Chapter 104
Chapter 104
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 104
>Chapter Title: Just Because the Sky is Pretty
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As the sun dipped low and dusk settled in, Aster and his companions decided to make camp.
“Camping, you say…… Then we have a decent handyman for the job.”
The Grand Duchess shot to her feet and vanished somewhere, only to return shortly after with Rayleigh in tow.
“M-My lord! Have you slain Destrow? As expected! This loyal right-hand man Rayleigh never doubted you for a s…… Gah!”
“Prisoner, you’re failing to read the room.”
After taking a hit from the Grand Duchess, Rayleigh reined in his excitement and took stock of the mood.
A ruined wasteland. The surroundings were so barren it was hard to believe they were in the heart of the Hamern Great Forest.
The ground was scorched black, treacherous to even step on, but even more dismal than the rotten earth was Obern’s face.
‘Somehow, the mage doesn’t seem quite…… Oh!’
As Rayleigh naturally glanced at Aster’s demeanor, he quickly noticed an empty spot among the group.
- Hey, blabbermouth. Shut your trap?
The Death Knight who’d called him a blabbermouth and boasted such a gravelly tongue.
The guy who was just as much of a pain as Aster, yet oddly endearing in his clumsiness, was nowhere to be seen.
“W-Well then…… I’ll prepare a comfortable place to sleep.”
Rayleigh, grasping the situation at once, hurriedly pulled out camping supplies from the subspatial pocket Aster had handed him.
Silence descended with the encroaching darkness.
Clink, clink.
The only sound was Rayleigh’s quiet preparations for camp, as none of the group spoke a word.
“…….”
Obern, unable to shake off the loss of Shine, stared blankly at the flickering campfire with hollow eyes.
“…….”
Crunch, crunch.
The Grand Duchess gnawed on tough jerky hard enough to ache her jaw while watching Aster.
Truth be told, she had a mountain of questions.
The token of the New Moon. How had her master given it to that priest?
How had he faced off against Destrow? And that massive pillar of fire she’d seen at the end—what magic was that?
No, more than that, she wanted to give that insolent priest a piece of her mind for not even greeting his senior.
But the Grand Duchess, for all her lack of empathy, wasn’t without manners.
‘Tormenting a subordinate in a time like this isn’t proper for a superior.’
Call it learned social grace.
One might think someone of the Grand Duchess’s station had no need for such things, but with empathy like hers, status could become meaningless at times.
Status didn’t cover every mistake, after all.
And……
‘It’s not a feeling I can’t understand at all.’
Comrade-in-arms. The grief of losing one was hard to fathom unless you’d been through it yourself, but the Grand Duchess had lost comrades before too.
- That’s an order……! Don’t die, don’t you dare die. How dare a wretch like you leave this body behind……!
She still hadn’t forgotten that day, shedding pathetic tears even now.
‘Still…… he’s not entirely a lost cause?’
Right after learning his comrade had died.
- ……Damn.
Just one word, but those who’d lost know. How much emotion was packed into that single utterance. And how much more lingered unspoken.
And so.
Crackle, pop.
One boy writhed in loss.
Crunch, crunch.
Clink, clink.
The woman who empathized with his pain chewed on her patience. And as one man furtively gauged the mood in between.
“…….”
Aster quietly took in the stars rising in the night sky.
Silently, steadfastly. Just gazing, as if counting the myriad stars.
All through the night. Until the morning sun rose. Endlessly drinking in the night sky.
Not because of the guy who’d kicked the bucket on his own terms, nor out of annoyance at the debt he could never repay.
Just……
Just because the sky was pretty.
There were no other reasons.
That was all.
……And the next morning.
“For now, we head to the Fourth Base Camp. Prisoner, lead the way at once.”
“Y-Yes…… Yes, ma’am!”
At the Grand Duchess’s command, Rayleigh quickly packed up and readied for departure.
By the time the group had all left.
A large stone, never there before, sat alone in the spot.
Weakling, rest here.
The crooked scrawl had zero sincerity. Obvious who’d left it.
Whiiiish—
A dry gust swept over the campsite where Aster’s group had been, traces of the campfire lingering on the barren ground.
Utter silence.
The land, stripped of even a single speck of life by Destrow, was profoundly desolate.
Only occasional winds visited, sweeping through the space.
Thump……
The ground pulsed faintly.
Thump—like a heart that had stopped beating suddenly stirring to life, a subtle heartbeat echoed.
Thump, thump. After a couple pulses, the vibrations intensified right after.
Rumble rumble rumble—!
Like an earthquake, the fierce tremors soon rang through the surroundings.
Destrow.
The ancient sealed abomination. Had the being obliterated by Death Knight Shine’s sword strike revived?
No.
Whiiiish—
The ground quaked, and the faint mana in the air converged to a single point.
At the center: an ancient ruin. A collapsed communal ruin, but the energy within wasn’t exactly malevolent.
Blood-red energy.
Blood Mana.
The mana in the atmosphere had transformed into blood mana through some interference.
What was blood mana?
A relic of a race now only in legends, lost to history.
Nobles of the night. Rulers under the moon. Once shunned and tabooed as bloodsuckers, they were beings of profound nobility.
Vampires.
* * *
Blood mana was their exclusive domain.
But why was it here?
This was a tale unrecorded in history.
When the Emperor lost the Heaven-Defying and succumbed to profane sorcery, becoming the impure Destrow.
As all humanity trembled in fear, awaiting death.
It wasn’t humans or other races who stood against the Emperor, but the vampires—nobles blessed by the night.
This ruin was an exile ground crafted by the ancient night nobles, a prison that subdued the Emperor turned Destrow.
So, the surge of blood mana wasn’t so strange.
But.
Whooooosh—
Blood mana gathering at the heart of the ancient ruin.
The spectacle it created was…… well, not just somewhat—utterly beyond common sense.
Writhe.
It swirled like a vortex yet pulsed like a serene heart.
Its size shrank with each expansion and contraction. And when it had compressed to its smallest.
Pop!
The compressed blood mana took form.
“…….”
The shape born of blood mana was that of a woman.
Height around 160cm? No, just shy of it.
Her skin was colorless like Destrow’s, but not devoid of hue—merely pale as moonlight.
Swish.
The woman opened her eyes and looked down. Crimson eyes like rubies reflected pale hands.
“…….”
As if her body was some marvel, she examined herself here and there, like one newly granted flesh.
But was she truly a noble of the night?
Even her bewildered gaze carried an unmistakable elegance.
Yet, she couldn’t be seen as purely noble, owing to that body.
Muscles sharply defined with every twist and turn. Biceps and triceps. Lats and erectors. Abs to glutes. Thighs down to her toes.
Was this the flesh a god would forge for a knight?
Perfection.
Born of grueling effort, tempered like a hundred-fold steel, yet impossible without tempering alone.
Innate talent. Supported by natural bone structure, yet impossible with talent alone.
Ultimate physique.
This was why she couldn’t be viewed as simply noble.
If there was one flaw, perhaps her height falling short of 160cm?
The woman measured herself against the nearest wall, using one of the densely inscribed characters as a marker, then scowled fiercely.
“……Goddamn it.”
A single curse that shattered all nobility.
But she didn’t care, spitting more profanity.
“Fucking hell. I clearly said it had to be two meters.”
A knight was a towering giant of two meters, wielding a massive greatsword like a toothpick—that was the dream.
Yet here she was with less than 160cm. A pint-sized body.
Truth be told, height wasn’t a real issue for her.
Back when she was human, despite her short stature, she’d reached the pinnacle of knighthood: Master Knight, transcending limits.
And not just that—she’d beheaded the Emperor. Of course, after slaying the Master Knights guarding him, naturally.
But this wasn’t about necessity.
It was a lifelong dream. For her, born small, it was the ideal she’d yearned for all her life.
And yet.
“Handing me this annoying task…… and they couldn’t even handle one little detail?”
She was displeased.
And rightly so.
Destrow.
After cleaving that damn pest in one stroke, she’d planned to rest.
Honestly, a bit regretful.
The soul’s torment as a Death Knight was exquisite, but her time with those comrades in her second…… no, undead life hadn’t been half bad.
But all things must end.
‘Farewell, you lot.’
That’s what she’d thought as she delivered her final strike……
What’s this?
- Welcome, knight.
A sudden voice. No idea what was happening.
Consciousness flickered out and back, and all she saw was crimson blood everywhere, with some woman sitting before her.
And what the woman said.
- I watched the entire battle, great knight. I am an elder of the night clan. Please grant my request.
Straight out asking for a favor.
And what was it?
- Revive the night clan.
Restore the vampire clan.
Of course, there was talk afterward. The elder’s circumstances.
‘……Pretty obvious story.’
The kind you’d hear in any marketplace.
A world-threatening archvillain. The righteous clan defeats it but perishes in the aftermath.
Yet a wise one of the clan made arrangements……
That wise one was the Elder. And the arrangement: this blood-red space.
- If you promise…… I’ll grant you a second life. The life of the night.
In other words, resurrect her as a vampire.
Honestly, hard to believe.
How do you revive the dead? If it were possible, necromancers wouldn’t bother with corpses—they’d have dominated long ago.
But……
‘……The vampire clan can do it.’
So they said.
She explained so much—magical principles inscribed throughout the ruin, innate vampire traits—that she couldn’t follow.
She just took it at face value: it works.
Not a bad deal anyway.
‘Lately…… it’s been pretty fun.’
Reviving the clan sounded bothersome, but nothing’s free.
In exchange, one thing she wouldn’t budge on.
“……Two meters. Why not two meters?”
She’d emphasized: the new body must be exactly two meters. With strength to wield a 1.5-meter greatsword like a toothpick!
And yet.
“This is no different from my previous life, tch.”
Not different—identical.
Ah, if there was a difference……
Poke.
Fangs sharper than a beast’s, not a human’s? Oh, and this corpse-pale skin.
“Urgh.”
Grumbling, she kicked the ground a few times, then shot out of the ruin.
Thud.
“Whatever. The important thing is I’m alive.”
Not being human was a minor hitch, but no big deal.
She’d been a Death Knight until recently, and her human life was dogged anyway.
“Uwahaha! This body has returned!”
Her voice boomed across the vast wasteland.
But no one to hear. Aster and his group had long departed for the Fourth Base Camp.
She knew that, stepping off nonchalantly.
Rustle, swish.
Before three steps, a shroud of darkness enveloped her—like a robe torn from the night sky.
Her gait was majestic. But that height? Dignity was nowhere to be found, no matter how you looked.
It had been a full day since Death Knight Shine von Leman had perished.
How far had she walked from the ancient ruin? Something caught her eye.
“…….”
A short distance from the campsite.
A clean stone, out of place on the pitch-black ground—who knew where it came from?
Weakling, rest here.
“Weakling, rest h…… You bastard!”
Shine narrowed her eyes at the stone, then lunged and swung her fist.
Boom! ……No sound.
“Argh!”
A dying scream……
Crack! Crunch!
Two bursting sounds overlapped.
‘Crack’ was the rock splitting. ‘Crunch’ was Shine’s wrist shattering.
“Th-This…… goddamn……!”
Clutching her grotesquely bent fist, Shine spat every curse that came to mind.
Most of them swears, obviously.
……Vampire Shine von Leman.
What an utterly pathetic start.