The Wolves' Revenge (2)
Blood, and more blood.
What followed was a feast of flesh and entrails.
I knew this was a lawless city, but even I never expected to walk into a scene that belonged on the Empire’s outermost fringes.
“What the hell is this place?”
“Th-that is…”
“I want to kill whoever did this. I don’t give a damn what the dead guys were up to.”
“Smugglers, sir. One of the three powers that used to carve up Babylenia’s underworld…”
Police, smuggling, and prostitution.
Those were the three factions that split the pie of everything illegal in Babylenia.
The police force had been half-forced back toward normal after I cleaned them out, and some of the ones who quit in a huff had drifted into smuggling afterward, or so I’d heard.
“So then…”
“Yes. There are probably a few ex-cops mixed in among them somewhere.”
“How did they all manage to gather in one place just to die? They don’t usually bunch up like this.”
“Looks like it was one of their regular general meetings. They handle all the tedious bookkeeping and paperwork in a single session.”
It was a textbook example of what happens when you put work off, but the real problem was figuring out who had taught them that lesson.
One thing was certain: no single person could have done this alone.
It wasn’t a single strike that wiped out everyone inside the building, or even a spell that simply blew the place apart.
One by one.
They had been torn to shreds.
“This is…”
Details that had been hidden under all the soaked blood gradually came into focus.
Tufts of fur wedged between the corpses. Claw marks gouged deep into the walls and floor.
It looked like a wild beast had gone on a rampage, but the real culprits made actual beasts look downright adorable by comparison.
“A pack of low-life wolf bastards.”
Werewolves.
Like vampires, they were intelligent monsters—but in some ways they were closer to witches.
Beings born as monsters neither by someone else’s will nor their own choice.
Except during the full moon, they were ambiguous enough that you couldn’t even clearly call them evil.
“Werewolves…?”
“Yeah. Werewolves. And the nasty kind.”
“A monster’s a monster. What’s the difference in quality?”
“There is one. Werewolves aren’t like vampires. They don’t need to pick fights with humans.”
They were a lot like the old Norsemen.
The type who figure that if a job requires thinking, it just means they’re short on muscle—though the werewolves themselves would probably get pissed if you said so out loud.
Warriors, basically.
That was why they’d once lived as slaves to the vampires—the so-called nobles of the night—and relations between the two races had been especially poisonous ever since.
“Look at the corpses. Almost none of them died from a frontal attack. Most got hit from behind while they were trying to run.”
There was a lot of blood and guts, sure, but once you examined the bodies it was obvious: far too many of them had been struck from the rear.
“Coming from an exorcist priest this might sound strange, but werewolves are basically poor bastards caught in a kind of guilt by association.”
Calling a monster “poor” made thorns want to sprout from my tongue.
But they really were pitiful.
It all started back in the Divine Council era, when they branded the Saintess of the Moon a witch and killed her. The curse that followed created the werewolves.
Since the Thousand Sects’ doctrine forbade collective punishment, the standard procedure with werewolves was simple: leave them alone unless they started something first.
“Of course, that doesn’t apply to the ones who did this. Tch.”
There were plenty of ways to track vampires. Werewolves? Far fewer.
Waiting for the full moon was the easiest method, but the full moon was still a long way off.
And with no idea what these things were after, I couldn’t just sit around and wait.
It couldn’t be…
The bigger problem was that this city currently held one perfect target for werewolves who gnashed their teeth at the mere mention of vampires.
But if they’d been after Luna, they would have run into me long before they fully left the cathedral grounds.
“What should we do?”
“Clean up the scene. Tell the police to make inquiries, but not to do anything that might provoke them.”
“Sir?”
“If they want to get torn apart and die, they’re welcome to try. Makes it easier for me to find the bastards, sure.”
“Haha…”
Look at him avoiding my eyes.
Still, I couldn’t just throw them to their deaths, so I couldn’t really chew him out.
“And what about all this stuff?”
“We’ll have to dispose of it. Since it’s smuggled goods, there are a lot of dangerous items mixed in. If we don’t handle them properly, the city will turn into a mess.”
“Haa. Anyone going to come claim the bodies for a funeral?”
“Huh? Probably not?”
“Get out.”
If the loot from crime was that dangerous, there was no reason to leave any of it behind.
After the smart kid left, a spark fell from my fingertip and instantly swallowed the building whole.
From every corner came the sounds of things exploding or something that almost sounded like screaming.
“They really go all out.”
Items that reeked of curses and evil spirits vanished in the flames.
Apparently none of them had been normal, because the corpses turned to ash and disappeared as well. It didn’t take long for the entire building and everything inside it to burn away completely.
“Th-that is…”
“Just clean up well.”
One of the dens of evil was gone, but there was still no clear path to finding the ones who had caused the massacre inside.
Hoping against hope, I cut my night patrol short and returned to the cathedral.
What greeted me was Luna sleeping like the world outside didn’t exist, and the cat sprawled out beside her like a starfish.
Hmm. Looks like they’re getting along in their own way.
The next day.
Whether my worries had been for nothing, there was no sign of the werewolves at all.
“Where did Sister Bella go?”
“Like the knight department, the magic department also has mandatory classes they absolutely have to attend. She headed off to class for the first time in a while because of that.”
“Ah!”
After finishing the basic morning routine, we had free time on our hands.
Having lived at the cathedral together for a while now, the list of daily chores had dwindled outside of the essentials.
A leisurely afternoon spent in the mass hall that doubled as a prayer room.
“Do you really have to sit like that?”
“It’s exercise in its own way. Want to try?”
I was training with my butt planted on a chair in a horse stance.
“No! Absolutely not!”
Sigh. I really wonder when she’ll start acting a little more demure as a nun.
Creak.
“Hm?”
No one was supposed to visit the cathedral at this hour, so both Luna’s gaze and mine naturally turned toward the door.
“Who is it?”
“Does the cathedral screen who it lets in?”
“…Not exactly.”
Why was a tattooed thug picking a fight in broad daylight?
Since I was currently disguised as an ordinary priest, I stepped out with a slightly submissive posture.
“I heard there’s a Hellsing girl here. Where is she?”
“Brother. Even if I knew, I can’t just tell a complete stranger someone else’s location.”
“Then I’ll look myself.”
As I debated whether to smack the back of the guy trying to barge into the restricted area—
His gaze shifted to Luna.
I figured he was like any other guy and had gotten distracted by the massive pair, but that didn’t seem to be it.
“Sniff. Haa. This smell…. What’s your connection to vampires?”
Was it survival instinct?
The moment her soft pink eyes started to turn into the beastly eyes of an excited vampire, I grabbed the thug by the scruff of the neck and flung him.
“What the hell are you?”
Aside from Luna, he was the only one here.
I tore off the mask and returned to my original appearance.
Even after being caught and thrown from a surprise attack behind him, he twisted in midair and righted his posture—definitely not an ordinary punk.
“Ha! An exorcist priest protecting a vampire brat?”
“I asked what you are, not for backtalk.”
My gun was in my room.
All I could do was go hand-to-hand.
“Haa. The boss told me not to go wild, but who cares.”
Crack.
The thug’s body transformed rapidly.
Now’s my chance!
“Hup!”
Boom!
I discarded the ordinary priest robes mid-tackle and crashed out of the cathedral with him.
“Grrrr!”
“You think I’d just watch while you transform?”
No reason to play by the usual rules with a guy like this.
But even as he tumbled from the tackle, the transformation didn’t stop.
His skin tore open, and a massive bipedal monster burst out from within.
It had the form of a wolf, but it walked on two legs, possessed several times a normal human’s strength, and had the intelligence to use magic as well.
“KRAAAAH!”
A monster that could even surpass vampires purely in terms of growth potential.
A werewolf had appeared.
“Hoo.”
One of the reasons I’d started operating in the south was these things.
They were strong against demons too, but more importantly, the fire of divine power didn’t work on them.
An ironic situation: receiving the moon’s curse had given them resistance to the sun.
“Kheheheh.”
“This dogshit bastard’s laughing?”
Without a gun, I must have looked like an easy mark.
“KRAAAAH!”
The thing charged with a roar.
A werewolf’s signature sharp-claw attack aimed straight for my heart.
I spun with the flow to dodge while grabbing the arm swinging those claws.
Even with its arm caught again, this time it smiled.
Boom!
It must have expected me to throw it again.
I slammed its head straight into the ground instead, then put distance between us and offered a few words to the noonday sun.
“O Sun, lend me a little strength to clean up the mess the Moon made, would you?”
Light completely stripped of fire.
I carefully drew magic power up into it.
“Hoo.”
Crack.
A sound like a short circuit rang from inside my body.
Normally the dual attributes of light and fire made mixing with magic power even harder.
I stripped away the divine power, and stripped it away again.
Crunch.
I saw it pulling its head free of the ground, but I focused solely on balancing.
“I’m gonna kill youuu!”
Its body was ridiculously tough; it seemed to have resolved the impact to its neck with just a little shake.
But why was a thing that could talk roaring like a beast in the first place?
It was so absurd it almost broke my concentration for a second.
Thud-thud-thud!
That aside, it was serious.
It closed the distance in an instant, gathered its claws into a single spear, twisted its arm, and thrust.
Whoosh!
“…!”
A vortex formed at the tip of the claw-spear and left a cut on my cheek.
Then came a storm of vortices.
My clothes turned to rags, and blood sprayed even as I dodged.
Blood covered my whole body in place of clothes, but my mind was clearer than ever.
And so I could feel it.
The balance of the magic power and divine power I possessed, even with the fire excluded.
Only after stripping and stripping again did I find the right amount.
It was only over my right hand and looked crude, but a gauntlet of light formed over my right hand.