Chapter 16
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Envy
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Where am I? Unlike before, everything around me was quiet.
"Oppa, wake up~ Oppa~"
A stinging sensation prickled my cheek.
It felt like someone was slapping my face.
"Hmm... You're not waking up. Your wounds have all healed, though. Well then..."
It was a voice I felt like I'd heard somewhere before.
Who is it?
"Hya!"
"Agh!"
At that moment, a heavy pain exploded in my abdomen.
The agony snapped my eyes wide open.
"C-Cough... S-Saintess? Where... is this...?"
I looked around... and realized this was the same place I'd been with the Saintess earlier.
The spot where I'd nearly gotten my blood drained dry after using Body Search on her.
The Saintess was sitting in a chair, smoking a cigar and looking down at me.
The room reeked even more of stale tobacco smoke than before.
"Oh, you're awake. Yeah... this place? Supply base. The Hero carried you here after you passed out."
"The Hero did?"
"Yep."
Hearing that the Hero had carried me here jogged my memory.
I remembered up to the point where the redhead and the Hero were talking...
But after that, my recollection cut off, so I must have blacked out then.
"Phew... Anyway, you've got a lot of questions, huh? But first, what happened to your wrist?"
The Saintess crossed her legs and exhaled a plume of smoke.
My wrist... wrist?
I hurriedly looked at my left hand, the one that had been severed.
"Huh?"
Incredibly, my left hand was perfectly reattached, as if it had never been cut off in the first place.
"Of course I reattached it. How often does a Gatekeeper even lose a wrist on the job? You're not on the front lines."
The Saintess unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of words, as if she couldn't believe it.
I twisted my left hand this way and that, but there wasn't even a scar.
Experiencing her ability like this firsthand was a whole new revelation.
"Ha... I don't know the full story, but... I've healed you completely anyway."
"Thank you, Saintess."
The Saintess sighed and kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, puffing out smoke in quick succession.
"Oh, right. Before we get into that. Tell me about this first."
"Pardon? What do you mean...?"
"Did we sleep together?"
The Saintess stared straight into my eyes, as if this was the real point all along.
"Did we?"
She stood up from her chair and brought her face right up to mine.
So close that I could smell the tobacco on her breath.
Too close...
"Yeah, you fell asleep the moment I touched you."
"For real? You just... slept?"
"Yes..."
The Saintess kept double-checking, as if she couldn't believe it.
"Hmm..."
Then she pulled back and sat down in her chair again.
"That doesn't make any sense... Oppa."
"Yes."
"Did you do something to me?"
The Saintess pondered for a moment, then grinned.
Yeah, it was weird. Who falls asleep the instant someone touches them?
"All I did was touch your shoulder the moment Body Search began."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about. How could I fall asleep outside my cradle like that?"
Her cradle—the term for her sleeping chamber.
"Oppa, do you know about vampire traits?"
"Just that they get stronger at night. Nothing more detailed."
In the game, vampires were just described as a race. Aside from what I knew, no in-depth lore had ever been revealed.
Vampires were actually closer to demons than ordinary races, after all.
"We vampires have some racial limitations."
Since I said I didn't know, the Saintess launched into a sudden vampire lesson.
"Light, dawn, and sleep."
She took a drag from her cigar before diving into the main explanation.
"Phew... Vampires can't walk in the light—that's famous lore, so we'll skip it..."
"......"
"The key parts are night and sleep. You said you know about night already?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how much stronger we get at night?"
"Just that you're weaker during the day and stronger at night."
"That's surprising. Did you know a vampire who spilled the beans? They don't exactly advertise it."
"I just happened to learn it."
From the setting documents, but still.
The Saintess narrowed her eyes and continued.
"Right. We get stronger at night but weaker during the day."
"......"
She stood from her chair and headed toward her cradle—the one the Hero had carried her in.
She still hadn't had it moved.
The cradle was exactly as it had been when the Saintess slept in it earlier.
"Oppa, come lift this. I've healed your body completely, so you'll be even healthier than before. You can stand."
The Saintess beckoned me to try lifting the cradle.
I got up from my spot as she instructed.
She's right.
My body felt lighter than ever.
I went over to the cradle where the Saintess was and lifted it.
"It won't budge at all."
"Exactly. It takes ten soldiers."
Even assuming an average adult man can lift 50kg.
That means it's around 500kg.
And since the soldiers here have superior physiques to those from my world.
Probably closer to 1,000kg.
No wonder it didn't move.
So what kind of freak is the Hero, who carried this thing sprinting over?
"Now watch me."
The Saintess stepped up to the cradle and lifted it effortlessly with one hand, just like the Hero.
"As you can see, purely in terms of strength, I'm about on par with that monster Hero."
The Saintess set the cradle back down.
"Of course, not many vampires reach this level. Even so, the average day-night difference is about 7 to 10 times."
"I thought it was maybe 2 or 3 times at most."
Ah, now I finally understood why the Saintess was so strong during the day.
She was just freakishly powerful even for a vampire.
Wait, does that mean her one-handed grip strength is 100kg even during the day?
If the Saintess had squeezed my waist for real during the day...
A sudden shiver ran through my body.
"And see how my eyes are red? Ours turn red at night."
Looking at the Saintess's eyes, they were truly blood-red.
A stark contrast to the amber hue they had during the day.
"And the most important point—the reason I'm bringing this up."
"......"
"We can't sleep outside our own cradles."
This one caught me off guard.
I'd thought vampires just liked sleeping in coffins, like cats in boxes.
"This is info even our racial mates don't know. It's a ridiculous weakness."
This was bigger intel than I'd expected.
They can only sleep in their cradles?
What happens if the cradle breaks?
"Then what if the cradle breaks?"
"You make a new one. Until your body recognizes it as your own."
The answer was more shocking than I'd imagined.
No sleep until you craft a new one that satisfies your body.
And since tastes vary by individual, it seemed tricky.
"Why tell me this...?"
"You really don't get it? I slept outside my cradle."
Right.
Thinking back, the Saintess had dozed off right after Body Search.
But did that warrant revealing such a vulnerability?
"Question: If we fought right now, me and the Hero—who'd win?"
"......"
"No need to think. The Hero, obviously. How could I beat the Empire's Greatest Sword?"
The Saintess chuckled as she answered.
Guess the Hero is the Hero, after all.
"What if I arm-wrestled the Hero? Surprisingly, it'd be close."
"......"
"Second question: So why don't I go out fighting?"
"To heal people?"
"Right. But there's another reason."
"......To protect your cradle?"
The Saintess's lips curved into a knowing smile.
"I can't be without my cradle... No one left to make me another. And mine's a bit special."
The Saintess gazed wistfully at her cradle.
As if it were someone she could never see again.
"That's why you're so intriguing. How'd you do it?"
"It was nothing. You just fell asleep when I touched you."
Now I understood why she was telling me all this.
A cradle she couldn't afford to lose.
And in the midst of that, she'd found the one person who could put her to sleep.
"Doesn't work, though..."
The Saintess strode over and guided my hand to her shoulder.
"See? Not sleepy at all."
My hand settled on the Saintess's soft shoulder.
"Knead it."
I kneaded her soft shoulder.
"Ha... Nope."
The Saintess sat back in her chair and took a drag from her cigar.
"Well... we can figure out the conditions slowly. My cradle won't break anyway."
She shifted her gaze to the ceiling, lost in thought again.
"Now, final question."
The Saintess turned her eyes back to me.
Grinning like this was the climax of twenty questions.
"Who made it? My cradle."
"Family?"
I hadn't planned to ask such a sensitive question.
But she brought it up herself.
The Saintess took a deep drag from her cigar.
"The Demon King. I'm his daughter."
Her confession was earth-shattering.
...
At that very moment, Rain stood once more in the heart of the battlefield.
"Rain, giving something like that to some guy? You're weird..."
"Just curiosity. It worked out—stopped their plan, too."
The red-haired girl and the Hero faced each other again on the battlefield.
The difference? Dozens of demon soldiers stood behind the girl.
"The Hero... gave a Tracking Rune to some random guy?"
"I wanted to. And thanks to it, I blocked your side's scheme."
Tracking Rune.
One of Rain's unique abilities.
A sort of real-time GPS that fed her info.
Not just location—it relayed surrounding details too.
It could even measure the rune bearer's current status and ambient mana levels.
Thanks to it, she'd saved Anderson's life twice now.
"Doesn't that drain a ton of your mana? And your pool's so small."
"It's grown since before."
The girl sneered at Rain.
Rain's mana wasn't small, but it paled compared to the redhead's.
"Even so, to some Gatekeeper?"
"He's a friend."
The girl's body twitched at the word "friend."
"Ah... a friend?"
"......Don't."
The girl's hair shifted from red to brown.
Her braids unraveled into long, straight locks.
Her eyes slowly changed from bright yellow to black.
The girl walked slowly toward the Hero as the transformation progressed.
"Envy..."
Rain murmured softly.
Her expression crumpled in anguish.
The blood on Rain's face washed away in tears.
"Rain... weren't we friends?"
The brown-haired girl smiled sweetly.
Probably in the voice the Hero hated most—or longed for most.
The Hero's greatsword cleaved through the battlefield.