Chapter 3

'Is this death?'

If so, death was a space of absolute nothingness.

A pitch-black void where I couldn't tell whether my eyes were open or closed.

Sight, of course, but hearing, touch, smell, taste as well. Every sense that had composed my body seemed to have been erased.

The only thing remaining was perhaps a drifting fragment of consciousness. I gathered those fragments with desperate urgency. It was an instinctive terror—that if even these scattered, it would all be over.

So I thought.

Of one person alone—Silvia.

The platinum-blonde hair that used to flutter in the sunlight. The left corner of her mouth that would rise slightly out of habit whenever our eyes met.

The way she would grumble about grievances built up against His Majesty or her older sisters, yet always let her guard down like a child in front of me.

The faint scent of freesia that wafted when I held her close, and the warmth that melted all the way to my heart—all of it surfaced vividly in the darkness.

And what rose at the very end was a voice laced with mockery, as if to deny all of it.

'She's in danger.'

As thoughts of Silvia took shape, my mind naturally followed to this conclusion.

Silvia—His Majesty the Emperor—they were in danger.

These were people who had turned the blade of betrayal even on me, once called the Empire's sharpest sword. There was no reason to believe a princess like her would be safe.

I didn't know who had orchestrated this or since when, but seeds of treason had been planted inside the Empire.

Something happening to Silvia—that alone had to be prevented.

No matter what.

If need be, I would leap beyond death itself to do it.

It was at that very moment.

TWITCH—

'...Just now?'

A state of total numbness where not only my five senses but my body itself couldn't be felt. In that world of numbness, a hairline crack appeared.

'Nngh...!'

A faint sensation returning to my fingertips. That was the signal.

Like a dam collapsing, every floodgate of sealed sensation burst open at once.

A headache so intense it felt as though someone were branding my skull directly, and with it, a torrent of information poured unfiltered into my brain.

DRIP... DRIP...

The sound of something falling from my body. Someone's terrified breathing. And far beyond that, the footfalls of dozens of beasts.

Following the deluge of sensation, a scent struck the tip of my nose.

The thick, archaic fragrance of blood unlike anything I had ever smelled. What spice or feast could have compared? It was a noble aroma that could never emanate from a human or a monster.

Shortly after, a sound like a great door opening grazed my ears, and faint clusters of light began to spread through the darkness.

"Hah—!"

A ragged breath escaped me involuntarily as I opened my eyes.

The searing heat that had burned through my limbs was gone, but its aftershocks lingered as pain throughout my entire body.

Hot.

I should have been dead. What in the world was happening?

"Th-th-this is—what on—!"

Then a voice reached me, and I reflexively sat up.

The first thing that caught my eye was the white stone coffin I had been lying in.

Around the coffin, a few candles flickered, illuminating a stark altar.

And beside the altar, on the floor, lay an old man collapsed with blood streaming from his chest—and next to him, a boy staring at me with a face drained of all color.

'Not enemies... it seems.'

I could grasp the situation roughly.

A boy who looked too young to be a warrior, and beside him, a man who bore the seasoning of experience yet lay fallen from a fatal wound.

The fact that they showed no killing intent even upon seeing me revived suggested they were benefactors who had recovered my corpse.

They must have spirited me away before the Knight Order could conceal me, and even while being pursued, had tried to give me proper rites.

"Ah, AAAAH—!"

......Given that they thought I was dead and I'd just woken up, that level of shock was understandable.

I was, of course, deeply grateful to them. The debt of risking their lives to protect me was one I would have to repay without fail.

But not now. I didn't have the time to explain the situation to them.

'Silvia is in danger.'

I had to return to the Empire as quickly as possible.

With that thought, I was about to pull myself fully out of the coffin when—

"Aah...."

A low gasp slipped from my lips, unbidden. My gaze—no, every nerve in my body was seized by a single thing.

Beneath the old man collapsed beside the boy, a pool of blood had spread thick across the floor.

I could instinctively tell this was the source of the exquisite fragrance I had smelled moments ago.

'Blood....'

And terribly alluring blood at that.

The blood of a powerful being, the kind rarely found.

Rich and deep.

THUMP—

It was strange.

What I felt upon seeing the blood was not revulsion, but a maddening hunger.

Starvation and thirst.

THUMP—

Perhaps because of that.

The vision I had barely recovered went blurry again. But this time it was not the same pitch-black darkness as before.

It was red. The entire world was being stained in deep crimson.

'Good.'

The sensations that had returned alongside the pain were growing distant once more.

No—to be precise, it wasn't the sensations that were growing distant.

It was the control over them.

'What is this?'

Through my red-tinged vision, I saw my hand reaching out—without my intent.

An alien, deeply unpleasant feeling.

My body was moving on its own, beyond my control.

Or was this even my body to begin with?

'I' reached toward the blood pooled on the floor.

All I could do was watch through this crimson gaze as 'I' carried out this bizarre act.

Separate from that inner turmoil, the body's movements were utterly natural. As though it had known how to breathe from the moment it was born, it seemed to instinctively know how to handle that blood.

A hand extended, and drew the blood in.

SHLURP—

"W-wait, hold on—!"

As if the boy's horrified gasp didn't register at all, the blood pooled on the floor writhed like a living creature.

The pooled blood beaded up, then transformed into dozens, hundreds of red threads that came flying toward me.

THUMP—

It wasn't my tongue but my hand that touched the blood, and yet I could taste it.

Sweet and viscous.

SHLURP—

The blood pooled on the floor made contact with my palm and was absorbed into my hand in an instant—every last drop.

'Wh-what in the—!'

The old man's corpse, drained of all its blood, had transformed into something resembling a desiccated mummy. A gruesome sight, yet I—as I was now—felt nothing.

"Aah...."

My voice, too, escaped of its own accord.

From the blood-touched fingertips, a hot and vivid energy coursed through my veins, spreading throughout my entire body.

"Y-you, could it be—!"

Just then, the boy muttered in a trembling voice, as if something had dawned on him.

'My' lips curled slowly, crookedly, as they met the boy's gaze—a gaze tangled with shock and awe.

'This is dangerous!'

'My' hand reached toward the trembling boy. I resisted with everything I had, but it was useless. Just as I resigned myself to the boy suffering the same fate as the old man—

GRRRR—

A new presence registered in my red-drenched senses.

From the top of the staircase, several four-legged beasts were barreling down with ferocious momentum.

"AWOOOO—!"

Whether by misfortune or fortune, 'I' turned away from the boy and faced the charging wolves. The instant the lead wolf launched into a great leap, baring its fangs—

FLICK—

The me inside this scene lightly flicked an index finger. A single droplet of blood formed at the fingertip and was fired without a sound. Carrying a razor-sharp edge—like the swift swords of Vernice I once wielded, like the mana bullets of a high-ranking mage.

Almost simultaneously, two wolves that had been bounding down the dark staircase crumpled to the ground without so much as a scream.

Both of them had a clean hole bored precisely through the space between their eyes.

"Hk, hk—!"

SHLURP—

Over the top of the horrified boy's head, blood from the instantly killed wolves flowed out like spider silk and was absorbed into my hand.

Compared to the old man's blood, the quality was markedly inferior, but it wasn't bad. Especially in a situation like this, where 'blood' was in short supply.

STEP— STEP—

At last, 'I' turned my back on the boy entirely and began ascending the staircase the wolves had come down.

"...Not bad......"

My own voice, sounding somehow alien.

My body still was not moving according to my will.

***

"Kheh heh heh heh."

Karpen, the vanguard leader of the wolf beasts, let out a sinister laugh as he surveyed the lobby of the vampires' mansion.

Given how frantically they had fled, expensive works of art and ornaments lay scattered everywhere.

"Brothers, this is our victory!"

"AWOOOOOOL—!"

Dozens of wolves answered Karpen's cry with a victory howl. He joined the roar, raking his claws deeper into the bat-folk's banner lying crumpled beneath his feet.

'Put on all those airs of nobility, and look at you now.'

That damned sense of superiority.

The vampires with their holier-than-thou attitudes, the Mayer mansion that had been treated like inviolable ground—all of it was finished. His only regret was not getting to personally witness those scattered vermin fleeing with their tails between their legs.

TAP—

"Hm?"

Karpen, still basking in the afterglow of victory, instinctively whipped around at a touch on his shoulder that had come without any presence.

It was not one of his kind.

Long silver-white hair hanging loose. Skin as pale as a sick man's. A man dressed in an old-fashioned robe with its collar raised like a blade's edge.

'Was there someone like that here?'

"What are you?"

Karpen put distance between himself and the man, assuming a guarded stance. The surrounding wolves bared their fangs in unison, snarling at the unfamiliar intruder.

"I don't know where you crawled out from, but...."

Karpen extended his sharp claws and readied himself to charge. An unexpected development, but nothing had changed. The stranger was alone, and they numbered in the dozens.

"AWOOOOL—!"

Just as Karpen was about to howl the attack signal—

'...Huh.'

CHILL—!

Every hair on his body stood on end like needles. He couldn't explain why.

Don't move. Get away from that thing. The survival instinct engraved deep in his brain was screaming.

"AWOOOOL—!"

But the signal had already been given. His brethren, ignoring their instincts' warning, charged the white-haired man en masse.

And Karpen witnessed it. A sight that defied all common sense.

SLASH—! CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—!

As though simultaneously cleaved by a colossal blade, his comrades' bodies were dismantled in midair and rained down onto the floor in pieces.

It had happened, quite literally, in the blink of an eye. Even with Karpen's dynamic vision, blessed by noble blood, he couldn't comprehend what had occurred.

They had all been charging at the white-haired bat—and simply died.

Every last one, without exception.

TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE.

Karpen's tail drooped limp and his hind legs shook like aspen leaves.

A primal fear he had not once felt in decades.

"The quality is... lacking."

At a voice that sent an involuntary chill down his spine, Karpen instinctively backed away.

The body that had been standing arrogantly on two legs was now planted on all fours. Solely to flee. In mere seconds, the tide had been completely reversed.

STEP—

And the moment the man took a slow step toward him—

'This is my last chance.'

Karpen bolted without looking back, running like a creature possessed.

DADADADAT—!

Several times faster than when he had led the assault on this mansion.

"M-MONSTER! A MONSTER HAS APPEARED!"

Even as he screamed, the image of the man remained seared vividly in Karpen's mind.

Above all else, those terrifying red eyes.

A majesty that had frozen even him—a monster—in his tracks with fear, the kind of presence only mythical-class beings of legend would possess.

'Quickly, I have to report to the King...!'

Now was not the time for thought.

Karpen squeezed out every ounce of strength he had and hurled himself into the darkness of the forest.