Brita stand still and gathered her two vampire bride minions in a slightly removed location.
“For now, collect everything that is here. We’re withdrawing.” She wasn’t really sure if they had time for looting, but she would risk it to cultivate a ruse that she’d been after treasure. She was failing her orders, so she should at least make an effort to disseminate false information.
“Mistress Shalltear, what shall we do with the rest of them?”
Shalltear eyed Brita, looking somewhat lonely standing by herself a little ways away. “Leave her.”
“No, the other women.”
“…Huh? Other women?”
“Yes, Mistress Shalltear. When we searched inside for any hidden survivors, we discovered several women who seemed to have been used to handle sexual desire. What should we do with them?”
Shalltear’s face twitched. What the heck?
She got the gears in her head turning again. They haven’t seen my face, so it’s probably fine to abandon them, but is that the right thing to do? It’s so complicated—maybe it’d be better to just kill them? But then it would seem strange to leave only Brita alive. She cradled her head with no idea what course of action would be the best for her.
“Mistress, what should we—?”
“Huh? How should I know?!” Shalltear’s expression plainly said, Why did you tell me something unnecessary? If she hadn’t known, she could have defended her actions no matter what she did or how it turned out, but now that she knew, ignoring them without thinking would be a clear act of rebellion against her master. “Whatever! I don’t know! I have no idea! We’ll leave them. We’ll leave them and go! Stick Brita in with them!”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t know if it’s okay or not! Shit! Could you just shut up?”
“My apologies, Mistress Shalltear.”
“We’re pulling out! Move!”
The vampire brides bowed their heads, and as they set about their tasks, Shalltear curled into a ball, cradling her head.
“…I’m going to be in trouble… What should I do…? But…? Huh?” She looked up toward the woods the vampire wolves had gone into. “…You found him?” She felt the kin she’d summoned disappear in the blink of an eye. They hadn’t been returned with magic but slaughtered by something.
“After you’ve thrown that woman in with the others, follow me! I’ll set up some markers!” She’d made her decision quickly. After shouting only that, she set off at a wind-shredding speed.
Inside the forest, her speed did drop a bit, but even if a human were riding a horse, there was no way they could have escaped Shalltear as she was now.
She ran through the woods and arrived almost immediately at the place where she’d last had contact with her kin.
There were twelve people there. They all wore different gear. It wasn’t plain, but rather, their looks were all customized; it wasn’t unlike Shalltear’s things. She could also sense they had great power. Shalltear didn’t have any skills to tell how powerful magic items were, so she could only guess, of course, but she had the feeling their gear might have even been legend tier or higher. She wondered who they were. They had a completely different presence compared to the other people she had seen so far in this world—it was the difference between lions and mice.
She scanned all of them and stopped her eyes on one of the men. Is he… strong? Surprised, she tried to gauge how strong he was, but since she wasn’t specialized as a warrior, all she could tell was that he far surpassed not only her vampire brides but also Solution of the Pleiades. She took a look at him.
His gear was shaped for a man’s profile, so she assumed he was male, but his looks were more androgynous. Was he a man or a woman? He seemed to be both and neither. It was even harder to decide because he was short with a young face—was he still growing? His glossy black hair was long, to the point where it almost reached the ground. His ruby eyes were wary of Shalltear. He was wielding a spear that looked shabby compared to the rest of his gear.
“Use it.” His voice, issuing orders that unsettled his party, gave the impression of the cold surface of a lake. Shalltear couldn’t tell what he meant, but it must have been a fairly powerful piece of equipment, perhaps even her sole god item’s equal.
The humans began acting on the order, but Shalltear ignored them completely; she was wary of only one of them and didn’t consider the others a threat.
Moving in the center was a woman wearing strange clothing. One could maybe call it a woman’s dress with a standing collar and slit down the side. It was silvery white. A five-clawed dragon taking off into the sky was depicted in gold thread. In Ainz’s world, the dress would have been called a cheongsam.
But this woman wearing it was old, her face wrinkled, the legs sticking out of her dress reminiscent of burdock root or dried sweet potatoes. The dress really didn’t suit her, or rather, the sight of her in it was brow furrowing, to the point that Shalltear purposely looked away.
But that would probably be their last little disagreement.
Something happened that changed everything just like that.
If Ainz hadn’t captured Nigun, if Ainz hadn’t countered the theocracy’s intelligence magic in what seemed to them like such a violent way, if the theocracy hadn’t mistaken it for the resurrection of the Catastrophe Dragonlord, if Shalltear hadn’t been distracted—everything could have been different. But with that many ifs piled up, perhaps it was inevitable.
The name of the garment was Kei Seke Koku, “Ruinous Beauty.” It was left by the gods that these people believed saved mankind. It had more power than even Shalltear.
—Shudder.
Shalltear, a guardian of the Great Tomb of Nazarick at the highest level, trembled. It was an alert from a keen sense—one could call it a sixth sense.
As if her intuition were sounding an alarm, Shalltear’s eyes moved to the old woman. That was who she truly needed to kill.
Realizing this, she tried to move, but the man with the spear blocked her.
“Out of my way!” She sent him flying. A fragile human body would have been smashed by the blow, but he was simply knocked back not killed. He even retained his will to fight where he landed.
Shalltear cast a spell, mainly at the old woman. “Mass Hold Species!” She would capture several of them. She had the feeling they would make up for her previous error with change to spare.
Just after she thought that, however, her mind started going blank. It was as if parts of her thoughts were peeling off her brain. She couldn’t understand what it was, and when she finally realized what was happening, she was utterly shocked and terrified despite being undead.
It was mind control.
She was being mind controlled even though she should have had total resistance to it as an undead. The parts of her mind that weren’t yet whited out contained a frantic hatred. A million worst-case scenarios flitted across them—
“Eeeeeegh!” she shrieked and shed tears of blood as she resisted the controlling power threatening to sully her, a guardian of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
But the taint continued to seep into her consciousness, ignoring her desperate struggle. She didn’t have leeway to use teleportation magic. If she let it distract her, she would be controlled immediately.
She created a Purifying Lance with a skill from one of her classes. It was huge and imbued with the holy attribute, and even though her alignment leaned toward evil, it could still do a fair amount of damage. Best of all, by using additional MP, she could tack on the ability to aim perfectly.
As she struggled with all her might in desperation, she glared at the woman wielding the power, threatening to violate her. The man with the shield like a giant mirror standing in front of her didn’t even register.
Then she threw.
The lance left her hand as if it had a mind of its own. From within her whiting-out consciousness, she had used a jumble of her skills to strengthen the attack. The flash flew true, piercing the man in front, shield and all, and then reached the woman behind him. The two of them vomited blood. The group was in an uproar. This was the world as Shalltear last saw it.
Intermission
The Re-Estize Kingdom, at the royal capital…
The royal castle compound, Ro-Lente, was situated in the innermost part of the city, surrounded by walls linking twenty huge cylindrical towers standing at even intervals. On its grounds was Valancia Palace.
In one of its rooms, which generally valued function over splendor, a meeting of the court was being held. Many of the great nobles and chief vassals were gathered.
At the center was the captain of the Royal Select, Gazef Stronoff. He was kneeling before King Ramposa III, seated on the throne, to whom he’d sworn loyalty.
It seems he’s aged even more… That’s what he thought upon examining the king, comparing him to the last time Gazef saw him just two weeks ago. The hair of Gazef’s beloved and respected master had grown gray and stringy, while his thin body couldn’t be called healthy even in flattery, and his complexion was sickly. The hands gripping his cane-length scepter were withered, and the crown looked heavy on his head.
He’d reigned for thirty-nine years and was sixty years old. Normally he would have given the throne to his successor by that age, but the problem was he didn’t have one.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have an heir. There were two princes, but neither could be said to be terribly bright, and it was clear that if either one of them became king, he’d make a perfect puppet for the great nobles.
The old man spoke in a listless voice. “Captain, you’ve returned. Well done.”
“Yes! Thank you, Your Majesty.” Gazef bowed low in response to the king’s considerate words.
“Well, then. I’ve received a short report naturally, but I’d like to hear the details of what happened straight from the source.”
“Understood.”
Gazef explained the details of what happened after he left the capital and went to the village of Carne. He gave a particularly minute description of the mysterious caster, Ainz Ooal Gown, but didn’t mention the agents who seemed to be from the Slane Theocracy. Very few people needed to know about them, and he didn’t think anything good would come of bringing them up in this setting.
Instead, he spoke volubly of the marvelous man who boldly dove into danger to save the villagers despite only being a passerby.
“I see. What a wonderful story. Not giving danger a second thought and rescuing the weak is really something…”
In response to the king’s admiration-filled words, several of the nobles called out their suspicions.
“There has to be something shady about him!”
“He’s a shifty character who hides his face.”
“Just a caster with a weird name.”
There was even someone who suggested that he set up the attack in advance to make himself look good.
Hearing his life savior talked about in this way while he wasn’t able to say anything in his defense made Gazef feel pathetic, but he couldn’t let his anger show.
Of course, he had a reason. The nobles insulting Ainz all had one thing in common: They were members of the large faction that supported the great nobles.
The Re-Estize Kingdom was a feudal nation where 30 percent of the territory was controlled by the king, 30 by the great nobles, and the remaining 40 by various other nobles. And now, the country was engrossed in a two- sided struggle for power.
One side was the king’s faction, and the other was the great nobles’, which included more than half the kingdom’s six great nobles.
Although they were before the king, their behavior was an extension of that fight, and this was just another venue for it.
That’s why Gazef, of the king’s faction and the king’s right-hand man, couldn’t go shooting his mouth off. He wasn’t a great talker and knew he couldn’t defeat them in a battle of words, so he needed to avoid situations where they could pick at his speech.
The appearance of the Slane Theocracy’s secret squad coincided with our movements, so…there’s a good chance the kingdom has been infiltrated. If that was the case, the great nobles’ faction must be involved…
Gazef looked at one of the nobles present, one with an exceptionally cold glint in his eyes. The man’s blond hair was slicked back, and he had blue almond-shaped eyes. His complexion was a special pallor reserved for those who rarely see the light of day. That combined with his tall, lean figure gave him the impression of a snake. Age-wise he should have been just under forty, but his sickly skin tone made him seem far older. He was one of the six great nobles, Marquis Raeven, and he flitted between factions like a bat, seeking advantage. He’d also gotten close to the king’s second son.
If someone’s betraying the kingdom, maybe it’s him?
Noticing Gazef’s gaze, the marquis stretched his thin lips into a faint smile, making them even thinner.
In response to that provocative attitude, Gazef kept his face even stonier.
“Now then, I think we’ve heard enough from the captain for now. There are other things we need to attend to.” At this exhausted-sounding utterance from the king, the nobles settled down for the time being.
Gazef moved closer to the king and scanned the room. After getting his position on the king’s staff, he’d gotten used to receiving unpleasant looks.
“Now, let’s discuss the war with the empire that will no doubt start in several months as it does every year. Marquis Raeven, if you please.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He glided to the front of the group almost like a ghost and began to speak in a quiet voice.
No one heckled. He was a man with influence in both factions, as well as being the most powerful of the six great nobles. Everyone was scared to make an enemy of him.
After Marquis Raeven finished speaking about the plan going forward, who would contribute how many soldiers and so on, without receiving any objections, a slight smile played across his face and he bowed to the king. “That is all.”
“You have my thanks, Marquis Raeven. Does anyone have an opinion on any of that?”
The crowd stirred again and many people spoke up.
“After driving them off this time, we should keep marching straight into the empire.”
“You said it. I’m so sick of fending off their invasions.”
“The time has come to show the foolish empire how formidable we can be.”
“It certainly has. Just as you say, Count!”
The laughter of the well-dressed men filled the room.
In your dreams! How gratified Gazef would feel if he could just say that.
The kingdom and the neighboring empire clashed at a rate of about once per year on the Katze Plain. Neither side experienced heavy casualties, but that was because the empire wasn’t taking it seriously. If they really wanted to take down the kingdom, there was no reason for them to pitch camp on the Katze Plain and wait for them to show up. Gazef and any nobles with even half a brain considered the empire’s purpose as reducing the kingdom’s strength.
The kingdom built its army by drafting commoners, while the empire’s was made up of soldiers given the title of knight as proof of their specialization—it was obvious at a glance which soldiers were stronger.
And so the kingdom had to mobilize twice as many commoners. And a large force meant the army needed a vast supply of food. Sure, there were magic items that could produce food, but they appeared to be concerned only with nutrition; the flavor was so unappetizing, even a starving person would hesitate to eat them. That could never become a staple.
Then, since the empire’s invasion was always during the later wheat harvest season, there were never enough hands in the villages, so they were always behind on the reaping of wheat and other grains. The empire didn’t even have to fight so hard and the kingdom’s strength still declined, causing the power of the royal family to decline with it. That’s why the great nobles’ faction turned a blind eye—they were happy the power of the opposing faction was in decline.
If the country weakens, the empire will strike. Do they really think it will end with these little skirmishes? How can they be so naive? Gazef was angered by these nobles who thought their absolute authority would just hold forever.
“By the way, about that caster who saved you, Captain. He might be from the empire, you know—to infiltrate as a spy or something!”
“Ah, I see. That could very well be. I hear the empire has a magic academy for casters. It’s definitely a possibility.”
“The order of his name with the baptismal name in the middle is in the style of the Slane Theocracy, but perhaps that’s part of his disguise.”
“It doesn’t feel very good to have that sort of character in the kingdom. Should we not do something about it?”
“Perhaps we should consider capturing him. Really, even having an adventurer guild with a bunch of casters doing what they please is a problem. We should do everything we can to place them under our direct control.”
“And the amount of money we pay to the guild is ludicrous! It’s ridiculous that we compensate adventurers to exterminate monsters inside their own kingdom!”
“We should haul him in and listen to what he has to say.”
At this point, Gazef had to say something. He couldn’t let the man who saved not only himself but also the villagers and his men be abused any further. “Hold on. That caster showed the kingdom a great deal of goodwill. I do not believe it wise to capture such a—” Gazef went off in a different direction in an attempt to change the flow of the court meeting.
Some of the nobles had put on overtly sour faces.
Since Gazef had reached his current position on the merits of his swordsmanship alone, the nobles, with their histories and lineages, regarded him as an upstart.
They hated him. His skills with a sword, unrivaled within the kingdom, ended up causing even more animosity. These men of lofty standing couldn’t handle being inferior to someone who came from a lower class.
Several nobles opened their mouths to talk over Gazef. They expressed negative sentiments toward Ainz Ooal Gown, and other voices sounded in agreement.
The king on his throne spoke, half sighing. “…That’s enough. I declare that nothing is wrong with the captain’s judgment.”
“Nrgh… If Your Majesty says so…” The nobles took the borderline sneering smiles off their faces for the time being.
Gazef beamed a grateful look toward the object of his loyalty who had appointed him.
The king responded with a slight nod.
•
The court meeting ended, but not before it was rife as usual with power struggle and brownnosing. Though he was exhausted in both body and spirit, Gazef hid it as he walked down a hall in the palace with the king.
The king relied on a cane after injuring his knee in battle, and his gait was unstable, but thinking of his pride, Gazef never offered assistance. Besides, if the king was seen unable to walk without help, the voices of the great nobles’ faction calling for abdication—in favor of a puppet prince they would control—would grow stronger. Gazef did feel bad, but it was imperative that the king walk on his own.
They proceeded down the hall at a snail’s pace, and when they were just about to reach the royal family’s quarters, the king suddenly spoke.
“…We need the nobles’ strength to prevent an imperial invasion. Opposing them head-on would break this country before the empire even gets here.”
The topic came up suddenly, but it was because Gazef knew so well what the king was trying to say that he bit his lip. “I envy the empire.” He didn’t have a way to console the king.
The empire had also been a feudal nation until three emperors ago. But they whittled down the nobles’ influence, and by the time the current emperor ascended to power, they had switched to absolute imperial rule.
The current emperor, Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix.
He was a young man known as the “Fresh Blood Emperor,” alluding to the amount that was spilled at the time of his ascension. Gazef remembered seeing him on the battlefield—when he’d been invited to join Nix.
Now that was a ruler. He was born for it.
“I’m sorry that politics got in the way of my protecting you. Please forgive me for not even being able to outfit you before sending you out on such dangerous orders… That’s why you lost some of your men, right?”
“No, that’s not why it—”
“Gazef, it’s okay. I don’t think it will count as an apology to the families of the dead, but I’ll send monetary consolation. I would also like to extend my personal gratitude to Sir Gown, a heartfelt thanks for saving my most loyal aide.”
It was nice of the king to want to thank him directly despite not even being saved from those villains himself, but it would be difficult. Still… “I think those words will be enough coming from Your Benevolence.”
“Do you think so? Hmm?”
They noticed two people coming down the hall. Especially eye-catching was the beautiful woman in front. Words could not express her beauty, and it was said that painting her portrait was impossible.
The king broke into a smile. His love for his youngest daughter was even stronger than that for his other children.
Renner Theiere Chardelon Ryle Vaiself.
The third princess had inherited her mother’s radiant beauty and was known as the Golden Princess. She was sixteen years old. It wasn’t uncommon at that age to take a husband—one reason she was constantly fending off nobles. One of the origins of her name was her long golden hair that flowed lustrously behind her. The color of her lips, which were often turned up in an enigmatic smile, was the pale pink of cherry blossoms, but it was a healthy tone. The deep blue of her gentle eyes brought sapphires to mind. The detailed design of her white dress made a particularly trim impression, and the golden necklace around her neck seemed to symbolize her noble spirit.
Behind her in attendance was a boy right on the edge of adulthood clad in white armor. To sum him up in a word: inferno? Thick brows slanted over his eyes, which showed too much white around his irises. His iron will shone through as if to challenge anyone within range, and his tanned face was fixed in a singular expression. His golden hair was trimmed short so it wouldn’t get pulled in battle and also because it was easier to move around that way.
The boy’s name was Climb, and Gazef never felt at ease with him. It wasn’t that he disliked him—on the contrary, he was rather fond of him. He just had a hard time dealing with the heavy atmosphere Climb carried with him. Gazef didn’t mind that he took things seriously; he just thought the boy could stand to relax a little bit.
Still, he understood how Climb felt. Many envied his position in attendance at the side of the kingdom’s greatest beauty. He probably didn’t have anyone he could call a friend. And he was from the same commoner background as Gazef—no, lower. That probably made him extra cautious not to show any weakness or do anything that would harm his master’s reputation.
“Father, Captain.”
The king smiled at her as she ran up to them and nodded in response to Climb’s deep bow.
“Is the meeting finally over?”
“Yes. There was a lot to discuss.”
“Oh. I’ve been thinking about some things. I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”
“I see, I see. Sorry about that.”
Golden. Her nickname also came from how bright she was—establishing epoch-making institutions, proposing new laws—and her shining spirit.
The majority of her proposals were measures to aid the common people, anyone of lower status. And they weren’t about saving people from above but about putting systems in place that gave them a chance to help themselves. Plus, while improving the commoner position, her methods also led to greater loyalty to the royal family, increased productivity, and other benefits for the kingdom’s royalty.
Most of her proposals were scrapped after interference by the nobles, who hated the idea of the common people’s positions improving, but she was very well regarded among those who benefited and the informed.
“Let me hear what you have to say when we get home.”
“But Father, it’s time for my walk, so I’ll be out wandering around with Climb for a little while.”
Hearing that she prioritized her walk over speaking with the king, Climb’s face hardened even further, and Gazef felt a bit bad for him. But that’s just how Princess Renner is. All you can do as an attendant is go along with it.
“I see. Then have a good walk. When you get back, let’s talk in my room.”
“Got it. Okay, let’s go, Climb.”
“Then please excuse me.”
When Climb bowed, Gazef spoke in his capacity as a warrior. “Keep working on your swordsmanship, Climb! You never know when or under what circumstances you’ll have to defend Princess Renner.”
“Yes, sir!” Climb gave a firm nod, but Renner pouted.
“Climb is fine! He’ll definitely protect me no matter what.” There was no basis for those words, but when this princess said them, they felt like they might just be true. “Okay, Climb, let’s go.”
Renner’s delicate white fingers grabbed the edge of his shirt. She probably did it unconsciously, but Climb took notice and his expression hardened to diamond levels. “Yes, Princess.”
Tugged along by Renner’s hand, Climb’s face was blank, but as he was taken away, his eyes held shades of pain or grief.
The two had forgotten their manners, but the king didn’t say anything. He simply looked after them as if seeing something heartwarming he’d lost long ago.
“…As king, I probably shouldn’t pity him…”
They didn’t know where Climb had been born. Renner had picked up the slum child during a visit to the castle town. The emaciated kid had seemed like he was liable to die at any moment, but he worked hard to protect the one who had saved him. No, it wouldn’t be fair to sum up his efforts with the phrase hard work.
He had no ability with a sword. He had no magic ability. He wasn’t blessed physically in any way, either. But one by one, he managed everything, all of it. Granted, he lacked the ability to reach Gazef’s, the hero’s, realm, but he had gotten strong enough that he could probably be counted among the higher ranks of the kingdom’s soldiers. There were just certain things that couldn’t be overcome—status, authority, and how he was valued as a person.
Renner’s value, as a princess, was extremely high—she was too good for Climb, so to speak.
“I sympathize deeply.”
“I know it’s foolish, but I want to let at least one of my daughters…do what she pleases. Mm, I guess I’ll be scolded by my other daughters? …I must have grown truly old to be thinking things like this…” The king looked into space, almost as if someone was standing there. “In the end, I may have to make her unhappy as well…”
If she was to marry under present circumstances, it would probably be to a member of the great nobles’ faction, Gazef thought, but he said nothing. He had nothing that needed to be said or spoken of. The only one who could understand the king’s anguish was someone in the same position. That wasn’t Gazef.
A silence fell between the two, and as if to shake it off, they began walking again.