Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Testify to Your Faith (3)
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"This way."
Following the succubus secretary's guidance, I trailed behind her down the passageway.
Clack.
Behind me, the female priest followed quietly in the nude.
Her eyes brimmed with venom as she glared at me like she wanted to kill me, but that malice would soon turn toward someone else.
"Here we are."
At the end of the corridor stood a door etched with a magic circle.
When the succubus secretary placed her hand on the circle, it shimmered, and the door rippled in a spectrum of colors.
"A teleportation gate?"
"Yes."
The succubus secretary stepped aside and gestured for me to go ahead. I took a large step forward.
Weeeeng.
A slight dizziness washed over me, but soon a new space unfolded before my eyes.
"This is..."
"The ritual altar."
It was a fairly spacious hall, reminiscent of a banquet room nobles might use for parties, but with a circular altar embedded in the center.
"It's the Altar of Corruption, crafted with utmost care by the Vampire Princess herself. If the demonization succeeds..."
"We'll talk about that later, just you and me."
I got that she was excited, but if she said too much and it somehow prevented the priestess from corrupting, that'd be a problem.
"Proceed."
"Yes, Trainer."
The succubus secretary directed the priestess to the center of the altar.
Barefoot, she slowly ascended the altar and clasped her hands together quietly.
"Goddess."
Even on a demon altar.
"Your servant, Dalia, offers this prayer to you."
Priestess Dalia clasped her hands and prayed to the goddess.
"Steady me through this trial."
Clank.
The succubus secretary pulled a lever connected to the altar, and it began to glow red as the magic circle pulsed crimson.
"And grant me the power to punish those who betrayed you."
Priestess Dalia closed her eyes.
The blood staining the altar's magic circle began to envelop her entire body.
"Even if this body must momentarily dwell among the evils of this land."
There was no holy power.
All that emanated was Priestess Dalia's devout faith.
"Within that evil, help me bring divine retribution upon those who betrayed and mocked you."
That faith manifesting solely as hatred and rage toward the betrayers.
"I—"
Shlrk.
The red liquid coiled around Priestess Dalia.
Like a silkworm larva wrapped in a cocoon, she was swiftly encased in red silk, and I quietly approached the succubus secretary.
"How long does it take?"
"Not long. It'll be done soon."
The succubus secretary pointed to her lower abdomen, where the womb tattoo was etched.
"Without it filled, it might take thirty days or so, but since it's already complete, now we just wait for the result."
"Deciding her demon race... Nah, it doesn't matter much."
It hit me.
The Vampire Princess wanted those who fell to demons, but at the same time, she desired more of her own 'kind.'
"Are you disappointed? That she didn't turn into some other demon?"
The succubus secretary gave me a meaningful smile.
"Or do you wish they'd all become vampires? Heh heh."
"More succubi would expand our options."
"Options...?"
"Yeah. Turn freshly corrupted humans into succubi, send a succubus squad to villages to rape the men and take them prisoner."
"Oh..."
The succubus secretary licked her lips with evident delight.
"Brilliant."
"But it won't happen. Not what the Vampire Princess wants."
"Using vampires for that kind of deployment could work too."
"Possible?"
"The Vampire Princess said how we utilize the corrupted is up to... Ah, you'll hear it straight from her later."
The succubus secretary pointed ahead.
"Look. Your first miracle."
"A miracle, huh."
Crack.
The tall, vertically elongated red cocoon split open.
Like a virgin's pussy parting left and right, a long vertical fissure tore through it, and a woman slowly emerged.
"......."
A nude woman with silver hair and red eyes.
Unlike before, her breasts were larger, her waist slimmer, her hips and buttocks widened into a birthing shape.
"......."
But in her vertically slit pupils gazing at me lingered apathy, faint anger, and irritation.
"Hoo."
I stepped before her.
"Congratulations on your birth—!!"
I welcomed her loudly.
"Who are you?"
"...They said corruption, but I just became a vampire."
The vampire woman sneered at me.
"Save your congratulations."
"What's your name?"
"Dalia."
The vampire woman hadn't lost her memories.
"Servant of the goddess and symbol of faith and belief."
She'd simply become a vampire.
"I've become a demon, yet I shall testify to my faith from the heart of demonkind."
"......."
"What are you waiting for? Take me to those bastards right now."
Dalia grinned ferociously and extended her hand.
"Those who defiled the goddess just to survive—I'll kill them all."
"...You sure you're a demon now?"
"Ha. You made me one yourself. You fucking prick."
Her cursing me like that confirmed she was a demon, at least.
"Here."
Dalia lifted her upper lip with one hand to bare her fangs.
"...Does this look demonic enough?"
She stroked her lower abdomen with her hand—
Flap.
And bat-like vampire wings unfurled from her back.
"Huh?"
"......Definitely a demon."
The moment she revealed her identity as a demon vampire, the womb tattoo on her lower abdomen began to shimmer.
That womb tattoo.
The symbol and brand of falling from human to demon through training.
"Welcome, Dalia."
Sincerely.
A moment later.
"Secretary. Is she really okay?"
"Yes. She's now a perfect demon."
I'd pulled the succubus secretary aside to ask about Dalia's condition, but she nodded proudly.
"Becoming a demon—a vampire—doesn't drastically change one's disposition. If training all that effort only for her personality to flip after turning vampire, it'd be a hassle for you too, right, Trainer?"
"......."
"Personally, I had some unease, but the priestess accepted becoming a demon on her own terms. There are still plenty of concerns and limitations, but taking that first step is hugely encouraging."
"Concerns?"
"What do you think?"
The succubus secretary beamed.
Her eyes seemed to test me.
"...She doesn't fully serve demons?"
"Exactly."
The priestess had become a demon.
Through the Vampire Princess's Altar of Corruption, she was now a full-fledged vampire.
However.
"She's a demon, but if you ask, 'Does she act for the Demon King's army?' it's ambiguous."
"Because she only truly moves to execute humanity's betrayers?"
"Yes."
Vampire Dalia only acted in earnest when killing humanity's betrayers.
"If ordered to kill pure humans, she'd resist. The command and her will would clash, turning her into an uncontrollable rampaging monster."
"......."
"That's why training is necessary. The Demon King's army can forcibly demonize humans. But what the Vampire Princess wants is..."
"Vampires with human intelligence, not beasts ripping into family corpses?"
"Precisely."
We call those beasts ghouls or the like.
Monsters driven solely by survival or destruction instincts, lacking sentient personality.
"From a human perspective... it's like signing a contract instead of working for demons. She only does what's in the contract terms, or resists and breaks free the moment it violates them."
"Two main points, then."
"Yes."
One. Execute those who betrayed the goddess.
Two. Testify that her faith in the goddess hasn't abandoned her, even as a demon.
"What about her holy power?"
"That's..."
The succubus secretary smiled awkwardly.
"Guess we'll have to check."
She waved her hand in the air, conjuring an illusion.
"How she'll kill them."
A quiet room.
The door opened, and the first to enter—
Was the knight who killed me.
My living save-or-no-hole, the rotten bastard who called Eris his fiancée.
Dalia stood before him.
"Wh-what the hell?"
Knight Jake panicked.
"Y-you said if I came here, I'd get out?"
No one unlocked his handcuffs, returned his gear.
"You tricked me! You rotten...!"
"Jake."
A voice called from the darkness.
"Y-you... Dalia?"
The one who appeared, calling his name, was a woman in pristine priestess robes.
"You begged toward the symbol of the goddess's church to survive."
"Wh-why's your hair... Wh-what, a vampire?!"
"That doesn't matter."
Priestess Dalia, who had somehow magically cleaned her cum-soaked robes, removed her hood.
"They may have made me a vampire, but I still serve the goddess."
"H-ha ha...! What bullshit...! You're a demon now!!"
"Not words for one who abandoned the goddess."
Clank.
"Die, betrayer."
The mace in Priestess Dalia's hand began to glimmer with a mix of red and white.
"......What the hell is that?"
Knight Jake panicked.
It didn't look like mana, yet it carried a demonic taint—
"Holy... power?"
A peculiar something, retaining holy power's signature white hue.
"Holy power it is."
Dalia smirked, twisting her lips.
"The goddess speaks. Kill the betrayer."
"W-wait! Hold on!! I-I just... to survive—"
Splat—!!
"Shut up, heretic."
Blood splattered across Dalia's white robe.
"Worse than heretics are those who abandon faith for their own wretched lives."
"G-guhk...!"
"As the goddess's executor, I bring judgment's hammer."
Splat.
Raising the mace high, Dalia.
"In the goddess's name."
Smiled more radiantly than ever.
"Holy power?"
"It is holy power, but..."
"But?"
"...Blood-mingled holy power, I suppose."
The succubus secretary's eyes wavered.
"I've never seen anything like that...?"
"......."
"Trainer. I think..."
The succubus secretary swallowed hard.
"We should report this to the Vampire Princess directly."