Episode 58 — Footsteps of the King
～ Part 2 ～
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The Pawns simultaneously took out the knives Tokihara had given them. If they wounded her with this, it would cause the same symptoms as being bitten by a werewolf. The remaining factors would return to ground state as well, the Blood Crave Illness would progress further. If all the vampire factors returned to ground state, it would reach a level where even life activities would be disrupted. Once it reached that point, even the Queen would be more powerless than even a human baby.
While leaving the Queen barely alive in that state, they would bring her to the King.
Naturally, that would be impossible with one shot. But if they hit her once, the Queen would definitely weaken, if they kept going like that and cut her again and again, that time would always arrive. That was their original plan.
However,
“Do not … look down on me …!”
Together with a wrathful voice, the Queen put up her right hand. Black wave extending from that arm tie up the Pawn who was plunging in the foremost.
“Gaah…!”
The man’s scream echoed in the narrow cabin. Taking advantage of that gap, a different Pawn tried to slash his knife from the side.
“……–!”
“Uoo!”
The Queen canceled the restraint of the tied up Pawn, she caught the swiftly swung knife of the other Pawn between her fingers.
The knife had the same structure as the fang of a poisonous snake. The werewolf saliva stored inside was being secreted from the tip. Looking at the slowly drooping transparent liquid, the Queen narrowed her eyes.
“…Although I have heard that Inugami has gone missing.”
“Good guess.”
Inside the narrow room, the Pawns separated to left and right and slowly approached, one of them answered so to the Queen’s words.
“But, it is only a dog after all. Unlike your other classmates.”
“…Kaoru and Harao who should have been on the deck?”
“We fail to catch the incubus, but the pharaoh resisted, so we punished him a little. Well, he’s probably safe.”
“I see.”
It was only two short words, but it was loaded with clear anger more than any words the Queen had uttered so far.
The Queen still gripped the knife with fingers of one hand, the other hand took on a spear hand form. ∗Zuwa∗, making that sound, blood red poisonous-looking claws extended from the tips of her white slender fingers. Everyone in this place comprehended the action the Queen was going to take next, but none of them was in time to cope with it.
The spear hand went through a Pawn’s chest. It broke the armor, crushed the bones, smashed the heart which was the source of a vampire’s life.
“Gah…!”
The man screamed, his eyes rolled back, then he disappeared like ashes in the wind.
The Queen killed him. One Pawn, without any hesitation, in an instant.
Her breathing rough, the Queen looked like she would collapsed soon, but she didn’t even give him time to resist. If she felt like it, even defeating them all here might be possible. The Pawns shed cold sweats, they shuddered.
At this point, they couldn’t say anything optimistic like capturing her person. Even if they tried to steal her blood and retreat, it would still be uncertain whether or not they could actually escape.
In that case,
We need to change our strategy. The Pawns’s awareness naturally directed to Asaake. He had two knives.
One was the same as everyone else, the type with werewolf saliva. And the other was a knife with the same structure but stored inside was blood.
This knife was originally something Bishop Akeno made in jest. Its original purpose wasn’t to pour poison into the opponent’s body. It was born in the process of trying to simplify the vampire transformation ceremony. That is to say, what it was meant to store was neither poison nor werewolf saliva but vampire blood. And that had to be fresh.
What stored in the other knife Asaake was holding, was that.
Can we do it? Everyone looked at the Queen.
She was angry. The Akai family was the oldest lineage even among the blood clan, they were proud, always had composure against all things. Always elegant. At any time, they would always show their superiority in their attitude which was never meant to collapse. Her fighting manner had none of those.
Despite her body was sticky with sweats, she released power, made an unarmed attack using blood claws that couldn’t be said as elegant at all, but those weren’t because she was pressured by the Blood Crave Illness. She was angry.
Once. Just once is good enough. If this plan, then we don’t need to cut her several times.
“……!”
While they were hesitating, the Queen moved. After quickly stepped in, she extended her blood claws straight ahead. That Pawn bent his body and narrowly avoided it, but the room was narrow. There was no place to retreat. He was immediately cornered. Other Pawns tried to hold down the Queen with blood energy from behind, but those were immediately bounced back.
That Pawn gripped his knife and attacked the Queen. The Queen countered with blood claws. Her claws easily broke his armor and dug into his chest. He twisted his body, narrowly avoided a direct hit to his heart. Blood entered his trachea and regurgitated. It was almost spouted from his throat, however, to avoid that, the Queen twisted his neck with her free hand and threw him against the wall. The white wall of the cabin was stained with blood.
At this moment, the Queen’s both arms were occupied. The remaining 3 Pawns drew their knife and simultaneously started running.
The Queen extracted her blood claws that had stabbed into the Pawn’s chest, and got ready to intercept the three Pawns. She swung her blood claws, severing the knife holding arm of the 1st one, caught the knife of the 2nd one with one hand. And lastly, when Asaake jumped in, she used the blood claws of the right hand that was still free to skillfully chop off his hand holding the knife from the wrist.
Blood blown out from the arm’s cut section, the Queen hated being bathed in it from right overhead. She kicked down the 1st one, and broke the jawbone of the 3rd one, Asaake.
“Fugaah!”
His chin broken, Asaake made a strange voice. The arm he was brandishing, was gripping another knife.
If this attack hit, we may win.
The blood claws growing from the Queen’s fingertips, penetrated Asaake’s chest. But just like the attack sometime ago, he barely avoided a direct his to his heart, escaping from a fatal wound. But immediately following that, a blade ripped through the air and pierced the Queen shoulder.
“…–!?”
The Queen kicked away the 2nd Pawn whom she was pinning down with one arm and Asaake, then she pulled out the knife pierced in her shoulder. But she was too late. The stored ‘blood’ had already flowed into the Queen’s body through her vein.
She probably noticed that the thing stored inside that knife wasn’t werewolf saliva. She threw that away, and after trampled it, she glared at the Pawns.
“You, no way…!!”
“As I thought, you understand?”
The Pawn who had his chest pierced, his neck twisted, laughed, but never did he get careless, while taking distance, he said.
“That is Tokihara-san’s blood. It’s fresh. The factors are in excited state as well.”
Vampire factors are not almighty at all. It can be suppressed by resisting will. Therefore, the vampire transformation ceremony needs to suppress the other party resistance better. Make them faint, do it while they’re asleep, or choose obedient humans as target. If taking that into consideration, this trick knife is only a product with slightly better ease of use than a syringe.
However, all things have exceptions.
The case vampire factors are injected into a target that has already turned to a vampire. In this case, they are already a vampire, therefore they can’t suppressed the factors consciously. The factors that are there from the beginning and the newly injected factors clash against each other.
The strength of the factors are determined by the density of vampire blood. The Queen’s lineage that had piled up many generations and continued unbroken since the moment the blood clan was founded, was terrifyingly strong, the Pawns that had only went through 1 or 2 generations since they became vampires, were weak. When weak factors flowed into the body of a strong factors holder, the strong factors will destroy the weak factors.
Therefore, in this case, even if they poured blood into the Queen, the changes that they could obtain was — at a glance — nothing at all.
“It’s the same as having a transmitter embedded. It’s a Pawn’s blood after all, so it won’t last long inside a Queen’s body like you, but it should still remain for 20 to 30 minutes.”
In other words, for 30 minutes, the Queen’s existence would be perceived by the King. During that 30 minutes, her existence would be stripped naked.
It was only 30 minutes. Once that passed, Tokihara’s blood would completely disappeared from the Queen’s body. But 30 minutes were plenty enough for them. Enough to collect the Queen’s blood, and escape from her attack range.
“S, sto … p …”
The Queen held her forehead and bent down. Her expression that could only be seen slightly, was warped in anguish.
Those words were probably not intended for the Pawns. It was only a fleeting scream trying to oppose a different will that was entering her, trying to dominate her body.
“Did it begin…”
Now that they had accomplished this, the Queen was not their ‘enemy’ anymore. In a literal meaning. For 30 minutes after this, Queen Akai Asuka would stop being their ‘enemy’.
They won. They couldn’t take the best plan for sure, but well, it was a passing mark. However, the bitter thought was stronger than joy of victory.
First of all, they paid a sacrifice. The degree of 1 Pawn was only insignificant damage if looking from the blood clan as a whole. But he was a colleague to them. And most of all, though 2nd best plan, they had taken this plan that they never wanted to take, that fact was also bitter.
“A, u…”
The Queen held her head and was raising an anguished voice.
“N, no…. Don’t … enter …!”
Anguish soon gave way to scream. But it was already too late.
“You’ll be inviting the ‘King’ to your own home.”
Gazing at the Queen, who had thrown herself on the bed and soon could only moan weakly, a Pawn muttered to no one.
When Goubayashi and Sakuma arrived at the heavy cruiser branch school, the deck was still to the point of ominous.
They could see traces of a violent battle, but not a single soul was there. There should have been several students staying in this branch school. On the deck were Harao and Kaoru, as well as the imps and sahagins unit Kaoru was leading. Gofunkawahara, the goblin unit and several other students were also added as Akai’s guards.
Their appearance was no where to be found, which meant, something had happened.
That the goblins, imps and sahagin couldn’t be found, was probably because Gofunkawahara and Kaoru who were their leader, weren’t around. In case they had no leader, they often hide themselves and stay still, or go around looking for their leader.
“It’s just like a ghost ship…”
Sakuma muttered. Goubayashi silently nodded.
No one was here. Exactly like a ghost ship. It was because they knew this deck where students were always lined up or bustling about, that this feeling was even more excessive. For every step they took, they assumed the worst case, their anxiety worsened. No one was here, that was too strange.
But when the two people approached the cabin, they saw their classmate crucified on the wall and swallowed their breath.
“Ha, Harao-kun…!?”
The one who was exposed in this tragic state, was unmistakably their classmate, Harao Masaki.
In Harao’s body stuck 5 spear-like things. For a moment, they hesitated whether it was okay to pull those out, but he would never bleed to death with that body. They pulled out the spears, laid his body down on the heavy cruiser branch school. Harao didn’t even twitch.
What the heck had happened? It was certain that there was a battle. As a result, Harao lost and was crucified in this way. Not just Harao, Okama Kaoru should have been here as well, but that guy was no where to be seen.
“Goubayashi-kun, Harao-kun is…”
Sakuma asked in a trembling voice, but Goubayashi shook his head.
“We can’t infer if he’s dead or alive with pulse or breathing. So I don’t know if he’s among the living or the death either.”
His words were calm, but strong anger was oozing from his voice.
Sakuma grasped the limp and unmoving hands of Harao, and made them crossed in front of his chest. Now, she could only believe in his words: ‘Harao doesn’t die, he only sleep.’
“Kaoru-chan … where is he?”
“I don’t know. But, Kaoruko isn’t here, Harao was defeated, which means…”
“Asuka-chan is also…”
Sakuma gulped. They were too slow. It might have already changed to the worst case scenario.
No, it was still too early to despair. Somehow reshaping her heart that had almost withered in one go, she fumbled around for the next constructive idea.
First, they should finish confirming the situation. They had to confirm Akai’s safety as well. And if she was safe, it was highly possible that she knew something about this case.
“Sakuma, you look after Harao here. I’ll go inside the ship.”
Apparently, Goubayashi also reached the same conclusion. Sakuma hesitated to nod for an instant, but still, she nodded immediately. Considering the risk of enemies being inside, if Sakuma followed along, she might just only become a hindrance instead.
However, just as Goubayashi started to stand up, ∗clank∗, the door heading inside the ship opened.
Sakuma drew back, Goubayashi took a stance.
Within the tense atmosphere, the person appeared from the other side of the door was an unexpected person.
“…Akai?”
Goubayashi opened his mouth.
Yes, they saw the person whose safety they had been worrying about the most, Akai Asuka herself. She was safe, which meant it was very likely that she was able to repel the attackers somehow. But in that case, it was still strange that they couldn’t find Kaoru anywhere.
“Akai, please explain the situation.”
Goubayashi walked up to her and asked that.
“Harao is defeated, Kaoruko can’t be found, but you’re safe. What on earth is going on?”
“……”
Akai didn’t answer. She simply smiled.
“Akai…?”
Strange, the one who thought that wasn’t just Sakuma but Goubayashi as well. Akai’s faint smile felt different somewhere from the kinds she had shown up until now. The silence gradually expanded the uncomfortable feeling. The uncomfortable feeling soon changed into fear creeping all over her body.
“(Wrong…”)”
Fear turned into conviction.
“Separate!”
Sakuma gave out the she instantly thought of.
“That girl is Asuka-chan, but not Asuka-chan!”
Immediately after that, a fast roundhouse kick blew away Goubayashi’s giant body.
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