Right now I knew I was stronger than this man, so his words were no big deal to me. However, if he’d said them to my past self...while I wouldn’t have flown into a rage or anything, it definitely would have cut me pretty deep, and I probably would have trudged sadly back to my room in the inn, sighing all the while.

  It was important for everybody to build up resistance to such things, of course—almost like baptizing yourself—but simply having fewer bullies in the world wouldn’t hurt either.

  That was the thought process behind what I’d said, at any rate, but it appeared that Lorraine was of a different opinion.

  “Come on, Rentt,” she said. “At times like these, there’s no need for you to just let them off with a scolding.”

  “You think?”

  “I do. This is how you handle people like him...”

  As I watched her, curious as to what she was going to do, Lorraine began compressing mana in her hand, creating a small mass that gradually expanded to become larger and larger.

  Wait, wait, wait. What exactly are you planning here, Lorraine?

  It was obvious that she was only giving the man a scare, of course—I knew that, but I was still a little nervous anyway.

  While Augurey and I calmly watched the situation unfold, the middle-aged adventurer raised his head off of the floor in clear panic—his expression was truly terrified. While you couldn’t see mana unless you had the right eyes for it, if it was molded together and condensed enough without being purposefully concealed, you could definitely feel the pressure—and danger—on your skin. Even that man had to recognize just how dangerous the mass of mana Lorraine had gathered in her hand was.

  “I-I’m sorry, really!” he pleaded. “Please, at least spare my life!”

  When she seemed satisfied that the man was genuinely scared out of his wits, Lorraine skillfully dissipated her mana. “Just kidding,” she said, smiling and offering him a hand. “Still, a person with a shorter temper really would have blown the entire inn to pieces. If you’re an adventurer, you should be more careful.”

  The scary part was that it was impossible to tell how much of that really had been a joke. The man seemed to realize that too, because as he gingerly accepted Lorraine’s hand, he said, “I-I’m sorry. I-I won’t do it again. Ever!”

  Then, he returned to his seat and took up his fork. His hands were still shaking.

  Lorraine had kind of overdone it, in my opinion.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “Ha ha...I see. So that’s what really happened.”

  There was still a little time left before we were to set off on our journey back to Maalt, so in the meantime, I filled Lorraine and Augurey in on the details of what had really happened last night. As expected, they were both surprised that my attacker had been a vampire—especially Augurey.

  Given everything, Lorraine was getting quite familiar with vampires as a concept, but as far as Augurey was concerned, the only...friendly(?) vampire that he knew was me, so his surprise was only natural.

  “But you’re saying the vampire that attacked you has already left the city...right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “According to the person who saved me, at least...”

  I was keeping the identity of that person vague—all I’d said was that they were awfully strong. I suspected that it would probably be okay to tell Augurey the truth, but I knew that I should get permission from Laura first, or at least from Isaac. The coachman was essentially putting himself at risk for us until we left the city, so it was best to keep hush about him in general, even to Augurey.

  As for Augurey himself, it would be safer for him to just remain ignorant instead of getting a lot of information that he didn’t necessarily need. Perhaps we could let him into the loop one day though.

  “Still, the vampire king, huh?” Augurey muttered. “I’ve heard of him, but I wouldn’t have expected one of his subordinates to be here of all places. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but Yaaran’s a pretty rural place, as countries go. I doubt there’s any fun for them to find here.”

  I could understand where Augurey was coming from. Yaaran was rather far from the center of the world and didn’t have that much political weight to throw around, nor did it boast any particularly unique product or export. In exchange, it was quiet and peaceful...but those were about all the advantages I could come up with.

  So why was a subordinate of the vampire king wandering about here? Just to kill time? That...sounded like it might actually be a possibility, considering Laura. Maybe vampires were just like that. After all, eternal life probably got fairly boring. The one who’d attacked me could have just enjoyed traveling as a hobby.

  “Did you get a good look at him?” Lorraine asked, clearly curious from a scholarly standpoint.

  “I did, more or less,” I said, recalling the events of last night. “He—at least, I’m pretty sure it was a man—was dressed like a gentleman with a walking stick and top hat. I didn’t see his face. Not because it was too dark or anything—that excuse wouldn’t work coming from me anyway. It was more like...it was just hard to see. Maybe he was wearing something that created that effect, or it could have been some kind of spell.”

  I could see exceptionally well in the dark. Even the faintest glimmer of light—even if it was as dim as starlight—would allow me to see as well as I could during the day when I was human. Consequently, the fact that it was the middle of the night wouldn’t have stopped me from seeing someone’s face. Nevertheless, I hadn’t seen it, so there had to be some other reason at play.

  “A piece of magical equipment or spell that impairs perception...” Lorraine murmured. “I suppose a subordinate of the vampire king would want to keep their identity hidden. Nothing we can do about that. Still, it’s good that you made it out of the experience without drawing unnecessary attention, Rentt. The vampire king’s in the same weight class as the four demon lords—definitely not somebody whose eyes you want on you. It wouldn’t end well.”

  “You’re right about that. I consider myself lucky.”

  While the vampire who’d attacked me had seemed to recognize that I was a vampire, or at least a monster of some sort, I’d avoided the worst-case scenario of him realizing that I was actually a mysterious pseudo-vampiric being who could even wield divinity.

  Since I was still weak, it would be easy for someone like him to abduct me, and unlike those stories where a dashing prince would come riding in to save the day, all that awaited me was a horrifying fate in one of the vampire king’s secret hideouts or something.

  I felt grateful enough just for avoiding that.

  “If possible, I never want to meet him again...” I mumbled reflexively.

  Lorraine studied my face and let out a sigh. “You might be asking for too much there. Something about you just seems to attract those kinds of people.”

  “I really wish they would stop. I could use the break...”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same way. But as long as we’re expecting them to show up, it’s best if we prepare countermeasures, no?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Nothing was occurring to me immediately, but I thought Lorraine might have some good ideas.

  “For the time being, how about training your divinity more? It’s supposed to be extremely effective against vampires, after all. I don’t know how well it’ll hold up against the superior ones, but still...”

  That much was obvious from how Isaac had acted around the tree that had been shedding divinity. While he hadn’t seemed eager to approach it, neither had it suddenly evaporated him or anything like that.

  In short, it seemed unlikely that divinity would be effective enough to kill that subordinate of the vampire king in one blow, but there was no denying that it was effective. My divinity really could end up being my trump card.

  So long as I didn’t die to that crushing pressure spell that he had used on me first.

  Come to think of it...

  “Lorraine, can you use the Dehisé spell too?” I asked.

  “Hmm? I haven’t heard of that one before. Is that the name of the spell that you said that vampire attempted to crush you with?”

  I hadn’t mentioned the specific name of the spell earlier in my explanation, hence Lorraine asking for confirmation.

  I nodded. “Yeah. The chant consisted of just the name, but that was what he said. You don’t know the spell?”

  “There are a number that can cause a similar effect, but I don’t know one by that name. The most generally used one is Compression, and if you’re looking at ancient spells, Daḡata. This is useful information, Rentt, thank you. If that spell was potent enough that you couldn’t do anything against it, then it should prove useful if I can figure out how to cast it myself. I’ll have to do some research on it...but first, I need to determine which language branch it stems from...”

  Lorraine gradually sank into her own thoughts, muttering to herself about ideas and hypotheses.

  “Well...at any rate, I’m glad you’re okay, Rentt,” Augurey said. He knew as well as I did that once Lorraine grew absorbed in the topic of magic nothing you could say to her would get through. “And I guess today’s the day we say goodbye. You’ll be heading back to the capital before long though, right?”

  “I don’t really want to make a habit of coming and going all the time, but yes, I definitely will be,” I said. “There’s the whole thing with the princess, after all...”

  “Did that turn out to be a problem, then? I suspected it would.”

  “A bit of one,” I agreed. “It would be nice if Jean tidied it up nicely for us, but I get the feeling it’s not going to be so simple.”

  As for why—well, it was because of the half-elves’ prophecy. No matter how much of a big deal Jean was, prophecies handed down by the gods were no easy thing to avoid getting tangled up in.

  “The whole thing has me worried, to be honest...” Augurey said. “But getting the chance to see you two again makes me nothing but happy. I’m going to improve my skills before we next meet, you hear? I want to be strong enough that I’ll at least be able to do something if a subordinate of the vampire king pounces on me.”

  “Yeah. I’m going to do the same. But until then, this is goodbye.”

  Augurey and I exchanged a handshake. Both of us had floated around at the bottom ranks for a long time, but even so, I felt the conviction that we were both growing stronger well up within me.

  ◆◇◆◇◆

  “You think he’ll show up?” I asked.

  Lorraine and I were near the entrance to the royal capital, on a thoroughfare that many wagons and carriages used to enter and exit the city, or as a temporary stop. Scheduled carriages to dungeons and all sorts of other places left from this gate, and part of me wanted to just hop on one and see where it would take me.

  Such thoughts would have been unthinkable for my past self. I had simply lacked the necessary amount of strength. The vast majority of the dungeons that one could travel to directly from the royal capital were exceedingly dangerous. Coming all this way just to delve into a dungeon on the same level as the Water Moon Dungeon would have just felt like a waste, and besides, it had always been the dangerous ones told of in stories that I had aspired to challenge someday.

  But if I had tried that while I had been human, chances were that I would’ve died the moment I set foot in any one of those dungeons, so all I’d been able to do was hold back my tears of frustration and give up.

  These days, however, I was confident that I wouldn’t die just upon setting foot into one, at least. I mean, even if I was crushed to a pulp, I was capable of simply regenerating myself.

  That’s cheating, you say? Well, yes, it is. Still, even without such unfair tricks up my sleeve, I was relatively certain that I wouldn’t immediately be killed, naturally. More than likely I’d be able to make a certain amount of progress before being forced to give up and turn back.

  “Well, even though we left a time and place to meet with the guild, he is a rather carefree person,” Lorraine said. “It’s probably best if we don’t get our hopes up and kick back while we wait.”

  As for who “he” referred to, we were of course talking about the person whom we had come to fetch in order to bring him back with us to Maalt: the Grand Guildmaster for Yaaran, Jean Seebeck.

  If I wanted to get more specific, I would also add that he was the chief of an underground organization with its roots spread deep across the whole city. In short, he held the reins both above and below the table—definitely not somebody you wanted to make an enemy of.

  Maybe that was hypocritical of me to say, since we had made him our enemy once already, but that had ended without incident. Due to the mess of complications that had created the situation in the first place, he hadn’t actually pursued us with anything close to all the means at his disposal.

  If he had, then even with this body of mine, I wasn’t sure what would have become of me.

  After we waited for a while, impatience nipping at our heels...

  “It appears as though he has arrived,” said the young man who served as our coachman.

  While you would usually think that Lorraine and I would notice that first, being adventurers, this young man was the very same individual who had saved me yesterday from that monstrous vampire. Of the three of us present, he was undoubtedly the strongest.

  The Latuule family temporary hire agency was indeed an outstanding repository of talent.

  In fact, they were probably higher up than Jean on the list of people you shouldn’t make enemies of...

  “Sorry! Sorry I’m late,” the man in question apologized as he walked over. He was dressed in plain clothing, and if he’d kept silent and dropped his gaze to the ground, I would bet almost nobody would have been able to pick him out for who he really was.

  That wasn’t to say, however, that the quality of his attire was inferior in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact: it all looked to be of exceedingly fine make. From the faint traces of mana that I could sense, I realized that all of it was magical as well—and if I, a monster, could only barely detect it, then that meant that a regular person wouldn’t be able to pick up anything at all.

  Lorraine would be able to, of course, given her magical eyes. Sure enough...

  “You’re dressed like you’re about to head off to war...” she said.

  “Saw right through me, did you?” Jean said, smiling. “Well, I’m definitely not planning on joining any wars, but it pays well to be careful. I told you back at the colosseum, but there’s a lot of conspiracy surrounding Maalt’s dungeon—as well as the Tower and the Academy. Who knows when danger might rear its head, or what form it will take?”

  Jean Seebeck was the individual who supervised the entirety of the guild across Yaaran. No doubt any number of people were after his head. If we wanted to avoid being dragged into that while we traveled with him, we’d have to watch our step with particular care.

  “I suppose you’re right...” Lorraine said. “But that reminds me, why are you late? When we informed the guild of the place and time this morning, they told us they’d make sure you arrived on time.”

  While we’d hashed out the general details of our departure back at the colosseum, we’d also gone to the guild this morning to leave more specific instructions, just to be certain. Strictly speaking, however, that had just been a secondary task. Our main purpose in going to the guild had been to pass along a message about the vampire that had attacked me last night to a particular individual who I honestly really didn’t want to be contacting.

  That is to say, it was for Nive.

  Since an in-person meeting had been impossible, it truly had just been a message, one basically along the lines of “A really strong vampire appeared in the royal capital but suddenly ran away for some reason, so I don’t think it’s in the city anymore.”

  The rest of the work—that being actually getting the message to Nive—was up to the guild’s contact network.

  I wasn’t sure if she would show up to the capital and turn the whole place upside down, or if she’d just ignore the message since the vampire was already gone, but...

  No, I guess she wouldn’t just ignore it, huh?

  Nive was not the type to let something go until she had investigated it thoroughly with her own eyes and ears. I was fairly certain that she’d show up here sooner or later.

  I dearly hoped that wouldn’t coincide with when I next came here...but past experience proved that it would be just my luck if that did happen. It was probably pointless to get my hopes up.

  “Hmm? Well, I had a lot of work to take care of first...” Jean said evasively—and then, he abruptly looked behind him.

  “Grand Guildmaster! Where are you?!” yelled a voice from the same direction. “Surely you don’t mean to leave unaccompanied?!”

  Jean pulled his hood up over his head. “All right now, let’s get a move on. It’ll be a pain in the behind if they find me.”

  “They’re searching for you, aren’t they...?” I asked. “There’s enough space in the carriage for others. We should go tell them—”

  I made to head over, but Jean swiftly grabbed my arm. “Idiot!” he hissed. “Having attendants breathing down my neck the whole time will spoil my long-awaited travel plans! Come on, let’s go!”

  What are you, a child? is what I wanted to say, but it seemed impossible that it would get through to him. Instead, Lorraine, the coachman, and I exchanged looks of equal resignation and promptly began preparing the carriage for departure.

  Even if we set out stealthily, there was always the inspection at the city gates. A person as famous as Jean was sure to be recognized there, so for the time being, it would be fine if we simply departed.

  That’s what I thought, anyway...

  “So long, my little staff members,” Jean muttered, giggling to himself as he peeked out of a gap between the carriage’s curtains. “I’m off to have a nice little vacation in Maalt!”

  If I said that the sight of him didn’t make me feel uneasy, then I would probably be lying.

  Chapter 2: Meanwhile, the Apprentices... Part 1

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25