episode_0025

-Tiring!

As soon as the bar’s doorbell rang, Sylvia came out and appeared inside the bar.

I was dressed entirely in black, wearing the clothes I bought during this shopping trip.

“Huh?”

As soon as you enter the bar, you see two people from the captain’s side.

One was in ordinary civilian clothes, but the other was openly wearing priestly clothes.

It was natural that the clothes were inappropriate for a place like this.

“Boss.”

Martin called Sylvia so she couldn’t run away.

It was natural that their eyes turned to the two of us right away.

“…I think that kid is right.”

“Do you remember what you promised me?”

Two people muttering something.

Fortunately, Sylvia also seemed to be wary of the two people.

As Sylvia and I approached the captain, Martin began to explain what had just happened.

Just a few tens of minutes ago.

The priest and deacon entered the bar wearing clothes no different from their current ones.

Martin sighed when he saw the priest’s attire, although he did not know the deacon in plain clothes.

No matter how you look at it, he was not a normal customer.

However, the two people only drank while being aware of their surroundings and did not do anything strange.

Then, in Martin’s mind, the boundaries between the two guests gradually became blurred.

Instead, something strange happened somewhere else.

A regular at the bar started doing things he wouldn’t normally do.

A gentleman who usually likes to sit in his reserved seat and play games suddenly comes to the captain’s seat, doesn’t he?

Don’t you drink alone without the people you hang out with?

Aren’t you strangely obsessed with the whereabouts of Sylvia and Chris?

Unless Martin is an idiot, this situation is bound to feel suspicious.

“What are you going to do with that?”

Martin took a blatantly uncooperative attitude towards the regular.

But the regular didn’t care and continued asking questions.

Like a desperate person with no way back.

Either way, the regular seemed a little annoyed as Martin’s uncooperative attitude continued.

“Where is that kid!”

Voices began to get louder, and several customers moved their hands toward weapons due to the strange behavior of the regulars.

Just like the customers who fought back when the Conakry office pointed weapons at them.

“No, why on earth are you like this today?”

Martin did not take off his metal mask, but he was ready to use his powers at any time.

However, spraying toxic gas at a bar could cause harm to customers.

In this situation…

“Up to there.”

The priest soon reached behind the regular.

Before Martin and the regulars could react, light emanated from the priest’s hand.

The priest did not praise God or mutter prayers or anything like that.

He just held out his shining hand.

Then the regular… no, the vampire disguised as a regular was reduced to dust without even being able to scream.

There was no strange smell of burning corpses or screams of pain from the victims.

Quiet, as if the being in this space just before had never existed in the first place… Efficient extermination of vampires.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“…who?”

When the priest opened his mouth heavily, Martin responded in an inwardly embarrassed voice.

***

And then back to the present again.

After listening to Martin’s story, Sylvia expressed her gratitude to the two people for helping Martin.

“Oh, no. On the contrary, problems may arise because of us.”

The deacon in plain clothes reacted before the priest.

He revealed his name was Malcolm.

Martin…Malcolm….

It seemed like anyone would think this was Harlem, New York.

There is Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

“So… why did you ask to see us?”

“Oh, you have nothing to do.”

The priest quickly corrected Sylvia’s question.

His rough hand was moving past Sylvia and towards me.

“Um, me?”

An honorific came out without me even realizing it.

The priest simply nodded, and Malcolm belatedly began to explain.

“Oh, I don’t mean to do anything to the little lady. In the first place, our church can no longer mess with vampires.”

…Then what is the vampire that you killed while saving Martin?

No, that’s why I mentioned earlier that Malcolm could be in trouble.

“Wait a minute, I want to talk to you.”

“Is that okay?”

Malcolm asked as soon as the priest finished speaking.

“…You should do that.”

Although Sylvia was wary of the two people, it seemed like she decided to listen to what they said for now.

I looked back and forth between Sylvia and Martin with anxious eyes. Martin also seemed unsure.

Sylvia led the two to another room inside the bar.

Then he came up to me and whispered in my ear.

“You don’t have to worry.”

I wondered if Sylvia had something on her mind.

“Phew… okay.”

I suddenly thought about turning into a bat, but I decided to just stay like this.

When the two of us entered the room, Sylvia closed the door.

Meanwhile, the priest continued to look at me.

It’s as if I’m looking at something that doesn’t exist.

It’s something I don’t know, but…

The priest also had complicated feelings of his own.

The true ancestors are trying to increase the number of true ancestors through breeding among themselves.

This was the hypothesis he had previously thought of.

It has been quite some time since the church gave up its indiscriminate suppression of vampires and other unclean beings.

However, it was not acceptable to even destroy the balance between the church and vampires in this way.

At least for him, a vampire hunter.

But his feelings about Little Jinjo, whom he saw in person, were… ambiguous.

A strange energy that is clearly different from the normal Jinjo.

The fact that it is not an ordinary Jinjo literally means that it is not really a Jinjo… or that it is a higher being than that.

However, the possibility that the kid in front of him was a being higher than the true ancestor, that is, a blood lord, was virtually impossible.

Even if it looked like that, it didn’t look like he had any blood relatives.

The priest didn’t know it, but the experience and knowledge he had accumulated over the years had already become a prejudice that was blocking his vision.

***

“Hey… So what do you want to say?”

After gathering myself again, I asked the two people.

Maybe it was because the tension had disappeared, but I didn’t use polite words without realizing it.

No, considering appearances, is it right to be respectful here? Hey, what do you think!

“Oh, it’s just that… I thought we could help you.”

“Day?”

“Isn’t this a difficult situation in many ways, just like what happened before?”

“….”

I couldn’t say no right away to Malcolm’s question.

Martin would have been in danger just today when he was away.

“I wonder what and how you will help me.”

Sylvia answered that way and asked if the church would at least officially support us.

“Even though the hostile relationship between the church and vampires has ended, isn’t it that they have become close enough to do something like that?”

“Ah….”

Malcolm hesitated in speaking, as if he had hit the nail on the head.

“Even if the hostile relationship ends, the balance cannot collapse.”

Although the priest acknowledged Sylvia’s words, he opened his mouth as if there were some things he could not bear to give away.

“Do I have anything to do with that balance?”

“….”

But the priest couldn’t say anything to my question.

I don’t know, but the priest’s hypothesis was already a blank slate.

“Well, what is your name?”

“Chris!”

[The character Malcolm Hest is added to the character book.]

As soon as I started talking to Malcolm, I heard a voice ringing in my head. Is it really necessary to say something like this to be heard?

By the way, I suddenly found out Malcolm’s last name.

“Chris is taking an apprenticeship to become a problem solver, right?”

“Why is that?”

Malcolm suddenly said that part and hit me in a sore spot.

“If various problems arise during the apprenticeship process, it will be difficult for Chris to be the solution.”

“Pfft!”

“Are you threatening me now?”

Sylvia responded immediately to Malcolm’s words.

They say that the priest could be put on the hook by telling the church about killing a vampire in a bar.

“No, no. It’s not a threat. First, we first verified the facts.”

“I also confirmed the facts to the extent possible.”

Malcolm looked at the priest with resentful eyes at Sylvia’s answer.

I was wondering why this problem was being created.

“If other vampires continue to tempt Chris like this, wouldn’t it be good for you too, Chris?”

“That’s right.”

“So, the priest here can take care of the vampires that come near you. What do you think?”

“Isn’t this official support from the church?”

“Ah, as you said earlier, we are no longer in a hostile relationship with vampires.”

Malcolm emphasized that it was the individual actions of the priest, not the church as a whole.

At the same time, they made it a condition that I testify that the vampires attacked me first and that a passing priest helped me.

“…Do I have to answer right away?”

“Priest, what should we do?”

“I’ll leave for today.”

“Then I will come back in a few days. I hope you have decided on the answer by then.”

As Malcolm said that, he followed the priest who had already opened the door and went outside.

“No, that means I wear rather normal clothes.”

“Sounds like a no-brainer.”

Meanwhile, it seemed like the priest was very dissatisfied with various things.

“Keueueuung. What should I do Sylvia?”

“Okay. I think it would be a good idea to discuss this with other people in the office.”

With a sudden proposal from two priests…

The problem solvers of our Blue Heart Office gathered in the office for a long time.