Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: A Calculated Gamble
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My small stature meant a light frame. My body was lifted, floating a distance from the floor.
And an external force powerful enough to shatter a building.
Even though I’d mitigated the impact with psychokinesis, my body still went flying like a ball. It was inevitable.
CRASH!
My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment, my consciousness flickered.
When I came to, I found myself lying limply on the cold floor.
‘Ugh… I think… I’m actually going to die…’
I was lying on the floor, yet the world felt like it was spinning.
I couldn't tell up from down.
A wave of nausea washed over me, and I tried to push myself up, but...
the excruciating pain racking my entire body left me with no strength.
I must have slammed into things as I flew through the air.
It seemed I wouldn't be able to move until the pain subsided, at least a little.
Battered and broken, I gasped for breath, forcing my heavy eyelids to stay open.
From nearby, I heard Drakel's voice.
“Kh, khuhuhu… That was quite a scare just now. To think you’d come at me first. I was completely off guard. You really caught me by surprise.”
Thump, thump.
Footsteps echoed through the quiet building. I struggled to turn my head toward the sound.
There stood Drakel, looking perfectly unharmed, unlike me.
He looked down at me, sprawled on the floor, and spoke with immense amusement.
“Were you aiming for my heart? Heh, what a shame. I don’t know what you were trying to do… but it seems it didn’t go as planned!”
Drakel approached my motionless form and kicked me with the toe of his shoe.
I barely managed to reduce the damage with the sliver of psychokinesis I had left, but...
the kick to my chest sent me tumbling backward.
That hurts! Can't you go a little easier on me?
Filled with indignation, I looked up at Drakel from the floor.
He had been approaching leisurely, but he suddenly stopped and stroked his chin in surprise.
“Oh? This is… unexpected. I never imagined the Ghost would have such a beautiful face. I would have regretted tearing it to shreds with magic.”
“…!”
W-what!
Startled by his words, I quickly raised a hand to my face.
What I felt was soft, supple skin.
The mask that should have been there was gone.
Did it fall off when I was sent tumbling across the floor?
Flustered by this unexpected turn of events, I pulled the cloth wrapped around me tighter to hide my face.
His eyes, filled with greed and desire, felt even more perverse than that blonde creep I met before.
“Hahaha! I’ve changed my mind, Ghost! Consider it an honor. I shall share my noble blood and make you one of my kind! And you will serve by my side for all eternity!”
He really is a pervert!
I stared at Drakel with disgust as he made his repulsive offer.
If I could speak, I would have cursed him to his face for spouting such nonsense.
For the first time, I resented my muteness, something that had never bothered me much before.
But Drakel, despite my death glare, seemed to think the fight was already over.
He simply approached my fallen form at a leisurely pace, claws extended.
I suppose he plans to inject his special blood through those claws to turn me into a vampire.
If that happened, I’d be cursed with an eternal thirst for blood and forced to be his slave.
That was a fate I would refuse at all costs.
‘Well… the fight *is* already over.’
I slowly relaxed my tense shoulders.
To think he’d stop his attack just from seeing my cute, lovely face.
For me, who needed to buy even a little time, it was an absolute blessing.
“Kukuk… Khheuk! Cough, cough…!”
Drakel, who had been approaching with that disgusting look on his face, suddenly froze.
Then, he began to cough violently.
It was more than a simple cough; it was an agonizing heave, as if he were trying to vomit up his insides.
When the pained coughing wouldn't stop, he bent over and began to retch.
What he coughed up was none other than pitch-black, dead blood.
“Gah! Khaak…! W-what in the world…!”
Drakel’s appearance was changing.
His face, which moments ago was that of a vigorous young man, began to wrinkle.
His blood-red hair faded to white, as if the color were being drained from it.
It was a shocking sight, as if the very concept of youth was draining from his body.
Drakel stared at me, his eyes demanding to know what I had done.
In response, I proudly revealed the object I was clutching in my hand.
“Y-you! That’s…!”
Dangling from my fingers was none other than a necklace.
The end of the necklace held a peculiar ornament: a cube within a cube.
Strangely, its shape seemed to shift unpredictably depending on the angle from which it was viewed.
The necklace was called the Tesseract.
It was an object that couldn't physically exist in this world, one that followed the laws of another reality entirely.
‘In the story, it was described as a fourth-dimensional object existing in a three-dimensional space, wasn't it? Seeing it for real… it feels like it’s torturing my brain! I think I’m going crazy!’
Just looking at it made my brain feel like it was short-circuiting, screaming that such an object shouldn't exist.
It was like getting a small taste of the kind of knowledge that can drive you mad just by knowing it exists.
Of course, the necklace was more than just a bizarre-looking trinket.
Its true purpose… was to draw out possibilities from other worldlines.
For example, endlessly producing fake zombies made from a material that matched no known element on Earth.
Or returning a vampire—so old in body and mind that he would die of natural causes if left alone—to the physical peak of his prime?
“Give it back! Give that back to me right now! You damn brat!”
Drakel’s body was rapidly breaking down.
His fingers and toes swelled for a moment before crumbling away.
His once-sturdy frame shriveled, growing so frail that his bones began to show.
Perhaps, under normal circumstances—or at least, if he hadn't overused his magic—
he would have had some time to spare even after losing the necklace.
There’s a difference between simply using the Tesseract to maintain the appearance of one's prime and using it to wield the full power of that prime.
It didn't take a genius to figure out which one carried the heavier price.
In the end, the very act of using his magic in earnest to defeat me had led him to irreversible ruin.
‘The second condition for defeating Drakel: snatch the Tesseract in a single move. After all, a weakness hurts most when your opponent doesn’t even know you’re aware of it.’
I grinned at the sight of Drakel, who was now in a state far from normal.
Most likely, no one knew of the Tesseract’s existence besides Drakel himself and the mastermind who gave it to him.
He’d already possessed the Tesseract when he arrived in Nighthaven.
And Drakel was a man who hid himself so thoroughly that no one in the underworld had ever caught a glimpse of him.
He wouldn’t have gone around bragging about something as vital as his own life.
His only misfortune was that I happened to be a reincarnator who remembered the original story in detail.
You didn't see that coming, did you?
‘On another note, I never thought the pickpocketing skills I honed through my life of thievery would come in handy here.’
I guess there’s nothing in this world that isn’t useful for something.
Though I’m not so sure becoming a skilled thief is something to be proud of.
As the pain slowly began to subside, I carefully pushed myself to my feet.
I moved like a creaking machine toward my mask, which had rolled some distance away.
It would have been much easier to just retrieve it with psychokinesis, but...
I’d used up so much of my power that I had, at most, two uses left.
This seemed easy when I first planned it, but it ended up being a closer call than I expected.
I guess for an ordinary person like me, it’s hard to pull things off even when you know the right answer.
I’m never doing this again.
As I was thinking this, I retrieved my mask and put it back on.
“Give it…! The necklace… give it back, I say…!”
Drakel, who now looked normal aside from the blood streaming from all over his body, approached me with a hideously contorted face.
It was likely a temporary fix, as if he were using his blood to forcibly hold his crumbling body together.
Still, he was not a sight to be ignored.
Even without the Tesseract, he was still a Noble Vampire.
He still had enough strength to tear my frail, psychokinesis-depleted body to shreds.
But… I didn’t really need to worry.
Considering the time, a guest was due to arrive any moment now.
CRASH!
And right on cue, a window shattered as someone burst into the building.
“Found you! Vampire! And… Ghost?!”
The intruder was none other than the kimono-clad swordswoman, Sakuragi Alice.
In one hand, she held a cybernetic katana.
The blade was coated in a thick, black liquid, as if she had just been carving her way through zombies.
That's right. The guest I had been expecting from the very beginning was her, Alice.
Was it a coincidence?
No. This was the finishing move I had calculated for my fight with Drakel.
Think about it. The Night of Blood began only a few dozen minutes after she left the shop.
There was no way Alice, who was searching for the Ghost, would have left the underworld in that short amount of time.
It was all but certain she was still somewhere in the Western Labyrinth.
And Alice, being one of the story’s protagonists, was meddlesome and inherently good-natured.
I knew without a doubt she would be cutting down the zombies that had overrun the underworld.
So what happens when all the fake zombies disappear, with nothing left to hold her back?
She would have no choice but to rush straight here, to the heart of the disturbance.
“Ahh… so that’s what happened!”
Alice’s eyes darted around, taking in the scene at incredible speed.
She seemed to grasp the situation instantly, breaking into a smile as bright as the sun.
Then, without a moment's hesitation, she dashed toward Drakel like a flash of light and shouted.
“Ghost! I have something I really want to talk about, so don't you dare run away!”
H-huh?
I don’t really have anything to talk to you about…
But my timid shake of the head, my silent refusal, went unnoticed.
Alice’s gaze was already fixed on the blood-soaked Drakel.
“Hmph…! Don’t interfere, girl! You worthless… harlot!”
“W-what?! Who are you calling a harlot! I’m still a fresh-faced…!”
CLICK!
A highly concentrated fuel cartridge clicked into place inside the hilt of Alice’s sword.
At the same time, a sharp, blue light pulsed along the blade.
It was plasma, heated to thousands of degrees.
“…maiden!”
“W-what!”
SLASH!
Alice’s sword cleanly sliced off Drakel’s limbs.
The cut was so clean it rendered his defensive blood magic useless, and Drakel’s face twisted in shock.
Had Drakel still possessed the Tesseract, he could have easily blocked the attack, but...
with less than a quarter of that power, he stood no chance of stopping Alice’s strike.
‘She’s incredible, as expected. It makes me feel like an idiot for fighting so desperately.’
Should I have just left this to her from the start?
I laughed hollowly at the sudden sense of futility, but soon concluded that it couldn't have been helped.
Thinking back on what Drakel said, it seemed I was his target from the very beginning.
If that’s the case, he wouldn’t have made a move until I showed myself. I suppose I was destined to fight him either way.
“Khaak! Kraaaak! You bitch! You biiiiitch!”
“From now on, you have… what was it? The right to remain silent? You have that. And whatever else… Anyway, the police are on their way, so stay put!”
Alice pinned the grotesque form of Drakel under her foot, immobilizing him, and proudly declared her victory.
This was different from the original story.
In the original, the protagonist, Raven, and Alice had simultaneously struck Drakel’s heart and neck, felling him on the spot.
It seemed that since he was this thoroughly subdued, she planned to hand him over to the police rather than kill him.
It was a very Alice-like thing to do, avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.
‘In that case, I should get going. Getting caught would be a pain.’
The incident was officially over.
With the endlessly replicating fake zombies gone, all that remained were a few stray vampires and ghouls.
Especially now that Drakel, the most troublesome of them all, was dismembered and completely subdued, the Night of Blood had lost all momentum.
My business here—punishing the one responsible for this mess—was finished.
Getting tangled up with Alice would just be a hassle. It was best to disappear without a trace.
“W-wait! Ghost! Just until I hand this guy over, please wait!”
“…”
Did she sense my intent to leave?
Alice, still pinning Drakel with her foot, called out to me urgently.
It seemed that after searching for me for so long, she didn't want to let this chance to meet me face-to-face slip away.
She couldn’t follow me without letting Drakel go.
The only thing she could do was plead for me to stay.
But… why should I wait for her?
“Aah! Don't go! Ghost! Please!”
“…”
“Nooooo!”
I stuck a hand out from under my cloth and gave a little wave.
Then, without a second thought, I turned and threw myself out the window.
The Ghost is leaving now. May you live happily, Alice!
It was a farewell without a shred of regret.