Ch.467Episode 17 – The Blood-Drinking Tree

When the shock subsides, the area falls into a deathly silence.

The flames that drove away the darkness swallow even all sounds that exist in the world.

The cold texture felt at my fingertips. I touched the magical tool and gathered up the protective spell I had deployed.

“……”

Perhaps noticing that the magical barrier had disappeared, Francesca slowly raised her head.

Camilla’s voice reached us just as Francesca began looking around.

“Is everyone alright?”

She stood in the middle of the research wing. Unlike the devastated surroundings, she looked immaculate—not even a scratch or a speck of soot on her.

“Yes. Are you unharmed, Camilla?”

“Yes!”

The facility swept by the storm had long since turned to ruins.

With each step, the charred debris crumbled beneath our feet. Camilla approached, crunching through the ruins she had created, and began supporting Francesca.

Episode 17 – The Blood-Drinking Tree

Though the magic Camilla had cast was long gone, its aftermath was still vividly present throughout the facility.

The heated air tickled my skin, and sparks that had flown in all directions danced along the air currents.

Though I’d grown somewhat accustomed to such scenes, remaining in the middle of a fire site wasn’t exactly pleasant. We decided to quickly escape the scene before things got worse.

“Heave-ho!”

Camilla emerged through the flying embers and set us down on the ground. When the flames had engulfed her entire body, she had demonstrated the feat of moving dozens of meters in the blink of an eye.

It was only natural for Francesca, who knew everything about magic, to recognize Camilla’s skill.

Sitting on the ground, she stared at Camilla with a somewhat surprised expression.

“…Was that teleportation?”

“Oh, you know about it?”

No, wouldn’t it be stranger not to know?

Camilla tilted her head at Francesca’s question, then added in a murmur:

“Teleportation magic is a heritage that all mages take pride in, regardless of their school. I thought we’d never see it again since the records were lost and the predecessors who could pass it down disappeared…”

“The professor taught me.”

Francesca nodded in understanding, as if she comprehended.

If an ordinary street magician claimed to have learned a lost magic from a noble, most people wouldn’t believe it—they’d call them a fraud and scoff.

But with Camilla, it was different. Especially if her teacher was one of only two great mages in the world.

Anyone else would have grabbed Camilla and launched into a passionate speech about how exceptional her magic was and what an important opportunity it was to receive teachings from a great mage. Perhaps they might even have spewed jealous envy.

But Francesca was cut from a different cloth.

“You could have learned something better…”

Her voice dripped with regret. It was a joke suggesting that she could have extracted so much more from the Grand Duke.

At this, Camilla let out a small chuckle.

“I wanted to, but there wasn’t enough time. Next time, I’ll learn something better.”

Francesca responded in a calm voice:

“The path of magic is often compared to a lonely and solitary journey one must walk alone, but without inspiration, one is likely to get lost. The Grand Duke’s magic would certainly provide much to reference.”

She meant that Camilla should receive more teachings and gain inspiration from the Grand Duke. It was advice for a fellow seeker walking the same path, albeit in a different direction.

Camilla nodded with a gentle smile at the sincere advice. Then, with a soft smile, she offered praise in return.

“Your magic was impressive too, Francesca. You captured your opponent in a way I couldn’t have imagined.”

“Ah, you mean the threads?”

Francesca raised her gloved hand and spoke dismissively, as if it were nothing.

“It’s nothing special. Just a common restraining technique.”

Though she spoke as if it were insignificant, it certainly wasn’t a trivial skill. Extracting magical power with the rune sword left by the founder of the Ranieri family of great mages, then manifesting it as threads and manipulating them freely—it was a technique I had never even heard of.

With the tension eased, the two exchanged various stories for a while.

“That vampire… it’s definitely dead, right?”

“I suppose so.”

In response to Camilla’s question, Francesca murmured while looking at the devastated research wing.

“Who could possibly survive that?”

Though they hadn’t witnessed the vampire’s demise with their own eyes, anyone who had seen what just happened would have said the same as her.

The power of Camilla’s magic was that impressive.

It was enough to erase even the slightest possibility that any ancient monster, no matter how formidable, could survive such an attack.

Camilla, who had been glancing at the ashen research wing following Francesca’s gaze, suddenly began to ask a question.

“Still, shouldn’t we check once more to be sure?”

“Fortunately, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Francesca, leaning on her rune sword, began pointing at my wrist. To be precise, she was pointing at the silver cross attached to my wrist.

“The holy relic isn’t reacting.”

The fact that the holy relic wasn’t reacting meant that no negative or evil energy was being detected.

During the department store terror and when facing the demon in the north, Lucia’s cross had always reacted first whenever an incident occurred. This was a truth we had all experienced directly.

So the absence of a reaction from the holy relic was essentially proof that the vampire had been destroyed.

At her assertion, Camilla nodded in understanding. Then, suddenly tilting her head, she asked us a question.

“But was it really a vampire? It seemed a bit, no, very different from the vampires I know.”

“That’s a difficult question to answer definitively. Vampires are known to have been eradicated hundreds of years ago. Even the Church firmly believes and accepts this as truth, and no scholar has ever conducted in-depth research on an extinct undead…”

Since it had been extinct for hundreds of years and no records remained, nothing could be confirmed with certainty.

Just as I was about to say that—

-Rumble…!

The pile of ashes, barely maintaining its form, collapsed.

As the steel frame that had survived the fiery storm was lifted, half-burned ashes scattered in all directions.

And then came a heavy metallic sound.

“…What is that—”

Crack! Something charred shot up from among the ashes. A familiar-looking gauntlet.

The moment I saw the armor emerging through the ashes, I felt a tightening sensation at the back of my neck, and a warning rang out.

-Snap!

Francesca, snatching up her rune sword, leaped from her position. As blue magical energy traced patterns in the air, vials slipped from her grasp and spilled onto the concrete and rock.

As magic circles formed over the swirling liquid, it began to develop viscosity.

As the poisonous solutions gradually took shape, a gear thrown into the air began to rotate repeatedly, absorbing surrounding objects to form the shape of a golem.

-Whoosh~!

Camilla, transformed into flames, appeared above the ash pile.

As she swung her arm with all her might, drawing on her magical power, a crimson flame traced a trajectory matching her movement.

Behind her, using the air as a foothold, the cube gifted by the Grand Duke was visible. Floating in the air, the cube glowed with a strange color, as if resonating with its owner’s magical power.

“Where do you think—!”

Just as the crimson flames were about to strike the ash pile—

-CLANG ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ !!

Camilla’s onrushing magic scattered in all directions as if blocked by a barrier, and a tremendous noise erupted.

“What…!”

Startled, she hurriedly tried to prepare her next spell. But her opponent’s movement was a step faster.

The plate armor, covered in ashes, rose from the debris. Leaping several meters into the air, the armor struck Camilla, who was waiting in midair.

“Ugh!”

Though she quickly took a defensive stance, it was impossible to withstand the attack without the aid of protective magic. Hit by the armor, Camilla was thrown backward.

Francesca also unleashed a fierce attack, but this too was insufficient.

Unlike when it was fleeing from the pursuit of threads, the creature now withstood all the attacks raining down on it.

It shattered the sticky alchemical solution with a punch, kicked away the charging golem with a single kick, and easily dodged the blue slash of magic that Francesca had fired.

“…What a monster.”

“Francesca! Behind you!”

A sharp warning cut through the battlefield noise. What appeared before her as she hurriedly turned her head was a heavy suit of armor and a crude helmet.

-Grab!

The rising gauntlet seized Francesca by the collar. The rune sword, imbued with blue magical energy, flew toward the seams of the plate armor, but before the blade could make contact, her body was thrown far away.

-Crash!

Francesca’s form disappeared among the ruins. Where she fell was the middle of protruding rebar and sharp fragments—a flat, empty floor.

The dropped rune sword made a desolate sound as it hit the debris.

After throwing both Camilla and Francesca, the knight slowly turned his head. At that moment—

-Clang!

Eerie saw blades began to glint in the darkness.

Bombs flew toward the armor with enough force to crush it, followed by armor-piercing bullets with silver cores.

The knight, staring at the oncoming explosives and consecrated bullets, neatly brought his two arms together. And he directly faced all the attacks coming at him.

-CLANG ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ ̶ !!!

The moment the two gauntlets collided, all objects seemed to freeze in midair as if time had stopped.

The frozen bullets fell like dust, having lost their power, and the blocked bombs dropped like dust without even a proper explosion.

I took out a flamethrower with a replaced cartridge and drove him back. However, the holy flames couldn’t even reach him, being pushed away in all directions.

It was as if the flames had a will of their own and refused to touch him.

-WHOOSH!!

He approached, pushing back the pouring flames. In desperation, I turned on the UV lantern and thrust it at him.

A vampire’s weakness is sunlight. And the sterilizing and chemical actions of sunlight are achieved through the power of ultraviolet rays. This is why artificial lighting using ultraviolet rays is depicted as a weakness of vampires and zombies in movies and dramas.

Whether this was a truth that coincidentally matched the imagination of people around the world, or just a writer’s delusion, I couldn’t tell, but I had no other option now. I activated the UV lantern and thrust it directly at his face—

“…Huh?”

Nothing happened.

The figure, facing the purple light, flinched momentarily as if surprised. But that was all.

He raised his arm to shield his eyes from the bright light, but merely alternated his gaze between the UV lantern and me. As if asking, “What is this person doing?”

“Haa….”

I’m the idiot for believing in movies.

-Wham!

The moment I was kicked, I felt an impact like being hit by a car and was thrown back.

“Ugh.”

Clutching my abdomen, I searched the ground for a usable weapon. Throwing away the useless lantern, I grabbed the gun that had at least been of some help.

As if reading my intention, he stopped me by stomping on the rifle. Just as I was about to draw the greatsword at my waist—

The figure, who had maintained silence until now, spoke for the first time.

“…Who dares attack me.”

I felt as if a voice was echoing in my head.

“Who are you? The Church?”

No.

It wasn’t an illusion.

“The Dawn Society?”

I used the hand I was going to use for the greatsword to cover my eyes.

“…What is this now.”

The knight in plate armor was pointing the tip of his heavy greatsword at my neck.

A red radiance enveloped the knight’s shoulders.