37. The Gardener (5)
37. The Gardener (5)
- 1 -
"Haa... haa..."
The dungeon, normally filled with all manner of monsters and ornaments.
But now, as the vampire walked through her own empty dungeon, not a trace of her usual elegance could be seen.
Swish... swish...
She was keeping her back straight somehow as she walked, but the soles of her feet scraped the floor, making a thoroughly undignified sound.
It was a Fate-ordained matter.
She had forcibly drawn up an immense amount of mana beyond her limits and used it all at once several times. Just before, she had even exerted her full power again to summon an avatar that could stall the humans for time.
She had repeatedly used abilities that caused great strain, even on a Dungeon Lord's body, which was resilient and possessed fast recovery. It would have been stranger if she wasn't exhausted.
"It hurts... it hurts..."
But worse than that exhaustion was the single arrow lodged in the center of her back.
Although Lincia herself had failed to chase the vampire, the arrow she had loosed had succeeded in striking her. An arrow that injected a special magical poison into the body, weakening the strength of the one it hit.
The Fate alchemy synthetic poison, costing a princely sum of 1 gold per shot and equal in price to its weight in gold, had been perfectly injected into the vampire's body.
If Lincia had known someone else was reaping the fruits of that investment, she'd surely have been furious.
"Ah..."
At the end of the vampire's sight, after walking a long while.
Beyond it was the sight of her half-destroyed garden.
Her precious flesh-colored garden, originally on the reddish side, but now stained a dark, bloody red.
"M-My garden..."
All the various 'bonsai' she had caught and raised one by one since childhood according to the instincts 'mother' had taught her, lay strewn in every direction, their appendages lost.
What hung on the faces of those shattered 'bonsai' were not the ornate smiles she had painted on according to her taste, but completely different expressions.
Faces that, had humans seen them, would be called at peace, or perhaps anguished.
"You...! Was this your doing...?!"
Standing there, Serica ground her teeth, her hair casting a shadow as she turned, her face now utterly vicious.
Before her stood a single human silhouette.
A woman with black hair flowing long, nearly to her thighs, her face wearing a quiet smile.
"They were so pitiful, so piteous."
The two women appeared almost the same age, but if Serica possessed a color scheme of gold and red that was extremely flamboyant, the woman standing opposite her was somber in black and violet.
The black-clad woman's voice was low enough to feel comfortable, and soft enough to sound affectionate.
Unlike Serica's own high-pitched voice.
"The sight of things wasting time merely frozen stiff, unable to live or die."
Yet Serica had the feeling that this woman's appearance somehow distinctly caught her eye.
It was because of a certain atmosphere draped around her body.
"It would have been enough to just strengthen your power, but you attached memories to it and harbored a twisted heart."
Nobility.
The word, recognizable at a single glance, surfaced in Serica's mind.
She sensed instinctively that this Existence was different from herself, who had forcibly fabricated nobility through splendor—that this Existence possessed 'something'.
"So I bestowed Rest upon them."
The moment she perceived it, something that had been precariously enduring inside Serica's mind went awry.
Something like, say, 'reason.'
"What do you know!! You weak thing...! I raised them as mother taught me! With the power mother gave me...!"
Shaking off her own impressions, Serica screamed, flinging one hand out wide. Looking at the vampire, the necromancer, arms crossed and chin resting on one hand, spoke calmly.
"Mother, is it. So that's what you call the core. Pitifully, it seems you haven't escaped infancy. Even after gaining such power."
"Yes... Mother. I have to get mother back. Mother..."
A Dungeon Lord is, so to speak, an infant with intelligence. And to an infant, loneliness was poison.
An object of attachment was necessary. Be it the first summoned being, or the Dungeon Core.
And Serica's object of attachment was the Dungeon Core.
Because she received knowledge from it and felt the Dungeon Core as the source of her skills, it was clear she regarded it as having 'given birth' to her.
This was, unexpectedly, a common case among Dungeon Lords. Libertas herself had seen related storylines several times in 'MLD 1'.
"Hmm."
"Mother... mother, mother's... mother's not here... I have to make mother..."
The woman in black let out a sigh, examining the vampire's appearance as if she were terribly pitiful.
But the vampire, buried by a specific keyword, didn't even hear it. She just kept muttering 'mother', tearing at her hair and crouching down.
"If I bunch humans together I can make a new mother... Fertilizer... I need bonsai and fertilizer to make and raise a mother..."
All kinds of insane talk, possible only because she was not human.
A Dungeon Lord was certainly a powerful creature created by accumulating mana, but its durability wasn't unlimited.
This was what happened when resistance to mana was pushed to its limit: a cognitive decline phenomenon caused by Fate-ordained mana overload.
"Child. Your mother is not some object like that."
"Don't call me a child!!!"
Kwakang!!
Though she had just poured a considerable amount outside, Serica's body still held a large quantity of mana. Responding to her emotions, it exploded and scattered of its own accord.
A manifestation of using powerful mana, meant for shattering space to use as blades or guillotines, simply as raw force.
"..."
Yet Libertas still did not move from her spot. As if she knew such a thing couldn't harm her.
Just standing still, wearing a gentle smile.
Suddenly, Serica felt a chill from that gentle smile. Even with her reason in tatters, she realized that smile did not mean what it seemed.
A moment later, when she, who had been standing there composedly, moved her arm, Serica tensed her entire body, but the action she took next was not an attack.
Chup.
As a fragment of space shattered by mana brushed her cheek and drew blood, the Dungeon Lord touched it with her fingertip and extended her unusually red tongue, contrasting with her white skin, to taste it.
Immediately, narrowing her eyes, she spoke.
"It doesn't taste very different from human blood."
"..."
Meanwhile, Serica froze on the spot, halted abruptly by something that spread into the air.
The reason was the scent.
It was the scent of blood, so thick that any member of the vampire species would inevitably be captivated by it.
"You..."
"Hm?"
"Among all I've killed, I've never smelled a scent like this."
"Is that so?"
"Who are you? This smell is clearly not ordinary. I can tell."
"I wonder."
"Who are you!!"
Compared to Serica, who spoke gravely, Libertas remained completely unflappable.
As if she felt no value whatsoever in this conversation.
It was an attitude that stirred violent fury in Serica, who was all but certain the Dungeon Lord before her had attacked her 'garden'.
Enough to make her want to charge immediately, if she didn't feel herself so weakened by the Fate-ordained overload, and hadn't been further weakened by the human's poison.
What kept Serica quiet now was purely 'instinct.'
The instinct that she was currently sticking her head into the jaws of a beast.
"Speak!!!"
Kwang!!
Tak.
Serica stamped her foot, expressing her fury.
The cave floor heaved violently, sending fragments flying; but this time Libertas also struck her staff on the ground to block it.
"Is this all? The power of an Elder vampire."
The floor burst outward in a fan shape around her. Libertas, who had been quietly observing it, whispered.
As if finding it more pitiful than laughable.
"If I hadn't been weakened, someone like you...!"
"If you were weakened, shouldn't you have been more careful? If you had hidden more thoroughly when you lost the Dungeon Core, a better opportunity would have come. It's because you revealed your Existence through emotion and drew human attention that something like this happened, isn't it?"
Smiling, she approached slowly.
Words, words, words that continued as if teaching a lesson.
Serica clutched her head convulsively and let out a scream-like roar.
"What do you know...! Mother is...! I have to get mother back...!"
"It's all your responsibility. Losing your 'Ma-ma'. And failing at that, thus falling into ruin... meeting your death."
"If you hadn't interfered!!"
"As I said. You should have prepared. Little one."
"Eek...!!"
Kwang!!
When fury finally overcame instinct and Serica shot forward from her spot.
"I told you to prepare. It was sincere advice."
Libertas erased the smile she had worn all along.
The gentleness was wiped away, revealing a chilling, cold indifference.
- Keureureung...!!
"...!"
A shadow fell over Serica's head as she charged blindly.
As she urgently twisted her body and brought out Blood Magic to block the attack from above, something reflected in her violet eyes.
It was a pair of eyes bearing a red hue just like hers, but far more vivid and bright, smoldering within the shadows. And above them, silver silk rippling with a crimson glow.
Skaaak!!
And five blood-red blades, drawing a large straight line.
- 2 -
One Dungeon Lord, who had inflicted overload on her body several times, leaving her utterly exhausted, and had even summoned an avatar carrying half her own power. And another Dungeon Lord, accompanied by a summon with abilities highly effective against her.
Faced with the combined assault of myself and Shue, Serica collapsed swiftly.
"It's unfair. Unfair... Un, fair...!"
"Sleep well. Let's meet again later."
"You...!!"
Kwang!!
Above all, allowing the first ambush was critical.
Shue grew stronger by absorbing the Dungeon Lord's high-purity mana-laden blood, and Serica couldn't reclaim the blood stolen from her.
"Uuu -"
"A howl is premature."
"Oop."
At my words as I fastened a mana restraint around the neck of Serica, who had fainted under my werewolf's fist strike, Shue raised both hands and covered her mouth.
At that cute sight, the smile I had lost a moment ago resurfaced.
"Good girl."
"Yeah. I'm good..."
Where had that ferocious appearance from earlier gone? Shue had quickly returned to a languid face and demeanor, crouching down in a wolf's sitting posture.
Yet red embers still flickered on her head.
It was the influence of the werebeast-exclusive trait she possessed: 「Frenzy : Blood」.
『Frenzy : Blood
■ Frenzy
■ Beast That Lusts for Blood
■ Symbol of Life
■ Claws of the Demon Beast
A composite trait combining the above four traits.』
Unlike my own 「Nobility」, 「Frenzy : Blood」 was a legendary-grade trait that seemed to contain a whole lot of things.
In truth, composite traits like this had been common in 'MLD 1'.
No.
Most of the main characters used by the majority of players typically possessed at least one such composite trait, so it wasn't just common—it was most of them.
Rather, my 「Nobility」 was on the rarer side, one might say.
These composite traits were usually formed by combining traits related to combat / support / survival into one. Likewise, in this trait, the combat and core was handled by 'Frenzy'.
『■ Frenzy - Stamina and mana increase by up to 50% as combat continues. The more it is activated, the redder the head becomes, and at maximum, one loses reason.』
The secret behind Shue succeeding in subduing Serica after several interceptions lay right here.
When she maximized this trait just short of its limit, the abilities Shue gained were over 50 stamina and mana exceeding 40. Abilities that were hard for a high-grade Dungeon Lord who had already used more than half of her own power to withstand.
[Fufufufu...]
[Haha... hahaha...]
The catalyst that had maximized the trait was, precisely, Serica's garden.
Because all the 'bonsai' there were flesh-colored monstrosities, sculpted like plants using living people as materials.
It was a truly disgusting sight to behold.
Given that the 'bonsai' with the most moderate form was something whose limbs sprouted from its ears and eyes, blooming like flowers while smiling.
[Haa...]
[I think it's best you don't look, Lady.]
[It's fine.]
Anyway, since the sculptures in the garden were all biologically alive in this manner, I used them to grant Rest to the victims who had long suffered within it, and also to charge this trait.
I had worried that Shue, who was originally said to be human, might show resistance to executing the incapacitated 'bonsai'...
Fortunately, it was an unnecessary concern.
[I've seen people like this before... It'd be better to just kill them now. Their intelligence was worn away long ago, they're just suffering. Even if freed, they can't live a normal life.]
As if she had experienced this kind of thing several times before, there was no hesitation in her touch. To the extent that I had to pace the slaughter to maintain the 'Frenzy'.
On top of that, it was fortunate my assumption that Serica had a separate means of detecting the 'garden's' destruction was correct.
Among vampires, traits using living creatures like this were occasionally seen, so I had thought the probability was high.
Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if it weren't the case.
There were plenty of corpses around, and if it was urgent, I could have raised and used them.
『■ Beast That Lusts for Blood - When absorbing blood during combat, stamina and mana are quickly recovered, or the combat power increase speed of 「Frenzy」 is accelerated.』
However, in that case, I probably wouldn't have obtained as high an efficiency as now. It was, after all, an ability seemingly designed with real combat or killing in mind.
And in that case...
"..."
"Hey, hey. What's going on here? Huh?"
"Adventurers I've never seen before. To have entered ahead of us and hunted the Dungeon Lord, they're quite capable."
Dealing with the adventurers who had just arrived would also have been fraught with difficulties.
I thought once more that using this dungeon as the final trap was a good decision. There had been 'unexpected gains', and a favorable situation like this had been created as well.
"Why don't you try speaking."
"If you speak well, I'm considering sharing the reward, miss. I don't know about Alexis, though."
"What. Are you dragging me into this again?"
Over ten adventurers.
The ones standing at the vanguard were faces I knew well.
Jin-kyung, Alexis, Lincia.
They were the elite adventurers whom the knight Elias had introduced as individuals each requiring caution when I arrived at the camp.
Their expressions varied, but even in a situation where they looked quite exhausted, with considerable physical and mana consumption, they showed no 'tension' at the very least. It seemed they shared the commonality of having confidence in their abilities.
Perhaps that was why.
"Then it's unfortunate for you all."
"What is?"
"I came here to save this child."
The moment their faces simultaneously twisted at that, I felt something like a thrill for some reason.
Hook -!
"Fuck...!"
No further conversation was needed.