Chapter 115
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 115
Chapter Title: Floor 12 - Lv. 355 Straggler Clans (6)
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Vampires born from humans often fall into ennui as they live on.
They lose sight of any purpose in life.
It doesn't even require achieving everything there is. No matter how long you live or how much power you wield, some things in this world are simply impossible.
Crashing into those walls and shattering against them naturally leads to giving up or losing things along the way.
For Proboy, the purpose in his life had vanished long ago.
He was merely a clan master clinging to survival.
Within this bloodline, known for its ferocity rivaling orcs, he had clawed his way up screaming.
It had been ages since he could claim his own name as the clan's.
He had probably already been clan master when Barbaroia was reborn as a vampire.
The experiences of those endless years had taught him to let go of much.
A mere vampire could never become a hero. No matter how time passed, they remained on the fringes of history, mere spectators, unable to leap into its flow.
Was it because he lacked the talent?
Yes.
He hadn't been born with that kind of fate.
He was destined to drift along until he eventually crumbled under the sun's light.
The existence of Exiles had made him feel those walls keenly, after living well over a thousand years.
He had long harbored suspicions.
He had witnessed countless uninvited guests appearing at the heart of great and small historical moments.
That accumulated experience had one day led to a sudden realization.
Intuition strikes just like that—a whisper in your ear out of nowhere.
Hey, I just realized something. This whole situation...
Proboy had realized it early on. This world might just be dancing to the tune of the Exiles.
That it had been crafted that way from the start.
The life he had struggled through since his earliest memories suddenly felt empty the moment he grasped that truth.
And from then on, time had flowed... right up to this moment.
"You still remember the Spirit King, huh? I only learned later it was called a Spirit King. An astonishing sight I'd never witnessed in my life. Ha. What a thing."
A flicker of puzzlement crossed the Exile's face. Then suspicion.
And finally, the sense that something had dawned on him.
All these changes happened in an instant. He was masterful at masking his expressions.
Proboy praised himself for not missing a single one of those brief shifts.
Look at me, finding reasons to live in the pettiest details.
Satisfied with that, Proboy raised both hands.
Dropping his weapon high into the air.
Spare me if you will; if not, so be it.
There was no reason he had to live, but none he had to die either.
It took more courage to abandon life than to cling to it.
And if someone else decided for him? Not the worst outcome.
Not a great attitude for a clan master, sure. But someone else would take up the mantle, just as he had.
My first thought was, No way, what the hell is with this guy?
The next was less a thought and more a rapid assessment of the opponent.
Proboy of the Proboy Clan wasn't a fixed named NPC.
The name stayed the same, but each incarnation was a completely different NPC. Gender, race, age—all of it varied.
This Proboy...
I quickly rifled through my memories. The security captain who had put on such a natural act back then.
This vampire lord with the same face was far more jaded now than he had been.
The fact that he could pass for human so convincingly meant he was a high vampire well past lord level.
He couldn't have loitered as security captain without the [Daywalker] passive granting sunlight immunity.
Judging by the average vampire NPC skillset, estimated age: 1,500 years or more.
Probably among the oldest even among clan masters.
Born in the Fairy Wars era, somehow surviving into the space pioneering age—a living history book who had witnessed it all with his own eyes.
And this boredom? A common trait among long-lived NPCs.
Fairies, with their innate longevity, got away with it thanks to their laid-back or eccentric mindsets.
Vampires, originally human, reached this state especially often.
I decided to let Proboy go for now. Guys like him posed no threat even if released.
No drive to do anything.
They just lingered because they couldn't die.
Still, what had changed in the last 500 years?
That act just now was too passive, almost like whatever happens, happens.
Something felt off. Too defeatist. Did he only realize after arriving that we were Federation Great Warriors?
He might have that level of intel.
Even the underling vampire who'd come to the tavern knew plenty about the war.
"Hey, vampire comrade. Are you an enemy of the people?"
Proboy dusted himself off and said,
"What nonsense. I'm just a humble citizen grateful to be alive day by day. I want no part in such fights."
"Good, I'll take your word for it. But you knew who you were coming to meet, right? The Exile party here."
Someone who's given up doesn't quibble over guesses. Figured he had nothing left to lose anyway.
"Ah, have mercy just this once. I did think about grabbing you for something, but I had neither the grand plans nor the ability."
"We've just confirmed you lack the ability now."
He chuckled as he spoke, and it seemed genuine.
One more test?
"Envious of Exiles?"
"...What do you mean?"
For a split second, Proboy's eyes wavered. And he knew I'd seen it.
I grinned.
"You've lived too long, friend."
"Tell me about it."
The vampire swordmaster grumbled.
I left Proboy muttering lucky bastard as he rounded up his clanmates and turned to the others.
The dwarves swarming from outside grasped the situation quickly.
Even in an era where individual might couldn't always overcome groups, it didn't hold in every case.
Besides, most of the merchandise slumbering in the mansion's basement had been hauled up by the hunter and old man.
The kid mostly knew how to use them.
The properly armed ones—the gear with the most firepower on this backwater planet—were already secured.
The dwarves exchanged glances, then eyed their boss dangling limply in the kid's grip.
They surrendered.
Bullets or beams might work. But this lone figure had single-handedly wrecked the mansion.
It evoked the ancient legends from their fairy tales where ancestors appeared.
Not with siege weapons, but a lightly dressed human girl plummeting from the sky and smashing it apart.
Not everyone had witnessed it directly, but they knew it happened without weapons or even magic.
Who would die if they kept resisting here?
These profit-driven dwarf arms dealer underlings, no lofty mission at stake, surrendered just like that.
With the Healing Spring bubbling in the garden, the wounded wouldn't have trouble recovering.
Of course, there were casualties. The girl held back, but there were plenty of enemies.
"Hmm, feels weird knowing I might've killed some of them."
"They're all adults, despite appearances. Rock dwarves look like elementary kids their whole lives."
"Right. Labyrinth rules. Labyrinth life. Labyrinth ways."
The dwarf arms dealer, roused from unconsciousness by the spring, first gaped at his demolished home.
Then, hearing a brief how-it-happened, he looked even more dumbfounded.
"The clan master went down in an instant too?"
It must've been a cunning plan, for this planet's level.
And now that clan master, who surrendered in a flash, smirked slyly from the corner.
The dwarf arms dealer, too deflated for anger, glanced warily at me.
"Th-the Archpriest of Chaos?"
"An unworthy Exile, but I do hold that title under the Goddess."
"I've committed a mortal sin!"
The Gobletaria Federation wasn't exactly righteous—more like an evil empire to outsiders.
The Goddess was an evil deity anyway, and my Exile-conscience, honed over long years, didn't function purely on good.
Thus, the name Gobletaria commanded terrifying trust.
Even this backwater dealer believed the Federation would dispatch a fleet to seize and torture him on the spot.
"I surrender! Please, spare my life—no, just a painless end..."
"Hold on. Let me check with the Goddess."
Asking if she felt offended as Archpriest and Great Warrior and wanted divine punishment, she shook her head.
「Why would I? You're not bullying the poor NPCs too much. Besides, I'm busy with the war chaos. Scared that tipping them off might actually bring a fleet.」
The kind of thing that could totally happen. Had happened before. A whole planet vaporized that time.
Radical friends, but helpful in their way.
"Alright, tell me where the stairs popped up."
Top priority intel.
We had solid allies, but no one knew the environment of the floor awaiting the Exiles.
And in this era, variables were massively unpredictable.
Our party could dominate skirmishes, but against a real army? Useless.
"So, you don't know the exact spot?"
The two faction leaders kneeling before me nodded vigorously.
"And from not knowing, sounds like it's in fairy mafia territory."
"Yes, sir."
"That's on the opposite side of the planet?"
"It is."
"Prep transport."
"Yes, sir!"
Fairy mafia, huh? Asked the Nature God.
「Not all fairies keep the faith. Reforms happen, so some switch allegiances.」
True enough, but fairy mafia?
Fairies loved living happily among themselves, no matter the era.
Even younger ones learned it from parents, so generational shifts were slow.
Already low population, yet enough to form such groups?
Degeneracy, maybe?
「Blame humans, perhaps. Fairies are quite marginalized in the Alliance. Even the Fairy King is practically in exile.」
The Nature God said she had no followers on this small planet, so details were scarce.
Makes sense—nature-worshipping fairies wouldn't lurk in the shadows.
"Butterfly effect, then."
Suffixes denote faith's nature.
Some tie to specific godseats, but "of Gold" works anywhere.
In future eras where divine truths are known, such suffixes gain power.
The prefix reflects the god's domain, but "of Discipline" operates uniquely.
The suffix becomes the power and faith's foundation.
In essence, a straight-up god of capitalism.
Such faiths thriving into future societies? Common.
But humans, diverse and rarely unified across worlds, seldom consolidate faiths.
Yet this unified capitalist god—one humans would love—brought astonishing prosperity.
Humans surged ahead, seizing control... and birthing shocking discrimination.
The Alliance's state was beyond imagination—or exactly as imaginable—dire.
Did the admiral survive?
Trdongt's few words of advice.
Yeah, to persuade her to side with me straightforwardly.
Half-joking advice to the saintess had reshaped things like this.
"Now do you grasp the danger of [Hero Units]?"
"Urgh."
The mountain-sized orc elder groaned.
The old man, lately obsessed with the Labyrinth system shadowing the Exile, often quizzed me to sate his curiosity.
He knew well what a [Hero Unit] was and the fate of his former disciple child.
"Will I ever see her again? Then I'd better say something else."
I thought briefly and shook my head.
"Don't. It's probably flowed this way accounting for that. The Labyrinth set the course; hard to deviate..."
Reasons to handle [Hero Units] carefully? Countless.
Rare for the same Hero Unit to reverse course and alter the future.
"I should've stopped her then."
"Would've been disastrous if you had."
"Hm, true. Back then, it was the most direct motive I could implant."
As Exile comrades nodded, I headed to the armory.
Truly, truly excellent gear aplenty.
Magicked firearms, rare in this era.
Not guns with spells—themselves made from materials inherently enchanted, now unobtainable.
"Wow, tons of great stuff. Secret collection? We'll make use of it. Bill the Federation."
The dwarf arms dealer deflated sharply at that.
He knew that bill would never get paid.