Frenzy (3)
The headless corpses, having lost all control of their bodies, convulsed wildly. The firm hands that had dropped their swords twitched as if shocked by electricity, while their legs performed a purposeless, frantic tap dance.
From their armor to their necklaces, and even the tattoos on the backs of their hands, their entire bodies were engraved with the crest of the Goddess of Heaven and Earth, Astira—yet it seemed the goddess had no intention of protecting them.
"Benjamin, Donovan…."
"This can't be…."
The two surviving holy knights stared down at their comrades' corpses. They called the names in hollow voices, but the bodies whose souls had already fled only poured out sticky blood, forming a spreading red lake.
"…Holy knights are no different."
Where they looked upon the corpses with eyes of denial, I swept my gaze over the holy knights' final moments with an infinitely cold stare.
Their self-introductions had been so long-winded that I had almost believed them to be the elite of the Holy Empire Serion. In the end, they looked no different from ordinary soldiers.
"…Skeleton Reborn."
I stretched a hand toward the corpses and spoke the name of a skill. Beneath the sprawled bodies of the holy knights, a magic circle as black as pure pitch bloomed into existence.
Skeleton Revive
Intermediate Necromancy Skill
Crunch.
Bathed in the gloomy energy pouring from the magic circle, the holy knights' corpses twisted grotesquely and rose to their feet.
Legs that had seemed destined never again to find balance in this world now straightened and planted themselves firmly upon the ground.
Their emotions and appearances, however, were no longer what they had once been. In the brief span of rising, every scrap of their flesh had rotted away, and in the empty places where their heads had been, skulls now sat.
Clatter.
The holy knights who had once burned with righteous zeal now stood as nothing more than ordinary skeletons. Their empty sockets blazed with light as they glared murderously at the comrades they had once fought beside.
"Be… Benjamin? Donovan?"
"Revived as undead…."
The two remaining holy knights stared blankly at their transformed companions.
Those who should have stood at the forefront of purging monsters in the name of the gods had themselves become monsters. Both the ones suffering it and the ones watching would be tasting the greatest humiliation a holy knight could ever know.
"…Play among yourselves."
Clatter.
When I pointed a finger at the surviving knights, the skeletons raised by the intermediate skill Skeleton Revive charged at them with savage speed.
"That damn vampire dares to do this to our comrades…!"
"Benjamin, Donovan, snap out of it!"
The holy knights readied their weapons even as they cried out their comrades' names. But mindless skeletons had no answers to give.
"Damn it!"
"Kugh…!!"
"…Let's go, Tina."
The bold challengers who had thrown down the gauntlet before me met their end in civil war. Enjoying the rather entertaining spectacle of them clashing blades with what had once been their own comrades, I walked past them and stepped straight into the library.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaah!!"
"Hm?"
…And just as I opened the library doors and stepped inside, a terrible scream—almost certainly belonging to one of the surviving holy knights—echoed from behind.
Perhaps because business hours had already ended, the central library of Elmaile—whose doors I had just smashed open—held not a single soul.
"Perfect."
With no people present, I was spared the trouble of driving them out and could investigate the materials far more comfortably. Delighted by the ideal circumstances, I broke into a broad smile and began exploring the library.
"The history section…."
Lifting a lamp from a corner and lighting the darkness, I searched for the shelves that held books related to history. First I needed to learn what had happened during the thousand years I had been sealed away.
"Here…."
Perhaps few people ever sought it out; the history section sat in a relatively secluded corner. The thick scent of old paper filled my nose.
"Just the Progenitor Vampire and the rough timelines…."
I could not possibly absorb a thousand years of records in a short time. What I needed were the stories about myself and a simple chronology that would explain the past millennium.
"Found it…."
The first volume that caught my eye was a book about the Progenitor Vampire—about me. Narrowing my brows, I opened the dust-laden cover.
"Why 'Progenitor Vampire' in the first place…."
Vampires had existed a thousand years ago as well, and I had certainly never been their progenitor. Being suddenly labeled the origin of all vampires had never sat well with me from the moment I first heard it.
Year 267. The Queen of Vampires, the 'Progenitor Vampire,' attacked the kingdom…
…The fabrication was severe from the very first page.
I had never been a queen, never been a progenitor, and never attacked the kingdom first. The only accurate details were the year 267 and the fact that my race was vampire.
Even allowing for the passage of a thousand years, this went beyond distortion and approached pure fiction.
Jealous of the princess's beauty, the Progenitor Vampire assassinated her and launched a large-scale assault to usurp the kingdom.
After a long battle, the First Hero—united with Serion and Tenma—succeeded in sealing the Progenitor Vampire.
In the process, countless people were sacrificed, and half the kingdom's territory was destroyed.
"…."
It was not merely close to fiction.
It was pure fiction.
Barely a single accurate line per page, if that.
According to legend, the Progenitor Vampire possessed an extremely hideous appearance.
"Lilianel, you bitch…."
Historical records that even denied Elzerva's magnificent customization. Immortal Lilianel must have known perfectly well how the records were being written, yet she had simply left them alone—and that only stoked my fury higher.
Or perhaps Lilianel herself had taken the lead in encouraging such twisted accounts in order to bury her own crimes.
Another charge to add to her list of sins.
"Shameless woman…."
Rage set my eyes ablaze.
Above all, I could never forgive the fact that she had pinned Sophie's murder on me.
Leaving such false records untouched meant she felt not the slightest guilt or remorse for killing her friend Sophie.
"I will repay every last bit of this…."
…I swore then that I would avenge not only my stolen thousand years, but Sophie's injustice and fury as well.
Though little is recorded, there can be no doubt that she was the greatest catastrophe in human history.
"…."
And with that, the records about me ended. Every other book I checked summarized the events of a thousand years ago with little more than "the Hero sealed the rampaging vampire."
With so little written down, it was entirely possible for people to dismiss it all as a simple fairy tale—or, conversely, to let their imaginations run wild with exaggeration.
…I was nothing more and nothing less than a monster of legend.
"I'll have to prove it, then."
A stubborn fire kindled inside me.
I vowed to correct the false history and, from this day forward, plant a terror so vivid that no one would ever again be able to regard me as mere legend for the next thousand years.
"…The Heroes and the History of Abilia."
The next book I picked up concerned the heroes and the kingdom's history. True to its title, the very first page listed the names of every hero who had ever lived.
Second Hero: Belia Julius
Third Hero: Belia Nimeus
…
"…."
Yet the name of the First Hero who had actually fought me—Varius—was nowhere to be found. Even though the Second Hero could not have been far removed in time, his name had been erased from the records as thoroughly as if he had never existed.
"Lilianel… Varius…."
Something had clearly happened between those two. Otherwise Lilianel would never have allowed the name of the man she loved to fade from memory.
The records from a thousand years ago that I had read in the labyrinth…
Perhaps the shaman's suspicion—that Lilianel had assassinated Varius—had been true after all.
Unfortunately, I found no materials related to any of it. Even records of Lilianel herself had yet to appear.
"The History of Abilia…."
The kingdom's timeline was simpler than expected.
It was divided into three eras: the Ancient Era of a thousand years ago when I still walked free, the Era of Chaos eight hundred years ago, and the Era of Peace that had continued from seven hundred years ago until the present.
"Era of Chaos? They went to war again less than two hundred years after I took care of the Demon King for them?"
I frowned as I studied the timeline.
An "Era of Chaos" meant, quite literally, an age of war. Humans would not have fought among themselves, so it must have been a war against the demonkin.
But by that point the demonkin had lost their central figure—the Demon King—and only small fry remained. A new Demon King could not have risen in a mere two hundred years. So who exactly had they been fighting?
A fairy named 'Tipi Lavend' gathered monsters and attacked the kingdom, sparking a war that lasted a hundred years.
The Sixth Hero, 'Belia Vilius,' drove the monsters westward, ending the war and expanding Abilia's territory.
"Monsters…."
The Era of Chaos had been a war not against the intelligent demonkin, but against mindless monsters. Certainly, if monsters ever united under a single will, they would form an army more terrifying than the demonkin themselves.
The war had lasted only a hundred years, yet it had been classified as an entire era—proof of how fierce it must have been.
"The Era of Peace."
The Era of Peace was exactly what the name suggested.
No major incidents, no conflicts.
A tranquil age free of great wars.
As the kingdom expanded its territory, the demonkin lost their habitats and their numbers dwindled.
Naturally, large-scale clashes decreased; only occasional raids by minor monsters and bandit gangs remained.
Only now did I understand why the skill level of people a thousand years later had been so thoroughly standardized downward.
Peace had lasted far too long.
…Long enough that they had forgotten how to stake their lives in desperate battle.
"…Lilianel."
And it was around that time that Lilianel's name finally appeared in history—if only for a single line.
The Eleventh Hero, 'Belia Slandius,' strongly recommended the long-serving retainer, the elf 'Lilianel Greenfield,' for the position of Prime Minister of the kingdom. The proposal passed with the unanimous approval of the ministers.
The moment Lilianel rose to the seat of Prime Minister. The hero's recommendation seemed to have been the decisive reason a member of another race could climb so high.
Whatever had happened with Varius, had she maintained good relations with his descendants?
If the Second Hero had been the child of Varius and Lilianel to begin with, then the heroes and Lilianel shared the same bloodline in the end.
"…There's a lot to look into."
My questions about Lilianel and the heroes numbered far more than one or two. There were so many that books alone could never answer them all.
Fortunately, a better method existed.
…Hearing it straight from her own mouth.
After all, the time when we would meet was not far off.
"…."
I returned the second book to its shelf. Then my eyes fell upon a thin volume tucked away in the corner as if deliberately hidden.
Because of its placement, human hands had clearly not touched it for a long time; dust lay thick upon it, and even spiderwebs clung to its surface. The pages still felt stiff, as though it had barely been read since the day it was written.
"Hah."
I blew the dust from the cover. The title that had been hidden beneath came into view.
…It was a Yasa.
"Yasa…."
Yasa. Not the official history passed down through proper channels, but histories of unclear origin, or records kept privately by individuals among the common folk. Their reliability was low, yet for that very reason they often contained unrestrained or amusing contents.
I smiled and opened the pages.
The Yasa of the Abilia Kingdom, published by who-knows-whom, was as simple in content as it was thin. Unlike the sprawling unofficial records of some royal chronicles, each page held only a line or two.
Yet those contents were fascinating.
The Progenitor Vampire was a girl of extraordinary beauty, and had once even formed an alliance with humanity as a friendly existence.
A portion of the truth more accurate than the official history.
The ancient shaman nation of 'Tenma' was in fact destroyed by Abilia's own hand.
A claim that lent further credibility to information I already knew.
Baldness runs in the royal bloodline of Abilia.
A line that was both sad and funny.
The Second Hero is the illegitimate son of the First Hero.
Every generation of heroes has shared the common traits of ash-gray hair and blue eyes.
Provocative yet impossible to ignore—words that made my brow furrow.
The 'Era of Chaos' was not a war between a monster legion and humanity, but in truth a war between vampires seeking to reclaim the 'Progenitor Vampire' and the humans who opposed them.
Their surviving descendants still live in the western continent, worshipping the 'Progenitor Vampire' as a religion.
"They made a religion out of me…?"
…And finally, contents that made my eyes go wide.