The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 12, page 2
I kind of had the feeling that they already knew though...
After taking everything into consideration, I figured it’d be okay for me to feel like I owed Elza a little. I exchanged a look with Lorraine—between us two, that was enough to pass as consulting each other—then turned back to Elza.
“I understand,” I said. “I can’t promise you that I’ll be available, but if you’re okay with that, just let me know when you need me. Is that okay?”
“Of course! I don’t mind at all.” Elza bowed her head. “I know full well how unreasonable my request is. It’s just...I want to do everything I can for Mel’s sake, and the orphanage too.”
◆◇◆◇◆
After engaging in further discussion for a while, we left the orphanage behind us.
Mel had seemed to be having a lot of fun talking to Pochi. She had even done it in front of the kids, strongly insisting that “Pochi can talk!” but all she’d received in return was the children staring at her as though she had gone mad. That must have hurt her feelings, because then she’d said, “I-I’ll prove it to you! Pochi, turn around three times and bark!”
Pochi, however, had simply given her a side-eyed look as he walked away from her and plopped down for a nap.
I remember thinking that the children’s gazes had grown colder after that.
Mel had then run over to Pochi and begun exaggeratedly shaking him as she screamed, “Why, Pochi?! Why are you doing this?! I know you can understand me! Why are you ignoring me?!”
“Woof...”
What a pain.
That was as much as I’d managed to hear coming from behind us as we left the orphanage. It seemed fairly safe to assume that Pochi’s secret wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon.
Then, when we reached the abbey...
“Oh! Mother Elza! Everyone, Mother Elza’s back!”
One of the Church of the Eastern Sky’s priests began shouting as he pointed in our direction.
“Gah! N-Not good! I need to find somewhere to hide!”
Elza’s head turned left and right, searching our surroundings, but unfortunately, it was already too late. In no time at all, we were surrounded by Church of the Eastern Sky priests with all escape routes cut off. One of them stepped forward, grabbed Elza’s arm firmly, and began pulling her along.
“Come now, Mother Superior. It’s time to return to your duties.”
“W-Wait! Not yet! I still have things to do!”
I was fairly certain she had finished everything, actually. As Lorraine and I observed her plight, another priest ran over to us.
“You have our deepest gratitude for accompanying Mother Elza today. I’m sure it must have been quite the ordeal. Should you need anything, please feel free to return to the abbey and allow us to express our gratitude—and apologies—for today. Now, pardon me.”
After a deep bow, the priest ran back to rejoin the net of people that had trapped Elza inside it.
“Are all the bigwigs in this city like that, you think?” I muttered, not mentioning a certain underworld organization chief but definitely thinking about him.
“The people in charge are like that wherever you go,” Lorraine said. “Don’t bother getting your hopes up.”
It sure was a rough world out there.
◆◇◆◇◆
All of a sudden, I awoke.
We had returned to the inn, after which I had decided to get as much sleep as my body would let me in preparation for the journey back to Maalt tomorrow.
When I looked outside, I saw that it was still the middle of the night. Even in the royal capital, that meant that it was dark and quiet. There was nobody in the streets except for the occasional wandering drunk. The light of magical tools shone through the night here and there, but their illumination was nothing in comparison to the surrounding darkness.
The night was deep, dark...and to me, it was warm and gentle.
I plunged into it.
◆◇◆◇◆
My undead body allowed me to see clearly over long distances as though it were the middle of the day, no matter how dark it was. Was that because the night was its intended home? Because its purpose was to find a young maiden out on a stroll, capture her, and drink her blood...?
I didn’t know.
Because Lorraine offered her blood to me regularly, my urge to drink it was extremely weak—to the point you might not even think I really needed to consume humans to live.
But maybe I really didn’t need to. At least by Nive’s judgment, I wasn’t a vampire. But what was I, then?
My body found the act of drinking human blood pleasurable. What kind of monster did that describe...?
I didn’t know—and that fact made me afraid.
Thinking about it, I had come quite a long way.
I used to think all that awaited me was an unremarkable death in combat somewhere near Maalt, but looking back, I’d come to the royal capital and spoken with royalty, the chief of an underground organization, and an abbess of the Church of the Eastern Sky—all individuals who stood so far above who I was in the past that I would never have been able to reach their feet.
My strength had grown, and I was now making the push for Silver-class, which had once been nothing more than a foolhardy dream for me. If I kept on running along with this momentum, it felt as though I could reach any height I wanted.
I knew that was likely just hubris on my part, though. After all the people I’d encountered, the one thing I had come to understand was that in the end, I was still nothing more than a weakling. I didn’t even feel anywhere close to catching up to Lorraine, who was always standing by my side.
And all this after I had gained both a monster body and the means to grow stronger. When all was said and done, I was hopeless through and through. As I walked alone through the empty city streets, I submerged myself in those negative thoughts.
I knew that worrying about the future was pointless; all I could do was put my all into improving and wait for the chips to fall as they might. Still, I wanted to ruminate over it thoroughly, shake the feeling off, then face tomorrow in a better mood—that was why I was wandering the city alone.
“Don’t you think you’ve dropped your guard a little too much, friend?”
That was also why even after the voice reached my ears, I was slow to react.
Before I could even so much as say “Huh?” I was already flying through the air. Then, I felt the throbbing pain in my chest and realized that someone must have sent me flying with a blow.
“Oh, now that’s a surprise. You’re one of us. I was thinking you might serve as a decent meal, but I suppose that’s not going to happen now.”
I wanted to ask what my attacker was talking about, but my voice wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Just as I was wondering why that was, I realized that there were wheezing sounds coming from the vicinity of my throat.
“Ah, sorry about that. I figured it’d be bothersome if you screamed, so I went ahead and opened up a hole.”
When I put a hand to my neck, there was nothing there. All the flesh had been ripped away. But it seemed like my head and body were still connected, so that was nice, at least...uh, if you can even call that “nice.”
Well, whatever the case, what the heck was going on? Why was this person attacking me out of the blue? Who were they in the first place?
After taking a closer look, I saw that my attacker was a very odd-looking man. He was wearing a gentleman’s suit, carried a walking stick...and had a lump of my flesh hanging from his mouth.
I realized that was how he must have ripped it out. Talk about weird eating habits—there was just no way I tasted any good.
“You seem surprised, but a lot more put together than I’d expected. Are you that confident that you won’t meet your end here? You didn’t even notice me before I dealt you such a serious wound... Ah, perhaps you’re expecting your ‘parent’ to come save you? I’m afraid there’s no point in waiting for that. I can end this in an instant.”
The man immediately maneuvered through the air, came to a stop right in front of my eyes, and opened his mouth wide. With a loud, skin-crawling sound like a massive rush of water, his entire body shifted into a deep blackness darker than the night and melted together to form a single, huge mouth.
That gave me a pretty good idea of what the man was, but knowing that didn’t improve my situation. Was this it for me? Was this where I met my end? Panic boiled forth from within me. I grasped for any method I could use to escape, but none came to mi—wait, no.
There was something I could do.
I just had to match him at his own game.
The moment that thought occurred to me, my body also melted into the darkness.
I had used Splintering.
I fled from the space where the giant mouth was about to chomp down and avoided the man’s attack.
“That’s a strange Splintering you’ve got there...not that I’m in a position to talk. Still...” The man released his own Splintering, then pointed a finger at me. “Dehisé.”
Suddenly, it felt as though I was being squeezed in a vise from every direction at once, and my Splintered body was shoved inward toward a single point.
I tried to resist, but the difference in our strength was just too significant. It was like an ant trying to fight back against an elephant—I was completely helpless, unable to do anything but be compressed smaller and smaller...
“Splintering is useful to be sure, but there are any number of ways of dealing with it. Was your parent’s tutoring perhaps not thorough enough? Well, I suppose that even if you had known, you still wouldn’t have been able to do a thing given the difference in our ability.”
Crap. He was completely right—I couldn’t do a single thing. Did I have anything else I could try?
I supposed I could attempt to blow myself up with divinity-mana-spirit fusion. Desperate as it was, I couldn’t think of anything else. If this was how I was going to meet my end, then I wanted to at least make an attempt at a parting shot. It was better than just helplessly waiting to die.
I steeled my resolve, and—
“Hmm?!”
Suddenly, the pressure that was crushing me vanished, along with all sight of my assailant. Where had he gone?
I managed to drop safely to the ground, whereupon I quickly looked around, but I couldn’t see any sign of him.
Instead, I saw...
“Mr. Rentt—are you all right? I’m terribly sorry for being late.”
It was the coachman who had brought us to the royal capital—in other words, a vampire servant of Laura’s, which put him way higher than me on the strength scale. I’d heard that he was a lesser vampire, but from the look of things that had been a lie. Isaac must have sent him along with us out of concern.
But that wasn’t important right now. Not compared to...
“Who was that just now?” I asked.
“That was my master’s enemy,” the coachman replied. “I’ve been chasing him since I sensed his presence, but it appears that you ran into him first. Still, you can rest assured—it appears that he noticed me approaching, and he’s already left the city.”
“Laura’s enemy, huh...? Is it okay if I ask who that was?”
“Of course. The individual you saw just now was a grandchild of the vampire king, Arc Tahadu. He possesses strength far beyond that of an ordinary vampire. It is good that you are safe.”
While the coachman looked relieved, his words just made me want to know more about him, since he was strong enough to drive off the vampire he’d just described. Whether he sensed my unasked question or not, though, he continued.
“It appeared that your encounter was a simple coincidence rather than him seeking you out in particular, so I don’t believe you have anything to worry about at the moment. If you do happen to run into him again, however, please flee or inform me or another of my master’s vassals if you can. Now then, do have a good evening. I shall see you tomorrow.”
After bidding farewell, the coachman vanished into the darkness. He managed it so adeptly, in fact, that I had already lost track of his presence.
The same thought that I’d had several times that night ran through my head again.
“I’m...so weak...”
I had to work harder.
◆◇◆◇◆
“Hmm? You seem kind of different,” Lorraine remarked as soon as we saw each other the next morning. We had planned to have breakfast together in the inn’s dining room. “Did something happen, Rentt?”
Something had happened, actually. Last night, I had been attacked by a vampire of considerable power, had been unable to stop it from tearing out my throat, and experienced the bitter taste of my own powerlessness.
Nevertheless, I was, objectively speaking, unharmed. After all, Splintering didn’t leave any physical wounds behind after I used it. Regardless, Lorraine had still noticed that something was different simply by looking at me. Just as you might expect from a scholar, she was sensitive to the changes that occurred around her.
After spending a moment to consider how I should respond, I decided to describe everything vaguely enough that eavesdroppers wouldn’t understand—and also tone down the gore so that it wouldn’t spoil the breakfast that we were about to eat.
“I went out for a walk last night since I couldn’t sleep, and I got attacked by some random thug. He really did a number on me.”
I figured that was more or less enough—it kept the story common and forgettable. I could tell that some of the people around us were listening in, but most of them were adventurers. An everyday encounter with a thug wouldn’t be that interesting to them.
Lorraine, however, seemed surprised. “Really?” she asked. “You, of all people? I guess the capital is pretty dangerous compared to Maalt...”
She was right, of course. At night, the streets in the capital posed more risk than the ones in Maalt. It was easier to run into somebody strong here too, regardless of whether they meant you good or ill, and on average people here carried more wealth around on their persons. It was only natural that the number of random criminals eyeing your coin purse on the streets would be larger here too.
“Whoa, hey, you came here from Maalt?” came a shout from a nearby middle-aged man who had evidently been listening in. Judging by his garb, he was probably an adventurer. “If you’re from way out in the sticks, no wonder you can’t cut it here in the big city!”
Several other people laughed at his remark in the midst of tucking into their breakfast. I could tell that the man had meant to be pretty demeaning, but since he didn’t know the truth of what had really happened, idly sizing up everyone present to see how they would have fared against the vampire actually turned out to be kind of funny.
That thought must have caused my mouth to twitch into the ghost of a smile—a gesture the man who had laughed at us didn’t miss. Talk about keen eyesight.
“Hey, brother,” he said, standing up and walking over. “Were you just laughing at me?”
Before the situation could progress any further, there came the sound of someone descending the inn’s stairs.
“Oh, Rentt, Lorraine,” Augurey said as he walked over to our table. “You’re already up? Early risers, huh?”
The middle-aged adventurer looked at Augurey in shock before his demeanor shifted entirely. “Wha— Uh, Augu...Mister Augurey! You know these two?”
“I do. Did something happen? Wait, let me guess. You picked a fight, didn’t you?” Augurey amicably patted the man on the shoulder. “I have to warn you: that’s really not a good idea. These two are way stronger than me.”
The man stared at Augurey in disbelief, then at me, then at Lorraine. “B-But, you must be joking!” he protested. It seemed that Augurey’s warning hadn’t been enough to convince him. “This guy just said that some random thug on the street beat him up last night! How could...?”
“What?!” Augurey exclaimed. “A random thug? Beat Rentt? Maybe...maybe I should stay off the streets at night from now on.” He turned to me. “How badly did that thug get you?”
“I couldn’t even put up a fight,” I said. “Not one bit. I was really surprised.”
“Seriously...? I didn’t think the capital was that violent. You shouldn’t run into anybody like that on the streets, even in the dead of night... I mean, the knights are always patrolling to keep the peace.”
“I don’t think even your average knight could’ve done anything against the guy I ran into.”
“Maybe I should relocate...”
Our conversation seemed to be taking the wind out of the middle-aged adventurer’s sails. Then, seeming curious, he abruptly asked Augurey, “Uh, so when you say they’re way stronger than you...how strong do you mean, specifically?”
“Well, going strictly by rank, Rentt’s Bronze just like you.”
“Oh, then—”
“He’s already qualified to take the Silver Ascension Exam, though, and I’m expecting him to pass it when he does. If it came down to a simple fight...well, I would never want to fight him. It’s not like I would ever have a chance of actually winning.”
Both Augurey and I knew that he wasn’t talking about skill. What he meant was: how was anyone supposed to beat an opponent who could regenerate themselves endlessly?
Evidently, however, the adventurer took Augurey’s words at face value, thinking it meant that I was just plain stronger. He immediately knelt on the floor and prostrated himself before me.
“M-My deepest apologies, sir!” he apologized “I was in the wrong!”
“Uh, don’t worry about it,” I said. “I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this. If anything, well...just promise me that if you meet other adventurers who are weaker than you in the future, you won’t do the same thing. It hurts a person more than you might expect...”
