Blood Arts (1)
Elrod Forest is a vast woodland occupying the northwestern reaches of Calderic.
It falls within Calderic's borders, certainly — but on this immense fantasy continent, places left in their primordial state vastly outnumber those where civilization has taken root. Even Calderic itself is dotted with cities large and small, spread across the Grand Lord's domain and the nine Lord territories. Beyond those urban fringes, however, the land is little better than abandoned wilderness — unclaimed, untamed, and left entirely to itself.
God, this rattling is miserable.
Which meant, of course, that the path to Elrod Forest hadn't been cleared or maintained in the slightest — nothing like a proper highway.
I sat in the carriage as it jolted far worse than usual, keeping my face blank, and looked across at the opposite seat. Rudika and Rubika sat together with Ashel, leaning against each other, fast asleep, their breathing soft and even.
Several days had already passed since we'd left Domihawk City bound for Elrod Forest. The journey itself was no different from usual, save for one thing: we had two vampires traveling with us.
I stared at the sleeping sisters. Rubika always tried to act more grown-up, conscious of being the older one — but like this, they were just two children, side by side.
Ashel, seated beside them, was watching the pair with a strange look in her eyes. When our gazes met, she glanced away, looking faintly embarrassed. I had a feeling the sisters had reminded her of her dead younger sibling.
Then Ashel hesitated, working her mouth as if searching for the words, and spoke.
"Um... might I ask you something?"
I gave her a look of mild surprise. She had never once initiated a question toward me before.
"Ask away."
"My Lor— I mean, Ron. You have been seeking out ruins and places of that nature all this time, have you not?"
Ashel stumbled over the first word before posing her question. I'd told them to use my name rather than my title as Lord while we were traveling, so both Ashel and Varos had been doing so. But Ashel almost never addressed me first, and she still wasn't used to it — she slipped up now and then.
But ruins? Why bring that up all of a sudden?
"I was simply wondering... toward what end you pursue such work."
Ah. So that was it.
Took her long enough to ask.
For me, this journey had been incredibly productive — hunting down Mysteries and absorbing them one after another. But from Ashel's perspective, she hadn't seen a thing. Of course she'd wonder what I was actually doing out here. And the whole reason she was following me as an escort was because I'd promised to make her name known across the entire continent. Yet here I was, doing nothing remotely befitting a Lord. She might well have been feeling frustrated about it.
I'd told her we'd have plenty to do going forward — made it sound grand at the time...
Not that I'd been talking out of turn. Once this journey was over and we returned to the Lord's castle, the obstacles waiting for us would be piled high as a mountain. The demonic invasion, Seintea's Hero, the succession of the Holy Sword... the main story of this RASA world. From my current position, I still had no idea how to even begin tackling any of it. The scale of those problems was far too vast to start planning for right now.
Besides, once the next Lord Council convenes, the Grand Lord will probably dump some assignment on me anyway.
For now, I needed to find every Mystery in Calderic first, then take stock of the situation. I felt a little bad for Ashel, but I hoped she'd bear with me until then.
Thinking that, I spoke.
"There's something I'm looking for. I know you're curious, but I can't tell you what it is."
"If you're worried, don't be. I'll keep the promise I made to you."
"...Pardon?"
Ashel blinked, not quite grasping what I meant. Then she went ah, and nodded.
"I was merely curious. I have never once doubted the words you spoke, Ron."
Her faith was so absolute it actually made my conscience sting. I turned my gaze toward the window.
Around midday, we stopped the carriage for lunch. The two sisters, who'd been sleeping so soundly you could have carried them off without them so much as stirring, had woken up at some point.
The menu was the usual: meat, soup, and bread. Varos had the meal ready in no time, and we sat in a suitable spot to eat. Rudika, however, was barely touching her soup, sneaking glances at me and at Rubika.
"What's wrong, Rudika? Do you want blood?"
Rubika, picking up on her sister's condition immediately, rolled up her own sleeve. But Rudika hesitated, looking toward where I was sitting instead.
I spoke up.
"It's fine. Come here."
Rudika glanced at her sister one more time, then came over to me as if she'd been waiting for permission. She sank her fangs into my forearm with practiced ease and began to drink. Rubika's face went blank with shock.
"Ru-Rudika?"
This was the first time Rudika had taken my blood since Rubika had joined our party. For her, it must have been a bewildering sight. Apparently she'd been holding back this whole time, watching her sister's reaction.
"What are you doing, Rudika? Come here and drink from your sister. You're being rude to our benefactor."
But Rudika just shook her head and kept focused on drinking from me. Rubika looked utterly devastated — the same expression Varos had worn the last time this happened.
"Y-you... You always said your sister's blood was the best..."
...Why do I feel like the villain here?
Watching her mutter with a wounded look on her face, I felt awkward enough to ask:
"Are you all right not drinking any?"
She was older than Rudika, but Rubika wasn't a fully grown vampire yet either. I wondered if her blood-drinking instinct was acting up. Rubika stared at me for a moment, then swallowed hard. Then she startled, as if catching herself, and shook her head vigorously.
"...I'm fine. I'm a grown vampire. I can hold out."
She didn't look fine at all, but I wasn't particularly eager to have both sisters latched onto my arms at once, so I didn't press the matter.
That's when Varos stepped in, addressing Rubika.
"Listen, vampire. If you wish, my blood—"
"No thank you. It smells terrible."
The exact same reaction he'd gotten from Rudika before. Varos looked a little dejected all over again. Apparently elf blood just didn't do it for vampires.
The journey continued without incident after that. Time passed, and at last we arrived at Elrod Forest.
The rest of us stood still for a moment, taking in the forest's edge. The trees were far larger than those of an ordinary woodland, giving the place a properly imposing atmosphere.
Elrod Forest, as the world at large knew it, had no name at all. It was simply a vast stretch of woodland. Not every mountain range and forest on the continent had a name attached to it, after all. It was only the vampires who lived here who called it that.
"I shall await your return."
Leaving Varos behind to watch the carriage, the rest of us set off into the forest.
No telling how long this will take.
The forest was enormous. There was no way of knowing how long it would take to find the vampires. Still, I wasn't worried we wouldn't find them. If we just kept pushing deeper, we'd run into them eventually, one way or another.
And I'd bought an expensive compass in Domihawk, just in case we got lost. It wasn't so much a compass as a paired set of objects that indicated each other's location — not a magic item, as far as I could tell, but something fashioned from a material with properties similar to magnets. This was a fantasy world, after all. Either way, Varos had one of them, so finding our way back wouldn't be a problem.
"This forest is a little creepy."
Rubika said, looking around as we walked the forest path. The trees were so massive they blotted out the sun, giving the whole place a gloomy cast.
A question occurred to me.
"Do vampires tend to dislike sunlight?"
That was the usual lore, but the vampires of the RASA setting had never been given any precise information on the subject. They walked around just fine under the sun during the day, but I wondered if they still had some aversion to it.
Rubika looked at me oddly and shook her head.
"No? Not really. If anything, I hate it being this dark."
Fair enough. One curiosity resolved.
Since it would likely take a while to find the vampires, we'd packed plenty of provisions. But there was no harm in conserving them, so we supplemented our supplies through hunting. The hunting, of course, fell to Ashel. And of course, it wasn't just ordinary beasts that showed up. Monsters did too.
A heavy thud.
A giant boar the size of a house collapsed beneath Ashel's blade, reduced to a lifeless carcass.
"Whoaaa..."
Rudika's eyes sparkled as she watched Ashel dispatch the monster in an instant and recover her sword. She'd never seen Ashel fight before. Rubika, on the other hand — who'd witnessed the slaughter at the auction house — seemed a little afraid of her.
"How do you get that strong?"
At Rudika's question, Ashel glanced at me, then scratched her cheek, looking embarrassed.
"Through training."
"How do you train?"
"...You swing a sword every day without rest. You keep your body moving. You spar with opponents stronger than yourself."
Explaining it to a child didn't seem easy. Rudika nodded and declared:
"When I start living here, I'm going to train every day too! I have to get stronger so I can protect my sister and all the new friends I'm going to make!"
Those words cast a shadow over Rubika's face as well. Ashel looked at the sisters with a faintly pained expression. She, too, had a past in which her entire clan had been wiped out. Her pain would be greater than theirs, not less.
And so it was, on the third day of wandering the forest.
We were walking the forest path as usual, going nowhere in particular, when I sensed a presence approaching at speed. Ashel and I both turned toward it.
In the distance, a figure came leaping toward us, bounding from branch to branch. Even from that far off, Super Senses rendered his appearance in sharp detail. Black hair, red eyes, and hunter's garb that blended with the forest. A man.
A vampire.
A vampire. The level floating above his head was 51 — quite high. I felt a flicker of satisfaction that the vampires we'd been searching so desperately for had finally appeared — and a flicker of tension, too.
He landed on a nearby branch and came to a halt, looking down at us. I stared right back. There wasn't a trace of friendliness in his eyes. Naturally.
"A human... and vampires?"
He looked from me to Ashel to the two sisters, his voice carrying a note of confusion.
"What are you people? Why have you come into this forest?"
For him, this had to be an utterly bizarre situation. Nobody came this deep into the forest to begin with — and now a party of humans and vampires had shown up out of nowhere.
I asked the bewildered man:
"Are you from the vampire tribe that lives in this forest?"