episode_0054

There’s no obligation for everyone who encounters the Black Serpent, for no reason other than bad luck, to die.

So, even knowing it was meaningless hypocrisy and a whim, I wanted to give them a chance.

A chance to pass safely, with nothing happening, as long as they weren’t foolish.

But the people before me had clearly come here with the intention of killing my squad members. It didn’t matter whether they knew the vampire there was the Black Serpent or not.

A challenge directed at me and my squad members cannot be tolerated in any form.

Needless to say, Jinjo Scarlet Bathory was no exception either.

─Then as now, that name was everything to me.

Even I, existing here in the form of ‘Rain Grey’, was no exception.

“There’s no need to show mercy to those who came to kill my squad members, is there?”

That’s what I said. What I, as the captain, ought to say.

A middle-aged man with a beard, appearing to be the leader, and two young men. Finally, one silent woman.

Their faces, hidden beneath deeply pulled-down hunter hats, were all shadowed and hard to see. But just by looking at their bushy beards and heads full of scars, one could roughly guess what kind of lives they had lived.

“The monster talks as if it’s none of its business…!”

“Wait, Montpel!”

One hunter adjusted his long rifle. Not towards the vampire, but towards me. Billy desperately tried to stop him, but it was already too late.

No sooner had he thought he’d adjusted the long rifle, than both his arms, holding the gun, were severed from the shoulders. Blood spurted like a fountain from the cleanly cut stumps, accompanied by a ear-splitting scream.

“Aaaargh, my arms! My arms!”

“Montpel!”

Billy, the bushy-bearded hunter who seemed to be the leader, cried out. He didn’t even know what had happened. By the time he realized, his arms were gone.

It was too late, but only then could he understand.

This was different.

It was ‘something’ on an incomparably different level, something that couldn’t be grouped with any vampire they had hunted so far, impossible even to compare.

Then why on earth was a vampire of that caliber loyal to a mere human?

That fact sent even more shivers down his spine.

“How regrettable.”

Scarlet said, maintaining her composure without even twitching an eyebrow, ignoring the man howling and screaming with his arms severed in front of her.

“Normally, I would have truly wanted to show you the hospitality of a vampire.”

Scarlet, with a mature appearance seemingly in her late twenties, swept back her alluring blood-red hair and smiled. She wore the black uniform of the Black Serpent like a cloak over her crimson silk dress.

“Unfortunately, I am currently serving a being so noble that your insignificant lives cannot even be compared to them.”

The crimson liquid, filled precariously to the brim in the glass in Scarlet’s hand, rippled.

“Do you understand? This is not the time to stoop to dealing with insects like you─.”

A cold gaze that looked down on humans as mere livestock, no different from cows or chickens.

It was a chilling expression, one I wouldn’t dare imagine in front of me.

It was the gaze of a predator, treating humans as livestock, no different from any other vampire. The “hospitality” they spoke of was merely a game of playing with their prey.

That’s why he was bewildered when a vampire of such caliber showed loyalty to a human.

Because it was not much different from a human bowing their head before livestock like cows or chickens.

Nevertheless, Jinjo Scarlet was still pledging loyalty to the human named ‘Rain Grey’.

A loyalty that could be called absolute, almost blind.

“Isn’t that right, Rain?”

Before long, the surging blood flow around Scarlet enveloped and swallowed her.

After being swallowed, when the blood-red aura subsided, there stood a young girl, similar in age to Alice.

She wore a dress befitting her smaller stature, along with the Black Serpent’s uniform draped like a cloak. And thanks to her reduced height, the hem of the uniform dragged on the floor beneath her feet, like a child awkwardly wearing adult clothes.

“…As I said, do as you please.”

I answered calmly, unfazed by her appearance. As usual, I maintained my composure, idly pulling out a cigarette pack from my clothes and putting one in my mouth.

“I have no intention of meddling in a host’s hospitality towards guests in someone’s else’s home.”

Standing at the railing midway up the spiral staircase, I looked down at the vampires and vampire hunters in the lobby.

After all, this was, literally, Scarlet Bathory’s countdom and her castle. She was the host, not me.

“You’re wrong, Rain.”

Nevertheless, Scarlet, now a girl, shook her head. ‘Wrong.’ At her resolute words, I silently furrowed my brows.

“This is Rain’s home.”

She said.

“All my homes are Rain’s dwelling, all territories I rule are Rain’s lands, and all the blood flowing through my veins is Rain’s blood.”

At first, I thought she was saying something I didn’t understand. But she wasn’t.

“Everything that constitutes my being, every single piece, without exception, is Rain’s possession.”

It was a loyalty almost blind, no different from that of any other squad member.

“Rain Grey, I am yours.”

“……”

“Because in a thousand years of life, until I met you, my life was filled with endless emptiness.”

The girl, draped in a jet-black uniform like a cloak over her blood-red dress, spoke.

Unsure how to interpret those words, which sounded almost like a confession, I remained silent. Silently, I looked at the group of hunters still there.

One had lost both arms and was incapacitated. The leader, called Billy, also couldn’t maintain his composure. And another man, too, was terrified and at a loss for what to do.

Even amid all that─.

The sole female hunter remained eerily silent.

“Pl-pl-please, save me…!”

The hunter who had lost his arms knelt miserably, begging. His appearance, with only legs and no arms, looked like a grotesque object created by a twisted artist.

“Why should I save you?”

So I asked.

“Why, you ask?”

“You came here to kill my subordinate. Is there any reason for me to spare you?”

“You dog-like bastard, then just kill me instead of spouting that shitty nonsense!”

Finally giving up, the armless man spat defiantly in front of me, as if coughing up disgusting phlegm from his throat.

It was then.

“Rain.”

Scarlet, who had been silent, spoke.

“The words I said earlier, ‘do as you please,’ are they still valid?”

“…Yes.”

“Good, that’s a relief.”

Saying that, Scarlet approached my side, then bent down in front of the kneeling man, meeting his eye level. Her face came closer, right up to where her breath would touch him.

“Perhaps I overestimated the intelligence of livestock?”

Narrowing their eyes at each other, almost close enough to touch, just a few centimeters apart.

“Did I not tell you that the one before you is a being so noble that your insignificant lives cannot even be compared to them─?”

“……!”

“And yet, you dared to spit in front of such a noble being. Do livestock lack the intelligence to comprehend such things? Was I mistaken to expect reason from lowly creatures like you?”

Her blood-red eyes questioned chillingly. Only then did the armless hunter understand the situation and become terrified. The gravity of it.

“Billy! Please, shoot me! Kill me! Hurry!”

That’s why he screamed.

Because in this world, there are mountains of pain so unbearable that death is preferable.

The hunter called Billy, hearing those words, immediately adjusted his long rifle without hesitation.

“Unfortunately, you cannot.”

“!”

But he couldn’t. It was none other than Aria, who had been by my side just moments before, who blocked his action.

“For the disrespect you dared to show in front of the Captain-nim, it is a grave sin that cannot be forgiven even by death.”

Despite her eyes being covered by jet-black bandages, she subdued and bound Billy. This time, without leaving a single scratch on his body. Instead, there was the sound of joints bending and twisting at impossible angles.

Seeing that sight, the third male hunter, terrified, turned his back. Just as he turned to flee, both his legs vanished entirely.

But people don’t die that easily.

The lone female hunter still didn’t stir. Perhaps her body was frozen in fear. Either way, her inaction, not daring to move rashly, was arguably the most correct response.

“Lady Aria and I just click, don’t we?”

“To be honest─.”

Scarlet chuckled, and Aria replied in her usual calm voice.

“I’m already at my limit, too.”

“Alice is angry too! Super furious!”

“Of course, Alice.”

In front of Alice, who was also genuinely angry, Aria smiled leisurely.

“So, we shouldn’t kill them too easily, should we?”

They were experts in pain. For experts in pain of their caliber, death was never a punishment. It was liberation and salvation.

Only one remained. Faced with her silence even in this situation, I finally felt interested and raised my head.

“Weren’t you a party of three?”

“That’s right.”

The female hunter replied. I questioned her unusual composure.

“For that, you seem quite at ease.”

“Because I wanted to see it.”

Saying that, the woman took off her hunter hat.

“This day, when these damned monsters would suffer a fate worse than death.”

A face full of scars, traces of beatings, and even burn-like wounds was revealed. Even on her scalp, where hair should have been, there were only scars and wounds. It was a terrible face.

I did not reply. Instead, it was the hunters who cried out.

“Because I believed that you all could do that.”

“Do what?”

“Hunt these monsters.”

“……”

“Lucia, you damned bitch…! You, don’t tell me you…!”

The female hunter with the terrible face didn’t even pretend to hear their words.

“You speak as if you know who we are.”

So I asked again.

“Rain Grey, the Captain of the Black Serpent.”

A reply came back without the slightest hesitation. So now it was my turn to ask.

“Then who are you?”

“The daughter of the enemy who killed my mother.”

The female hunter, Lucia, replied, looking at the vampire hunter Billy, who was bound with twisted limbs there.

“I wondered what if they died too easily.”

She said, finally revealing fragments of human emotion on her face.

“Because when those bastards killed my mother, it was never like that.”