Ch.133Chapter 133 – Strange Decisive Battle (7)
by fnovelpia
“Hey, hey guys.”
Issac Adler raises his eyes with a doubtful expression as he witnesses the probabilities suddenly increasing exponentially.
“…No, right?”
He cautiously asks while looking at Celestia Moran and Lady Joanne Clay who are coldly staring down at him.
“You’ll help me, right? You won’t do anything weird?”
As he squirms in his rope bindings while nervously watching them, the two subordinates quietly exchange glances.
– Thud, thud…
“Guys…?”
Eventually, the two women approach Adler without saying a word.
“…Ah.”
As Moran reaches right in front of him and quietly raises the butt of her air gun while Lady Clay begins to boil red mana in her hand, Adler closes his eyes with a resigned smile.
– Whack…!!!
And the next moment, a refreshing impact sound echoes through the outskirts of the walking path.
“…Huh?”
Adler, who had been trembling with his eyes closed, opens them again with a puzzled expression when his consciousness doesn’t fade even after a while.
“………”
Then he sees Silver Blaze collapsed with two bumps on his head and spinning eyes.
“What are you doing, Dad?”
“Why are you trembling like that?”
As Adler blinks and stares blankly at the scene, he hears the gentle voices of Moran and Lady Clay.
“Did you… do this for me?”
“…I’m your hunting dog, Dad.”
“I-It’s not like I did this for you. I just couldn’t bear to see this poor werebeast take responsibility for trash like you.”
Adler’s face shows waves of touching emotion as he tilts his head and listens to their words.
“Girls~”
Adler staggers to his feet, pulls his arms out of the now-loosened ropes, and embraces Moran and Lady Clay.
“I love you~”
Then, with a pure eye-smile, he begins rubbing his cheeks against theirs.
“”……….””
The eyes of the two women caught in his embrace suddenly turn cold as they glance sideways at him.
“…This isn’t the time for this, Dad.”
“That’s right, so let go now.”
“Huh?”
The next moment, both women speak simultaneously.
“You need to hide right now.”
“…Why?”
“This incident has drawn too much attention to you, not just from monsters but also from organizations of concern.”
When Adler tilts his head with a bright expression after hearing this, Lady Clay sighs and begins to explain.
“Of course, those alone wouldn’t be a problem. But the issue is that they might cooperate with each other.”
“…Cooperate?”
“Except for that damned Queen’s dogs, most are ‘unofficial’ intelligence organizations or illegal groups. Cooperating for a goal is nothing to them.”
“Are you certain?”
“They organized an intrusion during our battle with the Royal Knights. The attackers included at least three different types of ability users.”
After saying this, Lady Clay leans toward Adler and asks:
“Of course, you’ve prepared for this situation, right?”
“……..”
“Weren’t you the one who came up with this insane plan?”
Adler shrugs with a blank expression.
“…Dunno.”
“You crazy bastard.”
Lady Clay immediately curses, grabbing Adler by the collar and raising her voice.
“Right now, forget about profit—even escaping from this park won’t be easy!”
“Aaaah…”
“What will you do if they catch you?”
As Adler is being shaken violently while maintaining his thoughtless expression, Celestia Moran, who had been watching with narrowed eyes, suddenly begins questioning Lady Clay.
“But something seems strange.”
“Weren’t you supposedly being forced to serve after falling for Dad’s tricks?”
“………”
“Wouldn’t it be better for Dad to be captured by them than to continue being treated like a cat, wearing a maid outfit and cleaning the house?”
Lady Clay’s eyes begin to glaze over at those words.
“…..Right, Lady Clay?”
Moran continues to subtly encourage her with a soft voice.
“Moran…?”
Adler, sweating nervously as he looks at Lady Clay who seems to have taken some red pill and is staring blankly at him, begins whispering to Moran who is quietly looking up at him.
“W-Why are you suddenly acting like this?”
“You need to revive the vampires, so isn’t it a waste of time to be doing this here?”
But Moran just stares up at him while holding Lady Clay’s sleeve and continues talking.
“………”
‘…There are too many women around Dad.’
Thanks to this, Lady Clay falls silent and stares at Adler, her lips slowly curling upward.
‘I alone am enough…’
“H-Hmph! I know that too!”
But just then, Lady Clay crosses her arms, turns her head sharply, and raises her voice again.
“If I hadn’t had my powers sealed by Adler, I would have betrayed him long ago!”
“If you say that in front of me…”
“But since I haven’t fully recovered my strength enough to defeat someone who’s become a true vampire, I’m reluctantly captured and living…”
“…That’s a lie.”
Moran’s cold voice, as she looks up at her with icy eyes, cuts through Lady Clay’s muttering.
“Is that something to say from someone who decimated half the knights with just a few drops of blood?”
“……..”
“And last time when we were alone, you sent away your subordinates who came to rescue you with a cold expression…”
“Ah, aah! I’m already running out of strength!”
Lady Clay hurriedly covers Moran’s mouth and staggers unnecessarily.
“…Don’t misunderstand, you!”
She turns her gaze to Adler and raises her voice.
“…I, I will.”
But after a moment, she begins to stammer with her eyes lowered.
“I will protect you.”
A brief silence follows after those words.
“What?”
“It’s not like I’m worried about you or like you! I’m always just using you!”
When Adler stares at her blankly and asks, Lady Clay’s face turns red as she shrieks.
“J-Just. The existence of a true vampire is helpful in many ways for reviving the Red Mana Alliance…”
“……..”
“I-I’m just helping you, a burden, at my own expense. So consider it an honor.”
Hearing this, a genuinely surprised expression appears on Adler’s face.
‘…I’m supposed to get kidnapped?’
He had deliberately created a hopeless situation where monsters fight each other and organizations of concern cooperate, to separate Lady Clay who would clearly have the weakest loyalty.
Thanks to this, he would naturally increase the burden of protection on Moran, making it relatively easy to shake her off, then act alone to find Arsène Lupin, wag his tail, and get kidnapped.
“Lady Clay, but…”
“I-Insolent one. I won’t accept any objections. Remember that the blood of the British royal family flows in my veins.”
His perfect plan was increasingly going awry.
“…H-How will you protect me?”
“I-I’ll kidnap you from here.”
“What?”
“Let’s stage a play. We’ll temporarily divert their attention to the Red Mana Alliance that I control.”
When Adler asks with a perplexed expression, Lady Clay, as the fourth smartest woman in London, immediately offers a solution.
“The Alliance is scattered throughout England, so we can buy time to escape to America or a third country.”
“…A-And then?”
“W-We settle in a new place and start over from the beginning.”
Adler’s eyes begin to waver slightly at this proposal, which seems quite normal and attractive compared to the insane solutions he usually hears from women.
“…I-I’ll pretend to be your wife. To gather the vampires scattered across the country again, we need the legitimacy you possess.”
“…….”
“O-Of course! It will just be an act with a mask! Even that would be an honor for someone like you who’s just a hostage in a kidnapping plot!”
After finishing with a raised voice, Lady Clay crosses her arms and turns her head to the side.
“Y-You can refuse if you want…”
“But, Lady Clay.”
Adler, who had been staring at her, asks with a question mark on his face.
“…If such a kidnapping act continues for a lifetime, wouldn’t it be no different from marriage?”
“W-W-W-What?”
She cries out with a startled expression.
“…Insolent one!”
But she seemed to have nothing else to say, as there was no response after that exclamation.
“…..Dad.”
Meanwhile, Celestia Moran, who had somehow approached right next to Adler and grabbed his sleeve, begins to whisper.
“I’ll really kidnap you.”
“……..”
“I’ll actually bind you with chains, abuse you a little, take photos, and distribute them to monsters and organizations of concern.”
“…Huh?”
“On the back of those photos, I’ll write ‘This man’s life is over’ if they don’t back off from this matter.”
Her eyes darkly shine in the moonlight.
“Then no one will chase you anymore. It’s much safer than Lady Clay’s method.”
“But Moran…”
“I’ve done this many times, so I can do it perfectly without mistakes… What?”
“…How is that different from a real kidnapping?”
Adler asked with a slightly frightened voice, but again, there was no response.
.
.
.
.
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“I think both options are pretty bad.”
“”………!?””
Until a very familiar voice echoed from beyond the fog-shrouded walking path.
“…Don’t you think so, Issac?”
“Professor…?”
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Meanwhile, at London’s premier university hospital.
“Ms. Jane Moriarty. Did you sleep well?”
Professor Jane Moriarty, who opens her eyes in a private room there, lazily stretches and faces her attending physician.
“It’s an incredible recovery speed for a human. I think you can be discharged soon…”
“…Thank you.”
Upon hearing this, she begins to charge gray mana in her hand hidden behind her back while thanking him with sharp eyes.
“But that statement would have been better left unsaid…”
“What?”
But just before that gray energy could take another life, the professor suddenly withdraws her mana and stops speaking with a surprised expression.
“Eek!?”
She jumps up from her seat and begins to sweat.
“Adler…”
The view of Issac Adler that she had been voyeuristically watching without missing a day since meeting him was somehow blurred as if covered by smoke.
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